marriage

With the rise of the novel came the rise of interiority: people wanted not only to marry, but to be understood . The Romantic era took this further, turning love into a secular religion. It was no longer enough to find a spouse, one had to find a soulmate . Commitment was no longer a duty, now it had to be poetic, redemptive, symphonic.

In this way, commitment becomes the deepest manifestation of freedom, not its enemy. To stay, not because you must, not because you fear the alternative, but because you want to, is an act of liberation. It is not submission; it is autonomy in duet.

Plato saw love as a ladder toward the divine, a disruption meant to elevate. Commitment, meanwhile, was social glue: a civic duty, a property contract, a family alliance.