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Why I Don’t Believe In Marriage: Leigh Drogen

kryonlight

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
Why I Don’t Believe In Marriage

Posted by Leigh Drogen on March 29th, 2011

What exactly is the point of marriage? Who created the institution of marriage? Does marriage work?

By now I’m used to writing things here which a decent percentage of readers will disagree with or maybe even vehemently hate. This is a personal blog as much as it is a market, technology, and political blog. As much as this has been a great place for me to hash out my ideas around trading, it has been so for my personal life, and I’m comfortable with sharing that, to an extent, we all need some walls.

My parents were divorced when I was 17, many of my friend’s parent’s are divorced, my girlfriend’s parents are divorced, the two before that were as well. Almost 50% of all marriages in the US end in divorce. Why is an institution built on the back of the saying “until death do us part”, so prone to, well, not lasting that long?

Because the arrangement of marriage for love makes little to no practical sense. And don’t tell me it doesn’t have to be practical, when you get married you are entering into a contractual obligation, you better have your damn head on straight. And how exactly is that possible when you’re in love, to have your head on straight. The answer, it’s not.

And there’s nothing wrong with that, in fact it’s amazing.

Let’s take a practical argument, that you get married to someone you love to prevent them from going elsewhere. Well I’d say the fact that 50% of people get divorced discredits that thesis. The fact is, if two married people, or even one married person doesn’t want to be with the other anymore, they’ll get divorced. Getting married for love is one of the dumbest decisions I believe you can make, it has little upside. The downside, you’ve commingled your assets and will need to go through a messy legal process when you no longer want to be with that person, a coin toss event. The upside, ummmm, you tell me, what exactly can you do when you get married that you can’t when you aren’t?

I can think of one thing, get treated by the government in a different way when it comes to taxes and healthcare, kids, and a few other things they tend to give married couples a break on. I will come back to this later.

Which brings us to the crux of this argument. The utility of marriage has never been in connecting two people who are in love. Marriage started out as a social contract between families, to unite people, to pass on assets, it was never meant as a contract that binded two individuals for love. And I’m not going to argue against the utility in some of that. Now I would never condone two people being forced to marry each other, that’s a direct breach of basic human rights. But marriage for money, power, status, or any number of things other than love does makes sense. You see, if you are going to sign a contract, at least sign it because you are getting something that can’t be taken away from you at any time, love. More on this later as well.

So how did it end up that way, at least here in the US? Pretty simple, we live in a country founded on Christian values. The Christian church controls people through laying out a whole bunch of sins you can run afoul of if you do things without being married. And then after that, they lay out a whole bunch of sins you can commit if you do certain things while married. Seems that the church has lost just about every ounce of credibility it ever had, but then again, when did it really have any to begin with.

Yea, the same people who put Galileo on trial for revealing the church was wrong about the earth not being the center of the universe are going to tell you that you’re going to hell if you have sex before you get married, ok. Maybe you want to be that ignorant, but I’ll choose to think for myself.

So now, in all practical sense, we’ve got this really old custom left over from a time when people followed the church like little lemmings, and 50% of people don’t pay any attention to it after the fact, why exactly do we keep it around? Probably because thats what happens to customs, they stick around way after their use has gone. And of course because our government was founded by Christians with Christian values, so there is legal upside to being married.

So why not just play along? Well primarily because I don’t like doing things simply for the customary value, especially when those customs aren’t my own, I’m a Jew. Yes Jews have marriage, but we don’t have a hell you go to if you commit adultery. Also, getting divorced isn’t a big deal. In fact, in Jewish law, marriage really is a contract, in fact, there actually is a contract, it’s called the Ketubah, you literally sign in before you “get married”. Today the signing of the Ketubah is largely ceremonial, no one is exchanging cattle or gold. Even still, I’m not getting married any time soon to acquire or share assets with anyone, so there’s no point there.

I’m not making any kind of an argument that people aren’t meant to be monogamous, although I could make a good one if I wanted to. I believe people can do whatever they want to do, if you want to live with one person and one person alone for the rest of your life, you will. The truth is, most people don’t, and that’s fine too. Even more, people’s wants change, you may want to live with one person for the rest of your life now, and figure out that’s not the case tomorrow. Nothing wrong with that. Why have a legal document making it harder to effect that split? If you want to split you’re gonna split. Is it healthy to stay in a relationship with someone where one or both people are no longer happy? The answer is no.

I wish anyone who decides to make the commitment to live with one person the rest of their life the best of luck, seriously. And at the end of the day, you do have a 50/50 chance of it working out, look at the glass half full. I honestly hope to make that decision some day, not to get married, but to make a commitment like that to someone.

So can I think of any reason to get married? No.

Well there’s one. If you’re in love with a girl who wants to get married, you’ll probably end up getting married, because people in love do irrational things, and that’s life.
 

scroobal

Alfrescian
Loyal
Cogent arguments and I agree with her. In fact I would like to borrow her arguments and challenge the reason for woman dressing up and using expensive make-up to please society. Woman should just get a white bedsheet and a rope to hold it together. Dresses and make-up is overrated. In the case of wearing a white bedsheet, you do not even need a partner to make that decision.
 

drifter

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
ppl who dont believe in marriage might have been dump often in their past realationship , or have seen parents , sibling , friends been dump . it left a deep impact in their life . by the way , this is not a religion topic ...nice try though :wink: kryonlight , you always dump by your girlfriend or dump by your wife ? its ok if ppl tell me they dont believe in marriage ..but its not ok when ppl try to say marriage is delusion when marriage can be successful .


marriage has not become outdated, it's merely attitudes to marriage that people have. i don't know if there is a perfect someone for everyone and if there is if you'll ever find him or her but I know that when marriage does work and when it's worked at it's a beautiful, warm and fun thing. i don't believe in the fact that one should only have children when being married and that or that everyone in a relationship should end married. but what i actually strongly believe in cohabiting before marriage because it gives you the chance to know better the person you are with and to see if you can stand that person's attitudes and behaviours.

to conclude, marriage should never be a jail sentence but likewise it's not a holiday either. i think one should enter into it only when he understands what it really means and is prepared to put in the large amounts of effort required to keep it fresh, fun and he will take part in one of the most beautiful experiences on earth.


hope this song wont bring you back bad memories :wink:
[video=youtube;XfLwgdIuB4s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfLwgdIuB4s&feature=related[/video]
 
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drifter

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
please dont be emotional when u listening to this song :wink:

[video=youtube;f-QPhnaJK-Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-QPhnaJK-Q&feature=related[/video]
 
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drifter

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
hope even a monk like you will get marry after listening to this song :wink:

[video=youtube;lgvflp9WZTE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgvflp9WZTE&feature=related[/video]
 

neddy

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
Cogent arguments and I agree with her. In fact I would like to borrow her arguments and challenge the reason for woman dressing up and using expensive make-up to please society. Woman should just get a white bedsheet and a rope to hold it together. Dresses and make-up is overrated. In the case of wearing a white bedsheet, you do not even need a partner to make that decision.

In some North Asian societies, decent dressing and make-up are common courtesy imposed by society. Cheap make-up are seen as bad for the skin. Only in Shanghai will pyjamas be tolerated outside the house.
 
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