[Sans-Culotte]

My views on this have changed substantially over the years. I no longer think it best to wait. Traditionally “love” had very little to do with it. Young people (or their parents) decided that a match was “close enough,” vows to each other and to God were made, and then a household was established. BOTH people worked to make a go of it, often in sexually differentiated roles. Kids came. Family grew. 20 years later the two people sometimes found that they were in love with one another. Did it work all the time for the best? No. Did it work as well or better than what we have in this generation? I have come to believe it did. I am 66 and have been happily with the same woman for 46 years. I advised my kids to not get married early. They did anyway, and are happily married, doing well and have presented my wife and me with the loveliest grandchildren imaginable. I was wrong.

Your view probably sounds cold-blooded to some, but what you describe is the building block of civilization. It is essentially what most of us do without thinking it out too deeply. Even though the spouse we end with up may not be ideal (not the prettiest/handsomest, most intelligent, etc), most of us who make it work have a moral compass and know that it is incumbent upon us to make it work. There's little difference IMO between an "arranged marriage" and getting set up by your friends or using a dating app. People are looking for someone to settle down with and at some point come to the decision that "he or she will do".

[Bigg Red]

...most of us who make it work have a moral compass and know that it is incumbent upon us to make it work.

***
Exactly. The “feelings” we have can change on a daily basis.

It is not your love that sustains your marriage; it is your marriage that sustains your love.