A debate

Since a very long time i've been mulling this over. I seem to reach an answer sometimes, but the contradicting side takes over again.. Flexible that i am, both ends manage to pull me towards them at a leisurely pace.. As if they know that both have me at their beck and call.
This could well be a very old debate, but i had to put it on. Though it has a part of the unstable atom, i somehow felt it deserves to be here than there.

So whats the deal about a marriage? Why is it that most of us want to get married to the person we love? Leave aside the societal restrictions etc. they are hardly of any concern. But is it because of that conditioning that we want to get married to the guy/girl we love? i doubt. i guess we just feel that if the other person truely loves us then they will be willing to get themselves in this contract of sorts. That they will be willing to commit to us in front of the whole wide world.
Now the question comes of the period after two people are married. They have to do things as a husband or wife that are "expected" of them. Then whether they love each other or not. Wether they feel like doing those things or not. They HAVE TO, since they are married. Many times people don't, and then the relationship becomes dysfunctional, something starts rotting within the strands. Do they really stick to what they feel? Do they really mean marriage? Sometimes i feel they just move away from the real meaning of marriage, people get married without knowing what it really is and end up messing everything up.

In the other case, if two people really love each other, and they do not get married, they live with each other of their own free will, with no contract, no obligations binding them to each other, but their own true feelings and free will, then will there be any pressure of compulsorily "having to" things for the other? Of having to oblige to certain things against one's desire, only because they are married? no there will not be. Isn't something done voluntarily by a person much more pure and valueable than something done under compulsion?

But then again people get married cause they love each other, however after a certain period that too turns into something that none wanted, only cause they have to do things which they don't want to, but have to. On top of that they are led to believe that they want those things!!

I've tried to find a reason behind marriage, i still believe it is something pure, its love at such a high that two people are willing to spend their whole lives with each other, and not look at any other alluring being around! They are willing to give up many things when they tie the knot. But then do you really want to take love to that high, bind it completely, cut its wings off and keep it as your pet? Do you really want a bird whose wings you have cut, only to go back home every night and find it lying in some corner of your house, whimpering inside, aching to break free, but not being able to. Do you want to get married only to have someone to fall back on? Someone who is there only because they don't have any other choice? only cause of the strands which you have imposed on each other? which have bound the two so badly that the threads now cut into the flesh, and hence cannot be freed? Wouldn't it be better to just have a tiny birdy flying about your head when you come back? To sing to you a soothing song of free love? To rest of your shoulder of its own accord? and just stay :)

I wonder what is better.. the knowledge that your significant other is going to be there cause you have married him/her or the fact that someone is always going to walk with you only cause they really love you, and are there only cause they want to be. :)