|
| Thread: Questions about marriage? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV / NEXT» |
|
markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
|
posted February 17, 2013 12:30 AM |
|
|
|
Artu, please answer the OP questions for yourself, instead of answering them through my responses.
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted February 17, 2013 12:42 AM |
|
|
|
That's not what I did at all. I told my point of view on the subject (before you I might add), and later I saw something that I objected in your comment so I objected. What's the fuss about?
|
|
JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
|
|
posted February 17, 2013 01:34 AM |
|
|
Marriage is for starting a family. The society's incentives for families have twisted this purpose. I know quite a few people who married in their highschool years to get better benefits from the state. I see nothing wrong in that either. It can make the difference between being to able to eat something else than oatmeal 3 days of the week. I think that it's a signal that something is wrong with the way things are organised and some legislative tweaks are in order.
Currently the western nations are confused as to what is the aim of the marriage as an institution. It used to be the basis for a family. With same-sex relationships getting the same benefits as the heterosexual marriages the old form has become obsolete. Whether it is there to promote families or simply living together should be decided upon and the laws changed accordingly. It makes no sense for two friends living in the same apartment be at a disadvantage to two lovers who are unable to start a family.
As for love, people don't just stop loving each other. Attraction and fast developing affection that fades away is not love. If you've ever had any serious relationships in your life you know this to be true. People might break up and drift apart but you never really stop caring for someone whom you've really loved. People can claim they don't care or that they hate their past loved ones but if they didn't care it wouldn't hurt.
I haven't met a single case where the marriage was the reason for an unhappy family. Forced marriages might be a candidate for that but they're illegal here.
It is also hard for me to see how marriage could be used to achieve personal goals outside of "I want to be hapilly married" and the liked. You could technically marry into a prosperous family but it takes two to marry.
That said there are too many people jumping into marriage for trifle reasons and no proper knowledge of what the vows actually entail. Uninformed decisions are never good in lifechanging situations.
____________
DON'T BE A NOOB, JOIN A.D.V.E.N.T.U.R.E.
|
|
fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted February 17, 2013 03:10 AM |
|
|
if people want to marry, that's fine, but maybe monogamous marriages took too much importance. why should a specific type of relation be superior to the others?
the link of marriage with love is a bit weird. it makes sense in some cases, but love doesn't mean living together and having common projects. also, love isn't exclusive whereas marriage is. I think people who love each other will be there for each other, but don't need to get bound to each other. if they do, it's not love, but fear.
|
|
mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted February 17, 2013 09:39 AM |
|
|
Marriage doesn't have to be exclusive. According to current law it is, but I can imagine several people being married to each other.
____________
Eccentric Opinion
|
|
xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted February 17, 2013 11:56 AM |
|
|
Is polygami illegal in the US?
It is in all european countries. I've debated it a bit and the main issue with legalizing it, which I'd like to do, is that it might be very negative for women from muslim families.
|
|
Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
|
|
posted February 17, 2013 12:18 PM |
|
|
Quote:
Quote:
And don't forget I also mentioned the true basis of marriage and that is church.
That's thinking way too local. Marriage existed way before the church and probably will remain long after it. Monogamy is not specific to monotheistic cultures or times. So as a subjective experience marriage can be about church to you but saying "church is the basis of marriage" is like saying Buddhism is the basis of eating healthy.
Your thinking is way to limited. Of course God put the first man and the first woman together so marriage has always had a religious element to it.  Man + Woman + God = "church." Of course the ultimate expression of the church was not seen until God sacrificed himself through Christ, establishing the New Covenant church.
Also, the original religion was monotheism. Adam and Eve certainly knew there was only one God. It devolved into polytheism in various cultures as they drifted further from God and made gods in their own image an in the image of animals and such.
Oh, there is no such thing as "after the church." The tiny cult of atheism is in worldwide decline while Christianity continues to grow around the world. It is atheism that is in danger of extinction, not the church.
|
|
fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted February 17, 2013 02:22 PM |
|
|
|
mvass : that would probably make more sense. well as long as you aren't forced to all live under the same roof. I think some people say marriage was necessary because people are naturally jealous. but when people learn that love is exclusive, maybe that's what breeds jealousy. in buddhism they say you should learn to not grow attached to your wife and be jealous, but you should be committed and loyal. many people think it is impossible.
|
|
markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
|
|
posted February 17, 2013 04:42 PM |
|
|
Sorry Artu there's no fuss, I think I represent a very normal "older" view in the west as to what its about.
I never was for living together because <imo> in the end, after the honeymoon is over, both love and marriage are...decisions of commitment, acceptance and forgiveness to make a union last. You can value all of this outside of church and marriage but the church and its rite of marriage are about all of this through the years and provide excellent support.I found all this out the hard way; I was a rebel loner for much of my earlier life.
