Why Get Married? The Many Reasons Why Marriage is Flawed

When recently asked whether I plan on getting married one day or staying single for the rest of my life, I replied without hesitation by saying I plan on staying single. After a while, I began thinking, trying to come up with any sort of solid reasoning which upholds the concept of marriage. Of course afterwards, I get asked, why do I want to stay single, and not ever marry? I reply to this by saying, more accurate is, why would I ever want to get married? I never get a real response to that question, so in this essay, I will analyze only a few of the reasons that I got which uphold the concept of marriage.

I've been pondering the reasons that two people would want to get married, and I feel that the concept of marriage is ludicrous. Here I will attempt to analyze the reasons that were thrown at me for why marriage is a sane idea, and then I'll explain why I think each of them is not as sane as it seems. Since chess is the basis of all of my thinking on anything, I will use chess examples to maybe help illustrate what I'm getting at. The format for this essay is the statement of the reason, an explanation of what it means, then my analysis of its flaw, followed by a chess analogy to illustrate my analysis.

1. If you love someone, you should marry them.
The thinking behind this statement is that when you declare your love for someone, your saying it is going to stay forever, so marriage should naturally follow since it cannot hinder this thinking but only solidify it.

First, if you are in love with someone, you do not have to get married. In my opinion, this marriage can only hurt your relationship rather than help it. While married, it is more likely for your relationship to not remain as positive as it was before the marriage. Although I do not speak from personal experience, before marriage your thought process goes something like this: "I love this person and by staying with this person I become a better person myself. Our true love is proven because even without marriage, we choose to stay with each other, hopefully this will continue for a very long time, preferably forever." and the thinking after the marriage would be something like this: "I have gotten married to the person I love. This ensures that I will be with this person and no one else. No matter how much I feel like our relationship is not right due to what goes on in the marriage, the marriage will remind me that our love is true. Knowing that neither one of us will love any other person because of this marriage which was caused by the strong feelings of love we have for each other, I will know that if there are any troubles in our relationship, they can be overcome since this is my life-long partner and we are to go through any problems we may have with each other. Even if we have some serious arguments which make it seem like we are not right for each other, we will know that we are right because of this marriage. Because of this marriage, we will never stop loving each other."

From this, before marriage, you two are staying together because you want to and because your love alone is strong enough to keep you together. After marriage, this might not be necessarily true. This commitment, legal document, steals some of the love away and becomes partly the reason why you are staying together. Marriage is almost an insult to your love. This formality might become the reason why in the future you feel like you are with this person not because of your love, but because of the marriage. That should never happen. After the marriage you know you HAVE to be with this person no matter what. Thus, your reason for staying together could become predominately your marriage, and not your love.

In chess, you are playing the game without worrying about winning or losing, which is what your life before marriage is like. You promise that you will try to stay with them forever (win the game), but are open to the possibility that you might have to break the relationship in the future (lose the game), you are more likely to play openly and aggressively. This leads to strong and direct play which increases your winning possibilities. However, if you are playing under tremendous pressure, where you know you have to win, you will be more likely to make sure you are careful on every single move. You might think this is a good idea. It is, but only to a certain extent. When in these situations, where you are pressured to win, you will tend to play passively, and on the defense. In chess passive play is losing play, just like a relationship where you are not being open to the possibility that you might break up in the future is not a healthy relationship. This is just like in marriage, after the marriage, you are limiting your thinking to knowing that you are married to the person because you love the person and therefore feel like the marriage is the proof of your feelings for each other as far as your love goes. In chess, marriage = you are playing because you have to win. While no marriage, but just love = you are playing because you like to play, whether you win or lose.

2. Marriage shows the other person how much you love them.
This is saying that in order to prove to your loved one that you indeed love them you need to make a commitment to them and get married.

