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Cause love takes time
And it’s hard to find
You got­ta take some time
To let love grow. — accord­ing to the band, Orleans

As Frank Sinatra sang to us,

Love and mar­riage, love and mar­riage
They go togeth­er like a horse and car­riage
This I tell you, broth­er
You can’t have one with­out the oth­er.*

In 1955 this song res­onat­ed with a lot of peo­ple and was a big hit for Sinatra and then Dinah Shore, even win­ning an Emmy in 1956 for Best Musical Contribution. Would it fare as well today?

If these 5 respons­es from Quora​.com are rep­re­sen­ta­tive, I would have to say that peo­ple are less will­ing to lump love and mar­riage togeth­er so inex­tri­ca­bly:

Navneeta Pathak, Navneeta Pathak, Happily mar­ried.
Written Jul 5, 2014
Short answer -

Not nec­es­sar­i­ly.

Long answer -

Love to me is when you want to spend your imper­fect life with an imper­fect per­son, because you pre­fer this imper­fect­ness over any­thing else. It is about nev­er hav­ing to be alone, share love, anger, sad­ness and hap­pi­ness and life togeth­er.

Marriage, on the oth­er hand, is a social con­cept, which I guess was made to sta­bi­lize com­mu­ni­ties by ensur­ing and enforc­ing the con­cept of fam­i­lies.

So, in today’s world, if 2 peo­ple are in love and want to spend their lives togeth­er, it nat­u­ral­ly implies mar­riage. This is what the soci­ety expects and accepts.
Though, it total­ly on the cou­ple how they want to spend their lives togeth­er, whether it’s mar­riage or just live-​in rela­tion­ship, still some­where the soci­ety looks down upon them in a way. This is worse in India. And this is despite the fact that live-​in rela­tion­ships have the same rights as a mar­riage by the court of law.

Personally, I think, it depends on the cou­ple on how they want to live your life.

Absence of mar­riage is just the absence of a legal doc­u­ment that binds 2 peo­ple togeth­er; it does not imply absence of a lov­ing rela­tion­ship.

FYI, some famous cou­ples who nev­er got mar­ried:
Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn — togeth­er since 1983
Oprah Winfrey & Stedman Graham — togeth­er since 1986
Susan Sarandon & Tim Robbins — 1988–2009

NJ Uldum
NJ Uldum, 10yrs as mis­sus to a mis­ter.
Written Jul 4, 2014
I assume you mean, if you love your part­ner, should you want to get mar­ried as opposed to liv­ing as de fac­to part­ners.

I’ve been liv­ing with my part­ner for 6 years, we’ve been togeth­er for near­ly 8. We cur­rent­ly have no plans to mar­ry. We have a 2.5yr old daugh­ter, are buy­ing our first home togeth­er… All that oth­er nor­mal stuff.

I nev­er want­ed to get mar­ried. I am a child of divorced par­ents, and the prospect of hav­ing a rela­tion­ship end like that was ter­ri­fy­ing for me. I also nev­er want­ed chil­dren, adamant that peo­ple who pro­cre­ate for the sake of pro­cre­at­ing are one of the biggest prob­lems in the world (and tho it makes me a hyp­ocrite, I still do think that). But now all these years lat­er, after being VERY sur­prised with our preg­nan­cy and all of the oth­er chal­lenges we’ve faced… I admit, I would like to get mar­ried. I’d like to be able to share a last name, for there to be no ques­tion of what hap­pens if one of us should die, or if some­thing were to hap­pen to our daugh­ter. I want to wear a pret­ty dress and stand in front of our par­ents and for­mal­ly make us a fam­i­ly. It kills me to say it, real­ly — I’m this pro­gres­sive, left­ie, mod­ern, edu­cat­ed fem­i­nist, and I feel like I should be above tra­di­tion. But I sup­pose some tra­di­tion is valid, and works to strength­en you in some way, whether that be through your rela­tion­ships or per­haps just your resolve.

