Marriage
Disclaimer
I'm getting tired of having to spoonfeed this to some of you people individually. As it turns out though, thankfully, I can edit the OP so at least read this. I am not arguing against love, relationships or commitment, or anything the like. Quite the opposite, I'm saying they're good enough on their own without the need for the legal paperwork, money-waste and label of marriage. I welcome any opinion whether I like it or not, but not when you're missing all of the actual points like a little boy splashing the rim and substitute your own. No one's forcing you to read the whole thread, but at least read the damn OP of the thread next time or don't bother. It's getting frustrating having to read through your condescending tones just to find out you just didn't pay attention.
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Hey. I'm not sure if I made a thread before but I'd like to put some of my thoughts on marriage here and see what all of you guys think. I see many of you as much smarter than me, and I think I can learn some. This got a little long, and I don't know if I should post it as a blog instead, but since my objective is to get some sort of exchange/discussion going a thread is more fitting. This is my opinion only. I'm not going to talk about gay-marriage or things like that, we all already know enough about that. I want to talk about marriage itself.
My stance on marriage is not that everybody should be allowed to have one, including gays. My stance is that nobody should get married, including straight people. And I'm often confused as to why atheists, secular intelligent people, would want to engage in this antiquated, forcefully contrived and often religious social construct.
I've said this in one form or another before. People like to think about marriage as this magical bond between two people in love, but for the bigger part of its history marriage wasn't about love at all. We know that in the past ages marriage was only used as a form of sales-contract, a political relationship building tool between two parties, and a way for the rulers to keep tabs on their subjects, while making sure they don't run amok fucking and raping each other aimlessly. It was an easy social structure to introduce into a primitive society that would otherwise kill each other over women to rape (which they did, and still do regardless). As a religious construct, it has been solely used for the above mentioned purposes, plus turn women into property. We need only look at some religious men and their harem of wives, to see that in that marriage women have become nothing more than a commodity. In marriage, even today, women are often nothing more than merchandise. Why do you think religious men always emphasize the importance of staying pure and staying away from sex until marriage? Because some men have very small penises. And some men with small penises are willing to pay high prices for a certain commodity: virginity. They want sex with virgins, because the small-dicked man knows the virgin doesn't know any better, so he has a confidence boost. Same reason they marry old geezers to little children, under the ruse of "our prophet did it." It's all about keeping the business running. Tell girls not to fuck. Slut-shame them should they dare to have sex outside of marriage. Call them whores, sluts, whatever. Put peer-pressure on them. Because if they do, the market will run dry.
There are a some popular arguments for/about marriage that I'd like to take on.
- It's a public declaration of loyalty. / It shows commitment.
This is a common error. Marriage doesn't make someone any more loyal then s/he would've been anyway, and if it does it's either because of peer-pressure (look up countries with the lowest divorce rates) or simple disingenuity. If you are in a relationship (which is not open), then you should be able to stay loyal and make it clear you're committed all by yourself, without a ring on your finger to vouch for you. Saying marriage ads to the commitment and shows loyalty is really no different than, for example, saying the bible gives us strength and hope. We should be able to have those things by ourselves, and those who cling to it show only a lack of those traits in themselves; just as someone who can not be as loyal without marriage shows a lack of confidence in their loyalty to begin with.
Now there also many people who say that they want a marriage to make sure their partner is committed. To me, a person who says they cannot expect loyalty and commitment unless their partner agrees to marry them is a person who displays a severe lack of trust, confidence and faith in their partner. A crucial flaw which wouldn't work out too well for a relationship to begin with.
I'm quoting the next point from a post from another member, MikeLong, here. I originally wanted to answer you in that thread, but the lack of a reply button was getting on my nerves, sorry.
- If shit goes south, marriage makes us try harder to preserve the relationship, rather than simply cast it aside as just another failed relationship.
Again, I think this should go without having to be married. If the relationship is worth it you should put all effort in, but not because you think "Oh well, we're married now. And it's kinda too much work to get divorced anyway." If marriage is your only incentive to keep a relationship alive, it's not a relationship of love as it is a cold iron chain locking you together.
More importantly though, just because a relationship is over doesn't mean it's failed. We fall in love, and then often we get jaded, and it's over. But that doesn't mean it wasn't worthwhile, that it was a waste of time, or that it failed. We experience something nice, and then it's time to move on. What marriage does is hold you trapped, after you've had enough. And I believe that the idea of an ended relationship being a "failed" relationship is something, more often than not, pushed into our culture by clergy. They are mostly the ones we hear bitching about divorce rates in secular countries and how it's somehow directly related to the moral decline in that country. That's bullshit. The only thing a divorce means is that two people no longer want to be together. What does the reason matter? Clergy often pretend like it's because people turn gay and the men divorce their wives because they want to go to a gay bar and have wild gay sex out of wedlock (ironically the solution would be to allow same-sex marriage, but I digress). But even if it were so, so what? How would it make those two people any more happy if they were continuously trapped in a marriage? Even when, at first, only one of the two partners wants a divorce, to me it would be much more horrible to force the other person to stay married. I certainly wouldn't want to be in a relationship with someone who doesn't want me anymore. Platonic love doesn't end well for either party.
