And, although various aspects of marriage do change over time, or from society to society, studies of both past and current society show that marriage has always had one unchanging basic purpose: to promote unions between members of the opposite sex for the purpose of forming stable family units in which to raise children.
I may drawing a fine line here, but I'll try to draw it anyway. :p Family may have been the end result, but for centuries, the primary purpose of getting married was very economically slanted. I'd have to finish reading a few articles before making an in-depth argument (which, honestly won't happen because work trumps debates *and* I need to find a new job), but there's this great article by Gillian Clark entitled "Roman Women" in the journal
Greece & Rome, and it looks at women's rights (which were nothing of course) and how families benefited economically by marrying off their daughters ASAP. Sure, these girls started families; it would have been humiliating to be barren. But they didn't get married to start a family; they got married because it's one less mouth to feed at home.
My small point here is that I personally think Rona is right when she says family hasn't always been the sole purpose of marriage. It's the purpose I personally prefer, but we've had 2000+ years of other things dominate the marriage factor, and truthfully, all this being in love stuff is a much more recent development across the board. So of course it's going to come with new challenges, like who exactly we're going to let get married.
Just my two cents.
JD
