Is marriage an out dated institution?

I don't think so! There's something to be said about meeting that very special someone and spending the rest of your lives exclusively together.

What a mess it's become.

Outdated? By no means. At risk of sounding like a Bible banger, there's a verse in the NT that says "the twain shall become one flesh". Ideally, that can happen but, as anybody with a long-term, happy marriage knows, it takes work.

These days lots of people dispose of the ceremony and just shack up. If there is commitment then I don't see a lot of difference between such a relationship and a marriage. The problem comes if that commitment is not found.  Mrs Didge and I tied the knot in 1960 and the promises we made were to each other. We honour those promises. "For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health..." seems to cover all the likely problems.

In practical terms, the divorce rate is close to 50% in both the US and Oz (I haven't check the UK's stats) and, while that aberration exists there is clearly little difference between those people who want to legitimise their particular form of serial polygamy and those who don't.

I will be celebrating my 19th wedding anniversary in January. That should tell you I do not think it is outdated. I just think too many people think when it gets hard, that it is over. It isn't. It just means you need to work at it.

I was at an 60th anniversary party last month for my husband's aunt and uncle. After the party was over, family was hanging around talking. Aunt Vera said even though her marriage now is good and they truly love and need each other, the first 20 years of her marriage was awful. (Uncle Bill was a drinker and a brawler.) She said she thought about leaving, but didn't want to end up like her sister, my mother-in-law. She is the epitome of how to make a marriage fail. She has four failled marriages, but that is a whole other story.

Marriage takes work and many people don't understand or know how to do that. Divorces in the US became easier in the 60s and 70s so women could get out of abusive, but unfortunately others have used it as an easy out when things get tough. Some people think in a good marriage that people don't fight, They don't scream or yell. The truth is you do. You shouldn't be screaming and yelling everyday, but on occasion, you do. Sometimes that emphasis is what makes the spouse take what you have been trying to say for awhile. 

For what it is worth, in my early 30s I decided I never wanted to get married. I was planning my life as a single person. I met my husband at the age of 33. I figured he would be a fling. Within weeks he told me he was going to marry me. I told if he was looking for marriage he needed to move on because I wasn't getting married.Three months later we were engaged and married a year after that. As I said that was nearly 19 years ago.

If you give a young child a choice between 3 quarters and a one dollar bill, you can pretty well guarantee he will choose the quarters because there is a dimension of value that he just doesn't comprehend.

Anyone who does not believe in the sacramental nature of marriage and the existence of a God who established it as a sacrament just doesn't have all the pieces of the puzzle and probably will not experience the level of joy that is attainable in such a marriage.

Of course, you won't miss what you don't know is there, and love IS nature's psychotherapy, and a good marriage is rewarding even if you do believe in a God,  but it's the old story---if you understand, no explanation is necessary; if you don't, no explanation is possible.