Marriage and how it has changed

[xsocrates75]

Back long ago in it seemed that marriage was more of a sporadic and less choosey thing.  Like that guys just sort of paired up with random wives, and that was that,

whereas now-adays we have an entirely different concept of how a marriage forms, where the individuals go through a friendship then a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship and then from there progress onto the marriage, basically a long process where the couple gets to know each other and make darn SURE that the other person is someone they wanna be spending the rest of their life with.

the girlfriend/boyfriend stage is never mentioned anywhere in the bible.  it seems like partners went from not knowing each other, to marriage, in a matter of a few hours.
It's like the relationship didn't exist and marriage was just a sporadic random pairing that occured?

i have 2 big questions:

1. why did it used to be like this?  why has this changed?  

2. Do you think this change is for the better or the worse?  What do you think God's view is on the addition of a 'get to know you phase' where you actually get to choose your mate?

[xsocrates75]

any thoughts?

[paul]

eve was refered to as adams wife,and i don't think they had any marriage ceremony.
i think they use to just choose what they fancied,if they were of God also and you fancied them sexually well, wam bam thank you mam.
i don't think they were concerned in biblical times with the things we are concerned with today,we care how we look how we dress,concerned with having a circle of friends,concerned with things that wasn't invented then which some people would class in thier personality.like if we today describe ourselves say we tend to include our hobbies,education and interests all which will probably include things that wasn't invented then.
they didn't have technology and didn't have as much time as us for idle chit chatter,also they didn't talk about the pointless drivel we talk about today,with the influence of television.
they were a more basic civilisation and spent their time serving God and tending to the ground and animals and didn't really have any interests like we do today.and there were some arranged marriages,i think,and God directed them who to wed.i suppose we can have love at first sight today,and if we knew that was the one and asked God to bless us,would we need a peice of paper and a wedding ceremony.

God bless.
paul.