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pi:
--- Quote from: Linds on 27 May 2008, 13:08 ---
None of those make me feel morally superior. This is a historical perspective, not what I think is going on now. So considering that you said "reason behind marriage in the first place," which historically is inaccurate, I know that the reasons I gave are true. People in the past cared more about marrying off their kids for an alliance and/or because the other family was rich. Kids were secondary (not to sound harsh) to both of those. This is a historical perspective, not what I think is going on now. (And we're not even getting into religious reasons, which has even more reasons, depending on the religion.)
Now, if you meant you are talking about marriage now, I still have a problem with that statement. I grew up perfectly fine with only one parent and I've always disagreed with "staying together for the kids" if the home environment was suffering because of it. Also, not everyone who gets married wants to/can have children and not everyone who wants children gets married. There are plenty of reasons for getting married, but I don't that anyone can just have one single reason to get married, be it the right or wrong ones.
Besides, say you did get married to someone you loved and then found someone else that you thought would be a better match? Would you cheat? Get a divorce? Stay with your spouse and forget the new person?
--- End quote ---
First off, I didn't say that you thought you were morally superior, merely that the concept of marriage for certain purposes is better, in a moral sense, than for other reasons. I'm not sure if you got the wrong idea, but I wasn't attacking you personally.
If we're talking about marriage in the first place, I might argue that my initial statement was correct, that it was done for the preservation of the offspring, as a female would generally do better if she had a partner to help with the gathering of food or active confrontation, if only for the 'strength in numbers' reason. Though this wasn't really my main point.
--- Quote ---Now, if you meant you are talking about marriage now
--- End quote ---
I think I was always talking about marriage. All of the statements you quoted have the word marriage in them. I was particularly interested in the vows that are exchanged during said wedding.
--- Quote ---Besides, say you did get married to someone you loved and then found someone else that you thought would be a better match? Would you cheat? Get a divorce? Stay with your spouse and forget the new person?
--- End quote ---
I don't know what I would do personally, but the point I was making was that in such a situation, you're either miserable yourself, and thereby might make your partner miserable (not to mention the issue of "settling" for someone), or you hurt your partner, and break your vows, which are supposed to mean something, I think. Hopefully, as I am not in this situation now, I might avoid it by thinking about these things in advance.
--- Quote from: jhocking on 27 May 2008, 09:06 ---
--- Quote from: pi on 27 May 2008, 08:54 ---But are you not, in essence, saying that you are 100% certain that you will stay with your partner until death, when you take your vows?
--- End quote ---
Not really. I mean, I suppose technically you are saying that if you get really pedantic about parsing the rhetoric, but as with many things in life people state things in absolute terms in order to convey the depth of their emotion. Given that you sound like you are attempting to understand this scientifically, let me compare it to an example a scientist might understand: how sure are you about evolution? Absolutely 100% certain or just so sure that you really can't imagine it not being so? If you aren't 100% sure, are you still certain enough to take a great risk (eg. basing a career around evolution being true) for it?
Of course, when taking vows you are clearly saying that you are very certain, and I pointed out that you should be very certain, not marrying on a whim.
--- End quote ---
I think before your edit you said that the vows are more symbolic of your emotional attachment to the person, and should not be interpreted literally. I thought that was a pretty good rebuttal.
jhocking:
--- Quote from: pi on 27 May 2008, 15:13 ---I think before your edit you said that the vows are more symbolic of your emotional attachment to the person, and should not be interpreted literally. I thought that was a pretty good rebuttal.
--- End quote ---
So in my attempt to make my wording more thorough, I made my post worse. I really am an academic!
schimmy:
--- Quote from: Scrambled Egg Machine on 27 May 2008, 13:26 ---On the subject of divorce, I can tell you having divorced parents sucks.
--- End quote ---
I can tell you that it's great.
Maybe different people can have different experiences, or something?
Too summarise what my mum has told me several times about marriage: A lifetime is a fucking long time to stick with someone. Why do it if you don't want to?
Lines:
--- Quote from: pi on 27 May 2008, 15:13 ---First off, I didn't say that you thought you were morally superior, merely that the concept of marriage for certain purposes is better, in a moral sense, than for other reasons. I'm not sure if you got the wrong idea, but I wasn't attacking you personally.
If we're talking about marriage in the first place, I might argue that my initial statement was correct, that it was done for the preservation of the offspring, as a female would generally do better if she had a partner to help with the gathering of food or active confrontation, if only for the 'strength in numbers' reason. Though this wasn't really my main point.
--- End quote ---
I didn't think you were attacking me. Sorry if I worded it wrongly, but I was simply answering your question on how they feel morally. I think basically we're getting our ideas of marriage mixed up, so lets just leave that.
--- Quote ---
--- Quote ---Now, if you meant you are talking about marriage now
--- End quote ---
I think I was always talking about marriage. All of the statements you quoted have the word marriage in them. I was particularly interested in the vows that are exchanged during said wedding.
--- End quote ---
I meant now as in contemporary. Just to clarify.
--- Quote ---I don't know what I would do personally, but the point I was making was that in such a situation, you're either miserable yourself, and thereby might make your partner miserable (not to mention the issue of "settling" for someone), or you hurt your partner, and break your vows, which are supposed to mean something, I think. Hopefully, as I am not in this situation now, I might avoid it by thinking about these things in advance.
--- End quote ---
Depends on the situation, really, and who's in it.
onewheelwizzard:
I'm pretty sure that Tania is the person I'm most inclined to agree with on this topic.
Here's my take: if I love someone enough to marry them, if my life is made SO GOOD by the presence of another human being that I am driven to write up an official government document saying that the two of us are to be considered a single family unit, I'm pretty sure I can trust myself to love that person no matter who I have sex with, and to be honest I'd probably only feel comfortable marrying someone if I knew that they understood the distinction that exists in my mind between love and sex and were OK with it.
On the other hand, nowadays I really only want to have sex with people that I have meaningful relationships of some nature with. At the moment that's exactly one person, and while I'm pretty sure she appreciates the way I feel about love and sex (specifically, that loving one person is perfectly possible despite having sex with another), I don't have nearly enough of a desire to have sex with people who are not her to actually go through the process of doing so.
I don't expect this state to last. I rather expect that there will be other people in my life, in the foreseeable future, who I will feel love towards to the extent that I will want to have sex with them very much. I do believe, in an abstract way, that it is possible to fully love two people simultaneously and have two concurrent relationships that both have a great deal of emotional weight. If I did in fact run into someone who is such an outstanding person that I once again am prompted to improve my ability to love sincerely, just for the sake of appreciating them (my current girlfriend is one of these people), I suspect that I'd probably try to do this, and I'm pretty sure that it would not go in any way I could expect. I might succeed, and that would be quite a step for me ... I firmly believe that having the level of emotional openness necessary for successfully living in love with more than one person at the same time is a strictly good thing to have, even if it doesn't actually translate to polyamory (it would certainly make monogamous relationships better too).
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