Marriage a most unnatural state of affairs?

Hi Mini, probably won't continue it. I have been used to total control over my own life and emotions and cannot relinquish that power to someone else.

Mini -

It's too simplistic to say that capital goes to where the labour is cheap.

Capital goes to (if the market works) where the risk-return return rail is best. This depends on a lot of things - consumer demand, natural resources, stability, ease of doing business, education and productivity of the workforce.

1. The state has no money and is going to have less so it will not be paying out even more to support people's chidlren.

1. Yes, marriage which is very different in legal terms than living together even in Scotland, does seek to even things out so that relationships where women give up working (or men) should on a divorce result in a split (and I know lal about that havnig paid out a huge amount to a full time working husband as I earned 10x what he did and it feels very unfair if the other person has not made any career sacrifice at all).

1. Bowlby - a bit off track - he charted chidlren taken from both parents and who did not bond with anyone. He di dnot look at children of working parents who do tend to bond with mother, father and their nanny or granny or whoever else is helping. I feel very bonded to all 5 children who I breastfed to 1 - 2 years yet I was back at work in 2 weeks and I don't feel less connected to the children because I took decisinos which meant I was able to support them and suffered no career income detriment. Indeed it's hugely benefited them.

4,. Privacy - I now live with adult and younger (pre school age) children. Thatr's not a commune but there are often are lots of people around even if it's also people like cleaners and work men as it's a big busy household. I won't say it's like a medieval one or a traditional country house but I certainly feel there are elements of those which mean my children have lots of benefits of influences on them other than just me. They are here 365 days a year which is probably unusual for a divorced mother and that has its pros and its cons. We certainly have more privacy than poor families from the old days when the only chance the couple had to have sex without a child in the bed was when they sent the lot of them to Sunday school once a week and got the marital bed to themselves.

SGB - I think we don't have a 'slave class' in modern Western society - technology, choice and contraception have pretty much done away with that for most people.

We each have the equivilent of 200 "energy slaves" based on fossil fuels and technology substituting for human work.

This gives a totally new set of problems. On one hand climate change, and on the other an economy that is making human workers obselete.

GAG: how far was that concept of privacy extended, though? Slaves wouldn't have had any privacy: slave owners weren't expected to knock before visiting slave quarters. Most societies worked quite well for the privileged classes: as far as I know there has yet to evolve a stable, comfortable society that can function without a slave class that has been made to accept slave status.

I'll dispute privacy being a modern concept.

Privacy, knocking before you enter private rooms, etc is actually discussed in the Quran (1400 years ago) and I'm certain that other cultures/ belief systems also had concepts of privacy. Again also, people have sought isolation for spiritual/cultural purposes throughout history.

This is what I mean about romanticising the past. Some of the ideas put forward here are starting to whiff of speculation akin to evo-psych.

Oops! Sorry...
Take my wedding band off as I have put on wight since getty married and it was really too tight.
I decided to get. A new one, t wasn't in a rush iyswim?
During my wedding ring-less period I had to attend a few meetings/docs appts etc and I was dealt with differently...definitely. I was even asked by a GP "who is at home too?" meaning did I have a partner/bf/dh. Wouldn't have asked that if I had been wearing my ring!
Marriage is hard work ime but I am sure cohabiting couples would say the same?

Will add though that I struggled with working and still wanting a social life and the idea of communal living with other single mums when mine was little was a model I would have liked to have been part of. Everyone helping each other out.

Oh I don't know and I'm probably completely missing the point but, here goes.

I have brought up a child on my own with help from extended family. I managed to pay a mortgage and work so very little state involvement in my finances. I have brought up a lovely child to be proud of. I am self sufficient, own home, money etc, said child now grown up. Have had lots of different men come in and out of my life, mainly because I like and desire male company and want to have sex but didn't meet anyone I wanted to commit to in all that time. I didn't and still don't need a man for any reason other than I still want a loving, supportive relationship. I have met someone and I would marry him tomorrow if he asked. He is against the idea of a monogamous relationship so it's not going to happen.

Just saying .

You are right, Mini.
Privacy is a modern concept but it wasn't privacy (or lack of) that was the problem when I lived communally.
If anything the problem was that human nature didn't evolve to fit with the society we were living in!

When living in a commune people took less of a 'live and let live' approach as they felt the others around them encroached on their chosen way of life.
I'm not sure people live comfortably when their ideas, attitudes and values are constantly challenged.
In my experience it makes them more defensive/aggressive, which in turn does not make for happy living!

Agree with those scenarios SGB, but doesn't mean it's not a choice for some.

SGB that's partly what I was getting at earlier when I said about the state taking on more responsibility (financially) for children. With the number of single parents increasing all the time, we may well find ourselves in the future where government is forced to accept that there is a significant proportion of the population looking after small children and unable to survive unless childcare is more available and affordable to allow them to take on paid work, or they are otherwise given an income. I think a lot will go wrong, and Draconian measures will be taken to keep women 'in their place' before that happens though.

a couple of people have said either that women lose out financially from marriage or men gain financially but surely it's the case that women lose out financially from having children, rather than from being married?
and in fact, is modern marriage in the western world not an attempt to minimise that loss over time?

i married my DH for many reasons but one being that i wanted to have his children and as a self-employed person that would mean bringing in a very minimal amount of money for a certain period of time and possibly a lower amount than pre-children for a significant period of time. i felt that in marriage we had more financial resiliance. (not to mention the fact i love him and want to be socially 'commited' to him and him to me)

ES: Well, for a lot of women it isn't. Women get forcibly impregnated through rape. Women get impregnated by accident/contraceptive failure and refused access to abortion. Women have children with men who promised to love and support those children but then fuck off or behave so horribly that the woman has to throw the man out of the house. Also, couples choose to have children when they are financially comfortable and then something goes wrong; job loss, physical or mental illness, the child has severe SN and needs constant care...

Actually another question, probably best left for another thread, but is it every woman's right to have a child, irrespective of circumstance? Equally, is it every mans right?

I really think in this scenario it's about team work, community, nuclear families... Whatever you want to call it. Children take resources, those resources have to come from somewhere. The government have a duty to suppor existing children but not to encourage people to have children neccesarily (depends on country). Some women are disabled and can't get support and are discriminated against work wise. It's not their choice though is it?

Having children is a choice. With that comes good things and bad things. The world is over populated, why should having children be given extra support from a government?

OK, in the interests of fairness and debate and all that, I would have to acknowledge that my earning capacity is currently fucked. DS dad does contribute a reasonable amount, as stated above (and it isa reasonable amount, 25% of his monthly income, but he's not exactly loaded); but if it weren't for tax credits and housing benefit, we would be in a hostel or on the streets. I do work, I have several part-time jobs, but none of them are secure or guaranteed. Thing is, we wouldn't be much better off if DS dad lived with us. We might even be worse off. THIS is the real big problem; how to deal with the fact that children need to be raised and looked after by an adult, and the adult doing that job needs an income. It used to be the case that men were simply paid more than women irrespective of whether or not the men, or the women, had any children, on the grounds that 'a man is the family breadwinner, a woman is financially supported either by her husband or her closest male relative'. Reinstating that model won't do: lots of people don't have children, don't have partners, are working at an age where their children if they had any are independent adults. Could you even expect people to accept that parents should be paid higher wages than non parents for the same job?

It seems to me that the answers to this problem might incorporate: raising of child benefit till it meets the minimum wage and paying it to the person looking after the child/children - or introducing much more flexibility in working hours and state-funded childcare 24/7.

That's one of the arguments for marriage, your partner supports you and compensates. What other alternatives are there? What would you propose would alleviate these issues?