Love and marriage

After Jane Austen, I became a fan of classics. Wordsmiths of the bygone era are the true masters at capturing the complexities of human emotions.

Spoiler alert
In The Age of Innocence, Archer, a gentleman from an upper class family, led a seemingly charmed life. He is young and successful as a lawyer. He got engaged to a girl with similar upper class roots. His life is perfect according to society standards. All of these were destined for an upset. Whilst engaged, he met and fell in love with his fiancee's cousin, who is on the verge of a divorce. At that time, going against social norms like having a public divorce is considered quite scandalous. So is breaking an engagement with the perfect girl and eloping with another.

As the readers are poised to receive news that Archer is about to throw away his life, he married the "right girl". Archer and his wife led peaceful but diverging lives. When Archer met his love once again, he made the decision to leave his wife. Then his wife announced her inopportune pregnancy.

26 years later, Archer's son told his father of what he thought of his parents' relationship.

"You never did ask each other anything, did you? And you never told each other anything. You just sat and watched each other, and guessed at what was going on underneath. A deaf-and-dumb asylum, in fact! Well, I back your generation for knowing more about each other's private thoughts than we ever have time to find out about our own."

Is this a tragedy of not marrying for love? But will love really ensure the sustainability of a marriage?
I have always thought other factors like compatibility, having a common family background, common goals, values etc make for a better relationship than just love. Love is just a bonus? Archer may have a "what if" in his life, but the relationship with his lady love is destined to be despised by family and society. For Archer, a man so used to a smooth sailing life, I cannot imagine him enduring hardships at all.

One would ask: Aren't Archer and his wife compatible? Well, their intellectual inclinations were not on par. Archer wants change, whilst his wife prefers status quo. Both of them could hardly see eye to eye. They just ignored each other on that count.

My theory now is, look for compatibility, love will ensue.