For Time and for All Eternity

The concept of eternal marriage as an explicitly instituted union is, as far as I know (which admittedly is not terribly far), an idea unique to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Other churches or religions may think of a marriage covenant extending beyond this life or may not limit their marriage vows to this life only, but to my, again admittedly limited, knowledge only the LDS Church explicitly teaches that God intends that marriages performed in sacred temples last forever.

As a point of doctrine, eternal marriage has appealed to couples who have viewed their love for each other as so powerful and enduring that it was difficult to conceive of its ending with life on this earth.  As an expression of depth of feeling it  has found its way into popular culture with songs expressing everlasting love or proclamations of loving someone always and forever and the fairy tale ending of a couple living happily ever after. 

Those popular sentiments have endured even in our modern culture of cohabitation rather than marriage and common divorce among married couples.  But I have seen a small but growing number of discussions of "natural" limits to the term of a marriage. Most recently I was reading an article relating to Gwyenth Paltrow's impending divorce when I came across this passage:  

Paltrow helpfully followed up her initial announcement by posting a 2,000-word treatise on conscious uncoupling from Habib Sadeghi and Sherry Sami, a married couple living in Los Angeles.  (Dr. Sadeghi is an osteopathic doctor who runs an “integrative health center” called “Be Hive of Healing,” pun presumably intended, and whose book Within: A Spiritual Awakening to Love and Weight Loss contains a foreword written by Paltrow. His wife is a dentist.)

Sadeghi and Sami begin by explaining that given rapidly accelerating life expectancy, these days it’s unrealistic to expect that we’ll be able to stick it out until death do us part, which suggests we “ought to redefine the construct” of marriage.

“Our biology and psychology aren’t set up to be with one person for four, five, or six decades,” they write.

 This idea, that we as human beings are not designed for prolonged marriage to one person, is a relatively recent idea (at least to my knowledge).  Certainly forty or fifty years ago when the divorce rate was much lower and the marriage rate much higher, there was not much talk about humans' natural inability to be with one person for four five or six decades. 

This entire idea it seems to me is a case of pseudo science running to the aid of societal changes.  Expressions of our natural inability to be with one person for our entire lives are calculated to justify decisions to separate and divorce.  "Don't feel bad about splitting up regardless of the reason.  It's only natural and expected."  This is yet another example of how our popular culture is undermining the family unit by supporting people in following their momentary desires and urges regardless of the effect it might have on others.