The appeal of marriage

[Saintaw]

SEXISM RULES!
(Disclaimer: blah blah blah...)

[Pepe]

Santa,

As we say in Spain, "Each one talks about mass(religion) just how they get in with it"...more or less literal translation.

My experience has been wonderful so far. I really don't know what would be without the legal and religious bindings, but I do state that the "ties" have not been a problem at all.

I agree with you parents (both sides) are a problem, especially the first years. I'm a lucky guy, I have both mine and hers 600 Kms. away, so our run-in period has passed just fine, no interferences.

As for why is the marriage is so great, well...I focus it like a house. By far the interior is the most important and, at the very end, it's the part you can't live without. They are the feelings, the moral compromise and, above all, love. The legal, religious, social ties are the exterior. The part of the house seen by others. My personal take in this is (coincidence?) the same as for my real house. I like it to be clean, simple and beauty. Beauty is on the eye of the beholder, and so my marriage is beautiful for me. I don't care about what others might thing about it.

You can live a life with or without marriage. As you can live in a house with an imposing facade, a large garden, or in a tent, in the middle of a wood. Both perfect. Both with his pros and cons.

It's all a matter of personal beliefs and, thus, personal options. Each one has his own personal and unique arrangement that fits. The only tricky part is findin it. I've been immensely lucky so far.

Cheers,

[rod367th]

Well heres 2 sides.

My grandparents on my mom's side have been married for 71 years. Grandfather will be 100  December 16th. Grand mother will be 97 Jan 3rd.  They Owned Tarbell Farms in upstate New York, Every weekend since they turned 45 was spent alone  just the 2 of them no phones radio or tv's. (except holidays) My gramps built a cabin in the middle of the woods on our property. It had no elec or phone's so it was just the 2 of them alone. He told me about 10 years ago he thought that spending time together with no distractions, Kept them from growing apart, and they were each others best friend.



 Now I know a couple that were married for 3 years, fought since 2nd year hated each other got divorced. met 2 years later started dating, They have been together for 30 years now as Boy friend girl friend, never remarried but had two boys now grown, They told me that being not married made you work harder on relationship, knowing other could leave at any time with no divorce, Just walk away.



 I guess as I think of these two couples, and my marriage. I would say unless your going to work harder atmarriage than any thing else Don't get married, It takes alot of work to make a marriage work. I know I thought and others told me I had perfect marriage to my first wife, we were married for 13 years, She never went without what she wanted , Houses cabins cars.fur coats just about everything she wanted. Thought she was happy and thought I was happy. Wasn't till now that I met my new wife of 9 years did I see what I was missing in a marriage let alone what exwife was missing.



 To those with money I'd say if you need prenup agrement. Don't get married.... If you don't trust her or him STOP now save yourself the hassle.

[Curval]

One very important aspect of marriage is the fact that without it lineage is impossible.  In a very Euro-modern world this is something that doesn't seem to matter.  It does to me.

[StSanta]

Lineage will be there, in terms of DNA.

What changes in you, your partner and your relationship when you get married?

Thanks everyone for the excellent responses; they've given me something to ponder.

[Vulcan]

Marriage?

Its so she can dress up, burn up lotsa money on a ceremony plus party, and get lotsa photos where she is the center of attention.

Also helps with the residency and getting her into the country

[takeda]

I have been living for two months now with my gf. It was about time, we have been dating since 9 yrs. ago.

I don't need to get married for any special emotional reason, I already pretty much decided in all these years not to ever leave her until she goes away herself. But you get heavier taxes here if you are single. So I see it just as some paperwork I must do in order to get a tax cut and some benefits. And thats not related to loving her or inviting my family and friends to celebrate something, I tend to celebrate things with them anyway.

I have no pressure in my family to get married, but she has had the whole get-married-in-church-wearing-a-useless-expensive-white-dress idea deeply engraved in her mind by many somewhat "redneckish" members of her family so I'll end up having a religious wedding with a hundred people there that I don't really want to see.

And there is the "extortion" thing: as the wedding ends up costing an exhorbitant amount of money, here in Spain people feel pressured to instead of giving you some stupid present, just hand you 200,300 or 400 euro per person and I strongly refuse to do that to my friends and family just to invite the stupid wife of a cousin I have not seen since I was 4.

Of course I'll do it because I love her, but it pisses me a lot, because I must tolerate something I profoundly dislike, and help perpetuate a stupid irrational ceremony which would  go away if those who don't want to get involved as myself were left alone by the rest.

[capt. apathy]

vulcan,  what you describe is a wedding, not a marriage.

this confusion is another reason why many marriages fail.  many women spend 10 times the effort making sure that their wedding is perfect, than the spend making sure their marriage is even sucessful.

[Cherlie]

I got married 6 weeks ago,

I wouldn't change it for the world and no the "honeymoon" period we didn't have, first 3 weeks we were at each others throat (shoot she through a phone at me).

Having grown up without a dad, i do believe that when you have kids, you do need that solid mother/father marraige to work.

Now as we are working through our plroblems it is very nice to come home to someone that is looking forward ot being with you. It is also nice to know that I can trust my wife with anything I say and know that she won't tell anyone what is going on in life.

As funked said, it depends on the person, my wife and I wanted a family life, a commitment to God and commitment to each otherr, some others don't.

Some men likes to screw fat chicks, some like black chicks, some like blondes and some like males.

