Culture: Why Marry?

I'm enjoying the occasional visit over to Boundless: the line.

Here is a recent item that caught my eye.

As a single guy, I do wonder if my views of marriage are excessively idealistic and thus may have made attainment of marriage an idol and essentially impossible?

Here are some excerpts from the blog post by Denise Morris:

As I look at my own life and also the attitudes of my single friends, I have to agree with these sociologists. I think we have overly-idealized what marriage is and should be. We expect the person we marry to be perfect, we desire a romantic story to describe how we met, and we hold out forever in search of "the one." The idea of personal choice has been idolized in Western society, and I think it has definitely affected the way we think about marriage. It causes us to delay getting married until we think we'll be supremely happy with that choice.
..........
Now, I am not saying that you should run out and marry the next person you meet. I do think there's a lot of wisdom, discernment and prayer involved in choosing a spouse. You don't want to marry any jerk who comes along. However, I do think we should approach marriage in a way that causes us to ponder how this relationship will glorify God instead of how it will be most pleasing to me.

I have been trying to gain a more realistic view of marriage and a little while ago, I was thumbing through my hardly used copy of the Presbyterian Church USA Book of Confessions and came across the entry on marriage within the Westminster Confession of Faith. Excerpt:

I. Marriage is to be between one man and one woman: neither is it lawful for any man to have more than one wife, nor for any woman to have more than one husband at the same time.

II. Marriage was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife; for the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue, and of the Church with an holy seed; and for preventing of uncleanness.

You must remember the Westminster Confession was written in 1646 so the wording sounds a bit strange.

Point #1 is pretty clear: One man with one woman at any one time.

Point #2 is could use a bit of updating into 21st Century language! How about this:

Marriage was intended for the benefit of both husband and wife; for the propagation of children and raising them within the family of faith; and for the moral protection and growth of all involved.

One wonders if the decline of marriage within America and even within American religious communities could be traceable to the decline in "creedal" and "old fashioned" understanding of marriage and the acceptance of the self-fulfilment ethos of this age?