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The Ultimate Goal Of Romantic Relationships

Decent Essays

“The ultimate goal of romantic relationships is to establish a long-term relationship culminating into marriage” (Gala & Kapadia 2014). This is the belief that was instilled in me since I was a child. When I started dating, I had a few relationships that ended after a few months. My parents would continuously ask me “Why date someone if you have no intention of marrying that person?” However, I was young, marriage was the last thing on my mind. My reasoning was that if I liked the boy, and the boy liked me, why not date? From what I’ve learned, the majority of people start dating at a young age with no intention of marriage. It isn’t until they are a little older, maybe late adolescence that they consider marriage after having been with their partner for more than a couple months. Ninety percent of people in each society get married at least once. Marriage is defined as the stable union between two people that live together and are sexually involved and procreative with each other (Vaughn 2010). Being raised in a Hispanic and American culture, I’ve learned that this is what marriage is. As a culture, we place more emphasis on marriage for love while other cultures such as India place less emphasis on marriage for love. According to Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, companionate love is love in which intimacy and commitment are present. Companionate love is the kind of love I’ve grown up witnessing between my parents. I was raised to believe that love is essential

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