Marriage, living on as an abject parody in a time that has removed the basis of its human justification, usually serves today as a trick of self-preservation: the two conspirators deflect outward responsibility for their respective ill-doing to other while in reality existing together in a murk swamp. The only decent marriage would be one allowing each partner to lead an independent life, in which, instead of a fusion derived from am enaforced community of economics interests, both freely accepted mutual responsibility. Marriage as a community of interests unfailingly means the degradation of the interested parties, and it is the perfidy of the world's arrangements that no-one, even if aware of it, can escape such degradation The idea might therefore be entertained that marriage without ignominy is a possibility reserved for those spared the pursuit of interests, for the rich. But the possibility is purely formal, for the privileged are precisely those in whom the pursuit of interests has become second nature - they would not otherwise uphold privilege.
Theodor W. Adorno
1903 - 1969