So to answer your ques­tion, does love = mar­riage? I don’t think it has to, espe­cial­ly in this day & age. Living as two inde­pen­dent peo­ple in a de fac­to rela­tion­ship is pos­si­ble and prob­a­bly prefer­able for a lot of peo­ple. But as some­one who is cur­rent­ly liv­ing that way, I would say that it is more than love that leads to mar­riage. I’ve been in love a cou­ple of times in my life, and I’ve only ever want­ed to mar­ry the man I am with now. Love is the foun­da­tion yes, but mar­riage is about a rela­tion­ship, and any good rela­tion­ship is more than love. It’s friend­ship, fun, secu­ri­ty, com­pan­ion­ship, build­ing a life togeth­er. Love plus a work­ing, hap­py, healthy rela­tion­ship should lead to mar­riage, even if it takes 8 years, a baby and a lot of work to get there.

Karol Thornton-​Remiszewski, Karol Thornton-​Remiszewski, at age 50+, I dare say I’ve “been there, done that”
Written Jul 7, 2016
Whether love nec­es­sar­i­ly means, implies or neces­si­tates mar­ry­ing one’s part­ner depends what kind of love you mean. But if you are talk­ing about hav­ing a sex­u­al rela­tion­ship, I would con­tend that it should mean mar­riage, because sex can (and, I would main­tain, should) sym­bol­ize each part­ner giv­ing the oth­er all of their yes­ter­days, all of their todays and all of their tomor­rows, their entire spir­it, soul and body only and exclu­sive­ly to each oth­er.

This total com­mit­ment should be under­tak­en in advance (and before wit­ness­es, for account­abil­i­ty), after appro­pri­ate dis­cus­sion of how the part­ners will build a sus­tain­able rela­tion­ship and grow togeth­er (the point being that if you mar­ry, you in prin­ci­ple give up the free­dom to pur­sue per­son­al growth options that would result in your grow­ing away from your part­ner, unless it turns out that the rela­tion­ship is patho­log­i­cal­ly flawed and there is no way to repair it).

I would view sex used in any oth­er con­text except that kind of total com­mit­ment as… falling short. And I believe in being ide­al­is­tic about that — not set­tling.

Pati Baumberger, Pati Baumberger, Graphic Designer
Written Jul 14, 2014

But let me clar­i­fy this right now…love does not mean mar­riage, nec­es­sar­i­ly or oth­er­wise. I have seen many cou­ples who are unmar­ried, been togeth­er for years and in love, and I’ve seen mar­ried cou­ples who don’t even love each oth­er, and yet they are still mar­ried. I have, of course, seen mar­ried cou­ples who are actu­al­ly in love. But I’d say that out of the peo­ple I’ve per­son­al­ly met, their sit­u­a­tions vary even­ly, there’s no over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of “in love and mar­ried” so I’d have to say the words love and mar­riage are not inter­change­able.

Becky Blair
Written Jul 10, 2014
Thank you for the A2A. Marriage is only one of many options avail­able to pub­licly demon­strate a lov­ing rela­tion­ship. I don’t believe it should be required in order to have a mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ship. There may be cer­tain legal ben­e­fit avail­able from a civ­il union that may not be afford­ed to unmar­ried cou­ples like tax ben­e­fits, insur­ance ben­e­fits, inher­i­tance, med­ical deci­sions, bur­ial deci­sions, and sur­vivor­ship ben­e­fits to name a few.

Notwithstanding the above, many com­mit­ted and lov­ing cou­ples have found ways to obtain the above with good pre-​planning through lawyers and finan­cial plan­ners and have not felt a need to have a civ­il or reli­gious cer­e­mo­ny.

The per­cent­age of unmar­ried cou­ples liv­ing togeth­er has increased ten-​fold, from slight­ly more than one per­cent of all cou­ples in 1960 to near­ly 12 per­cent in 2011. 

*lyrics by Sammy Cahn and music by Jimmy Van Heusen

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