Romantic love is a poor basis for marriage.

In Andreas Capellanus’ “The Art of Courtly Love ,” in a letter from the Countess Marie of Champagne, she states that it wasn't possible to experience courtly love with your spouse. Yet, sexual contact typically had nothing to do with courtly love. Most of us consider sexual acts to be something shared between lovers. But at medieval court, the term 'lover' referred to the person with whom someone danced, giggled, and held hands. As long as the rules relating to chastity and fidelity were strictly adhered to, such as having heirs with your spouse or waiting to have intercourse until marriage, you could go outside of the marriage to find romance and love . Why did love and marriage have nothing to do with each other? At the time, noble marriages were often arranged in order to increase the status and wealth of each family. It

In “The Radical Idea of Marrying for Love.” Stephanie Coontz describes marriage as an “institution that brings together two people.” she shares the point that “marriage should be based on intense, profound love and a couple should maintain their ardor until death do them part” (p. 378).

Today, the idea of marriage conjures images of bashful brides beautifully draped in all white, of grandiose flower arrangements climbing towards the ceiling, of romance personified. As an institution in this modern world, marriage represents the apex of romantic love, with an entire industry of magazines, movies, and television shows devoted to perpetuating marriage as an idealized symbol of the ultimate love between two people. Contrarily, as a sociological institution, marriage comes from much more clinical and impersonal origins, contrasting with the passion surrounding modern understandings of the institution. Notably, french anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss theorizes that the institution of marriage emerged from a need to form alliances between groups, with women functioning as the property exchanged so that such alliances could be solidified (Levi-Strauss).

The history of marriage in Australia is the history of flawed plans to control who people wed. The White Australia Policy “meant that servicemen in occupied Japan were once refused permission to marry local Japanese women or if they married anyway and were unable to return to Australia with their Japanese wives” (Croome, R,2011) furthermore Aboriginals were once denied freedom to marry the partner of their choice not because of their sexual orientation but because of their Aboriginality, their race (Williams, T, 2011).

Back in the eighteenth century, marriage was seen as a business contract without considering love as the main reason for any relationship. According to Ingrid H. Tague, an assistant

In Andrew J. Cherlin’s essay “American Marriage In Transition”, he discusses how marriage in America is evolving from the universal marriage. Cherlin’s definition of the universal marriage in his essay is the man is the breadwinner of the household and the woman is the homemaker. In the 20th century according to Cherlin, the meaning of marriage has been altered such as the changing division of labor, childbearing outside of marriage, cohabitation, gay marriage and the result of long- term cultural and material trends (1154). During the first transition of marriage, Cherlin discusses how in America, Europe, and Canada the only socially accepted way to have sexual relations with a person and to have children is to be married (1154). The second change in marriage occurred in 2000, where the median age of marriage in the United States for men is 27 and women is 25 (1155). Many young adults stayed single during this time and focused on their education and starting their careers. During the second change, the role of law increasingly changed, especially in the role of law in divorce (1155). It is proven in today’s research marriage has a different definition than what it did back in the 1950’s. Today marriage can be defined as getting married to the same gender or getting remarried to someone who already has kids. The roles in a marriage are evolving to be a little more flexible and negotiable. However, women still do a lot of the basic household chores and taking care of the

The purpose of this report is to draw attention to the importance of marriage equality in an Australian context. The purpose of this report is to encourage lobbying and advocacy, while also educating through discussion with members of the Australian community and relaying the importance of equality. This report hopes to generate discussion with government officials ideally resulting in cooperation at federal and state levels to ensure equality is experienced for all.

Among innumerable reasons why marriage equality should be legalized in Australia, a prominent one is that restricting the option to marry any citizen is discriminatory and unconstitutional. This sort of treatment not only deprives every-day people of their dignity, creating a second class of citizens, but also suggests that LGBTI+ people are somehow unworthy of participation in one of the fundamental institutions of our society. A lack of opportunity to formalize same-sex relations implies that these relationships aren 't of equal standard, exacerbating unjust prejudice and intolerance. This impression is promoted through the lack of financial, medical and social rights associated with marriage to individuals in a civil union, the supposed 'adequate equivalent ' for marriage. Although the legalisation of marriage equality would have no impact on non-LGBTI+ communities,

The law regulating same-sex marriages continues to change, in order to better reflect the community 's opinions and expectations. Within the last decade, Australia has seen substantial changes in the legal recognition of same-sex relationships. This increase in legal recognition is primarily aimed at removal of institutionalized discrimination, as well as providing adequate legal protection of same-sex couples has arisen due to the wide spread changes of opinions about same-sex relationships within society.

At this time, marriage was still somewhat based on the economic standing of one’s partner. Marriage was viewed by some as “a means of increasing one’s credit and one’s fortune and of insuring one’s success in this world” (Zeldin 288). However, marrying for love became much more important. Prior to the 1800s, couples were typically much farther apart in age, with the husband being much older than the wife. However, after the increase in marriages of love, couples were nearly the same age. Love and attraction eventually became the primary

In Katherine Porters “The Necessary Enemy” through her analysis of the modern construct of what some people may call “Romantic love” also provides us with a cursory history of the evolution of marriage throughout the years and its implications as far as couple interactions are concerned. Although she poses the question, her insufficient response still begs for an answer: how did what she called “Romantic love,” possibly find its way into marriage? Porter only begins to describe the present circumstances by differentiating the ideas of accustomed invocation of “hate” and the idealistic “Romantic love” but provides a useful insight into the impeccable nature of humans, we create our own sufferings out the bad experiences we find some semblance

The Romantic era began in 1770, with its peak being from 1800 to 1850. With emphasis on the imagination and emotion, Romanticism emerged as a result of the Enlightenment period, which heavily placed values upon reason and order. Thus, Romanticism depends heavily on “the practical accomplishments of the prior un-Romantic era— a relationship between material wealth and scientific knowledge on one hand, and personal, spiritual, or emotional transcendence on the other, that twenty-first century Americans continue to manage.” The simplest explanation for what is Romantic is “‘anything but the here and now’ or whatever is not realistic” (“Romanticism”). The

Marriage, by definition, is the institution whereby men and women are joined in a special kind of social and legal dependence for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family. In today’s society however, things are changing. People of all genders are forming bonds with one another, and homosexuals are vying for the right to have their love established as marriage as well. Should men and men, and women and women, be allowed the right of marriage just like heterosexual couples in America? Andrew Sullivan and William Bennett have opposing opinions on this subject, however are more alike in opinion than they know. Their articles tell different stories, with the same general underlying tone.

Marriage is defined as the legally recognized union of two people, historically and in some jurisdictions its specifically a union between a man and a woman but more recently gay marriage has been accepted in 26 countries, one being Australia. A de facto relationship too is recognised by the law, defined in Section 4AA of the Family Law Act 1975. When marriages breakdown, Australia's legal system attempts to ensure a just outcome for all parties, however there can be many difficulties facilitating just to all when considering factors such as separation property arrangements and best interests of the child. Increasingly the legal system aim to avoid major conflicts that may come with breakdowns of marriages by encouraging the more effective

Social conservatives blame divorce, cohabitation, illegitimacy, and the demise of the traditional family for society's ills, from poverty, crime, and juvenile delinquency to the moral decay and destruction of the American way of life. In the 1970s, marriage was at its lowest but by the late 1990s there was a reappearance of marriage, seen in the leveling off of the divorce rate. Although the claims for the value of marriage by conservatives and gay-rights proponents "were from two ends of the spectrum, they came together — at least at the rhetorical level — for what marriage...accomplishes and how crucial it is as a social institution." (Gallagher, 2002)