Questioner
Senior Member
- Nov 26, 2019
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- #1
From a pragmatic, legal perspective, marriage as an institution is not "sacred", and not about love - for the worst types of couples, who would probably be better off not marrying or reproducing to begin with, marriage, legally speaking is just a step above the "law of the jungle" and expediting legal arrangements such as divorce proceedings, as opposed to whatever potentially bloody feuds might have otherwise resulted from the lack of a legal system.
This is not to say there are not happy marriages, where couples are in love, but in many cases, they simply aren't, and many individuals spend or waste their entire lives on miserable or less-than-satisfactory unions.
Only in the context of a church, is a marriage "sacred", not in context of the Law. (Even theologically speaking, and in the context of whatever vows a couple makes, putting love in marriage on par with other concepts, such as "love of God" would be erroneous to many theologians, such as CS Lewis, with many of the contemporary theories on marital and couples love being more in the vein of Rousseau and "pop romanticism" than anything historical or theological.)
(Some for example think that Romeo and Juliet is "ideal love", even though it was considered more akin to a "teen romance", like Twilight, than more mature notions of love).
Regardless, as an institution marriage and monogamy are still hallmarks of civilization and first world countries.
This is not to say there are not happy marriages, where couples are in love, but in many cases, they simply aren't, and many individuals spend or waste their entire lives on miserable or less-than-satisfactory unions.
Only in the context of a church, is a marriage "sacred", not in context of the Law. (Even theologically speaking, and in the context of whatever vows a couple makes, putting love in marriage on par with other concepts, such as "love of God" would be erroneous to many theologians, such as CS Lewis, with many of the contemporary theories on marital and couples love being more in the vein of Rousseau and "pop romanticism" than anything historical or theological.)
(Some for example think that Romeo and Juliet is "ideal love", even though it was considered more akin to a "teen romance", like Twilight, than more mature notions of love).
Regardless, as an institution marriage and monogamy are still hallmarks of civilization and first world countries.