Marrying for Love?

  

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.