Ann,
That's where I disagree. The sexual urge is suffient to ensure that people are going to procreate. In fact, in an earlier post you spoke about about the frustration of unmarried men in Egypt. The reason they can't have sex is because their society insists on the institution of marriage. If they lived in a marriageless society, there would be no reason to "wait until you are married." People would be having more sex, not less.
No, marriage was not invented in order to get people to have babies. It was invented because people were having babies, and society needed to provide for and, to a degree, regulate the upbringing of those babies. Society needed to ensure a safe and stable environment. It needed to ensure, among other things, that the father would stick around! It needed to protect the rights of the children, those of the father, and those of the mother.
It is obvious that a society needs each generation to produce the next generation, and that is why societies promote the idea that people should grow up, marry, and have children. But the reason for the marriage, per se, is not to get you to have the children, but rather to provide for and protect the children that you are going to have. So, I disagree with your conclusion, and I maintain just the opposite.
[Edited to correct a typo.]