Marriage does not necessarily show this. Depending on your reason for getting married, it can show how much you distrust them or how much you don't love them. If you really love someone, getting married to him or her will prove nothing. This marriage is just a legal document which increases the odds of some lawyer somewhere of making money. They make money from broken marriages, not broken loves. I think if you truly love someone, then you should be open enough with them to admit that there is a possibility, which however unlikely it might seem at the time, that in the future they will have to get a divorce and break up. Because of the existence of this possibility, why get married in the first place? Why not save yourself the trouble and just choose to live together still loving each other. In the future, if you do happen to break up, you wont need to go to court to determine who gets what, and do any paper work; rather, just break up and go your own separate ways (there is always the issue with kids, but a divorce doesn't make that any easier). With marriage, you are not showing someone how much you love him or her, but rather just complicating your love to no ends.

In chess, in trying to protect the king, marriage is like putting a few pieces around the king which makes it look like you are defending it properly, when actually the threat of a mate still exists, and these pieces could even help the opposing side to achieve the mate. If these pieces did not exist, the king would be safer since the opposing side does not have the extra pieces placed in such a way where it looks like they are helping the king, but rather exposing the weaknesses in the position for the opposing piece to take advantage of. Marriage does the same thing. Marriage = the extra unnecessary pieces which actually hurt the king position. For those confused on this, contact me, and I'll bust out with some actual chess positions where this is the case.

3. It ensures that you will stay with each other for as long as you live.
Since marriage is a promise to stay with someone for the rest of your life, whenever the thought of you being with someone else comes to your mind, you will remember that you are married, and only love one person with whom you shall share your entire life with.

This is what I mean about marriage hurting your relationship. First off, if you love someone so much that you know you will stay with them for as long as you live, why do you need this formality to ensure such a thing since you already know you will stay with the person? Marriage is contradictory in this sense. Next, it does not ensure at all that you will live with them forever. If this was the case, then why does divorce exist? All in all, you must obviously know that the reason you are staying together is your love, and not some legal document, which only hurts this love! When your mentality reaches the point that you are avoiding being good friends with other people because you think it might threaten your marriage, then it is a clear illustration of you not living to your potential because of this marriage. Also, whether the person is consciously aware of it or not, when in marriage, you could begin to feel that your spouse is staying with you because of the marriage. If you weren't married, then you two wouldn't still be together. This kind of thinking can only take place under these kinds of circumstances, in this case, it's marriage. Whether this mentality is justified or not, it is hurting your relationship by lessening your trust of your spouse because of this suspicion that the real reason you two are together is the marriage, and not the love.

In chess, this logic can be used to also illustrate how a typical amateur sees a position, and how a grandmaster sees the same position. In a chess position where one side (lets say white) is significantly down on material advantage, and the opposing side (black) has a material advantage of say, a queen and 2 knights, the amateur looks at the position and says that black is winning. Now the grandmaster approaches the same position, and after one glimpse, he says that white is winning! How can this be, you ask? The grandmaster looks at the POSITION! He determines where certain pieces are placed relative to the two kings, rather than the MATERIAL advantage. He notices a mate in a few more moves for white. Although white is down in material, white is about to win because of the superior position (go over Paul Morphy games). The same thing goes for marriage. If you tell someone you are married, they will naturally think you are staying together because of the love that you two have, when actually you are really staying together because of the promise which you made long ago, and not for the love. It is better to not have a marriage if this is the case, just like it is sometimes better in chess not to have a material advantage (legal document) but rather a winning position (true love).

4. If you truly love someone, why would you not want to marry them?
When you say you love someone, nothing else should matter. Why does this commitment scare you if you say you love them? Maybe you are afraid that this marriage will mean you will have to force yourself to be with this person even in the future when your feelings might change. But if you say you love this person, how can your feelings in the future possibly change, therefore why are you afraid to get married?

