Clara asked:

My family is pushing me to get married arguing that I'm old and I should find someone. Is there any
philosophical solution to this problem?

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I once wrote:

Commitment to moral dialogue binds us together as social, moral beings. Nothing, finally, exhibits
that fact more starkly than the custom of two individuals solemnly agreeing to share the rest of their
lives together, 'for better or for worse'. Between the partners of a marriage there is no accepted buffer
zone of 'tolerant' indifference; arguably, an essential ingredient in the cement of human society at
large.

I have to be prepared to justify each and any of my actions to you — at least, those which impinge on
you or the children, which is near about all — as you have to be prepared to justify each and any of
your actions to me. More than that, each of us must answer to what has become of our life — the life
we planned, or dreamed, dreams brought to fruition or which we sorrowfully failed to bring to fruition,
a life racked and riven by painful adjustments and renunciations on both sides, coloured by the
resentment over lost hopes and opportunities, periodically and continually thrown into question as if
we were free to start with a blank sheet when in truth there seems precious little room for anything but
the occasional marginal scribble. Yet for all that, you are my truest 'thou' (in the popular phrase, my
'significant other') and to break off our dialogue now, after all that has gone before, would be to
choose a spiritual death. — Is a form of human society conceivable that did not have choice of
relationshipat its core? Would it be possible for all moral dialogue to be conducted 'safely', at arms
length? — Such a society would surely be a society without a centreat all.

Pathways Program E. Moral Philosophy Reason, Values and ConductUnit 10

Must we choose relationship? And, if we must, must that choice entail marriage?

It is a question I have agonized about. There was a time when I seemed to be heading for confirmed,
contented batcherlorhood. My mother and father, my sister the Rabbi and my other sister the
psychotherapist persistently, gently and not so gently, kept up the pressure. It would be wrong to say
I caved in. I came to see that I was not so content with my self-sufficient life as I had thought. I met
someone, and I chose relationship.

I am talking as if marriage (I include same-sex marriages) is the only possible form of relationship
choice. But it is not. There are many parents who are glad that their grown up children continue to live
with them, and that is a choice of relationship that can be positive and valuable for both sides. Yet
there remains the very real fear on the parents' side of what will happen to their offspring after they
have gone. If you have chosen to live with your parents, you still have to look to the future.

I have a number of students, male and female, who have made the firm decision not to marry. They
have full lives. (They have a lot more time for activities outside work, which seems to account for the
large proportion who have time to study philosophy!) They enjoy romantic relationships, but not
permanent ones. In my heart of hearts, I cannot find fault with that solution.

Kierkegaard's advice, in Either-Or,to a young man contemplating marriage is, 'If you marry, you will
regret it. If you do not marry, you will regret it.' If one is so inclined, one will always find cause for
regret. The thing to do is decide, one way or another, with the determination never to look back.

Geoffrey Klempner