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted February 17, 2013 05:23 PM |
|
|
|
@markkur: glad it worked out for you in your own way.
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted February 17, 2013 09:07 PM |
|
|
Not wanting to moderate, but - offtopic.
Quote:
According to the Ethnographic Atlas Codebook, of 1,231 societies noted, 186 were monogamous. 453 had occasional polygyny, 588 had more frequent polygyny, and 4 had polyandry. At the same time, even within societies which allow polygyny, the actual practice of polygyny occurs relatively rarely. There are exceptions: in Senegal, for example, nearly 47 percent of marriages are multiple. To take on more than one wife often requires considerable resources: this may put polygamy beyond the means[citation needed] of the vast majority of people within those societies. Such appears the case in many traditional Islamic societies, and in Imperial China. Within polygynous societies, multiple wives often become a status symbol denoting wealth, power, and fame.
In short monogamy is a rare occurence.
|
|
fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted February 17, 2013 09:50 PM |
|
Edited by fauch at 21:53, 17 Feb 2013.
|
maybe it says that all those societies are monogamous, but only 186 of them forbid any other kind of relationship.
is polyandry rare because women have almost always been considered inferior to men?
|
|
blizzardboy
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Nerf Herder
|
|
posted February 17, 2013 11:41 PM |
|
|
Quote:
maybe it says that all those societies are monogamous, but only 186 of them forbid any other kind of relationship.
is polyandry rare because women have almost always been considered inferior to men?
Well, being the gender that actually carries and delivers the baby for 9 months, it would be almost default that polygyny might be practiced while polyandry would be obscure.
Polygyny was hard for societies to sustain because the birthrates between men and women are roughly 50/50. If even a relatively small percentage of men took on additional wives it could cause contempt and problems. If these tribesman kept pushing their luck they'd have rapes and/or murders on their hands. While it can be assumed that men had a higher mortality rate of dying while they were still young or middle adults, there's only so much slack to cover before taking a 2nd wife essentially meant stealing it from a person that had zero. The frequency of polygyny walked in step with the frequency of war since afterwards you'd have an excess amount of women getting into their late teens (not good) and still not finding husbands, or of widowed women not being able to find unmarried men, let alone older unmarried men.
On the reverse, it would be unusual to have a scenario where there's significantly more men in the village than women. Women typically had lower risk duties, and didn't fight unless they were the defender. The one uniquely hazardous duty they had that men didn't was child birth.
____________
"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
|
|
fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted February 18, 2013 12:06 AM |
|
|
|
so we should have a society both polyginous and polyandrous? which would mean that getting married wouldn't make you unavailable to others?
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted February 18, 2013 08:48 AM |
|
|
We shouldn't equal having children with having sex.
From an economical viewpoint, once you have a somewhat larger society than a "tribe" (a tribe being more or less a community of equals with at most a leader with a couple of privileges), with a more complex economy, polygamy might be economically feasible with only wealthy people being able to afford more than one wife and a lot of children, while the poorest not being able tu support any kind of family.
That, however, has nothing to do with having sex. Prostitution has been a much more part of society in acient societies and used to be cheaply available.
|
|
fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted February 18, 2013 03:04 PM |
|
|
JJ : maybe that just shows that there is already an economical problem, and not that there will be if...
if the wealth was divided equally for example, that would be no problem at all. and women now work and make money. what I want to say is that the average amount of money one needs to live decently should be the same, whether the society is monogamous or polygamous.
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted February 18, 2013 03:10 PM |
|
|
|
That's true, but that wasn't the point. As far as I know there never was any society (except tribal forms) with any kind of complex economy where everyone had roughly the same amount, and once you view children as some kind of status symbol (for a man), not to mention women (talking about a male dominated society), polygamy looks rather natural. If you can AFFORD a bunch of wifes and scores of children...
|
|
fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted February 18, 2013 06:04 PM |
|
|
|
cheap (and legal) prostitution might be beneficial to the society order and stability. but if we want it to work, I guess it should be a real choice, and not something you do just because you have no other option. being a prostitute should be as respectable as being a wife, and the social advantages and status should be equal.
|
|
Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
|
|
posted February 18, 2013 06:42 PM |
|
Edited by Zenofex at 18:42, 18 Feb 2013.
|
|
You do understand that is more or less impossible to become a reality in most societies? I'm not talking about legal or other formal stuff, that's the easiest part. You can't however force anyone to like or respect someone else, especially if he/she's been taught from his/her infant age that certain activities or "professions" are unacceptable at best. Seriously, it would be easier to teach love for the Jews in Nazi Germany.
|
|
fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted February 18, 2013 06:51 PM |
|
|
|
indeed. jj talked about ancient societies. and even then, it seems that being married was a more respectable status.
|
|
|
|
