How can we keep young service members from getting married just to receive BAH?

Your options are to either make government housing competitive with the civilian market, or remove the incentive to acquire dependents.

I vote provide BAH to all members based only on grade and market rates (not family status) and transition all billeting to a command independent agency.

Honestly, I wouldn't get married to get out of the barracks. However, that doesn't mean that I find barracks life to be substandard.

I miss having carpet, a couch, my dogs, a stove, an oven, a bathtub, a garage...do I need to go on?

I also find it to be EXTREMELY insulting to have to have a fellow E5 come to inspect my barracks. I've stayed in seedy motels in atlantic city that are more accommodating that the barracks I currently live in. Seriously, no stove? No oven? I technically can't even have a coffee maker.

So yeah, fix this crap and I'll have no problem living in the barracks and not getting BAH. E-6 is a $1700 pay raise if you're a single E-5. Think about that one for a second.

Simple..... don't pay BAH based on dependents. This should not be an incentive. I understand that the military has to have a BASE pay regardless of where in the world you are stationed, but that BASE PAY stretches differently in areas where cost of living is more expensive. Case in point: $45K where I live now is equivalent to $62K in San Diego CA. Therefore, if I lived in the absolute cheapest cost of living area EVER, and was making 45K, and the military uprooted me and moved me to San Deigo, then they need to give me an extra $17K per year for cost of living adjustment..... just to have the same lifestyle as before.

I don't care how many kids you have. Your choice to pop 'em out. You need to find a way to feed them and put a roof over their head on the salary you make. It's complete horsecrap that the military pays more for dependents. In the civilian world, my employer doesn't give two fiddle farts about weather I have dependents or not. They pay me a salary and it's my duty to use that salary wisely. The military makes it entirely too easy for Joe Numbskull to go find a bride and/or a baby, (whether he wants one or not) so he can get more money.

So.... back to the original question, how do you prevent young service members from getting married to receive BAH? Don't make BAH based on dependents. Make BAH based on time in service AND rank. E-4+ over 4 years in the service is when you should become eligible for benefits. By that time, you've had time to grow up, and if you were "really" in love before then, then you were forced to make it work on the base pay. And maybe ol' wifey boo needs to not be a stay at home and go get a job to make things work rather than sitting high on the hog on her E-nothing husband's BAH.

The services incentivize marriage because it is a powerful retention tool. Social and financial pressures within military culture push young SMs to marry and have kids in order to escape the QOL issues involved in barracks/shipboard life and to supplement their pay. What they don't realize is that the extra pay is insufficient to fully cover the extra costs of family life, especially with a spouse that more often than not stays at home and does not make a financial contribution to the family. Over the course of an enlistment the young SM is likely to amass debts for vehicles, credit cards, personal loans, etc. in an attempt to make ends meet and maintain a comfortable lifestyle. Separating is a recipe for instant poverty in such cases, leaving reenlistment as their only viable option. If they are lucky enough to be in a rating/MOS that qualifies they get a bonus that helps to wipe out the last four years of debt, only to start the cycle anew when the bills start piling up and the next kid comes along.

Why would the services want to fix a system that meets their needs so perfectly?

This is an easy one to solve and it has nothing to do with DOD. We need to quit treating Marines that live in the barracks like trash. Yeah the barracks are government property but when u live in them you view your room as your home. So how would u like it if someone just came to your house or apt lookin through your stuff multiple times a week. Barging in your room just to do random quality of life checks. Having you stay at work late because they're married: so their off time is more important than yours? Punishing every marine at the barracks because a few did somethin stupid over the weekend.
All this does is create animosity towards your unit and the Corps. The Marines, in their own ways, will rebel against it. This typically means behavioral issues.
There are many ways to get through to your Marines but disturbing their home life as way to get though is probably the most unproductive way of going about it. I've been in since 1999, and been in 5 different units in 3 different states. I have never done a quality of life check on my Marines, I have never punished them by messing with their home life, but the most important thing I HAVE NEVER HAD A MARINE FAIL A ROOM INSPECTION, AND I HAVE NEVER HAD TO CHARGE A MARINE!
Explain clearly to your subordinates what you expect out of them and hold them to that standard.
Everybody needs a place of relaxation and generally that's your home. So a junior Marine will be stressed at work, it's a part of life, but then they can't even go home and relax because you mess with them there as well. So what's the easiest way to get that relaxation, CONTRACT MARRIAGE. And with that comes $300+ for food and $800+ for housing extra a month. Every contract marriage I heard of or knew of (we all did when we were at the bottom of the totem pole) was for one of two reasons 1. To get away from the craziness of the barracks or 2. They were homosexual, and that was the only way to get privacy with their loved one.
all we have to do is stop messing with them at the barracks And I bet there would b a drastic drop in contract marriages

