Marriage without love?

sozobe wrote:

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?

And the converse also: if people don't have much in common but the sexual component is definitely there, why not just be roommates?

Indeed even if both components are there why get married? That is in fact exactly what is happing, and in Canada our laws now recognize this.

This common law arrangement throws a monkey wrench into the statistical veracity of marriage information as a barometer.

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that was another point brought up is why marriage at all? do we only get married because of traditions and societal norms? other than clad a relationship in legality what purpose does it serve?

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Traditions, shared rituals, those are powerful things. We don't have many of those anymore. I had a great time getting married, love being married.

Which doesn't mean everyone needs to, at all.

Chumly wrote:

And the converse also: if people don't have much in common but the sexual component is definitely there, why not just be roommates?

The converse is that they really don't like each other, not just that they don't have much in common. In terms of the components that we've been talking about (respect, deep friendship, practicality, etc.), the converse is the LACK of those things -- not a recipe for peaceful co-existence.

Seems like if sex is the main thing, it'd be more of separate lives and then getting together when convenient -- two apartments in a single building, maybe.

Re: the last one, ("Indeed even if both components are there why get married,") again, if people don't want to get married, cool. Up to them. I like it but wouldn't mandate it in any way.

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Seems to me that so-called romantic love fades in a bit, marriage or no marriage. I don't mean to speak 'cant' but I think of love as a development of a personal communication together over time and not the same thing, quite, though related, as infatuation. I also think even long time love is fairly ephemeral, and needs ember stoking from each sometimes.

I think not all sexual love is romantic; it can be near entirely nonromantic, or building on a longer span than romantic. Where there is no romance at all, I wouldn't call it sexual love, just sex.

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So, given I think those things, why would I marry without having a hope for long term love?

I dunno. I wouldn't. But I wouldn't think of it just in terms of sexual infatuation.

.... at this point in time, heh.

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crimson, I think your class needs to consider various understandings of love and romantic love.

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ossobuco wrote:

crimson, I think your class needs to consider various understandings of love and romantic love.

have no worries. this was just a discussion brought about by an excerpt in our textbooks. the material actually goes much deeper and explores several views on it, i just found this to be an interesting look at marriage and wondered what the people outside of my own collegiate environment thought.

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sozobe wrote:

The converse is that they really don't like each other, not just that they don't have much in common. In terms of the components that we've been talking about (respect, deep friendship, practicality, etc.), the converse is the LACK of those things -- not a recipe for peaceful co-existence.

Seems like if sex is the main thing, it'd be more of separate lives and then getting together when convenient -- two apartments in a single building, maybe.

Yes you are right and I thought of using more extreme postions like your "don't like each other" and/or "LACK of those things" but then the rest of it does not flow as chances are they would not be roommates. I wanted to isolate one variable only.

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I think a lot of people are just far too impatient and not picky enough when it comes to marriage, hence divorce. No, that doesn't cover all of it by any means, but there are still folks who get married because they think it's the right thing to do, as opposed to, they really want to.

First marriages are more likely to succeed than second and third ones -- but keep in mind that the studied pool is a lot larger. Marriages between people who are similar in age, educational background, temperament, religion, values, ideas about child-rearing (if children are desired at all), race, national origin, economic background, etc. are -- duh!! -- more likely to succeed. But again, the sample size is considerably smaller, plus being a member of a minority -- the minority of mixed couplehood -- has its own pressures.

This doesn't mean that second or third (or beyond) marriages cannot work. It does not mean that people cannot marry those who are different from them. But these differences set up areas of potential conflict -- areas that are not necessarily fatal but that tend to not be there when the parties are more similar.

