Expecting familiarity rather than passion matches what long marriages supply

The argument

A second argument offered for this explanation is that modest expectations are not merely easier to satisfy but more accurate. Proponents observe that whatever a marriage is like at the start, long marriages converge on something similar: a shared household, a division of labour, accumulated knowledge of another person's habits, and an attachment with more in common with kinship than with courtship. Intensity of the early kind is not sustained in either sort of marriage, they argue, which is a fact about people rather than a criticism of anyone. The argument is that a couple who expected familiarity from the beginning are not disappointed when familiarity is what arrives. They have the thing they were promised, and they recognise it as the thing. A couple who expected the early intensity to continue encounter the same familiarity and experience it as loss, and may conclude that something has gone wrong with the marriage when what has happened is ordinary. Proponents argue that this misreading, rather than any difference in how the couples actually live, accounts for much of the difference in how such marriages are described and in how long they last. Holders of this explanation usually enter two qualifications. The first is that the argument is about expectation rather than about affection: nothing in it says that a marriage begun modestly contains less love, and those who defend it often claim the opposite, that affection built on long familiarity is sturdier than affection that preceded acquaintance. The second is that accurate expectations are no protection against a bad match, and a marriage can be exactly what both parties expected and still be one that neither should have entered.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Opponents accept that intensity fades and deny that this vindicates low expectations. Expecting little, they argue, is a poor route to an accurate picture, since it is right about the destination for the wrong reason and is equally right about marriages that are failing. They also dispute the account of interpretation: couples who expected a great deal frequently revise what they expect as they go, which describes long marriages better than a single expectation held from the start. Others object that the explanation assumes the presupposition of the question rather than testing it.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Convergence on familiarity is a general tendency rather than a rule, and many long marriages retain an intensity the premise treats as unavailable. [Rejecting P3] Interpretation is not fixed at the outset, since expectations are revised continually within a marriage, which weakens the link between the starting expectation and the later reading. [Rejecting C] An expectation can be accurate about the destination and still be a poor guide, since the same modest expectation fits a marriage that is going badly.