Marriage is an odd thing. For centuries marriage was more or less a business deal between two families, it usually signified a truce, or an alliance or something of that nature. By and large people didn't get married for love, the couple was forced together and then perhaps they eventually learned to love one another...perhaps not.
In this day and age we hold marriage as something you do when you're in love with the other person. Admittedly this is the ideology that I hold to and always have...I grew up with it. I'm married, for the second time and it is everything that I always wanted, but as time goes by and I observe the world around me I've begun to wonder why people go through it. As a Christian, marriage is a Sacrament, it also is a moral commitment and I can ride along with that fine, I'll use it as my scapegoat. But I can't help but wonder if a lot of people wouldn't be a lot better off if society at large just got rid of the whole marriage concept. Perhaps leave it as a religious thing and leave well enough alone.
I don't really have to mention that something like fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce and in Dallas I've heard it is closer to eighty percent. I've begun to think that this isn't because divorce is easier or some other modern day social deprivation, but it's because we all get married out of love. Not only do we get married based almost solely on love, but we put so much weight on the person that we marry and the relationship itself. Today we want the person we marry to do so many things. I remember reading a discussion group where the participants were saying that in order for them or their child to marry someone they had to know everything about them...from eating, sleeping and even pooping. That's all fine and dandy, but when all there is is the notion of love to support this great weight, well it's no wonder so many marriages end before their time.
I don't mean to knock love, but I think even the most romantic amongst us will admit at least to some degree that the level of love you feel for someone initially goes away. Now it may change into a more mature love, but it isn't the same as the "high" you get when you first fall in love. And that may be part of the problem...sure you develop a mature, long-lasting love with your significant other, but then...perhaps at no fault of your own...you start getting that "high" love with someone else. Perhaps that's where the trouble begins...even the most moral and disciplined of us are tempted.
Really though, what is marriage today when it's become a "game show" aka The Bachelor? How important is marriage as a concept in our society when it is made in to a contest on prime time television. What really is the significance of it, besides adding paperwork and lawyers to the relationship if it goes bad? In a world where the concept of family is changing rapidly into something that a person from fifty or a hundred years ago wouldn't recognize, what place does marriage really have?
Who knows really, and to be honest I don't want to see the idea of marriage done away with, but on the other hand I hate to see it cheapened and stripped of its significance.