Marriage a most unnatural state of affairs?

In order to have children, women have to be pregnant, give birth and in some cases bf. This will detract from things like earning power. Why are defining earning power and personal wealth as thigs against which to measure equality? There are other factors like relationships with your children or the ability I take time to nurture them. That's why women and men can work together (or same sex partners) to help eachother during this period so that personal wealth and damage to earning potential can be minimised. You can't argue with biology IMO. Biology has evolved for good reasons. Men and women can be treated fairly but you have to respect the differences that biology causes.

Mini - that is somewhat patronising. I am not saying that built environment has no impact, I am just saying that you seem to be shifting the goalposts with your use of examples.

Sgb - from what you've described I can see no reason why your ds's upbringing wouldn't be stable and positive. He has stable, loving, permanent adults in his life which is what children need to thrive. Oh, and a mum who doesn't want to splash him all over the pages of Closer .

I have lived in a commune.
I was married firstly to an abusive husband, we divorced.
I didn't think I would ever marry again, but I did, so now I am married for the 2nd time.

The commune I lived in did not have a leader(s).
However, like communism, living communally is an idea which is attractive in principle but in reality is flawed because it doesn't take human nature into account.
People have different ideas about how to do everything from changing the loo roll to corporal punishment of children (theirs and other people's).
My experience was that in the commune some people wanted to live in a place which was clean and tidy while others created mess and filth.
Rotas which were agreed to were not adhered to.
The people who did the chores were not neccessarily male or female, there were just people who did and people who let others do.

The same was true of the children of the commune.
Some of the parents did little of the work themselves, others did the majority.
Again, the gender of the carers was almost equally split.
It was not ideal and I would not have wanted to bring my children up there.
The corporal punishment issue was very contentious, as were many more minor points.
For example; the food the children ate was also a big topic of constant discussion where many couldn't agree and wouldn't compromise.

Bowlby has since been criticised as his research didn't actually prove causality. However, subsequent research has found that a child needs benefits for some form or attachment whether mother or not.

I am raising a child without being in a heteromonogamous couple relationship with his father. My son's father is a decent bloke, an involved and loving dad who sees DS at least twice a week, contributes financially to his upbringing etc. DS sees plenty of his grandparents, aunts and uncles on both sides. He is loved by a lot of adults, including some adults who are friends of mine/his dad but no genetic kin to him.
Sometimes stupid people say to us 'Well why don't you just move in together and get married?'
Why should we? DS'Dad and I would drive each other batshit if we had to share a house. We have no romantic/sexual interest in one another (Yes, we did have enough to have a shag and produce DS but it was just an amicable now-and-again thing for both of us). We are a living, working demonstration of it not being necessary or desirable to be in a heteromonogamous marriage to raise children, and if it weren't for not wanting to make a big show of my DS to his embarassment, I would be fucking plugging Our Unconventional Family to every crap newspaper features desk and magazine going.

Mini, I don't think Bowlby's theory of attachment can be dismissed just because the society & govt at that time might have leaned towards women being the primary caregiver: I think modern use of attachment theory accepts that from 6 months anyone who is a main caregiver is the focus of a child's attachment behaviour, regardless of gender or relationship, and that there are multiple attachments for most children: this takes off any onus on women / mothers to be primary caregivers in attachment terms.

And fwiw I very much agree with Eclectic's point above re. the One. I am happily married as I strongly believe the way we have constructed our marriage will benefit us both equally but that to last the course we will have to work. I have watched my father be a serial monogamist and can't see that it has benefitted him or his partners particularly; not that I am saying it's wrong, but not right for how I want my life. Therefore to get married was a leap into the unknown for me and one I took deliberately.

The concept of the "one" is very damaging IMO. It's one reason cited over and over again by young girls as to why they put up with crap. They think because they have strong feelings for someone that this is their "one shot" at true happiness. I think its rubbish, relationships should not be over romanticised. What is romance anyway, is it the extra effort people make when in the heroes of lust? That's when it occurs most naturally. It's all dependent on personality and a persons life experience. List and romance do not hold up a relationship long term IMO. Working at it by recognising your own faults and empathising with ther other person, stand a better chance. People usually change over time as their life experience grows. Values and attitudes are shaped, it takes work, IMO, to keep a common shared goal in mind despite inevitable distractions.

Thats great for you bunbaker but everyone is different and I don't think it's helpful to dismiss that monogamous relations need effort to work out for some couples.

"It takes work, not about "the one"..."

I don't find that. OH and I have the same values and love and respect each other. After nearly 31 years of marriage I still don't find that either of us needs to "work" at our marriage, but then neither of us finds it difficult to show love, respect and consideration towards each other.

I agree with Dahlen's points as well.

So is your point just that marriage is unatural?

Good question, what is the definition of natural and unnatural in this thread?

I think you are under-estimated a lot of married women.

Personally, even searching deep into my 'biological sex drive' I have no desire whats so ever to have sex with anyone else, male or female. Neither does it make sense in terms of procreation and carrying on my genes. Why would I go out of the marriage/family and risk the support of DD's father to have a baby with someone else? Makes no sense to me as I am madly in love and deeply happy with who i am with and having sex with.

it was on finding this out that we decided to get married.

If this ceases to be I will stop being married.

And what on earth are you deeming natural and unnatural anyway?

Mini - you are conflating very different circumstances, which makes it difficult to pin down what you are arguing for.

First you spoke about post war reconstruction and how it affected women, now you mention gentrification and clearances for land profits which does indeed impact women but in a completely different way and one not at all related to the original O.P.

The ideal issue is worth discussing. I have been both - married 19 years and single (since divorce). I don't find my state of personal happiness or that of our children relates to whether I am in a relationship or not. Obviously people in relationships often like to think those who are single are not as happy but that simply is not so. You can be pretty lonely and miserable in an unhappy marriage and there is a lot of freedom in being single which I am currently and as I'm happy I would have no problem if I always were single. I'm not sure for example I would have found it so easy to buy my island near the equator had I had a husband or partner and that is just one illustration of issues. Although I accept that some husbands may encourage wives to buy islands of whatever the issue might be or business decision the wife or husband wants to take. It is certainly a lot easier and simpler on your own particularly if you are a woman who earns quite a bit of money so you are not reliant on men for money as so many women even on mumsnet are. Their man is their cash cow in a sense.

It can also be simpler to take decisions about children with only one of you to decide them. There are pros and cons and I have had boyfriends and that is good too when it works.

The Origins of Sex by an Oxford academic which was published in the last 6? months is quite interesting. It looks at male/female relations, marriage, affairs from about the year 1000 AD up to around 1800s and how we had various forms of relationships, common law wivse, church marriages and when adultery and came in and out of fashion and punishment for cheating, church and state control and then various periods in English history when things were more liberal. The author seemed to find that once we had both Catholics and Protestants in the UK so not just one unified single religion everyone had, then people had to accept there were different ways to live and then they had to allow people to have different rules whether that be free love or fidelity (n terms of state law anyway).