That's really interesting Jeannie. It never occurred to me that it may irritate or insult a client to ask about their marital status. You'd probably hate to have a consultation with me! I always ask whether they're married, living with anyone or in a relationship, I really want a very clear overview of the client, I find that having a 'birds eye' view of the clients (perspective on) life - in general and day to day is really helpful when treating them holistically. The more details the better! I find that's when I'll start to see patterns or correlations between any health issues and their emotional/ mental state of mind, and their life style choices. The people closest to us, especially those we live with, I believe have a large impact on our happiness our feelings of security in the world, or equally our frustration or anger, and I also believe that our consistent thoughts and emotions our responsible for most (all...) of our physical issues. It's all necessary information in my eyes. I take a full systems overview which means asking about pooing frequency and consistency (constipated etc), and with the ladies their periods- blood flow, colour pmt symptoms etc. I think asking if they're married is the least of their worries!
So I ask a lot of questions, I'll often take up to an hour, this is how i was trained (AOR) I do think it helps, well myself anyway.
But I'm probably just nosy!