Romantic Love is a Poor Basis for Marriage Essay

Romantic Love is a Poor Basis for Marriage - Essay Example One day, a love-struck couple marry with all the complements for each other then the next day they are cursing one another in front of a judge. With the growing effects of media and the rampant news of the activities of celebrities which tend to become the models for younger generations nowadays, â€Å"love† is much celebrated and exalted in choosing a partner and deciding on marriage. However, it is interesting to note that â€Å"love† is now understood more on the feelings a person feels towards another rather than its basic ingredients which are patience, kindness, humility, loyalty and others. Men and women alike, now think they are more intelligent, more informed and allow themselves to find out if they have the â€Å"chemistry† to make a marriage work. They test this by staying together under one roof without getting married and if their sexual desires are satisfactorily met, then they decide to marry each other. However, in the long run, they find out that they made a mistake and therefore end up in a divorce. One of the studies on this topic was that of Tennov’s â€Å"limerence† which is the state of â€Å"being in love†, seeing all the good things in a person and disregarding the bad, just simply feeling good about everything that is happening in the relationship. The sad thing about this state is that, it only lasts for around two years (Owens). With the aforementioned study, it could be said that making romantic love the foundation of a relationship is foolish, not unless one plans to change partners every two years. More and more studies are being held these days about love and marriage, with the desire to dig into what makes marriages work. when one looks around, only a handful seem to have all that it takes for a marriage to be happy and lasting at the same time while so many seem to be lost without a manual. Scholars around the world search the differences of marriages, ones that work out and those that d o not. In this extended search, there have been so many conclusions made, suggestions given to couples, seminars held and probably more will be done to inform people and make their relationships work. One thing is for sure, romantic love is not enough to be the basis for marriage. There is a saying that says, â€Å"Love goes out of the window, together with the plates and spoons when there is no food on the table†. In some cases, this is literally true. Couples who joined themselves together in marriage can simply lose their temper when they are clawed by poverty and other troubles. This has been one of the guiding principles of most ancient an more recent eastern marriages. According to the studies of Lawrence Stone regarding English families until the eighteenth century, marriages were made on the basis of need for financial stability and lineage (Macfarlane). Despite this circumstance, many marriages worked well if the basis for such comment would be the lesser divorce rat es as compared to modern statistics. People then lived according to the norms and cultures of their age and space so that they were able to suppress their want to choose the person they would like to marry on the basis of romantic love. Taking into consideration the study on â€Å"