Views on the Status of Marriage

@the OP: the short answer is that married couples get serious legal rights over unmarried ones (generally whenever "family" is there legally, a spouse counts while a long-time boyfriend or girlfriend do not) which is what much of the gay marriage push is about.

To me marriage is a lot like graduate college or military service. It's a lot of work with a certain standard of obligaions as well as rewards. Now it's not for everyone, and you're not a bad person if it doesn't work for you or you don't want it.

That's sounds good but Old soldiers tend to look their nose down at civilians, Postgrads looks down undergrads and married couples look down upon singles.

People may say people may say that not doing social institute X is a valid choice but they rarely mean it.

Oh, I agree with you on the stability part. I just don't see how a pair of rings and a piece of paper from City Hall contribute anything to that stability.

In fact, you and many of the other posters in this thread are demonstrating my original point quite well. My OP can be summarised as 'It seems that in some cultures, having a stable, serious, live-together-and-possibly-raise-kids relationship seems to automatically imply getting married; I find this weird and a little stupid.' In the ensuing discussion, most people used marriage as a synonym for the stable "family" lifestyle, rather than questioning the degree to which one implies the other.

Considering the legal implications, it seems that one should probably get married unless there was a compelling reason not to if one was going to have children. I mean if something happens to one parent it's better if there's as little ambiguity as possible for the law to toy with.

It differs from place to place. There'd be hell to pay if any government tried to (re)introduce that kind of inequality between married and unmarried couples in this country.

In your country if there is no legal difference between married and unmarried couples, then there is no incentive to marry except for religious reasons. There is incentive in the United States and not in your country. That is the difference.

Zeal, you do realize there are as many kinds of marriages as there are people? Some with very strict rules of conduct and expectations?

Most of these more structured forms of marriage come from religious or cultural norms. Islam, Orthodox Judaism, Eastern Orthodox, Penecostal, Nordic Paganism, and other faiths have strict rules on marriage and family.

For cultural expectations, consider the difference between a Begali wedding and a Telgu wedding. Faith has some influence, but both ethnic groups have specific rituals to instruct the newly weds as well as their inlaws on the rules and obligations of their marriage.

Hell, the western world has the prenup! In it you can have everything from the grounds of divorce or the setting of certain goals that have to be met to insure the continuation of the marriage such as monogomy, having children or not, or other mutual agreements.

@Joey, there will always be some who act like that. But they've never been the majority in any case.

Any one is more likely to look at someone in their peer group as an idiot on personal merits first, not simply them just being alive.

Yes well the Netherlands is about as socially liberal as you can get MNR.

It doesn't. But, in the particular case I know, the woman looked forward to retirement under the assumption that she would have more time to spend with her husband, friends and family. When she retired, she found that the extra time she had at her disposal actually highlighted how little her husband was around. When she'd been working, she hadn't noticed it.

I'm specifically talking about the Western world, and cultures that emulate/follow its example. And do you realize just how stigmatized a prenup is?

edited 16th Jan '13 6:21:16 PM by KingZeal

Yes, I do get how bad a prenup can be because in most cases, it is not used well or by people with succesful track records in relationships.

But that doesn't make it any less of an option if a couple wants to use it.

I figured the man who would love to see the normalization of mandatory DNA testing for babies would embrace the prenup.

EDIT: also all the examples I gave can be found in the Western World. A large number of Protestants choose to have legally binding Covenant Weddings that not only have codes of conduct but also have required counselling or other obligations before the consideration of divorce, most commonly the year requirement of seperation and religious counsel before a divorce can be granted.

edited 16th Jan '13 6:35:20 PM by Gabrael

I know in the military marriage is a way to get fucked over slightly less. You don't have to live in shitty, falling-apart barracks, you don' t have that fucking $300 a month meal deduction taken from your paycheck...

Shit now I know why military men marry strippers.

No, I'm saying I am for the prenup. Anything that can make marriages more logic and less emotion, I'm down for. My point was that there's still a large number of myths and stigmas attached to them much in the same way as paternity testing. At least with prenups, though, it's gender neutral.

That's interesting, but . . . I forgot what the reason we were arguing about that was. Remind me?

You said marriage didn't have any rules or code of conduct. I pointed out it did. You said you were talking about western marriage, I gave yet another example of a version of western marriage that did come with guidelines and rules the couple has to fall back on.

