The Essence of Marriage and Love

The essence of marriage and love is a multi - dimensional issue that encompasses emotions, society, economy, and human nature. Below is an analysis of its core content from different perspectives:

The Dialectical Relationship Between Emotion and Reality

• The Nature of Love - Attraction and Symbiosis: Love begins with hormone - driven passion, which manifests as momentary impulses and idealized projections. Its deeper nature lies in two people achieving self - improvement through emotional resonance. As Sternberg's "Triangular Theory of Love" suggests, the balance of passion, intimacy, and commitment constitutes complete love. However, love is transient and fluid. To last, it needs to evolve into a mutually supportive symbiotic relationship.

• The Nature of Marriage - Value Exchange and Responsibility Contract: Marriage is based on economic cooperation and social responsibility, much like a partnership. Both parties jointly bear risks, allocate resources, and are legally bound by property relations. As reflected in the Civil Code, about 90% of marriage law content involves property distribution, emphasizing the coordination of practical interests. Yet, marriage also requires emotional bonding. As Yang Jiang said, marriage needs the everyday rapport of "eating together, sleeping together, and chatting together".

The Tension Between Social Function and Individual Needs

• The Social Attributes of Marriage: Marriage serves social functions such as family reproduction and social stability. Traditionally, it regulated bloodline inheritance and property distribution to ensure family continuation. In modern society, individual value is more emphasized, but marriage still exists as an economic community. For example, lower - class marriages focus on continuing the family line, middle - class marriages seek life partners, and upper - class marriages aim for resource integration.

• The Privacy and Transcendence of Love: Love is often portrayed as a spiritual utopia detached from the secular world. As philosopher Kierkegaard said, love is the "fountain of possibility". But this idealization often dissolves in marriage. It requires a transition from passion to commitment and responsibility. For instance, in Eileen Chang's works, the metaphor of "the red rose and the white rose" illustrates this point.

Key Elements for Long - term Maintenance

• Cooperation and Evolution: Successful marriages require both parties to establish common goals, such as formulating a family five - year plan and sharing child - rearing responsibilities, forming a "comrade - in - arms" cooperative relationship. Marriage is not just an emotional connection but also requires continuous adaptation in values and lifestyle habits, accepting each other's low points.

• Dynamic Balance and Sense of Boundaries: It's crucial to maintain free space in marriage. Zhou Guoping believes that marriage should be the union of two independent individuals, not the extinction of personality and freedom. Moderate private spheres and joint growth can prevent the relationship from suffocating due to excessive entanglement.

Conflicts and Reflections on Contemporary Concepts

• The Contradiction Between System and Emotion: The marriage system emerged with private property. Its essence is the solidification of property relations, which inherently conflicts with the free nature of love. As Marx predicted, when social wealth is extremely abundant, marriage may be replaced by loose relationships based solely on love.

• Exploration of New - type Relationships: Modern people are experimenting with open relationships, contract marriages, and other models, reflecting a breakthrough from traditional marital and romantic views. However, regardless of the form, the key lies in whether both parties can find a balance between trust, loyalty, and self - fulfillment.

Conclusion: The essential difference between marriage and love lies in the fact that love is a "poetic" self - projection, while marriage is a "prose" - like real - life management. The two are neither opposed nor necessarily unified. Instead, they need to forge a new form of civilization in the tension between ideals and reality. As Russell pointed out in Marriage and Love, the secret to marital happiness is to "choose to grow together after recognizing the truth".