Marriage without love?

Could be fine.

Needs a definition of "true romantic love", though.

I'd say all of those things + sex is what makes true romantic love.

If it's all of those things, no sex, and both partners agree to an open marriage (they can have sex with other people), fine.

If it's all of those things, no sex, and they're supposed to remain monogamous... no.

Unless they're both asexual.

hmmm...sorry about the ambiguity. i guess the best way to put it would be to marry a best friend. as in you deeply care for them just not in an amorous way...did that clear it up any?

My best friend is my lover and my husband. I can't imagine marrying anyone who is not my best friend.

So I think that perhaps, for me, that's the most important part of the requirements for a marriage.

I think I would be bored stiff...unless, like Soz said, there was an agreement to find sexual and romantic satisfaction elswhere.
Or..if neither one of us had any desire, now or with any possibility in the future, of pursuing sexual relationship.
I would love for a partner of mine to be my best friend, and for there to be deep trust, and all those beautiful things.
I bet this type of marriage could work for some people. For most though, I would suspect it would turn into a romantic comedy/drama.

let me give a couple examples:

1) i have a friend that just recently got married. she was 18 and married someone she had known for only 3 months. why? from my understanding, him getting married meant a)doubled income which he was willing to share with her so that she could quit her horrible job, b) she would be able to have her college paid for c) she would be able to move out of a bad home environment with her crazy parents d) they became good friends fast and he was one of the nicest guys she had ever known. However, she does not regret it at all and she says now that she thinks she is falling in love with him (post-marriage)


2) one of my best friends, kara, and i decided that if both of us were not happily married at the age of 35, we would just get married. we wouldnt have to worry about being alone forever. we get along fantastically. shared income makes life easier on both of us. and since we both want chilred we would probably just adopt.

Both of those situations sound as though they will end badly.

This isn't a movie. It's real life.

i absolutely agree both cases most certainly have potential to fail, but with present divorce rates at 50%, half of the marriages based on love are seemed doomed to fail anyways and (if im not mistaken) some studies have shown that arranged marriages are less likely to end up in divorce.

I'd rather have love and not marriage.

if given the option, i think that is what most people would prefer.

Divorce rates aren't 50%, by the way. (That one really has dug deep into the American consciousness!)

For college grads it's something like 17%. (Can find the figures, have 'em here somewhere.)

People ARE given the option.

Most pick marriage.
Luckily for a good chunk of them they have both love and marriage, but some don't have love and get married anyway due to social pressure, or the need for companionship, or security, or just because we are creatures who need other creatures close to us.

I think marriage has been a given for many years - people have been expected to get married. In the recent past it has become not so unreasonable for some people to turn away from the need to be 'married' and simply live with their significant other. People don't look as strangely at the singletons who respond they are not married.

I do believe that the only thing that would get me down the marriage aisle would be if I was head-over-heels, crazy in love, couldn't breathe without him, love! Nothing else would do.

Re: Marriage without love?
So this is where our tax payer dollars are going in the name of higher/better education?

what i meant was if people had to choose between love and no marriage or marriage and no love. sry.

however according to this site

"The media frequently reports that 50% of American marriages will end in divorce. This number appears to have been derived from very skimpy data related to a single county or state. However, it appears to be reasonable close to the probable value. "

Re: Marriage without love?


no actually, that is where MY money is going. i am attending a university. and apparently it is an interesting subject otherwise you would not have clicked on this topic. am i right? so then what exactly were you insinuating?

Not really.



A lot more info here:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1299893#1299893

(The figure I was going for was 16%, btw. That is, "for college graduates, the divorce rate in the first 10 years of marriage has plummeted to just over 16 percent of those married between 1990 and 1994 from 27 percent of those married between 1975 and 1979.")


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More generally, I don't see why marriage has to come into the equation. If people really like each other but the sexual component is not there, why not just be roommates?

i stand corrected and you make an excellent point.

;-)

Failure rate is also lower when both parties are on their first marriage.

Re: Marriage without love?
To the best of my knowledge universities are also, on a percent basis, well funded by tax payer dollars and not simply student tuitions. Is a course subject valid for interest's sake alone given that consequential tax sponsored monies are involved? I would argue no, that it must serve a net public good if tax payer dollars are involved, albeit it is interesting agreed. I am in no way denigrating interest for interest sake.

Nevertheless by an extension of your inference, anything which can be qualified/quantified as interesting is justifiable to be taught at the expense of taxpayer dollars.

Or are you taking it at a private university which receives no government impetus?