The idea of marriage for love was not really a common idea until the 20th century. Traditionally-speaking, women got married to have a stable source of income from their husband as women generally did not work until very recently, and men chose women who could provide them with children, and said children could also be put to work on the farm and serve as a form of financial security when their parents were too old to work.
For wealthier people, marriage for political/status reasons was even more important than for people of more limited means. While romantic love was something that was seen as ideal, many societies thought that husbands and wives would grow to love each other after they got married and became used to each other.
Perhaps part of why marriage fails at the rate that it does is we are trying to modify an institution to fit a romantic ideal that it was never meant to be for in the first place. It is not that people in the past were against "romance" but many societies saw romantic love as inherently fickle and ephemeral and not something you would base a future on if you were wise.
Maybe there is some truth to the latter, after all...