Toulmin

Student Name: Jasmine Batts

Instructor: Tony Ruggiero

English 211C Section #13426

Essay Type: Toulmin Evaluation

30 September 2014

Happily Never After

Romance can be split into many genres and plays a major theme throughout life. We watch movies about women being swept off their feet, Disney princesses finding true love, or we hear a song about someone having the “Love Jones”. Marriage, recognized by law as the formal union between a man and woman, is a bond that is supposed to be vowed until death; a contract that comes with hope for a happily ever after. However, this day in age the contract of marriage is often and easily broken, leaving the pondering question of why do couples get divorced? What is the main ingredient to the union of two individuals and in contrast what is to be blamed for the breakage of that union? According to Sternburg's Triangular Theory of Love, a healthy, romantic relationship requires to presence of intimacy, passion, and commitment (Madey, Scott F., and Lindsey Rodgers); without either or all of these aspects strongly present the relationship often will lack in an area significant, enough to lead toward divorce.

Intimacy, an aspect that must be present from both spouses for a healthy marriage, is defined as “the feeling of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness that one feels in a relationship” (Madey, Scott F., and Lindsey Rodgers). Broken down into two parts, physical intimacy and emotional intimacy, the absence in either of these will result in an sexual or emotional void in the relationship. In relation to physical intimacy, around 15% of married couples in the U.S. are in a sexless marriages and although it may not be immediate, those marriages often lead to divorce (Leeker, Olivia1, and Al2 Carlozzi). Physical intimacy, also including affection, public or private, plays a significant role in a sense that marriages lacking physical intimacy in some cases lead to individual spouse insecurities, detachment, questions of...