Companionship Is Underrated

People partner up and get married for a variety of reasons, ranging from the practical, financial benefits to transcendent, romantic love. But over time, for whatever reason, we have decided that the latter is the purest form of partnership. Particularly in the U.S, many often cast some judgment on people who don’t marry for romantic love. We even have a name for it—“marriage of convenience”—that carries an implication of being less than. Instead of being built on a solid foundation of love, marriages of convenience are seen as settling or even unfulfilling.

But what if our notion of love-match marriages being superior is misguided? Love is, of course, a wonderful thing to have and share, but there are so many ways to show care and commitment that don’t include romantic partnership. It’s time to recognize the value in non-romantic partnerships that may be as supportive—if not more—as romantic ones.

In the U.S., divorce rates have increased, while marriage rates have declined. Still, so many Americans are drawn to the romantic notions of a loving marriage. In a 2019 Pew Research Center survey, love was the top reason for both marriage (90%) and moving in together (73%) in the U.S.. If so many people are using love as their top criteria for partnering and marrying, but marriage, itself, has been on the decline, it behooves us to wonder if it’s truly the glue that binds indefinitely.

In fact, love-based partnership is a fairly new concept. Brought on by The Romantic Period of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there was a societal shift in the Western world from marriage being an institution that united families for resource-sharing, wealth-building, and security to one that supported the pursuit of individual happiness in the form of a love match.

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This change from practical to romantic, and the internal struggles it created for young singles, can even be seen depicted in modern media today. Take, for instance, the hit Netflix show, Bridgerton, a series based on the best-selling books by Julia Quinn that dedicates each season to following the travails endured by young debutantes on the marriage market and their suitors in Regency-era London. As evidence of love reigning supreme, some of the less likable characters find themselves in marriages of convenience, while the protagonists always seem to land in romantic relationships.

But there may be benefits to marriages of convenience that we overlook when we favor one type of marriage over another. The general benefits of long term relationships include companionship (having a reliable partner to do things with), shared experiences, support, and encouragement, and growth and discovery. If you are in a consensual relationship in which you both feel motivated to support each other, you can reap these benefits even if you’re not madly in love. Companionship is really at the core of any solid relationship, and that means that other types of relationships could also provide these benefits in addition to helping people navigate financial, health, and family needs as they age.

Companionship, in turn, can be provided by different types of non-romantic relationships. Friendships, for example, provide opportunities for support and intimacy in ways that romantic partnerships can’t because they don’t have the same emotional trappings. You can have a difference of opinion with a friend without it affecting your sex life, for example. Friendships can be so foundational that people are finding ways to legally recognize them. Friendship marriages in the U.S. and Japan have become ways for friends to share their lives together. They can also be a workaround to the limited ways individuals receive social support. As married couples, friends receive valuable tax breaks, expanded health insurance options, not to mention a trusted "In case of emergency" contact. These pairings can happen in the U.S. between friends of all genders and leave room for each person to pursue sexual or romantic partnerships outside of the primary relationship. In some cases, friends might co-parent and share childcare duties. There is also a trend of friends buying homes together. Joint property means sharing a financial responsibility that has previously been reserved for romantic couples or business partners and is often unthinkable as a single person in certain markets.

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Another form of companionship that gets overlooked is sexless marriages. Whether sex and romance were present at some point in the relationship or not at all, sexless marriages function more like friendship marriages. You are partners in everything but the one aspect of relationships we reserve for romantic relationships. Around 7% of married couples are sexless. Of course, not all of them want to be, but some adjust to this being the dynamic of their relationship indefinitely. As with friend-based relationships, they may open their marriage for opportunities to connect with other people sexually or deepen their relationship with their partners in other ways.

Companionship-based relationships provide benefits of the institution and the freedom to explore beyond it. At their core, these arrangements center interdependence and care. There’s love there, but it doesn’t take the exact shape we think of when imagining romantic love. It could look like having a plus one to events without the expectation of going home together. It could be sharing household duties, finances and family obligations with fewer gendered expectations. It could mean having more support in the form of a trusted friend who has a vested interest in your health and wellbeing along with people who fill other important roles for you.

Marriages of convenience may not be such a bad thing. If companionship is one of the top benefits of long-term relationships, can’t it also just be the end goal? We’re seeing people get more resourceful in how they envision living their lives. Not willing to go through life without companionship and the accompanying benefits, people are choosing friend love over romantic love. They are creating safety nets for themselves and building communities that they know they can depend on when the going gets tough. Because of that, these unions may have more of what it takes to stand the test of time than we thought.