Today, most people get married because of how they feel. They fall in love with one another, decide they can’t spend life apart and choose to get married. This has been dubbed the “marriage of feeling.”
It has certainly not always been this way. As much as we romanticize this idea now, the “marriage of reason” has been more common over human history. People did not get married because they were in love but because of the advantages of the marriage.
This is easiest to see with royalty, as they often married as a way to secure peace between two countries. The people getting married may never even have met, but the marriage wasn’t about them. It was about creating allies.
Even with commoners, though, marriage often happened for practical reasons. Two people may have land next to each other and decide to marry in order to join their properties. Parents may look for partners for their children based on what religion they followed. Historically, women often wanted to marry men because they needed them for financial support, while men want to get married because of the need for offspring.
While this still happens today, things have changed. The marriage of feeling is far more common, and many people feel like it sounds very unfair and wrong to get married for any other reason.
The issue with the marriage of feeling, though, is that it is only bound by those feelings. With no practical reason to be married, couples who fall out of love may want to end the union. When they get divorced, it’s important to know about the legal options they have.
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Author: On behalf of Katie L. Lewis of Katie L. Lewis, P.C. Family Law