You wouldn't think that one of the Internet's leading online dating services would be in the business of undermining the institution of marriage, but that's exactly what happened this week.

The dating website Match.com, which has a partnership with Microsoft's MSN Network dating back since the year 2000, published a report by journalist Rory Evans that celebrated the declining interest in couples to marry.

The report was one of the top stories on the MSN network, distributed to millions of Internet users around the globe with declarations such as, "More and more couples are living in sin …" delivered in a tone that seemed both jovial and gleeful.

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Titled "Look Who's Happily Unmarried," the argument that rejecting marriage was somehow morally superior was provided largely by Nicky Grist, executive director of the "Alternatives to Marriage Project" – www.unmarried.org.

The group's mission statement is to advocate "for equality and fairness for unmarried people, including people who choose not to marry, cannot marry, or live together before marriage." They put out a press release for Valentine's Day denouncing marriage with the battle cry: "Let's not confuse love with marriage."

The anti-marriage group's leader, Grist, is quoted in the Match.com article as trumpeting the contention that "people are happy about defining themselves outside an institution and all its baggage. …"

Cited as role models that the rest of us should follow for deeper and more meaningful relationships were such Hollywood celebrities as Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, Oprah and Stedman.

My favorite pairing, though, was Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. These Hollywood hipsters were bathed in halo lights for refusing to marry AND for doing so "with some social consciousness."

Let the weekly celebrity magazines keep on with their "Wedding Plans Afoot?" headlines, but Pitt recently said, "Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able."

That is so darn sweet of Angelina and Brad! Their social consciousness is just adorable. Almost as much as the social consciousness that Brad and Angelina displayed when they had an affair behind the back of Jennifer Aniston who was Brad Pitt's actual wife at the time.

You know, a wife – that object of an institution and "all its baggage."

Maybe Rory Evans got it wrong in her report for Match.com. Maybe the "social consciousness" we were supposed to admire and respect was Jolie's controversial adoption of a Cambodian child from an adoption firm that was found guilty of committing fraud.

We are told by Evans, and the anti-marriage advocate Nicky Grist, that the only benefit to being married is that it makes breaking up easier when it comes to dividing assets:

… marriage is a legally binding agreement that has no written contract spelling out all the stipulations, but it does spell out what happens when the relationship ends – which is among the greatest advantages marriage has to an unmarried partnership.

Marriage is not supposed to be a means by which all of us can be assured of "getting more stuff" if we break up.

Marriage is the joining of two souls bound by love and commitment. It is the basis by which we in society have formed a structure to raise children and provide emotional support for them until they can do so for themselves.

Yeah, sometimes marriage is hard. Sometimes it's not. At the end of the day, it's the exchanged promise to work through all of the misunderstandings, the hurt feelings, or annoying habits that provides married couples the fuel for the long haul. We shouldn't denigrate commitment that is legally binding – and think that it can be replaced with the cross-your-heart-hope-to-die promises that we used to make when we were in elementary school.

I know from firsthand experiences that remaining in a happy and stable marriage can sometimes be rough. But looking into the eyes of my son and seeing his love and appreciation for his "mother" and "father" (not his sperm provider and egg hostess) trumps any fleeting temptations to give up on marriage.

Something has happened to our society where we no longer value efforts to persevere through these challenges. We should be celebrating those couples who ride out the storms that life can bring and who remain unselfishly committed and dedicated to promoting the well-being of another human being – this is what marriage is after all, and it's a good and honorable thing.

This Sunday my husband and I will observe our 18th wedding anniversary. He always forgets to get me gift. I always pretend not to care. But each year we manage to laugh about the things that don't really matter and hug each other tight each night. This commitment and dedication to one another is the best gift to give each other and the best gift we could give to our two sons.

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