Is marriage an outdated institution?

The principle of marriage has always been to provide a stable home life for the rearing of children. Psychologically scientific studies have found that co-habitation does not lend itself to as much psychological stability for a child. Regardless of the level of commitment between a couple, society still recognises marriage as an institution where most stability is gained. This is not to discredit signle parent families or divorced parents, but to acknowledge the insitute of marriage as the ideal outcome of a loving relationship and desire for a family.

It is fallacious to presume that marriage as an institution is what provides a stable home environment for a child. What is most important is the relationship between the two parents and their attitudes and relationships individually and together with the child. This is completely uncorrelated with marriage. What's more a stable co-habitaion situation is far better for a child than an unhappy marriage. The heartache, pain, stress and psychological disturbance of a child when their parents break up is not due to the breakdown of marriage but the breakdown of a relationship.

I don't think it is. But some of the old principles and prejudices around marriage are outdated: it's unbreakable, you have to put up with anything within marriage including mistreat, etc. I think it's a perfectly valid institution, but it must be updated in our brains so that we don't see it as something old.

It is unreasonable to expect couples to stay together for a lifetime in this day and age. There is more social pressure than ever before to be happy- and this outweighs the necessity to make a marriage work regardless. Fidelity is not determined by a marriage certificate and with an ever increasing life expectancy, and the freedom to prusue one'e goals more liberal, it is naive to believe that there is no possiblity of couples either changing or making an original "mistake" in choosing each other. Society has long accepted that life partners need not be for life anymore. If people want to be together, why should their plan be drawn out unncessarily by the formal bond of matrimony.