believe so. I think it mostly just has to do with the perpetuation of socio-cultural norms that influence it. Unfortunately, there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done in understanding how social norms are formed, what determines their content, and the aspects of cognition and emotion that enable a species to establish and enforce such norms.
The concept of marriage goes back thousands of years, but people during those olden times often married for business purposes and not for love. Nowadays that’s changed – many people do pursue long-term relationships but avoid getting married, and those who do aim to get married usually want it for love. Most of us see marriage as a way of “consummating” a relationship. It’s one of the ultimate symbols of whole-hearted love and commitment, as it is such a major milestone and is legally binding. It technically enables legal control over each other’s assets, in addition to the emotional and physical love connection that’s formulated prior to marrying. Marriage is such a commonplace thing – it’s widely romanticized in its portrayal, and it capitalizes on the idea of agreeing to commit the remainder of your life to the one you love.
Most people assume marriage is in the cards if a couple has been in a serious long-term relationship for a while, and therefore get suspicious when that doesn’t happen in such circumstances. Anyone who states that they’re not willing to marry is somewhat looked down on as they’re actively going against a norm that’s been established for ages. In retrospect though, it’s understandable why a couple would be turned off by marriage – being responsible for one another’s legal affairs can be scary, and it makes separation far more difficult when distribution of assets has to be sorted out.
Some people want marriage, and some people don’t. But there has to be clear communication regarding marriage for both people in a relationship – if both parties aren’t on the same page about marriage (i.e. one wants to get married, the other doesn’t), things may not fare so well.
357 views
Related questions (More answers below)
