I find it both funny and sad how people treat the idea of marriage.
How they confuse the ideal of a life long partnership as if it's a standard.
Back in hunter-gathering times, lives did not often last into the 80's and 90's like they do now.
Women began bearing children at younger ages than they do today, which means that they mated at younger ages than today. These mates were often in positions of life-threatening danger. The females were often at risk of dying due to complications in child-birth.
What this means is that mates were often parted far sooner than the modern "ideal" of a partnership lasting 40+ years. And new mates would be found.
Some older cultures would create limited term partnerships for the purpose of bearing and raising children. If no children sprang from the partnership after 1-2 years or so, the partnership would end and both parties would resume their previous life and/or find someone else to partner with.
Please don't neglect how this fits into evolution. I seriously doubt there is anything akin to a 'life-long marriage gene' in human dna. And any gene passing would have occurred long before the 40+ years of marriage was reached. So a prospective mate wouldn't have a clue if the other person had the genetic traits that might lead to a partnership lasting 40+ years. Nor was looking at the grand-parent's partnership helpful in making that determination, as the grand-parents were likely either long dead, or went through 1+ more mates due to deaths. And the parents have likely only been able to be together for 14-20 years. A significant difference from the ideal of a 40+ years partnership.
I also find it funny/sad that these people who confuse the ideal as a standard will bring up examples to support these ideals...forgetting that these examples are unique, not the standard.
And for those who ignore that marriage is a partnership, similar to a business partnership, I wonder if you're willing to spend the rest of your life with your business/job, forsaking all others, including hobbies.
If your business/job partnership ended...does that mean you didn't try hard enough to keep it going? Or maybe it's because the partnership no longer served the purposes you had hoped it would. MtDew...within this context, I believe you have multiple partnerships going, rather than sticking with one true partnership for the course of the rest of your life. Am I right?