In this posting I want to
consider love and marriage. In the past couples who married, mostly stayed
married, but in the last century divorce rates have soared. It is clear that
the nature of marriage is changing. People marry for many reasons, convention,
it is expected of them and love. In the western world it is generally assumed
people marry for love. This was not true historically. In the past
marriage functioned primarily as an economic and political unit used to create
kinship bonds, control inheritance, and share resources and labour, see Elizabeth
Brake . Nowadays it is
assumed that couples marry for love. In this posting
I want to question this assumption.
What reasons might be given
to support the above assumption. I will suggest two reasons why we might marry
for love and then examine each of these reasons in turn. At this point it might
be objected any such examination would be futile. A couple marry simply because they
are in love and that this is the only fact we need to know. I accept that love binds.
Love binds a loving couple together, they want to be together, to do things
together, wake up together and care about each other. Indeed it is sometimes
argued loving creates a new entity. I accept that many couples marry because
they are in love. I further accept that if a couple are in love that this love
may form a good basis from which to obtain the goods marriage offers. But is
love one of these goods? Does being in love give a couple a reason to marry for
love? Surely love alone gives them all they want from a loving relationship
and marriage adds nothing to this love. Indeed in practice many couples
in the western world seem to recognise the above and regard living together as
being an equally good option to that of becoming married. They would argue all
you need is love and that marriage adds nothing further to their already
existing love. In the light of the above it might be suggested that a couple
who marry for love are doing something that is completely pointless as love
already gives them the goods they seek from their relationship. People of
course may have more traditional reasons to marry.
Let us accept that a couple
who marry for love and are already in love are doing something rather
pointless. However a couple might marry for reasons connected to
love. In what follows I will examine two ways in which being married might be
connected to love. Firstly someone might marry when he is not in love and wants
to love and be loved. Secondly a couple who are already in love might marry in
order to bind their love stronger. Perhaps the bonds imposed by marriage will
help them maintain their love. It might be suggested a further reason for a
couple to marry connected to love is that they believe that if they marry their
love forms a good basis for starting a family and that this love is somehow
protected by being married. I believe this reason is basically the same as the
second reason above and will not deal with it separately.
Let us consider someone who
isn’t in love and marries because he wants to love and be loved. In the western
world such a situation is unlikely to occur as most people who marry are
already in love. Historically this might not have been true as noted above.
Such a person has a reason to marry, connected to love, provided marriage leads
to love. It seems to me that there is some evidence to support the idea that
getting married might lead to love. In some communities some couples enter into
arranged marriages and the couples involved are not usually in love prior to
marrying. In arranged marriages love can grow. It might grow because marriage
means shared interests and this sharing leads to a shared purpose and
eventually love. It follows if someone isn’t in love and wants to love and be
loved that he has a reason, connected to love, to get married. However it
should be noted that most people who enter into arranged marriages do so for
family and cultural reasons and do not do so in order to find love.
Let us assume that the
majority of couples who marry are already in love. It might be argued love
helps maintain a marriage. Indeed it might argued, that sometimes a couple
should enhance their capacity for love in order to maintain their marriage,
perhaps for the sake of their children, see the structure of love . In this scenario, love helps to
maintain a marriage. However the question I am addressing is a different one,
does marriage help maintain love? In order to answer this question we must examine
the nature of love. I can love where I live, knowledge, a pet, a child and my
spouse. Does loving these different things depend only on what we love with the
underlying form of love remaining the same or does the underlying form differ?
In a previous posting I have love may have some structure. I have suggested we
all have a basic ability to love based on ‘caring about’ but as we have evolved
evolution has added on some additions to this basic ability. For instance I may
love, care about, where I live. I may also love my children by caring about
them and feeling empathy for them. Prima facie it appears there are different
forms of love. Someone’s love of his mother seems to be very different sort of
love to the love of his spouse. Indeed there seems to empirical evidence to
support this prima facie appearance, see neurological-differences-between-two-types-love . Researchers at Yale found there are
differences between a selfless form of love and more romantic love. They found
selfless love actually turns off some of the brain centres associated with
romantic love. Romantic love is associated with mate choice and the release of
dopamine, see Romantic love: a mammalian brain system for
mate choice .
Let us accept that in most
marriages there are two forms of love, romantic love and a more selfless kind of
love. I have suggested above if a couple are in love then marrying to obtain
love is pointless. I posed the question whether it is possible that for a
loving couple marrying might help them maintain their love. This question now
splits into two. Firstly would marrying help a couple who are romantically in
love maintain this love? Secondly would marrying help a couple who have a more
selfless form love maintain this form of love? I will consider each of these
questions in turn.
I will consider romantic love
first. If romantic love is based on a brain system for mate choice then it
seems likely its affects will not be long term. If romantic love is based on
mate choice then once a choice is made romantic love becomes redundant and
hence marrying will not help to maintain this love. Of course even if the
purpose romantic love serves is lost this does not automatically mean this love
doesn’t persist. I would however suggest such persistence is unusual. One
way someone might maintain romantic love would not be to marry but to make
numerous choices by becoming a philanderer. It might be objected
romantic love has greater persistence than I am advocating it does. My objector
might point out that a great number of people act romantically. In response I
would suggest that acting romantically is not the same as loving romantically.
Acting romantically is a way of behaving and need not be a way of feeling.
Acting romantically is a practice in Wittgenstein’s parlance. It is possible
for someone to act romantically based on selfless love rather than romantic
love. In the light of the above it seems to me unlikely that marrying to
maintain romantic will be successful. Let us now consider a more selfless kind
of love. A selfless form of love involves caring about another. In previous
postings have made use of Frankfurt’s ideas on ‘caring about’ and will do
so here. According to Frankfurt “the notion of caring, implies a
certain consistency or steadiness of behaviour, and this presupposes some
degree of persistence”. (1) If a more selfless kind of love involves caring
about then this form of love has natural persistence and it would appear little
would be gained by a couple who marry in order to maintain this love.
I suggested above that a
couple who marry for love and are already in love are
doing something rather pointless. The above discussion seems to support my
suggestion. However love is not unconnected to marriage. Let us assume that a
couple wish to marry for traditional reasons then being in love is likely to
help sustain that marriage even if it is not a reason to enter into that
marriage.
1.
Frankfurt , 1988, The Importance of What We Care About,
Cambridge University Press, page 84.