Otter's Rock

... which would mean that pon farr evolved after the Reformation, which, I don't know, that doesn't sound plausible that something so huge could change in such a short period of time.

I always figured that bonding (the telepathic part of it) was largely an instinctive thing, that it's a psychological need for Vulcans, and part of how pon farr works by transferring from one partner to the other. That's how B'Elanna gets Vorik's symptoms, after all.

I highly doubt it's about the emotional attachment between partners. After all, even in most human cultures, marriage was not traditionally about emotional attachment between the two getting married, it was about familial alliances and economics. Which always seemed to me to be things Vulcans would think important in marriages.