Is Marriage the Holy Grail for Happiness?

In their book, Our Knowledge of the Precepts of the Natural Law, John Finnis and Alasdair MacIntyre mused about what they referred to as the “marital good.” Is marriage simply an amalgam of various other goods, or services such as friendship, procreation, romance, domestic responsibilities, or is it really an autonomous distinct, analytically separable, and objective value?

Mandy Len Catron, in her article; What You Lose When You Gain a Spouse, asked: What if marriage is not the social good that so many believe and want it to be?

You might be aware that losing a life partner sometimes literally results in a heartbreak that can kill, and some budhists, and stoics even question whether attachment is in one’s best interest. Add to this the notion that what we anecdotally refer to as love is a biochemical addition to a drug we call our significant other.

If you want to be happy in this world without strife, never partner with the person you love for life.

If you want you to be happy for the rest of your life, get some loyal friends who value you.

So why not substitute loyalty, an objectively valuable good with the subjective notion of love, which…