Does marriage cure loneliness?

Does marriage cure loneliness? Well, I'll tell you something. In the Torah, when it describes when Eve was created as a wife for Adam, God says it is not good for man to be alone. So, it seems like marriage was invented as a solution to the problem of being alone. But if you look a little bit more closely and you continue reading what it says in the Torah, what does it say? God says, "I will create an azerdoi, a helper across from him." What does it mean across from him? Some even explain it means oppositional. And if it's a bad marriage, that can mean actual conflict. But if it's a good marriage, then it can mean push back in the most ideal form where you actually have collaboration and you have two different minds who are offering two different perspectives and they are actually pushing each other to a higher level than they would be at if they were alone. So you see marriage wasn't created actually to cure loneliness. It was created to get rid of the problem of acting alone. Acting alone means I'm only as good as my mind. But when I've got a partner, now we've got the combined strength, not just of my mind and your mind, but when you put the two together and through making a point and a counterpoint and hashing things out between us, we'll even come to a conclusion that was better than anything that either of us could have come up with if either of us were just acting alone. So what does that mean? That means marriage was created to force us into a team effort, a collaborative enterprise where we end up being smarter and better than we would be if we were just doing things the way we want to do them. And in that sense, it makes us so much more effective. But that's very different than being an antidote for loneliness. A person who's lonely wants a companion. Just sit next to me so I don't have to do it by myself. Just be here with me. But a person who realizes the value of having an active partner, they don't just want you to sit next to them so they don't have to feel lonely. They actually are inviting collaboration. They're inviting the push back. They want you to have an opinion. So if you are looking for a cure for loneliness, marriage is not a good answer. But if you're looking for someone who will push back and force you to be better, marriage is wonderful.