A lot of people who get married really don't know what they are getting into. If you say you will be with this person, no matter what happens, then you are simply expressing your thoughtlessness to the whole world by getting married. Some people feel this way, they refuse to believe that there is indeed some probability that they could break up. These people choose to remain blindly in love. Oftentimes it is these types of relationships where one person, or maybe both can have affairs and the other forgives them or sub-consciously ignores it. This is not a healthy relationship. If you do not admit that you might possibly break up in the future, then you are being ignorant and possibly deserve a lesson which marriage might teach you. If, however, you do admit that there is a possibility that you might not stay with the person for as long as you live, then this alone is reason enough to not make the mistake of getting married in the first place, since marriage is a promise to stay with someone forever rather than for as long as the relationship can go.

In chess, this is like seeing one of the opposing side's pieces being hanging (unprotected), and when it is your move, you do not take the piece! You make a move and don't take the free piece! Why!? an amateur would ask. You reply by saying it is just a decoy and will end in a win for the opposing side. Marriage is the same in this sense. If you blindly get married (take the piece) without thinking of the consequences, then you're asking for trouble.

5. If the marriage doesn't work out, there is always divorce!
Assuming that later in life, you find out that your love was not true and it needs to end, you always have the divorce to fall back on.

Once again if the concept of marriage is true, then why does divorce even exist? This existence of divorce should be a warning sign in itself. Just because you get married doesn't mean you will stay with the person forever. This existence of divorce is an insult to the concept of marriage, just as the existence of the concept of marriage is an insult to the love that two people can share. Seeing as how over 50% of all marriages end in divorce, I'd say that people don't treat marriage as seriously as they should. Oftentimes people get married not for love but for other non-honorary reasons such as money and spite. Trying to convince yourself to get married because you have the divorce to fall back on is like trying to jump out of a plane without a parachute thinking you have the parachute. The divorce is not a safety net; it's a reminder of the many downfalls of something like a marriage.

In chess, this is just like saying "let's play a chess game, and I promise you that you will not lose, but just in case, I will allow you to resign!" What!?? If you say I cannot lose, then why in the world would I ever want to resign!? The same thing is true for marriage. Let's get married, "we will stay with each other forever! yay!!! But hey look, we could always get divorced if this marriage doesn't work out! phew!" By getting married, you are saying the relationship HAS to work out. Just like in chess, when you can't lose, why would you want to resign; when you are married, why would you want to get a divorce, since you will indeed stay with each other forever!?

Generally speaking, the pro-marriage people seem to think that marriage shows that you are committed to the relationship and after getting married; your relationship reaches a new level. Basically what I interpret this as is "Before marriage, you are considered to be just dating, and at any time, your relationship could end due to one of the two, or both, deciding it is time to move on. After you get married, you are showing your partner that you indeed love them and that the relationship consists of true love rather than superficial feelings you might have for the feelings which is oftentimes the case when two people are just dating." I think it is true that marriage shows the person how much you are committed to the relationship, but not enough where you can say that your relationship will reach a higher level which did not already exist before the marriage. After the marriage, your relationship does not reach a higher level; you just think that it does now that you have "proven your commitment." Having a baby would mean you are truly committed, and that is the point where your relationship reaches a new level, and the trust between the two is critical for the relationship. I feel that when the relationship reaches the point where you have a baby, then it does not even matter whether you are married or not, as the relationship has automatically reached a higher level. In other words, marriage alone is not enough to say your relationship will reach a new level, if this is what you think.

In conclusion, if you think marriage is a good idea, and are having trouble understanding why some people don't feel the same way, then simply ask yourself "For what reason would two people want to get married?" Then, when you answer that question, ask yourself another question "Is this reason really good enough to get married?" Then, when you have answered that question, and the answer is not on the "NO!" side, then ask yourself one final question "Can the reason which I considered to be good enough to get married be somehow accomplished or done without marriage?" If the answer to this question is on the "No" side, then please contact me and let me know what this reason is, and why you feel marriage is necessary for the "reason" to get accomplished.