Why is it considered ''shameful'' by some to have sex and children out of marriage?

[poshsinglemum]

Thoughts please. I know it is largely religious but why does religion dictate this?

IMO, it's to ensure that women are "owned" and kept under control but there would also have been practical/financial considerations until very recently.

It's not shameful, but, in some cases, it is very stupid.
Marriage is specifically designed to cater for the sahp so that in the event of a break-up, the sahp will be entitled to some of working spouse's assets.
Shameful? Absolutely not. Stupid? Sometimes.

I do not understand the "it's to ensure women are owned " thing whe it is a religious requirement it is both for men and women to not have sex before marriage.

Ownership of fertility.

Women own it. THEY are in control of when they have babies and who they have them to. THEY control whose dna lives on.

Men don't like that idea much. They want all the lovely mothering to go to THEIR dna. So marriage was, in practicality, a contract of ownership, and a legal arrangement between a man and another man about the first man's daughter.

First man is the father, his dna get's passed on whatever because the woman is related to him. he wants to find the best bet for supporting this dna of his. So he allows only the 'best' man to buy his dna package (daughter). The buying man (the groom) wishes to ensure nobody else's dna gets raised on his wallet. So he insists that the commodity is unused (a virgin) and that the promises the commodity makes include never allowing other dna to enter her reproductive organs. In exchange for this, he'll feed her.

Ditto riven
I think there are two opposite but valid views.
One is that it is designed to create woman as chattel scenario.
The other is to create a social and legal structure which binds a man to the mother of his children and enforces a system of responsibility.

My heart tends to the first but my personal experience has been that unmarried mothers get fucked over so my head goes with the latter.

It is a religious requirment that neither gender have intercourse before marriage, but you can't TELL if a man is a virgin. Women have that inconvenient hymen. And tend not to be that bothered about their partner's virginal state in any case, as there is no WAY she can be tricked into raising someone else's dna.

That is how I see it; I do not know why women who have no income of their own (sorry to be harsh, but if they are independently wealthy, it doesn't really matter if unmarried)give up their job to look after their children of the UNmarried partnership with no explicitly set out legal arrangements and home is solely owned by partner.

I don't personally think marriage has anything to do with religion- why would god care if two people have signed a legal agreement?
Is it not enough for 'him' that two people are living together in a harmonious relationship?

Marriage has been presented as a religous thing to us, when all it is is a means of setting out social order and cohesion.

It's to do with ownership of fertility, IMO. afterall it's women that have the children so someone (ie men) need to make sure they know who the women are having children with. TBH I've never understood a God that gives us so much pleasure in sex would then want to limit it, especially given marriage was created about the same time as ownership of property...

x post coldtits

That's a great summary, Coldtits.

DD1 came along 2005
married 2006
DD2 2007
DS1 2009

been a busy few years! wouldn't change anything

Is it not an unmarried mother's fault if she is left financially bereft because of her unmarried status, though?
Unless she has been forced into living with and having child with man outside her will, in which case, this would be a serious crime and 'maintenance' would not be an issue, is it not her fault?
Anyway, I have no time for cohabitee rights; it is a matter of freedom of choice for me and NOT any moral issue. I don't want to be classed as married to someone when I haven't made any explicit vows in public (marriage).

It isn't shameful now, even my elderly relatives accept it.
It used to be but there was no welfare system and if families wouldn't look after the woman and child they would have been thrown onto the parish or into the workhouse. I always think it is sad when people have no idea of history and young girls say, in a self righteous way, 'I would never give my baby away'. Women had no choice if they had no means of support. A 16 year old couldn't keep her baby if she had no partner and no family to pay upkeep. No one would employ her and authority would take it away. This is why there were dreadful babyfarms in Victorian times when people tried to work and keep a baby in secret.
marantha is right in her sentence:

'Marriage has been presented as a religous thing to us, when all it is is a means of setting out social order and cohesion.'

It is all down to money and families wanted daughters to make advantageous marriages. Parents needed to be looked after in their old age not the other way around.

Today it is often the parent who is helping out the adult child with deposits for houses, school fees etc. If girls are disowned by their families the system will try and keep their child with them and ensure that they don't starve and that they have a roof over their head.

What gets me is that the shame seems to be shouldered by the women, not the men. In this era of 'acceptance' of single parenting (usually mothers) it seems that it is a bit easy for men to shirk their sense of moral responsibility to women and children.

There is no shame today. Women are equal, they have high powered jobs and they often decide to have a baby without a partner and they can afford childcare. This wasn't the case in the past. It is nothing to do with religion and everything to do with finance.

Lamorna, Yes, it's all about social cohesion.
The marriage certificate provides proof that, at some point, the couple made explicit their intention to be a couple. So, in event of s* hitting the fan-death or separation- it would be recognised that a vow of commitment was made at some point.
The certificate can be produced to prove this. It's all very well cohabitees saying, 'but we lived together for 20 years', but the authorities haven't the time/inclination to investigate the true nature of people's interpersonal relationships.
It irritates me when people spin the 'we don't need a piece of paper to love one another' line, because although they are right, they entirely miss point about what marriage is for.

It's not for when relationship is going well, it is an insurance policy if things go wrong.

Life-long marriage between two heterosexuals stopped being the main/standard form of family organisation quite a while ago.

According to Christianity sex outside marriage is a sin whether you have never married (fornication) or whether you have been or are married to someone else (adultery). Nice eh?

The "why?" basically comes down to how you believe the bible to have originated. That's a whole lifetime of threads.

Certainly for previous generation it was just "wrong" because the Bible said so and Church played a larger part in society as a whole.

I wouldn't necessarily agree there is no shame today. Possibly more a raised eyebrow than outright condemnation. Again this tends, ime, to be the older generation.

I think the ideas expressed are interesting and may have some truth to them, however things have been dressed up in the past.

You do actually need 'a piece of paper'-I would have been very badly off, financially, without it. Luckily most people don't need to find it out.

I don't think partners who choose to have children before they get married are 'shameful'. Just a bit short-sighted. Who wants a snotty toddler coming along on your honeymoon?

The Bible was written by men, as they thought at the time, and the church was run by men. Things move on and as most people don't go to church it isn't relevant today.Even then I think it was all about money, most things are.
I don't think there is shame today, I wouldn't feel any and I am quite sensitive.

Women are equal? Not many in my experience