Little-Acorn
Gold Member
To examine the purpose of marriage, you'ds have to go back to when it was first invented. And that was a long time ago. Maybe as far back as cave-man days?
Before marriage became a societal norm, there were three major problems:
1.) Males would often fight over females, sometimes injuring or killing each other. And fights might be repeated over and over - it was never really "won". Extensive carnage and lasting hostility was often the result. Females might also fight over males, but that was less common.
2.) When children were born, often the mother was left to care for and raise the child, sometimes with help from other women, less often from men, and sometimes with no help at all.
3.) As adults reached older ages and physical attractiveness waned, older people were being neglected and abandoned, sometimes starving and/or dying alone with no one to help when they needed help.
Marriage was likely developed to deal with all three of these problems at once. It was made to be permanent, for the rest of the spouses' lives, to eliminate the blody competitions, guarantee multiple participants in the raising of children and support of the family even when the support was a lot less fun than the sex that led to the production of children; and to provide multiple participants in caring for members when they were older and physical attractiveness and usefulness had diminished.
Technically marriage had nothing to do with love. To be more precise, you could have all the love you wanted, whether you were married or not- marriage wasn't necessary for you to love someone, care for them, etc. It was only necessary to KEEP you caring for them, possibly long after you didn't feel like doing it any more.
And that was the difference between societites that had marriage, and those that didn't. Both kinds had loving and caring. But the society with a strongly held marriage custom, had far more caring, namely when one partner maybe didn't feel in love any more.
If we could guarantee that we would ALWAYS feel like loving and caring for a certain partner (and/or children), then marriage would be unnecessary in ANY society - it would add nothing. But millenia of hard experience has shown that more IS needed - and so marriage was designed, to add guarantees where they were clearly needed but, unhappily, often did not exist.
Marriage is not there to help you love each other. For those who love each other, marriage can certainly be more enjoyable and even beautiful. But even in the pre-marriage days (long ago), there were some couples who stayed together all their lives without any legal or societal mandate. Those couples didn't need marriage - they had lots of love and caring without it. And if all couples had been like that, then marriage would never have been invented, or needed. But marriage was invented for the couples whose loving and caring might later disappear, but whose needs and obligations would not.
Marriage is not there to help you love your partner. You can do that fine without it. It's there to keep you together with your partner even if your love later disappears - something that people found over the ages, was grimly necessary.
Keep the real purposes for marriage in mind, when you enter into debates over what it is and what it should be.
If you want to get married in order to show love and dedication to your partner... remember that you don't need marriage to do that. You only need marriage to keep your partner with you - or to keep you with your partner - even if you don't feel you want to be with them any more. THAT is the reason you are getting married. It's the only thing you will have, that you don't have without marriage. It's the only reason marriage is needed at all. And if that reason didn't exist, there probably wouldn't be any such thing as marriage, thousands of years ago or today.
Before marriage became a societal norm, there were three major problems:
1.) Males would often fight over females, sometimes injuring or killing each other. And fights might be repeated over and over - it was never really "won". Extensive carnage and lasting hostility was often the result. Females might also fight over males, but that was less common.
2.) When children were born, often the mother was left to care for and raise the child, sometimes with help from other women, less often from men, and sometimes with no help at all.
3.) As adults reached older ages and physical attractiveness waned, older people were being neglected and abandoned, sometimes starving and/or dying alone with no one to help when they needed help.
Marriage was likely developed to deal with all three of these problems at once. It was made to be permanent, for the rest of the spouses' lives, to eliminate the blody competitions, guarantee multiple participants in the raising of children and support of the family even when the support was a lot less fun than the sex that led to the production of children; and to provide multiple participants in caring for members when they were older and physical attractiveness and usefulness had diminished.
Technically marriage had nothing to do with love. To be more precise, you could have all the love you wanted, whether you were married or not- marriage wasn't necessary for you to love someone, care for them, etc. It was only necessary to KEEP you caring for them, possibly long after you didn't feel like doing it any more.
And that was the difference between societites that had marriage, and those that didn't. Both kinds had loving and caring. But the society with a strongly held marriage custom, had far more caring, namely when one partner maybe didn't feel in love any more.
If we could guarantee that we would ALWAYS feel like loving and caring for a certain partner (and/or children), then marriage would be unnecessary in ANY society - it would add nothing. But millenia of hard experience has shown that more IS needed - and so marriage was designed, to add guarantees where they were clearly needed but, unhappily, often did not exist.
Marriage is not there to help you love each other. For those who love each other, marriage can certainly be more enjoyable and even beautiful. But even in the pre-marriage days (long ago), there were some couples who stayed together all their lives without any legal or societal mandate. Those couples didn't need marriage - they had lots of love and caring without it. And if all couples had been like that, then marriage would never have been invented, or needed. But marriage was invented for the couples whose loving and caring might later disappear, but whose needs and obligations would not.
Marriage is not there to help you love your partner. You can do that fine without it. It's there to keep you together with your partner even if your love later disappears - something that people found over the ages, was grimly necessary.
Keep the real purposes for marriage in mind, when you enter into debates over what it is and what it should be.
If you want to get married in order to show love and dedication to your partner... remember that you don't need marriage to do that. You only need marriage to keep your partner with you - or to keep you with your partner - even if you don't feel you want to be with them any more. THAT is the reason you are getting married. It's the only thing you will have, that you don't have without marriage. It's the only reason marriage is needed at all. And if that reason didn't exist, there probably wouldn't be any such thing as marriage, thousands of years ago or today.
