I am actually neutral on the topic.
I think 2 people can make a relationship work without the idea of marriage. But it boils down to the individuals involved, values, and an understanding of needs. I read Allan Bloom and his stance on marriage in The Closing of the American Mind, and he brings up points in the collapse of marriage being that men and women are different, so needs are different. This is paraphrasing, and I'm really boiling down his point, but his argument seemed to be that opposite sexes are really here to procreate to keep the human species moving forward, and the relationship part is what has failed.
More or less that men understand men, and women understand women. Then you get the uncommon instances in which marriage works.
I'm not in full agreement of Bloom, but I see his point.
Getting back to bri's statement--
Is marriage a joke?
Statistics will say yes. Divorces are very high, which means infidelity is probably higher. The question to ask is why is this? Who is leading the charge on why marriages are failing?
Who here is in a successful relationship/marriage? How long? What makes it work? Are there differences in one relationship to the next?
What makes it fail? Do we need symbolism (rings, etc.) to justify love for our partners?
Do we need the church (more or less a higher power to help govern a marriage)? Does it basically boil down to the agreement by law?
You bring up some interesting points. I noticed how you pointed out you desired comments from happily married people to point out what makes it work.
I don't mean to trivialize any future comments, because whatever they say is pointless in the whole swing of things because they could get divorces next year for all they know, no matter how fullfilling and wonderful it seems to be now.
There are people that are married 25 years and get divorced. Just because a marriage has lasted awhile is no indication it will last until death.
I am not trying to say people that are married saying everything is peachy keen are lying. To them that may be the case, but you never know what your partner is thinking, deep down in the recesses of their brain, and really it only takes one of you wanting a divorce to make it happen.
I just call it as I see it, I have an aunt and uncle that are divorced in spirit because my uncle was cheating on her (they basically just live together for financial reasons), I have another aunt who was carrying on a relationship with another man for the past year (im glad my mom tells me everything, its great) they arent divorced, but im willing to bet if her husband knew about her year long fling he would want one.
Another aunt and uncle that recently got divorced, again due to infidelity. My mom was married to my biological father for 13 years they divorced then he disappeared from my life when I was like 10. Got remarried, then they got divorced 8 years later when i was 23.
If either sets of my grandparents were brought up in a different era, they would have gotten divorced, they HATED eachother.
My brother has already been divorced and fathered 2 kids with 2 different women.
So no, i dont have a very positive view of marriage.
EDIT: forgot to add 4 of my cousins have been divorced already aswell. So the only people i know that have currently successful marriages are the old folks, and 2, yes 2 cousins that are closer to my moms age. so 2 marriages in my family of a more modern generation are working so far of the many above I have mentioned.
