Love is secondary to pragmatism

The argument

The argument makes its case by pointing to marriage practices in which romantic love is not what the arrangement is built on. In cultures that encourage polygamy — the marriage of one person to multiple spouses — the idea of a life partner (or life partners) is bolstered not by ideas of romantic love, but of pragmatism. For instance, the Maasai culture in Kenya practices polygamy, where it is considered a pragmatic decision in order to ease the pressure of running a household rather than placing it all on one wife. The reason given for the arrangement is a division of labour, so the institution is organised around what the household needs rather than around whom one has fallen in love with. A similar ethos underpins cultures that have arranged marriages. Arranged marriages are a pragmatic choice; they ensure both parties have similar values, families can screen for deal-breakers, and a level of compatibility is ensured. The selection is made on grounds that can be examined in advance by people other than the couple, which is possible only because the criteria are not private feelings. This is not to say that romantic notions of love have no place in polygamy or arranged marriages. True romantic love has been shown to grow in many arranged marriages and the divorce rate for arranged marriages is extremely low. Proponents treat that as the crucial finding rather than a concession: it suggests love can follow a well-chosen match rather than having to precede it, so beginning from compatibility does not cost a couple the feeling. However, love is not simply something that happens to us, but something we have a say in; pragmatism should be the main consideration when forming the foundation of lifelong love. Which consideration comes first is settled by culture rather than by nature.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The examples establish variation in the institution of marriage, and the position is about the emotion. Polygamous household arrangements among the Maasai and the practice of arranged marriage show that societies differ in how partnerships are formed and what considerations govern them — kinship, economics, household labour, family standing. None of that shows that what people feel differs, only that different cultures assign different weight to feeling when deciding whom to marry. The cross-cultural evidence points the other way on the emotion itself. The standard anthropological survey of the question found evidence of romantic love in the overwhelming majority of the societies sampled, spanning every region and every marriage system — which suggests a near-universal experience whose institutional role varies rather than a culturally constructed notion. The argument also concedes the point mid-way. It grants that romantic love commonly grows within arranged marriages, which describes the same emotion arriving through a different route — evidence for universality of the feeling, not for its cultural specificity. The supporting statistic is weak as well: low divorce rates in societies that arrange marriages are confounded by legal barriers to divorce, social stigma and women's economic dependence, so they are poor evidence about love or satisfaction within those marriages. The closing sentence, finally, switches register entirely — from describing what different cultures do to prescribing that pragmatism *should* be the main consideration, which is a different claim than the position states.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Polygamous household arrangements show variation in the institution of marriage rather than in the emotion; the standard cross-cultural survey found evidence of romantic love in the large majority of societies sampled. [Rejecting P2] Low divorce rates in arranged-marriage societies are confounded by legal barriers, stigma and economic dependence, and the concession that love grows within such marriages describes the same emotion arriving by a different route.