Why Living Together Is Important before Marriage - Essay Example

I. A. “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages” Friedrich Nietzsche. (Nietzsche “If there is such thingas a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.” Michel de Montaigne (Montaigne 2004) B. I hope that after my presentation today you will be able to look on the marriage and relationship between man and woman a little bit differently but most certainly in a more rational and logical way. C. First I will talk about the negative sides and disadvantages of marriage that is not preceded by the cohabitation of its participants. Above that for you to remember I will redefine clearly what is marriage relying mostly on the philosophical, ethical and moral basics. As my second point I will recommend best ways of making a happy relationship and marriage using thoughts and sayings of the famous notionolists. D. Using most creative, influent and great ancient and modern writers as a source base I will nevertheless remind of the opposite side of the issue which is the presence of some benefits concerning marriage without previous living together. E. Marriage is one of the most important components of the society and a very significant part of any nation’s foundation. The question and problematic of this presentation is essential because its significance won’t become any less important with time due to the nature of relationship between opposite genders and our need to continue to exist as humans. II. My first point will be a description of harmful influence that is done to the marriage if it’s not preceded by the cohabitation and how the problems which could have been solved before marriage become the reasons of the serious problems in marriage. a. Most of the philosophers who talk about human relationships from the moral, ethical and simply humane perspective refer to the marriage as a friendly alliance that is settled for the benefit of the both of its participants. However in the reality such idealistic concept rarely reflects true nature of things. That is because a lot of young and unprepared, immature people who fall in love blindly and deeply decide to marry but when the first effects of love go away they have nothing to rely on. What they should rely on is the friendship because any sensual love, even most strong one with time will most probably become abate and even vanish. b. Love is a complex thing as well as human social relationships altogether. They exist in the sphere of spiritual, moral and soul values and so it is hard to talk about them in the form of research because life itself is not a laboratory experiment. c. People who marry without previous living together statistically more often commit divorces than those who have a cohabitation experience. It is obvious though more and more people continue to make the same mistake. Molier said that love is often the fruit of marriage and I can’t disagree with him because friendship must precede marriage while marriage should help people to better understand each other and have love as a wife and husband which is right for the upbringing of possible children (Gaines 2002). d. The mistake is when people muddle love for friendship. They think that if they love each other then they surely must be friends. However it is not so and first of all because love and friendship have different characteristics and therefore they need a different approach. Balance between blind love and kind friendship is the exact point where happy marriage is situated. Without true friendship that can continue forever love is doomed to cease to exist because its nature is so strong that with time it becomes less powerfull or even destroy itself and so if there is no friendship to create a connection between individuals then they will probably will think that love disappeared. Balzac stated that familiarity is the strongest enemy of marriage (Bloom 2009). People who quickly marry each other without previous cohabitation simply just don’t know anything about it. They think everything will be perfect but life is not always a shiny beautiful spectacle and most of all it consists from the simple, quiet, maybe boring and perhaps even not monotonous moments which can harm love but can’t harm friendship. That is why living together is so important. It helps people to know each other better before making a serious commitment and makes them ready for the simple and common aspects of everyday life. When people marry quickly they allow any even insignificant problem to become a menace while before marriage such problem is only a difference in opinions that be discussed and reasoned (Twardowski  2015). Next I will be talking about some benefits which can be derived from early marriage and also ways in which happy marriage can be reached. III. Hesiod strictly suggests to marry somewhere around 30 years old (Hesiod 1993). However a lot of people marry from 20 to 25 being still students and inexperienced workers. Sometimes such people marry just because of the pregnancy and kids which is better than not marry at all, make and abortion or something else. But the issue is very tricky. If such people don’t feel getting married or live together but still do it they make only a half effort for their kids because such marriage won’t serve for a long time and eventually kids will have separated divorced parents earlier or later. The later the best but such case reminds us again how important it is to control and quiet our sexual desires in order to prevent further unhappiness of our children. a. Quick marriage fueled by the first feeling of love without some time to think can be allowed but only around 30 years old. 30 years is the time when any individual should stand stable and be comfortably settled in life. That is time when youth starts its path to the middle age, when studying is complete and career is in progress. Most of all 30 years is the center of life when childhood and immaturity are in the past and person should start to think about the future and his/her heritage. At this point it is maybe better to marry quickly and have kids than not marry at all. Kids can in a very simple and natural way connect parents even when their first love feeling no longer has any effect. Reminding you of the first part of this speech I will say that kids can help parents to become friends because same aim and mutual goals create a good connection. b. Nevertheless even after reaching age of 30 years relationship between people doesn’t really change and some time for the possibility to know each other is still needed. Nevertheless money aspect and common daily issues stand back because children are obviously more pressing matter than husband’s or wife’s habits and negative sides of character which should be dealt with. c. “Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse.” Woodhouse very accurately pointed that out. Truly love doesn’t need marriage to be better or longer because it is a feeling, a belief while marriage is a social institution made only to serve purposes of society and comfortable upbringing of children who need healthy environment to become worthy participants of social interactions. d. Hypothetical ideal marriage must have a foundation and this foundation is knowing each other. When such knowing reveals itself after the marriage it can harm both man and woman and they will give up. On the contrary the more facts about themselves they know the better it will be for the life as wife and husband because it is widely considered that lies and uncertainty are shaky basics and only truth and full knowledge can serve as a foundation for happy marriage because it gives insurance from surprises. It will be fair to said that time is of the essence in our question. IV. In conclusion I would like to say that despite individuality of any intimate and close relationship it is considered (if not always and everywhere then it should be) that the more time each person has to know each other the better. It is not only helps to reveal whether friendship and love are real or only imaginable and illusive but also provide more solid, strong and lasting connection and the more this connections is reliable the more happier will marriage be. References Montaigne, M. (2004) The Complete Essays. London: Penguin UK Hesiod (1993) Works and Days. New York: Hackett Publishing Gaines, J. (2002) The Moliere Encyclopedia. Chicago: Greenwood Publishing Group Bloom, H. (2009) Honore de Balzac. Boston: Infobase Publishing Nietzsche, F. (2011) Basic Writings. London: Random House Publishing Group 6 Questions to Ask Before Moving In With Your Partner. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-twardowski/6-questions-to-ask-before-moving-in-with-your-partner_b_7302798.html Read More