marriage

[Dante]

I conjecture that the primary cause to the rise in the divorce rate has more to do with the change in women

[GUNWOUNDS]

There is nothing he could possibly hide to justify his behaviour. ...Except perhaps a grossly enlarged bank account.

or extremely good love making.  oops.. just saw that chatfish said the same thing.

[GUNWOUNDS]

as for myself.... met my wife in freshman chemistry in college.  i went up to her and asked if we could study together and she said "sure" so i got her number, started dating, got engaged senior year, then after college we lived together for two years and then got married.  Been married for 4 years now.  Known each other for almost 10 years.

Why did i get married?  Purely ceremonial for me.  We already knew we loved each other and we already knew we wanted to be together... so after 6 years of courtship we made it official.  But yea... it was really just a ceremonial thing.. something of a tradition, as well as being religious.

But if we were stranded on a deserted island with no church and no priest... a marriage license wouldnt matter... we would know that we loved each other regardless.  Marriage is purely symbolic.

Thats the US version tho.   Other countries like India see marriage as a business contract and females/males get married off in arranged marriages for money opitmization and betterment of family social class.

So you got the one definition of marriage as the symbol of love and the other definition of marriage as a business contract.

Guns

[Andrew]

started dating, got engaged senior year, then got engaged after college and lived together for two years and then got married.

Got engaged twice?

I assume the first engagement broke off (then got back together)? If not I'm confused.

[GUNWOUNDS]

sorry that was a typo.....

should read   "...got engaged senior year, then after college we lived together for two years and got married...."

Good catch Andrew.

Gun

[Edric O]

In relationship-related issues I used to be what I describe as a "cynical romantic": I wanted a deep, complete, absolute love that would last a lifetime, and at the same time I was cynically aware that the odds of that were so slim that it was ridiculous to even consider it, and actively searching for it would be a complete waste of time.

But then, it seems I got ridiculously lucky, and I thank God for it... Suffice to say things have been going so well for the past year that my cynical side has been largely obliterated. Hugely improbable things do happen.

It could be that the guy is just really good in the sack.  A girl could look over a lot of his faults if all cylinders are firing in the bedroom.  Shallow and crass, perhaps, but it's still true.

That's not a reason to get married, though...

The ancient Romans felt marriage was very important to produce legitimate heirs for the transfer of property.  Even today, I don't think we should have a bunch of illegitimate children running around.

Children should never be punished for the mistakes of their parents. It's not the child's fault if it was born out of wedlock. As such, any society that gives more priviledges to children born in a married family than to children outside one is an unjust society.

Is there such a thing as true love that