"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
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A reply to an email I got:
>anyhow, i think it's sad if everything becomes a la carte. (was watching down with
>love last night. borrowed the phrase... if anything, the institution of marriage
>gives meaning to the essentially meaningless human relationships abound which i'm
>quite sure a lot of us are looking for.
Relationships do not have to be given meaning by institutions. I believe they can and are valuable in and of themselves (because not everyone looks for meaningless relationships), without needing to be vindicated by external forces. If your relationship was already meaningless prior to marriage, why should legal and social sanction replace what is lacking between you and your partner?
Marriage is an archaic institution which has outlived its time. It was conceptualized for an era where household conveniences, dry cleaners and fast food (for the men) didn't exist, women were poor, weak and needed protection, contraception/abortion didn't exist and as a stable framework for bringing up children. Some might bring up free sex, but prostitution is after all the world's second-oldest profession (the witch doctor being the oldest), and men value sexual novelty which you don't get in marriage. Now women can work and have legal protection and men have washing machines, so you really only need to get married to provide a child 18 years of family stability and a dual-parent environment, and that's not an issue if you don't intend to have children (which is another essay).
In today's society, we all live much longer than we would have millennia ago. You've heard of the Seven Year Itch. Now imagine a few decades with the same person. It's difficult enough to predict what pair of shoes you want to wear next week. Now imagine predicting your feelings over a period of 4 decades (assuming marriage in your late 20s and dying in your late 60s), and at a relatively young and immature age too (ie Late 20s).
As you know, our mutual acquaintance realized after about 8 years of marriage that she didn't want to be with her husband anymore: "The heart has reasons that reason cannot know". How many couples do you think still love each other after decades of marriage? Divorce rates are going up; it is fashionable to attribute this to immorality and immaturity among the young, but why should you stay chained to someone if you realize you don't want to be with them anymore? Far worse, I think, to be stuck in a loveless marriage for years, or even decades, unwilling to part because of fears about peer pressure and gossip. A related problem I have more sympathy for is the problem of finding someone else, if that is one's desire ("Sad my lot and sorry, What shall I do? I cannot live alone!" - Sir Joseph, HMS Pinafore, ie The fear of loneliness), but that segues into my unemployment theory of relationships which is another essay.
Commitment is another red herring often thrown up by defenders of marriage. But then signing a piece of paper does not true commitment entail. Indeed, I would argue that entering into a formal marriage contract shows a lack of commitment - if you lock someone in a room and he has to break the door down in order to escape, and he doesn't, does this show more or less commitment than if you put someone in a room and the door is open for him to walk out of, but he doesn't? A prisoner with a ball chained to his leg is not more committed than the inmate who gets to roam the yard freely. Quite the contrary, really.
Another problem with marriage is that it is romanticised. Some girls don't have a concept of marriage or wedded life but they have a *highly* detailed concept of their wedding. The guests, dress, flowers, music, decor, places they want to go take photos et al. A few have even planned their wedded lives down to what house they want and how many kids they want and what to name them. We (girls especially) have been socialized into deifying marriage and thinking it will somehow cast a golden halo over our lives, but life still goes on. You have to pay the bills, your partner still snores and you still suffer from heartburn after eating bak chor mee.
This is not to say that there is no place for romantic partnerships. There is ample space for these within the institution of cohabitation. Some are suspicious what advantages it would have over marriage. Cohabitation lacks legal sanction, there is freedom of entry and exit, there is no (less?) Romanticisation about lifelong partnership and True Love and it is a more accurate way of showing commitment, if that is valued.
I wanted to slip in something about how not having pre-marital sex is being irresponsible, but it's not that relevant so I'll do it another day.
Basically, marriage should be deromanticised and cohabitation destigmatised. The only scenario I can see marriage having a place in modern society is in the context of child-rearing.
(This post has been edited in minor ways since I sent the email. The thesis statement is, nonetheless, unchanged)
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Someone: sex is a way to build intimacy. not for mere selfish pleasure
Me: why do you need marriage for that
Someone: because other means of intimacy are not that deep enough?
seriously i get put off by girlfriends who don't want to get married
Me: what is it about marriage that is so special?
when you kiss the bride does tinkerbell shower you with pixie dust?
Someone: just havng a close relationship with someone who loves you and whom you love
someone of the opposite sex
Me: break out of feminine irrationality
what is it about marriage that you can't get in other relationships?
Someone: to be able to serve and have sex with a man who loves you?
i can't do that to my dad/bro. That'll be incest.
Me: sigh
nevermind
Someone: marriage has a beauty in itself
Me: that's because you've been socialized into believing that
Someone: i don't think so
even if my parents quarrel, they still manage to work things out
Me: what is it about marriage that makes them "work things out"?
Someone: committment and love
that is beyound the surface
Me: which you don't need marriage for
Someone: yes you need marriage for that
we human being are too temperamental and selfish
Me: what does marriage have to do with that
nothing.
Someone: yes
it teaches you to sacrifice yourself
Me: why can't you have that in a normal relationship?
Someone: it's not protected
no promise, no vows
Me: but people sacrifice themselves outside of marriage
you're just blandly asserting that it is impossible outside of marriage. but it is. and it has happened.
so you say that humans need to be forced to love each other
if that's the case then isn't it a sham?
Someone: love is in itself also a deliberate act
Me: but you just said that marriage teaches you to love because it shackles you
in that case isn't it giving you false consciousness?
so basically marriage is a tool to fool and manipulate people into "loving" each other
Someone: no it's not
it is to make sure that people follow thier vows
that they had love and intended to love, they should continue to love now
Me: so it's to oppress people
and socialize them into a form of social and institutional hegemony
Someone: sort or, you can say that
else, let our animalistic nature oppress us?
Me: "It is one thing to say that I know what is good for X, while he himself does not; and even to ignore his wishes for its – and his – sake; and a very different one to say that he has eo ipso chosen it, not indeed consciously, not as he seems in everyday life, but in his role as a rational self which his empirical self may not know – the ‘real’ self which discerns the good, and cannot help choosing it once it is revealed. This monstrous impersonation, which consists in equating what X would choose if he were something he is not, or at least not yet, with what X actually seeks and chooses, is at the heart of all political theories of self-realization. It is one thing to say that I may be coerced for my own good, which I am too blind to see: this may, on occasion, be for my benefit; indeed it may enlarge the scope of my liberty. It is another to say that if it is my good, then I am not being coerced, for I have willed it, whether I know this or not, and am free (or ‘truly’ free) even while my poor earthly body and foolish mind bitterly reject it, and struggle with the greatest desperation against those who seek, however benevolently, to impose it."