So what I'm rambling on about it that ending a relationship is not always a bad thing. Call me a cynic, but I believe that it's a good time even most of the time. Something sucks, you work at it. But at some point you have to stop and accept that it might just not be worth it to try and pick up all the pieces off of the floor so you can glue them together and hope it sticks for just a little while longer. At some point you just have to leave the pieces lie and move the fuck on.
- marriage is the sacred bond between a man and a woman
Obviously, this is an argument that comes from the theist camp. Now I'm not going to argue about how retarded it is to suggest that gays have any less of a right to a marriage, we already know that, but instead tell you why I think religion loves pairing different genders so much. It's because man + woman = baby. Baby = another unit in the army. That's it. Nothing profound to it. Sacred bond my ass. It's about growing numbers like a virus. Rulers in all ages understood that if you want to build a powerful nation, what you need are people. Many many people. As many as possible. Living conditions, quality of life - doesn't matter. If he can hold a weapon and become cannon-fodder he's good enough. Same reason religion values men more than women. They're physically stronger. Same reason clergy are against abortion, it kills potential units and dwindles their numbers. (It also kills off all the pussy in the age range they like.)
- We do it for the civil / legal / financial rights.
I actually don't know enough about this to be able to fairly comment, so I'd love some input. Obviously I still don't like it. I know people who have been together for years but have no intentions of getting married for any benefits, my own sister included, and they seem to lead happy lives. But are the benefits worth compromising your integrity?Is there no other way to achieve those rights? Would it be at all possible for us to change this? I'm aware that gays fight for marriage because they want the rights that come with it. Now I remember Strega saying in a different thread that if they made some other civil construct which would allow her, as a gay person, to have all the benefits of a usual marriage provides, she'd do it right away. Even if it wasn't called a marriage. Do you agree with this, or do you think that, if anything, both straight people and gays should get the exact same thing? In which case it cannot be a religious union, because all major religions are homophobic. And so...I'm tired.
That's it for now. I actually have much more to say, but I kinda already wrote more than usual and I'm getting bored and I'm sure I've bored most of you by now too. I might add some later. Cut me some slack!
Tags: commitment, divorce, gays, i hate children, loyalty, marriage, relationships, rights, scam
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Cara Coleen on -
Yeah, the boyfriend and I have a friend who was married a few years ago. They've since had a kid (four now) and divorced. That poor guy is still paying for the wedding. What a crock of shit, eh? She's the one that left, too. So now he's saddled with the bill for something he doesn't even get to enjoy anymore. I feel pretty confident we'll elope; I just can't deal with the family drama, and I have no desire to be paying for something so wasteful for years to come.
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Permalink Reply by SteveInCO on -
Cara I (unlike some) strongly encourage you and your fiance to do it the way you want to do it. My preference is similar to yours; the wedding should be small. (I know a couple that hired a photographer, then did their wedding, no officiant, no witnesses; they simply exchanged their vows on the 4th of July under the fireworks. Legal here in Colorado.) Maybe you can throw a party afterwards, maybe not. Save your money for the honeymoon and setting up (or enhancing) your home; the marriage is NOT about the wedding but about the life together.
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Permalink Reply by Suzanne Olson-Hyde on -
He chased me till I caught him :)
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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on -
And now you've got him right where he wants you!
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Permalink Reply by Aim on -
I'm one of 5 kids, my folks have been together for 59 years, they're not married.
I've watched them go through shit that I would never have stuck around for.
They've also taught me some standards that I wouldn't go without.
The commitment is respectable, and at times, it was questionable.
Such is life.
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Permalink Reply by Strega on -
Really Blaine? I think you will find that is a fallacy. Wait til one of them dies, and the other gets slapped with inheritance tax. Common law marriage is only recognised in nine states in America, and even then there are restrictions as to its applicability for many circumstances.
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Permalink Reply by Adam on -
Law of Common Marriage is not practiced anymore in most states. Other than 9 states, most states have done away with it
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Permalink Reply by Melvinotis on -
You have a lot right with what you have to say, but on the whole, I cannot say that you are right. It is a brilliant thread though, and thank you for adding it.
The metaphor I think might work for this is locks on doors. There are lots of kinds of keys and lots of kinds of locks on doors in our society. We all argue about why we even need locks. You seem to be advocating that no one should have a lock on their door. You are both right and wrong in the same breath.
No one "should" have a lock on their door. In a perfect world everything behind an unlocked door should still be safe. We live in a grossly imperfect world though, and locks on doors allow us to make long term commitments to keeping items safe. Just because locks are imperfect, and broken all the time, and might sleep with your best friend in a moment of weakness, doesn't mean we shouldn't have locks.
You seem to think in general on the short term, but this is a long term world in terms of human lifespan. A lock on the door might save someone from getting a venereal disease, which has the possibility of a lifetime consequence. You are quite right though, that there shouldn't be a lock on every door. When you have an investment of years, and children, and puppies behind a particular door though, you might sleep better knowing there is a lock on it.
