Valentine's Day may be an over-commercialised invention to sell more greetings cards and roses, as some people believe, but as Nancy Acton's feature in today's Lifestyle shows, it can also be a reminder of the value of long-lasting marriages to the whole community.

Today's feature profiles three couple who have been married for a collective 135 years. That is an impressive statistic by any count, and the reasons they give for staying together for so long should be mandatory reading for all couples embarking on marriage.

More broadly, stable marriages and families are one of the keys to a stable society.

The children of stable marriages are much less likely to divorce and the attention that children get when both parents are present generally reduces social problems of all kinds.

That is not to say that some couples are better off divorcing; the truth, very often is that they should never have married at all.

Nor does it mean that children brought up by single parents cannot succeed.

Clearly, there are hundreds of successful people who have either been divorced or have been brought up in so-called broken families. And there are people trapped in abusive relationships who would be better off on their own or out of the marriage.

But the odds for children's success at home and in the workplace rise dramatically when they come from a two-parent home.

And, as Royal Gazette columnist Michael J. McManus has made clear in his Saturday columns, couples who carefully prepare for marriage and take pre-marital counselling stand a much better chance of making a lasting relationship.

Indeed, the relationships that may not last in marriage are often tested in pre-marital counselling that the couples break up before going down the aisle — potentially saving years of pain and heartache for everyone involved.

And at the end of the day — as shown by Wayne Smith and his wife and former Royal Gazette colleague Nicole Williams Smith in the two-part series that concludes today — a strong marriage can enable you to survive almost anything. And that is what Valentine's Day is really all about.