COMMITMENT VS LOVE

Human relationship is a quagmire. That's a cynical statement but it's not quite far from how man has come to interact with his/her own specie.

The twentieth century has ushered us into a plethora of cultural upheavals. Civil Rights, Femenism, Sexual Revolution, Human Rights, Free Market and Globalization, and the multiple consequences of the dawining of Information Technology. These factors hugely shaped the evolution of how the individual person relate with his/her fellow man and woman. And that does not exempt how romantic relationships are being contracted. We saw a rise in non-marital partnership, the idea that men are commitment-phobic has become a popular notion, and the women's willingness to accept the role of a single parent became common. This is where the religious people would start freaking out and frantically ask "What has become of the world?". As is commonly quipped by many, "Times have changed".

The primary contract among two individuals in a romantic relationship is marriage. And the two most potent binding factors of marriage is commitment and love. These very two factors themselve have been subject to the cultural upheavals discussed earlier.

The traditional romantic ideal is that individuals must love each other to commit themselves to marriage. But recent cultural developments challenges this very notion. The meaning and the way commitment and love are seen and practiced today has evolved. No longer is love necessarrily a prerequesite to marriage as evident in the phenomenon of mail-to-order brides and internet match-making sites. In the same way, no longer is commitment to marriage necessarily the ultimate resolution when two individuals are engaged in a love relationship, as statistics in the non-marital partnership and divorce practice indicates. The question that must be ask then is... Where are we going to draw the moral lines amidst these changes?

In love relationships, commitment is deemed a sacred pledge to devote one's self to a loved one. Initially, that pledge is sacred simply because you risk all your trust to another individual without conditions except your the promise of mutual love and respect. But when religion comes in, that commitment is converted into a vow during the wedding ceremony. The simple pledge between two individuals is now being brought into the altar of matrimonial intricacies. What is once a sacred promise between two people who love each other is now a holy vow of a couple before a church and its doctrine. Commitment is further complicated after the with the signing of the Marriage Contract. This is where the once sacred pledge between two individuals is made into a legal contract. This is where the state and the legal system intervenes with the love relationship of two individuals. Marriage then is not anymore a sacred pledge between two people in love but a vow before a church and a legal contract before the law.

Commitment within the framework of ultimateness of marriage has a lot of assumptions. It assumes of unconditional and unfaltering love. It assumes that love can conquer all odds faced by a loving couple. It assumes that individuals must be in a union to promote love within the new family. And the greatest assumption is... it assumes that all couples who enter into marriage are truly in-love. Unfortunately, not only once have more than one of these assumptions been debunct by the hard reality of life.

Meanwhile, love remains to be the single most potent factor of a successful relationship. Time and again, generations have born withness to the miracle that love can do to make relationships work despite momentuous odds. But in many of these successses, commitment in the context of marriage is not the main factor. Instead, there is not only one case wherein marriage corrupts the meaning of love. It is then only right to say that in seeking to have a healthy and happy relationship, it is not necessary to uphold a contract that only constricts love in the passage of time. The more meaningful recipe for a successful relationship is not a vow or a legal contract but the loving couples living love for one another.

Times have changed indeed yet it is still the same force that makes sense of all the changes. And that force is Love.
Glennrey M. Agad and Tropang Smile Again (TSA)

commitment vs. love

we can't be commited if we are not in love...too hard to weigh...

importante p din ang na magkasama ang love at commitment...

poverty was became the main reason why some of us choose to commit into marriage with out love.
They dont choose it,it chose them,that is the sad truth about love vs commitment .may narinig nga ako minsan nagsabi ng ganito "ang love napagaaralan pero ang kumukulong ckmura di matuturuan wag makaramdam ng gutom",nakakalungkot pero yan ang katotohanan