A collection of Einstein's letters auctioned off in 1996 contains a list of marital expectations for his wife, Maliva Maric. The list includes daily laundry "kept in good order," "three meals regularly in my room," a desk maintained neatly "for my use only," and the demand that she quit talking or leave the room "if I request it." The marriage ended in divorce, but the list lives on as an illustration … of assumptions commonly held about marriage in 1914.

Compared with Einstein's requirements, modern marital expectations have surely evolved for the better. Or have they? An insightful study theorizes that as people abandon religious institutions, they start expecting romantic relationships to satisfy a host of needs that formerly were satisfied through religion. If you think clean laundry and regular meals require effort, try meeting the demands of relationship-worship today by providing transcendence, unconditional love, wholeness, meaning, worth, and communion.

An article in First Things concludes:

The Western fixation on romantic love creates a crushing burden for mere mortals. It engenders a powerful myth regarding love, courtship, and marriage: that a fallible human partner can not only share our passions but sate our existential yearnings. Contemporary couples expect much more from marriage than it can realistically deliver … As Eli Finkel of Northwestern University observes, "most of us will be kind of shocked by how many expectations and needs we've piled on top of this one relationship."