SC,

I think that is like saying that to stop diagnosing people with HIV is good because it reduces the anxiety over HIV.

Part of the problem with marriage today is that people DON'T get married. While getting married because the woman was pregnant or because friends or family were driving the whole process is really a pretty weak argument to make, IMO, I think that couples have always gotten married for those reasons. In days long ago got married simply because their parents told them to marry someone. It wasn't until the free love movement of my generation that "living together" became accepted. Yet at the same time, divorce rates began to sky rocket.

Marriage, for many reasons, has been labeled as unnecessary and therefore disposable. The mantra of about three generations in a row now has been "if it feels good, do it" and commitment is an antiquated notion.

I think the love argument is dangerous and a worthless argument, especially in light of what I know of Dr Harley's Love Bank model and the research I have read regarding the way the brain works in the falling in love stage of a relationship. To say that the criteria for marriage should be love sounds like a worthy idea, yet couples use the exact argument to avoid getting married at all. People who fail to marry but instead live together argue that they live together because they love each other and often only consider marriage when the woman gets pregnant. That alone defeats the notion that living together and then marrying later is the elimination of that concept and has to do with real love. They claim to live together "for love" and marry for the children. Can't have the argument both ways.


Mark