To think marriage is less about love and more about social control?

[DandyRoseEagle]

Marriage gets romanticised as “true love” but if you step back, it looks more like a system built to manage property, inheritance and social order. Even today, marriage is often about mortgages, stability and social legitimacy rather than passion. AIBU to think marriage has always been more about control than romance?

I’d like to think it starts off about love, but ultimately YANBU.

Marriage is the bedrock of society. Passion like beauty doesn’t always last. But there’s a lot to be said for loyalty, stability and safety. Love can be a choice as well as an emotion.

Marriage to me is about making my family and feeling like more than just myself, we are 1 person combined from 2 and it’s beautiful (yes I’ve been married a long time..) I never even consider the financial, lawful side I just like feeling interwoven with another person I trust and love completely ..

It is only very recently that marriage has been about love, and only in some cultures. Everywhere else and in every other time it has been about property, inheritance and social cohesion. Saying marriage is about love disguises its importance as a legally binding contract, with consequences and obligations.

Maybe I’m lucky but I’ve been with my husband for 26 years and he’s my best friend. Money and stability are upsides but we are still in love. I think it’s a combination.

I think that back in the day - that can definitely apply. However (depending on where you live in the world of course, so assuming you are from the UK), that is absolutely not the case for me and the people around me. I love my husband, he’s my best friend. Do I get benefits from that love and friendship sure but we wouldn’t have married if the basis was not love.

Yes, which only really become apparent when you divorce. People really should be educated more about the legal aspects before they say ‘I do’, and even more so if they plan on giving up work to raise children or even reducing their earning power.

It was designed as a system to manage property and inheritance, so it's not really surprising.

I think this essay is very good, on how marriage is "missold" to us. The original version I read online had the word "mad" in place of "crazy" - I think that was changed for the NYT version (which is paywalled) in order to make more sense to American readers who would think of mad meaning angry. However, they left a lot of the other references to being "mad" in - which makes me think that they refer to crazy rather than angry.

https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/alain-de-botton-the-school-of-life-why-you-will-marry-the-wrong-person

Marriage is the way to get legal recognition of a committed long-term relationship and to make it straightforward to sort out what happens when the relationship ends, as they all will, either when the couple split up or when one of them dies. It's irrelevant as far as the law is concerned whether the couple love each other, but as the underlying reason for having committed long-term relationship is sexual attraction, wanting to have children and the need for companionship, most marriages start off as love matches. I've been married for over 40 years and I don't see it as anything to do with social control.

@TalulaHalulah The women who give up everything and are not married are the ones most financially at risk in many partnerships. Marriage is a better protection.

its called the marriage contract because that’s what it is. The whole ‘mad romantic love’ thing is a modern invention.

Yes, it’s always been better if you found your marriage partner to be at least tolerable, but ultimately it exists to legally combine assets, cement social positions, and create a stable foundation to produce children.

Originally marriage had little to do with love, until quite recently parents picked husbands/wives based on what their family bought to the table. Whether or not the couple liked each other was largely irrelevant.
Of course it is about money and stability in a lot of cases, families want to keep family wealth and for it to be passed down the generations. A good match can help ensure this happens.
Largely if you are piss poor like me and my husband you get to pick the person you marry as the stakes are much lower!

I agree. People will marry for all sorts of reasons but the powers that be encourage it to keep a semblance of ‘order’ to society.

I’ve read so many threads where women have admitted to lusting after various men they interact with and posters tell them to switch off those feelings, distract themselves, focus on their husbands and these feelings will pass or they’ll learn to live with them etc. The goal is to preserve the marriage at pretty much all costs.

If nobody got married there would still be couples who stay together long term, but there would also be the risk of more shagging around and blurred boundaries, which could then translate to other social ‘norms’ etc.

There's an even more pressing need for education for those who have children without getting married. If both parents have similar incomes, it may be fine, but given that so many relationships break down, and death is inevitable at some point, if one partner has a much lower income and has been the main carer for children s/he could be up shit creek without a paddle. Unmarried partners have no automatic claim on each other's assets and income at all.

It's heartwarming to hear of people who gain so much from their husbands of many years. I cannot imagine how that feels. I have never had that depth of love and security.
Not a complaint, more a statement of facts

I am not sure about that in Scotland, though, because you can’t get divorced without agreeing or having the financial and child arrangements ordered, so if one party does not engage or stalls, you very quickly run up massive legal bills with no guarantee matters will get resolved. I am not sure what protection that affords.

That’s a cost. At least one party doesn’t walk away with everything because it’s theirs and not their ex partner’s. The ex has very few rights. Any divorce lawyer will say it’s better to be married to get something from an unequal financial position. Marriage gives rights to negotiation, but yes, it can cost but so can having no rights to anything.

I don’t understand your point. Of course one party can walk away with all the assets if there’s no financial settlement.

Yes, it probably started with the advent of farming (and therefore property ownership) - men wanted to know their property was going to their own child.

Not just control, though - also just the whole business of keeping yourself alive. In the days before paid work and all the modern stuff that means cooking and housework etc don't have to be a full-time job, I think men and women would both find it bloody difficult to survive without each other. That's before we even get onto the absence of social welfare programmes (meaning children were a need not a want, for most). It's something that comes from a much harsher world.