[Sharkû]

Have no fear, Underhill, relief is here! “Can we read the Ring as a symbol for a disillusioned view of marriage?” In a way, yes!
I think where we can further this highly intrigiung theory is the special nature of all Ring-bearers, with the partial exception of the Three.
With some consideration devoted to this, it becomes apparent that the Rings could indeed in a way be symbols of one kind of marriage. Of course, a kind that is in contrast to the ideal marriage of Middle-Earth or our world, but a marriage, a very concrete bond for life, nevertheless.

Here, our Forum Rowdy’s theory can be divided into two equally important branches – one is that the Rings are only symbolic for marriages in a very abstract manner, the aforementioned bond of life the bearer accepts by taking and wearing the Ring. From that time on, he will never be the same (at least if he wore the Ring long enough), his future will in one way or another always be influenced by his wearing a Ring in the past. Similar devotions could be to an army, a profession or religion, and, of course, a person in marriage. Here, the Elven Rings can be used as an example, too, unlike in the second branch of meaning; the passing of the bearers of the Three was special due to their wearing a Ring during their lifetime.

This second idea focusses on the other 17 Rings solely, although it has to be considered that our knowledge of the Seven is to small to be used in the argumentation, so the way the Nine and the One influenced their bearers becomes important.
We have one simple fact: long-time Ring-bearers are bachelors, all bearers except Galadriel who had one of the Three were male. And the more we look at the matter, the more we come to the conclusion that the 10 Rings are symbols for women, for the feminine side. By using a Ring, the bearer enters the spiritual realm – in all ancient beliefs, women are thought to be more on this side than the other sex. Often, they are viewed as having more or less direct connections to ‘the other side’, be it the Vólva of the North, Virgin Mary, etc. In a way, we could thus interpretate the using of a Ring as transgressing to the feminine side.
Furthermore, the Rings themselves are in a way feminine. They emphasize the feelings and emotions of their bearers greatly, including the negative sides of their character. It is a common view that women are more ‘emotional’ than men. While I personally am neither consenting nor dissenting here, we can assume such a view would not be too wrong in the context of JRRT’s Middle-Earth, which is all we should we discuss here anyway.
Who takes a Ring, takes it in place of a woman, of a bride. The analogy to marriage is only logical that way. Bilbo never married, even though he was a good match for any hobbit woman, but the Ring finally spoiled this for him. Frodo was a similar case, especially since he was ‘burnt out’ after its destruction. Gollum was changed by it much and treated the Ring very much like a beloved person. Sam did not wear it long enough to pass so far into the feminine spirit realm that he would have been spoiled for common marriage, but his passing shows how the influence of the Ring evokes a longing women apparently could not satisfy in the bearers.
The Nazgûl were all male, and no offsprings of them are ever recorded, so we can assume their lives were likewise. They became androgyn spirits, hovering between the spheres. Sauron himself transgressed to there more and more. Is his forging the Ring, putting his own power into it, and thus trying to amplify it, comparable to a Promethean act of forming humans, in this case, women, after his own liking?

This sort of marriage is obviously evil, even if it was only because the Rings, i.e. the feminine side, was. Therefore, such comparisons, that marriage in Middle-Earth was something noble and good that could be compared to a Ring-marriage simply do not hold. Tolkien would never have argued that one bonding himself to the Ring is doing gravely wrong; in fact, the Ring-bondings are a clear and impressive opposite to the happy marriages of The Lord of the Rings, and as such, they are both vitally important, and also sensibly perceivable and not so easy to be denied by a rebuttal.