Why Most Love Marriages Fail?

By Jayaram V

From Nature's perspective, the purpose of love, infatuation, attraction, or whatever name you may use to call it, is to create conditions for procreation of the species. This is the simple and straightforward truth. We may attribute a thousand reasons to it, dramatize it and romanticize it, but the plain truth about love is it is meant to facilitate sexual relationship and thereby the continuation of the species. Nature has no intention of prolonging that relationship beyond its purpose, and it seems that marriage for life between two people is either not in the design of Nature or not its purpose.

The institution of marriage is a social expediency invented by human beings. They did it to lay claim upon the female species and declare them as their territory. It served twin purposes: to protect their conjugal rights and keep the rivals away. Therefore, in the ancient world, women were not allowed to move freely or live freely. They were expected to depend upon men (father, brother, husband, son, or a cousin) for their survival. To further fortify their rights and reduce violations, men evolved many laws, customs and traditions. Even today in some communities women are considered men's property and not allowed much freedom.

Humans went ahead with the idea of marriage, despite its drawbacks because it had other advantages too. For example, marriage improves survival and security and prevents chaos and confusion. Imagine a society without the institution of marriage. Who will look after the children? Who will take care of the older people when they cannot be on their own? Marriage provides a very secure sanctuary to people to live together and establish a very intimate relationship. At the macroscopic level, it brings order and regularity to society and ensures the moral order, and family traditions, besides fulfilling our need for food, sex, intimacy, belongingness and love. Any relationship between two people that is centered purely around love has fewer chances of surviving for long, because eventually, Nature plays its dutiful role and creates necessary biological, emotional, and physiological changes to dissipate whatever passion and love it originally created between them for reproduction.

Therefore, in a marriage the couple should not rely just upon love and expect it to last forever. Their love has to mature into a positive relationship based upon mutual respect, understanding, adjustment, compassion, cooperation, compromise, and consideration, in which they rely upon each other's strengths and compensate for their weaknesses. They have to bring in other emotions too to cement the relationship and take it beyond the bed into their hearts and minds. They have to even think beyond their own relationship to fulfill the purpose of marriage and love, which is to produce children and help them grow up. At some stage in each marriage, reason has to take precedence over passion and guide that relationship. If reason fails and passions weaken, that marriage will surely crumble.

Nature has designed many emotions in us to enhance our chances of survival. Negative emotions are meant to keep us away from threats and positive emotions are meant to let us explore our abilities and skills and forge relationships with others so that we can feel secure in the company of a family, group, tribe or nation and pursue our goals with their cooperation.

Nature has instilled these emotions even among animals to increase their chances of survival and propagation. Most animals tend to live in groups and some are paired for life. Dogs use love, trust, and loyalty in their survival. They make themselves so dependent upon you and keep you within their gaze that you cannot just ignore them. If you are the owner of a pet and if the pet is nearby you can feel its loving presence, even if you are not interacting with it. That emotion is difficult to shake off because Nature has intended that love for a different purpose, which is survival.