namaste.
Thank God, there is at least one relationship that cannot be changed at human will, both in the western and indian culture: mother. Good that these days they require mother's name as a more permanent reference to ancestry in some documents such as the customer profile in banks.
• Divorces do happen in both marriages by chance and marriages by choice, but then divorcing after the children are born is utter foolishness that people, specially in the west, resort to more often than not.
• I think relationships are equally--if not more--important than persons: parents and spouse as persons are never up to one's liking, so one who values relationships persists in it by mutual give and take and reconciliation.
• I may not like my boss as a person but I need to value the relationship. Of course, I can change my boss, but then eventually I may find that all bosses are the same as persons. It's the same with marriages, where both wife and husband act as boss in specific areas of family management.
• Love is selfish and an illusion: one can never love another person, however close, like one loves his/her own self. Only when love transforms more and more into selfless love, where compassion, sympathy and empathy prevail rather than the ego, can love be long-lasting.
If people becoming husbands and wives consider themselves as fathers and mothers first and then only as individual persons, the chances of sustained marriages are more, IMHO.