Just a moment on ageism. kOrsan, you are right that experience is not equal to time, nor is it equal to knowledge. No one can predict the future, but lots of people can predict what might happen given a set of circumstances based upon what has happened to them in the past. They still might come up wrong, but they are still more informed than someone who doesn't have that particular experience.
You live in a world where every story line has been explored, sooo much is soooo predictable, but each person in his or her moment can react to issues with just to their prior knowledge, their current circumstances, and the resources available to them. Oh and lastly, they can also get knowledge from friends experience too. That's how we all know that someday you will fall in love and your life will change (just kidding!)
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Permalink Reply by kOrsan on -
Well your lock metaphor sadly missed the whole point. At this point I'm not sure if anyone even bothered reading my OP, or if I'm j I wasn't arguing about commitment being wrong. I wasn't arguing about whether we need commitment or not. I was arguing whether we need to label, the legal paperwork of marriage. I was arguing that two people who love each other do not need that to be in a committed relationship, just as you don't need the bible to be moral. That and nothing else was my point.
Just because locks are imperfect, and broken all the time, and might sleep with your best friend in a moment of weakness, doesn't mean we shouldn't have locks.
I don't even know where you were going with this. What's this even supposed to imply? So you thought I said that because some people suck at being loyal we should get rid of commitments altogether? What parallel universe are you posting this stuff from?
You seem to think in general on the short term, but this is a long term world in terms of human lifespan. A lock on the door might save someone from getting a venereal disease, which has the possibility of a lifetime consequence.
This is insulting. So people who don't get married have promiscuous sex and get STDs? I hope I only missunderstood you here because otherwise you sound like clergy. If a piece of paper is the only thing that keeps you from cheating on your partner it doesn't mean much. And that was one of my points in the OP as well. But never mind.
Just a moment on ageism. kOrsan, you are right that experience is not equal to time, nor is it equal to knowledge. No one can predict the future, but lots of people can predict what might happen given a set of circumstances based upon what has happened to them in the past. They still might come up wrong, but they are still more informed than someone who doesn't have that particular experience.
There's a difference between experiencing something and learning new information, just as there's a difference between hearing and listening. Seeing and watching. My original objection was not that some people might or might not have more experience than others. It's simply not true that most old people lived their lives in wild adventures and spent it seeking knowledge they can share later on. They were plain old boring people just like everybody else. Look around. The same vapid teens, the same enslaved drones rotting 8 hours a day in corporate cubicles under florescent tubes. Those same cattle are going to be the next generation of old people. It's safe to assume that most people you'll ever meet are fools, regardless of age. What ageism does is look at someone who spent 90% of their live as an idiot and assumes something worthwhile because they got wrinkles in the last 10%. Most people live their lives with every experience just flying past their eyes. Aging doesn't mean you learned anything. At the most, age can tell us that a person had more opportunity to learn than someone younger than himself. That's all you can safely assume, and nothing else. Not that they know anything. Everyone I work with at my workplace is older than me, yet they believe in astrology and there's even a woman who believes in bioenergy and whatnot. Apparently 40+ years of life wasn't enough for her to get her shit together. Which brings up another point: the information that people acquire is not necessarily the correct one either. Ask an old imam about his studies and knowledge. Ask him what his 80 years of experience would tell him to do in a tough scenario. You'll get a face full of "allahallahallah prayer allahallah allah this prayer that."
My original objection was to the claim that age makes right. Look at some of the people like Cara or Jenny. They're younger than the others, but clearly ahead of the game wisdom wise. I'd much rather take advise from someone like them than someone who stumbles in here with the eloquence of a riled up drunk and mouths off to 4 or 5 people molesting the intellectual integrity of the thread with "LOL!!! 40 YEARS OF MARRIAGE LOL!!! "there ya go" LOL!!! 40 years LOL!!"
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Permalink Reply by kOrsan on
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Listen, you already made a fool of yourself and enstranged like 4 or 5 people in this thread already. When are you going to stop?
I stopped responding to you because I understand when someone your age behaves the way you do, and understands as little as you do, it's usually due to a developmental disability. And I don't have anything against handicapped people. I do not see you as a bad person for it. In fact I see myself as the faulty one because I should've realized it earlier. It's not a fair fight. It's not even a fight at all. It was wrong of me to reply to you at all after the first few times, and I shouldn't have been so mean. So despite my nature being happy to argue endlessly, I stopped replying.
In the little while I didn't answer you, you went after others. I've had like 4 different people hit me up on the chat about what an ass you're making of yourself, mouthing off randomly at people in this thread and not getting a thing. Not just me, but like 4 or 5 people tried making extremely simple points to you but you didn't understand them at all.
We told you "A is A" and all we hear in return from you is "LOL!!! Z ISN'T C!! 40 YEARS EXPERIENCE!" Take this advice and just refrain from it.
Blaine, I get tired too. Please. This isn't funny anymore for either of us, and your passive-aggressively contrived "LOL!!"s can't mask that. And I'm saying this in all honesty. If you truly are as wise as you claim you are, be an example, lean back, re-evaluate the things I, you and others have said a little, and then maybe you might understand if you give it time. Otherwise this is just wasting all of our times.
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