From the Times Literary Supplement:<\/p>\n
Marriage has served a crucial function in human society: it has been the means by which the male half of the species has been hooked into providing substantial amounts of goods and services to the offspring they engender, a duty from which their close relatives, the male chimps and gorillas, have been exempt. Human males have been burdened with this duty as a result of human cleverness. As we started wearing clothing, building shelters, using difficult-to-manufacture tools, herding animals, and moving into colder climates, human children needed more than they could get from just their mothers. The institution of marriage responded to this need with a pledge by a man to make contributions on a long-term basis to a woman and her children. In return he got her domestic services, plus a promise of exclusive sexual access, which gave him assurance that he had sired her children.<\/p>\n
There has always been more to marriage than material provision to offspring. There\u2019s nurturance, companionship, stability, passing down of property, family alliances, home cooking. And, of course, there\u2019s love. Ay, there\u2019s the rub \u201d\u201c love is notoriously changeable. The increased freedom in the modern world to follow one\u2019s heart wherever it leads has led some to an avoidance of new commitments and many to exits from previous ones.<\/p>\n