Asian intermarriage and dating: http://www.asian-nation.org/interracial2.shtml
CDC on marriage and divorce: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/marriage.htm
US Census Bureau (2000): http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=D&-qr_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U_QTP18&-ds_name=D&-_lang=en
Census on family living arrangements: http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam/cps2004.html
Race of couples (1990): http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/race/interractab2.txt
Multiple marriages and divorces: http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p70-80.pdf (see pages 4 - 18)

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There is a virtually unspoken supposition in most if not all of these type of discussions that the longer a relationship/marriage lasts the more successful it must be and I wholeheartedly disagree with that unspoken premise. A seven year relationship/marriage can quite easily be more successful than a 10 year relationship/marriage.

As I referred to earlier about the common-law relationships throwing a monkey wrench into ascertaining the implications of modern marriage statistics, so does the questionable unspoken supposition that length = overall net happiness = success.

There is in fact a very valid argument that due to our increased life span, birth control, material wealth and (relatively) open-minded society, it is entirely natural that serial monogamy would be one successful result.

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Well, what do you define success as? Number of kids? If that, then my marriage is a miserable failure. Longevity? At 13 1/2 years, mine's better than a lot, but nowhere near as successful as my folks' (50 years). Amount of love? How you gonna measure that? Number of instances of sex in a week? How do you measure that for people who are ill, disabled or just not in the mood?

Aside from number of kids, which is a ridiculous measurement as it completely invalidates anyone who uses birth control, the only objective measurement is longevity. Can you think of another one? I'm curious. Is there another one?

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i agree kids are not a determinant; many couples dont even want to have kids these days, even those that do want kids may not want to go the mormon route of a "full quiver". it cant be sexual instances because 1 peoples sex drives are different; you could have two nymphomaniacs marry each other doing it 5 times a day or a couple both with very low sex drives only going at it once every other month or so. and two hormonal levels and thusly affected sex drives drop as people age so frequency goes down. longevity cant be used because you cant say that a couple married 5 years and still completely in love and in sync with each other is less successful than a couple together for 10 years that hate each other but stay together for the kids.

as far as i see it, there is no objective way to rate success of love, but overall happiness and enjoyment derived from the relationship are pretty good indications.

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Success:

Amount of sex
Amount of love
Amount of laughs
Amount of intimacy
Amount of friendship
Amount of attraction
Amount of companionship

I assert that all the above things are indeed very measurable in the relative individual sense as compared to one's idealizations and/or past/past present relationships. If you either have a good memory and/or keep a dairy it would not be hard to do as long as you have a least some semblance of rationality and individual objectivity.

As to the amount of sex (for examlpe), if they are "ill, disabled or just not in the mood" the relationship will suffer and hence will be less successful (all other things staying the same).

But..to attempt to quantify/qualify the above things in an absolute sense for a group of people, well, that is as silly as claiming that the longer a relationship lasts the more successful it must be.

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i think that amount of sex should be placed under the category for amount of intimacy and other than that it is pretty much the best checklist for success i've seen

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No, Chumly. The problem is that it assumes a standard that everyone would conform to.

As crimsontriad already explained, 5 times a day would be just perfect for some couples, way the hell too much for other couples. If BOTH couples share the preference, it doesn't matter one bit what the preference IS.

It's all way too individual.

Take laughs, too -- I've known people who make me laugh a ton who I'd hate to be in a relationship with.

Then for the rest, how do you quantify love? Friendship? Companionship? Attraction?

They're all so subjective.

crimsontriad, the problem with this:

Quote:

ongevity cant be used because you cant say that a couple married 5 years and still completely in love and in sync with each other is less successful than a couple together for 10 years that hate each other but stay together for the kids.

is that it's not how these studies are done. They look at whether the couple married 5 years, in your example, STAYS together.

Why would they be completely in love and in sync with each other and get a divorce?

I'd say that if they do, they're likely to be unsuccessful.

I think these studies become more and more trustworthy the as divorce loses its stigma and as women have more resources available to them -- I think that the likelihood of a truly unhappy couple staying together is much lower now than, possibly, any other time in modern history. (i.e., since marriage became an institution.)