Bleach couples? To me it seems like a stretch. Bleach isn't about couples, almost at all.
It's almost like a subject purposely left out. If couple life exists, it's minimalised to the point of uselessness. If we wouldn't have the exaggerated manga ending with the Ichigo family, I think any steady couple would be out of question, ANY! As they have more or less eternal lives (except for Genryusai who apparently can age
), I think mostly they are never just one for another, but more like a society where the word "couples" doesn't even exist, just sesonial relationships of rare and precious passion that start and end in friendship, nobody really falling in love with anybody. That's my feel of it.
Or if love exists, as we well know, it doesn't really make it past a decade, so even if our characters can have a taste of love at one point or another, compared to lives that last for centuries or millenniums, that just fades from importance. The best example may be the one between Yoruichi and Urahara: at 1st, they couldn't get enough of each other, probably for a decade or two; then because they are immortal, their feelings got colder and only a deep friendship and mutual respect remained, accompanied by the deep memories of the past. I think this example is a trend for mostly everyone of Soul Society,
except for those "rumored" families you never get to see, just hear about!
Extrapolating this lifestyle to our real life, I think we would be the same if we would live for vast spans of time. Marriages would lose their meaning almost completely, and would be so mostly on paper, less so much in practice.
I always wonder though, how one gets born in Soul Society and how does one make a family, as there are thousands with new members that live forever! That's a bit weird. Like that movie "In Time" with Justin Timberlake: "Hey son, meet your grandfather who looks 25, just like you!"
@: Ichigo only had a family because he wasn't really a shinigami, he wasn't a part of Soul Society. Let's not forget Ichigo and Orihime were still alive human beings, that's why they could make a couple. Coupling between shinigami is way more complicated, thus my unanswered questions about how they are born and how Soul Society family life looks like, things conveniently left out by Tite from the story line.
Oh, that makes me remember! Ichigo's father, Ishin is an exception: he made a real life couple that bore "fruit" so to speak. He could somehow fashion himself a human body that can procreate, which is even more of a stretch than one can know, as shinigamy supposed to be dead not alive. Well, in my opinion he's just a cheat! Pretty much like Ichigo's vaste spurs of power growth in mere days when other shinigamy need at least decades for!
Now that I think about it, I always wandered how Yoruichi could have known Ichigo can attain bankai in just 3 days! The answer just fell to me right now: she cheated too, in the century she was off Soul Society, she must have watched Dragon Ball with the rest of us and there when a human breeds with a sayajin, the resulted offspring is stronger than both! So she knew Ichigo's father is a shimigamy and his mother a human/quincy! Or maybe Kukakku in her mansion receives Cable TV from other dimensions somehow!
Ha, sneaky Yoruichi!