I get most marriages are spontaneous and not very thought out in the western world. Most people down in my area get married because they get pregnant. The way I see it, unless that was already the plan previous to the child, don't do it. Having a baby is hard enough let alone putting a marriage on top of it.

Most people also treat marriage not as "until death do us part" but "until I feel like getting divorced". It is what I feel is one downside to normalizing divorce like we have. It's become easy to walk away from each other and keep that as a viable option.

Now in some ways normalizing divorce has become a good thing: that staying together for the kids shit needs to stop.

That is why I am not surprised there are very slow but steady gains in the amount of more ethnic, religious, or cultural marriages that espouse more structure or goals for marriage. People want the insitution, the bond, the partnership.

Yes, you can sometimes have that without marriage. That's another reason why some are opting for private ceremonies or exchanging vows without any legal paperwork, so they are only socially or emotionally married.

That's what a couple I know did. He makes plenty of money that staying single on paper was a better financial decision for his wife and kids. So they had a ceremony for the families, had their kids, and he moves out of the house for 6 months every 5 years to avoid the common law marriage. They've been together over 20 years with two great kids.

I respectfully disagree.

Most parents are not able to keep their issues away from the children. Some can. But most can't.

Better to have two parents happily seperated than be trapped under the same roof with either one or both parents who are miserable.

Especially if said parent(s) are so miserable they react with some form of abuse towards each other, themselves, or the kids.

I say it at least needs to be seen as absolute. There are times where the conflict between the parents interferes with the child. I know this from experience, as someone who's parents divorced early on. It taught me that while both were good parents, they weren't necessarily good parents together.

Oh yeah, and definitely in cases of abuse. If there's abuse in the situation, it needs to stop through whatever means.

edited 17th Jan '13 1:52:53 AM by Lascoden

/Fair enough.

If people were capable of remaining mature rational adults whiles in failing relationships then saying together for the sake of providing a stable home for your child seems sensible. Alas few of us seem to be able to do that.

We are all so focused on the importance of love in marriage we all but forget about importance of respect.

Respect also means allowing someone happiness.

I don't see why parents should have to spend decades tolerating each other just to give a false impression to their kids. I know a few people who are divorced or just no longer together who are quite mature in how they share their children and raise them together.

If anything, maybe this is a stronger lesson of what true love and family should be for kids. Plus it gives the parents oppertunities to remarry and bring not just happiness to themselves and make them a more productive entity, but it brings in more loving care givers and potentially more siblings to enrich the family experience.

Of course, this is the ideal. But I think this ideal can have a stronger chance of being the reality if we (as a culture) can reprioritize the purpose of a marriage and the function of family.

Marriage is a partnership. Family is a team. Both should have common goals and set steps on how to reach them. However it seems that the predominate attitude towards marriage is more towards the feeling of the moment, not the longterm.

How is this different from a serious relationship between people who aren't married? Why should we repurpose marriage to mean that? I mean, why is marriage needed for this? It seems to me like it isn't. A strong relationship doesn't need marriage to make it strong or make it a partnership. All that makes marriage any different is the legal implications, but there isn't any reason I can see as to why married couples should be treated as different under the law from unmarried couples. The Netherlands functions just fine without any difference between married and unmarried couples.

Never have I said marriage was needed for any of that. In fact, I have repeatedly said the complete opposite.

My post above was specifically on the belief parents should not feel they have to remain in the marriage or relationship "for the kids" which is such a nebulus concept anyway considering sometimes the best thing for the kids is for the parents to divorce or not remain together.

I thought I have been pretty clear so far.

I've mainly been skimming this thread before now. I apologize for making assumptions.

I'm... sorry Gabrael but this modern ideal family is not one I care for.

Marriage is (in my mind) about Duty and Commitment, nothing more. Divorcing and remarrying in the pursuit of happiness is the source of great unhappiness.

Ugh. The fact that you refer to an unmarried couple as 'single on paper' again quite neatly demonstrates the mindset I was talking about.

Well, at least there's one person who gets it.

'Duty and commitment, nothing more'? What about love? If that's the way you think about relationships I feel sorry for your future spouse... Also, staying together with someone you're definitely unhappy with is a source of even greater unhappiness than getting divorced and trying to find someone you can be more happy with.

What mindset is it that I apparently have if I say honestly that it was a better position for his family if they were not legally married?

They lived in the same house, shared all the joys, sorrows, responsibility, and obligations of a "married" household without the marriage part.

So please, how is describing the legality of their situation in any way representing a mindset, especially considering everything else I have stated?