Marriage is a social contract negotiated between two people who generally have only a partially overlapping set of expectations. It is also symbolic and percieved by some as a mystical union, a bonding of souls (whatever a soul is). If it were regarded merely as a practical social device we might have more realistic expectations of the realities that continually pervade marriage, but the symbolic, intangible, mystical aspects continually invade our perceptions. I think our definition of marriage gets conflated with our confused conception of humanity and what it means to be human. Thus there is inevitably a religious element to our construction of what is in actuality nothing more than a convenient binding agreement between two people. You can make as many arguments as you like concerning the complex reasons for which particular people choose to be together on that level, but you can also reassess every one of those reasons through a filter of pragmatism with the same results.

Marriage is nice, and it's even nicer when you don't put unecessary strain on the relationship by thinking you've merged with your 'soul mate' and that two people become one.

I agree. I've met a handful of people in my life who could have potentially been my "soul mate." I'm not a big believer in there being only one person out there for each of us.

My husband and I have the same goals and dreams. We want to be moderately successful and raise a family. We want to retire on the Texas Gulf Coast. We want to eat good food, see a good movie now and then and fall asleep reading every night. This is how we live. And we both enjoy it. Reasonable to think we'd have an easy time being married to one another.