> there's not really such a thing as a bad marriage so much as selfish participants.
I think this is a pretty bold statement. Is it not possible that two people might just never be able to get along with each other, no matter how hard they try?
And I'm going to stand by it - I actually believe the statistics presented in the parent post and, would those two people (who "just might never be able to get along with each other") have discovered their incompatibility if they'd dated for more than a couple years?
> would those two people have discovered their incompatibility if they'd dated for more than a couple years?
Of course they would. But we were discussing arranged and religiously motivated marriages, where that opportunity might not be afforded. Is there still "no such thing as a bad marriage" even when you "marry strangers"?
I don't think we were discussing "religiously motivated" marriages but rather that a shared religion (presumably one that both participants had before the marriage) was an additional social pressure "like" arranged marriages.
In any case, I think that social pressure can be a pretty strong force and that it tends to counteract the sort of selfishness that leads to a "bad marriage". Of course bad marriages will statistically happen but I don't think you can claim the huge number of divorces we're seeing are all "bad marriages" - my premise is that many could be cured if both participants cared to work a bit.
How do we measure whether the amount of caring done was enough or not? Considering it varies based on personalities and other convincing capabilities of a partner, how do we know for sure apart from just getting information from the partners themselves who say that they tried a lot to make it work.
Its important to remember that there is lot of suffering involved when one of the partner keeps working due to societal pressure while the other continues to mistreat them. This is more prevalent in developing countries like India and China. There is only so much a person can try on their own(they cant stand shaming so dont share oppression with other family)
We don't measure it - I don't see this turning into a scientific study. I'm not suggesting that one party should be subjected to continued suffering when they're bound to a selfish person either. This is a definite down-side to societal pressure.
The other somewhat related topic is abuse victims. Even without societal pressure, they'll often convince themselves they deserve it and stay with their abuser.
I think this is a pretty bold statement. Is it not possible that two people might just never be able to get along with each other, no matter how hard they try?