CB

[Curval]

Originally posted by StSanta
Lineage will be there, in terms of DNA.

What changes in you, your partner and your relationship when you get married?

DNA?  Come on.  What if you are trying to prove that a person is your father and that person has moved to a different country and doesn't "want" to be found?

Marriage is a legal relationship...living with someone and spawning a few children may constitute a legal relationship in certain countries with respect to common-law, but not in others.  In fact the common-law marriage concept arose because of the difficulties associated with lineage issues in "out of wedlock" relationships.

Furthermore, without a legally constituated marriage it is so very easy for couples to split up.  When couples run into difficulties...which is inevitable in every relationship...it is just too easy to walk away and start over, without the legal ramifications of a separation or divorce.  Sure it might involve similar emotional factors, but the real crux of any split up are legal in nature, for example:  division of assets, living arrangements, vistation rights when children are involved etc.

The concept of "Let's not fall into that old fashioned marriage trap" is very shortsighted and frankly I think you guys in Europe will, in the next 20 to 50 years, start seeing all kinds of problems resulting from it.  In my opinion it is not only a shortsighted alternative to marriage, but also a very selfish one.

Having said that, it is bound to make some family legal practices a great deal of money when they are hired to try and sort out the ramifications of these couples that "live in sin."

(I don't really think that they are living in sin...it is just an expression.)

[Ripsnort]

All I know about marriage is this:

-Glad I lived with a couple girls before choosing marriage...it prevented a couple of "future divorces"
-Glad I married when I was older, more set in my ways (age 30..read "stable" into that sentence..not prone to go out every night)
-I feel sorry for the rest of you saps, as I won the "wife Lottery" and married my best friend. The relationship grows stronger everyday.

[lazs2]

depends on temperment.   I am not a team player and I do not do comprimise... I have never met a woman who has the same "goals" that I do.

Having said that... I am extremely glad that I have two children from two different marriages... the divorces were messy and expensive but... better thatn a life of blandness varied only by the excitement of fighting..  I have been a single parent and it is very difficult and I didn't do a very good job even tho I tried very hard.  it all turned out ok tho... It allways does.  

Any woman that I see more than 20-30 hours a week is just getting in my way of me doing what I would rather be doing.   Some men don't feel that way.

I am older now and it is harder to overlook womens flaws... or they mine.   If taken on an anual basis... I probly have more and better sex with women I see only once a week than with those I have been married to or lived with... In any case it works for me.

I do believe that parents should stay together to raise their children.. it is simply a matter of personal responsibility... no worse than getting up to run a cement mixer every day... I've done both.

Taxes?  not much of a break anymore.. inheretance?  sheesh... if there is anything left it goes to my kids.
lazs

[miko2d]

StSanta - I believe that you approach the question from the wrong perspective - that is if you a interested in a philosophical discussion rather than getting a recipy for achieving your personal goals - which you'd have to specify.

 Historicaly, morals and rules governing the society are not products of either instinct - biologically programmed inclinations, or a reason - someone intentionally producing a rule that would have have a desired long-term effect.

 Morals and rules evolved - all kinds appeared at one time or another in different places and those that promoted welfare and spread of the carrier populations are those that came to be the dominant ones.
 Obviously those morals only worked when they were enforced - in fact a belief that morals should be enforced is one of the traditions that evolved too. The enforcement took the form of religious cannon, strong traditions with penalties by society or state laws based on prevailing morals.
 There could be no rational justification for those morals without using any goal specified by the same moral system. So we cannot rationally speak of the reasons for them to exist but can explain mechanisms of their origin and existance.
 Those morals survived and spread that were good at survival and spreading. As simple as that. Same as genes.
 The morals certainly did not evolve to make people subjectively happy - any such effect is purely coincidental. In many cultures eutanasia of elderly or infanticide developed because they were conducive to survival - not happiness.

 No real reason for people not to go with morals that mandate other arrangements than marriage. Many tried. It's just that after many generations they have not many living descendants.

 Of couse it all worked untill socialist philosophers started dismantling our society "irrational" morals - especially those supported by religion - without appreciating how much our society was based on them. I find no issue, BTW, with a desire to improve the morals and customs - as long as you know what you are doing and only dismantle things when a suitable substitute is found.

 So our society changes. One of the reasons why many more people are now having marital problems is that morals and customs that ensured children being prepared to assume the roles of a husband and wife have deteriorated.
 For better or worse, people were "trained" what to do and what to expect as a spouse - so even arranged marieages were way more successfull becasue people fit each other's expectations.

 Modern parenting and educational practices ensure that people entering the marriage are much less compatible that they were.
 Laws and customs making divorce or unmarried cohabitation more prohibitive disappeared.
 Technology providing abundance of wealth and socialist state redistributing that wealth ensure that penalty to the survival of progeny are not only removed but reversed - "illicite" incontinent procreation is actively promoted.
 That's where we are today.

 BTW, the same dismantling is happening with evolved morals concerning private property, value of an individual and personal freedom.

 That is not a moral judgement - just an observation. If our society ever experiences hardship, we will either lose a lot of population, or be given an excuse to establish a completely totalitarian system and then lose a lot of population. Of course it may not happen in our time - more likely in our children's or grandchildren's.

 miko

[SirLoin]

I think some people get married for the wrong reasons...If she isn't your best friend to start with,it will probably not last the kids/years/money woes etc..

[28sweep]

Marriage suxs...period.  I hate my wife.....