What is the real argument against marriage?

Or any other form of long term monogamy?

An interesting piece in Psychology Today discusses this.

It is very worth your attention.

In this article, the author takes on the thoughts expressed by philosopher Dan Moller. Moller insists if you think about it clearly, you will see that getting married is actually implausible.

Apparently Moller has developed a specific argument for this.

He calls it “The Batchelor’s Argument.”

Ah!

I love philosophers!

The way they get right down to the heart of things!

Moller says when you marry you make a promise of “till death do us part,” but it is wrong to make promises you will “not be able to keep.”

That would be like borrowing money you can’t pay back.

Why can’t you keep your marriage promise?

Because love is an emotion.

Your emotions aren’t under your control.

You may love your partner now.

Know anybody who ever fell out of love before though?

So you cannot promise to love your partner forever obviously.

Maybe you can’t promise to never to fall out of love, but you could promise to stick around UNTIL then. But what would be the point of committing to that, since you will likely end up doing that much anyway?

So you can’t promise to STAY in love.

You don’t NEED to promise to stick around until you fall out of it.

Maybe you should promise to stick around anyway.

Ever experience a loveless relationship though?

Even if you haven’t?

I think you know how much sense that makes!

Since these three options seem to cover the field, Moller concludes logically that marriage is indeed implausible. You should consequently forego the practice, and cease committing yourself to monogamy.

Our Psychology Today article writer still disagrees.

He says there is a fourth way you could commit to marriage.

When you marry you’re really doing two things:

(1) Affirming you are in love NOW.

(2) Promising to invest in acts that sustain this.

And also avoid acts that would destroy it.

You can nurture the feeling of romantic love for your partner, by performing acts that build up positive emotion between you. And by avoiding actions that generate negative ones.

Author Stan Tatkin calls this creating a “love bubble.”

Psychologist Willard Harley calls it making deposits in your “love bank.”

This is also the whole point of Romantic Friendships.

To focus solely on positively nurturing your love life.

So since you can act to SUSTAIN your love?

Isn’t commiting to monogamy reasonable after all?

I’m sorry to say it, but the answer is still “No.” When you understand why, you’ll finally realize why you should simply give up your belief in monogamy.

The reason monogamy still isn’t plausible?

Because you can’t really promise this either.

Though everybody starts out intending to keep these actions up?

They end up faltering and failing ultimately.

This is the REAL argument against monogamy.

Too high a percentage of people just can’t DO it.

So how about you? Will you keep clinging to the Disney Fantasy, and hope your monogamous partner makes good on their promise, or will you finally let go, and start pursuing love more realistically?