Romantic Love Is a Poor Basis for Marriage - Essay Example

Many people have claimed to have fallen in love, which then lead to marriages after a short time. Romantic love grows between people who know each other well, meaning that the people have to be increasingly in close contact with one another (Putte and Matthijs, 580). Love is thus taken as a bond that unites a couple in marriages, and the fuel that is supposedly making relationships in marriages to thrive. However, in closer examination of marriages in the society today, the aspect of love in marriages is blurred and in most cases hard to determine.

This is because there are increasing rates of divorces and separations among young married couples, with others going to the extent of taking their partner’s life. Considering that romantic love involves close interaction and coherence in mutual understanding between the partners, these trends clearly portray that romantic love is a poor basis in marriages. Determining whether romantic love can thrive over time requires understanding of the basic relationships, principles and their applications.

This means that partners have to have a clear perception concerning such love in the short and long term basis and not depend on perceptions of others or higher expectations.“Love is an abstract construct that has been debated, discussed, mused and speculated over many years” (July, 1). . These social models indicate that women tend to seek men with financial resources and men tend to seek physically attractive women (July, 3). In these social constructs, the issue of romantic love does not suffice in any event, and the issue of convenience takes lead in determining marriage partners.

Securing the future the financial future of the family seems to be the priority in many women while men seek for the pride of having an attractive woman. These are issues of compatibility that have to be considered in marriages in addition to the romantic love. Infatuation that might be related to romantic love in most cases has been confused with love, and as many people get into marriages, infatuation is in most cases to blame. Mponda (16) in outlining the creation story in the book of Genesis notes that when men and women meet the opposite sex, there is a tendency to get excited and think that they have fallen in love.

They will therefore start plans of staying together believing that they are in love. Mponda (17) defines infatuation as “having an intense but short lived passion for somebody.” Passion in this case is an intense enthusiasm for something. Since the passion is short lived, such marriages end up in divorces at an early stage. The close interaction mostly among the young people in most cases results to infatuation. Putte and Matthijs (580) compare this to the short romantic outbursts that are involved in romantic relationships.

Social groups in addition accelerate these trends. However as the passion fades away, such romantic outbursts are temporary and fade away with time and thus cannot be best indicators in marriage. Glaser and Malarkey (176) argue that poor communication is responsible for