by Gary Maclean

Created on: November 20, 2008   Last Updated: February 03, 2009

CAN A MARRIAGE CONTINUE WITHOUT LOVE

One of the most complicated subjects still open for analysis and discussion is that of Love. What is it, where is it, what do we do with it, what is it used for. There are so many questions related with that one little word and so many variant definitions that at times we begin to doubt our own convictions.

Love comes in so many different colors and intensities also. We use the term to describe how we feel about that great meal Mom just cooked while at the same time we use that same word to express our feelings for Mom herself. What do we love? How many different people and things do we love? However many objects are involved we probably love them all in just a little bit different way.

That's why, when we look at love in marriage, we think of a deep interpersonal emotion. Love in a relationship is something that transcends even our best verbal description. The love we have that brings us together as a couple comes from deep inside. It isn't coaxed, it isn't solicited; the love we have for our partner goes beyond anything we can really define. It is that omnipresent thrill of being in our partner's presence.

Love in a marriage comes before the marriage. That type of unexplainable love is what brings people to consider marriage. What else could possibly convince someone to give up their freedom and their carefree life other than the will to be with and to do for, someone they cannot tolerate even being away from? That is really the love we talk about when we say the love that is associated with marriage.

Marriage is an institution in which interpersonal relationships (usually intimate and sexual) are acknowledged by the state or by religious authority. Marriage is often viewed as a contract. The act of marriage changes the personal and social status of the individuals who enter into it. The marriage, by itself, is no more than the legal action taken to allow us to legally participate in whatever obligations and benefits are reserved for married couples; that is only the legal half of mariage.

The personal side of a marriage is our public admission of having the deepest feelings for the person we are uniting with. The marriage tells everyone that we both are now ready and willing to give up our individual selves for the sake of the much more beautiful and powerful union, our marriage. Our intense love has brought us to this point, our wedding. A complete marriage requires both halves; the legal and the personal. Without either one

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