In a paper to the UCE board he stated: "There is no doubt that the most stable relationship, which would yield long-term benefits, is likely to be a full merger.
"Marriage undoubtedly remains the most stable relationship for bringing up children and for support," Wall said, but he warned: "Women cohabitees, in particular, are severely disadvantaged by being unable to claim maintenance and having their property rights determined by the conventional laws of trusts".
The Williamses have had their troubles too — Lucy, SJ's older sister, drinks, and her teenage son, Wesley, has been questioned by the police for hitting his girlfriend — though the inquiries of a social worker, we are told, missed the point: "The fact was, above all else, that Lucy truly loved Wesley and the boy knew it and it was the closest, most stable relationship in his life.
According to Cassius Dio, his most stable relationship seems to have been with his chariot driver, a blond slave from Caria named Hierocles, whom he referred to as his husband.
Feelings of fear and loss can take hold, sending shock waves through even the most stable of relationships.
Injecting variety and surprise into even the most stable, seasoned relationship is a good hedge against such temptation.
Conservative belief in the institution of marriage runs like this: making a commitment to one another is what moral people do, and this makes marriage the most stable of all known relationships.
The bottomlessness of our need for love means that, even in our most stable, permanent, and healthy relationships, love "can only be renewed and invented anew, again and again.
Silk and colleagues report online today in Current Biology that females who had the strongest, most stable, and longest-lasting relationships with other baboons lived significantly longer than those whose social ties were more fragile and unpredictable.