I did not take the time to scroll through every response so I apologize if I am restating the obvious. I think that if the quality of life was upgraded, then it would solve at least 85% of the problem. Speaking only for the Marine Corps, you take 2-4 grown (wo)men and put them in a room the size of a walk-in closet. You give them metal racks, a wall locker, a "secretary," and a head to share. Add on top of that Thursday night field day, Thursday night room inspections, Friday morning room inspections, constant dropping in, and general complete lack of privacy, and you have a recipe for disaster. I get the concept of close quarters living. It "promotes" esprit de corps and bonds the young men and women together by constantly being around each other. What I do not get is why the conditions have to be so shitty? For example, the Marine barracks in Germany are all one to a room... They come with full size govt. issued racks, a closet, a medium sized fridge, a pantry area, a couch, a desk, and a ceiling fan. I can tell you that if I weren't married, I would not have a problem at all living in the barracks with those conditions. Or.... why not do it semi-dorm style? 4-5 small bedrooms with a common living room/small kitchenette?

AMEN! My Corpsmen had to live in the USMC barracks (E5 and below) unless they were married or had dependents (kids). It was so unfair for a grown man of 30+ to have room inspections, etc...I say, model barracks off the fine USAF, but then again, I know the USMC sees QOL as secondary to mission too often.

Used to be you had to get the Commanding Officer's permission to get married. Personally, I can't imagine forbidding someone to get married. You can give them your best counsel but ultimately they're adults and have to live with the choices they make. I can think of a few young Marines and Sailors that could have used counseling before getting married.

TRUE STORY: While a SSgt on instructor duty as an Avionics instructor at NAS Millington, a PO3 student comes up to the desk in the Avionics lab where I and an AT1 fellow instructor were assisting. He looked at me and then looked at the AT1 and I guess figured the AT1 was a little less threatening. So the AT1 looks at him and says, "What?"

Sheepishly, the student asks, "Petty Officer L-------, How long after you are with a girl and get her pregnant does it take for her to have the baby? The AT1 looks at me with this incredulous look as if to ask, "Did I really hear this?" and I just raised my eyebrows back at him and confirmed with a nod, "Yeah, he really said that...?!!" So after we picked our jaws up off the floor the AT1 responds, "Nine months, why?" The student responded, "Well I got married 6 months ago and my wife is expecting any day..." So the AT1 laughs and with a cheeky grin says, "Oh, so you didn't wait till you got married?" And we both looked at each other and laughed.

And then the student, looking a little bit flustered and embarrassed says, "No, we didn't do it before we got married." At that point you could hear a pin drop. My eyes got real wide and I just kept my mouth shut and shook my head in amazement. "Uh oh... Really?!!" Didn't have to say it; it was understood...

Turns out the student's wife of six months was a stripper and married him so she could have the baby on Uncle Sam's dime and help herself to his steady paycheck. At this point I got up and started walking around to the various stations to see if anyone needed help and let the AT1 counsel his junior in private.

It's cases like this that make you think, "Hey, maybe it would be a good idea if young servicemen DID get counseling from their Commanding Officer before tying the knot. It might also be useful for preventing contract marriages, which as far as I'm concerned (while legal) are unethical and constitute fraud, waste and abuse.

Change the regs back to the way it used to be: you couldn't be married until you were an NCO. Besides, if the Army wanted you to have a spouse and dependents they would have been issued to you at CIF.... ;o)

I may be wrong but are these kids really getting married to get BAH? These are the same young kids sleeping in mud holes and sand in 120+ degrees eating freeze dried crap (personally I think our C rations tasted better) not sleeping for days. I can't believe these are the same kids getting married to get BAH.

I know it can't work for sea going sailors. If this is a problem why would you need to do something special to make them happy in the barracks? If you take away any reason to complain they won't be servicemen & women any more. yes I'm laughing.