Do you really need love to marry and stay married?

So what you are reading now is like a song off Asa’s 2011 album, “Beautiful Imperfection.” The song is titled ‘Questions’ and like the music goddess in that track, I really do have loads of questions in this piece.

Why, for starters, do we even need to love someone before marrying them? Given how everyone grew up with the belief that love is paramount for any marriage to thrive, it must feel strange that anyone would now question that long-standing idea, yeah? But come to think of it, what if love is really not that important? It’s just a question, really. And sometimes, the truth of the things we believe in need to be tested.

When people are being advised along relationship and marriage lines, they are often asked to marry their friends, someone they have become very acquainted to, someone who understands them so well. The reason for this, they often say, is because at some point, that gish gish feeling that makes people giddy at the beginning of a marriage will peter out, dissipate or disappear completely. When that time comes, and it appears that it always does, people say it is your friendship that will power you through and keep you together.

So, if friendship is the real bond that really, truly binds a marriage together in the long run, why then does anyone need love in the first instance? Why can’t I just marry my good friend, someone I understand, can absolutely live with but have no feelings for?

Why is love held up in such high regard when it is widely said and believed that love is not enough to keep a marriage? Why is love such an important criterion when it has proven over and over again to be inept at keeping marital relationships together?

Afterall, people claim to love each every time, yet they marry and bitterly break apart few months into the marriage.

Consider what people’s greatest marriage needs are - companionship, great sex, financial stability, friendship, ‘liveability’ [ability to live together peacefully], procreation.

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Each and everyone of these things can happen beautifully with someone you do not love. Think about it, do you really need love to love someone to be a great companion? I think not. All you need is great communication skill. Financial stability needs no love, same with liveability and all others including great sex!

You do not need to love someone to have mindblowing sex with them over and over again. Please disregard all that bullcrap you heard about sex being extra lit just because you love the person you are doing it with. If that’s true, why do married people go out to get it? Why do people in love and people with great relationships go out to get it? Sexual chemistry is independent of love. You could love someone from here to the moon and back and the sex will always be trash. And you may not love someone but whenever your bodies connect, sparks fly from your location to Timbuktu.

The point being made here is that if love is not even needed for all these important marital needs, what then is really its need? Why is it always sung as a prerequisite to happy marriages?

I’ve heard people say that if a partner has everything you need for a thriving marriage but you’re not in love with that person, you’re going to feel an emptiness… they say there would be no spark, no butterflies in the belly. Apparently, that’s love.

But then, we also know that love is not a feeling, no? We also know that the butterflies don’t live forever in your stomach, and the sparks don’t fly forever. When those initial feelings fizzle out, it’s friendship, a sense of duty and responsibility and all those other stuff mentioned above, which are all attainable without love that will remain. So, like I asked above, why then is love so big a deal?

Some may even say love is what makes it easy to do all the things mentioned above with someone, but then again, people with besties of the opposite sex will tell you how devoted, how responsible they feel and how close they get with such friends, despite that relationship being void of romantic emotions.

These are my contemplations; and even as I wind down this piece, I am still as conflicted as I was before I began writing this.

I still do not know which holds more merit, that idea in the first paragraph or what we have all been socialized to believe above love and marriages since childhood.

You can let your opinions be known in the comments section below though. Let's talk about this!__________________ is a weekly columnthat aims at explaining modern relationship practices, and tries to demystify relationship myths while proffering useful advice for stronger relationships and modern marriages. You can read other articles