Can we have an intelligent debate about what 'marriage' means?

[sparkybabe]

It is no secret that my marriage is breaking up, but in the process I have been reviewing what I feel about marriage. I have been married for 17 years, and have 3 dc. When I got maried, I realise now that I was looking for someone who had a) good job b) good genes intelectually and c) someone I liked. Love did not really come into it, I suppose I knew I didn't love him, but I liked him, we had lots in common and as I said he was a good provider.
Anyway, thinking about marriage - its 'man-made, ie made by MAN! Why then is it so Man-unfriendly?
WHat do men want - sex, lots of it, with different women. It's in their make-up to spread their seed throughout the gene pool. Why do they sign up to be with ONE woman for life? It's not logical, but we are indoctrinated (men too) to think of 'adulterers' as criminal.

Women need someone who can bring home the food, provide shelter and safety, and impregnate them. The mariage vows actually benefit women far more than they do men. So why?
Basic human needs are
Warmth
Food
Water
Sex.
Why is ok to share 3 of these 4 with others, but not the 4th?
I am not religious in any way, so pleaase don't come on here saying well Christ wanted us to be monogamous and to come between a man and his wife is wrong. That is too easy. Why is it wrong? Why are we sooo indoctrinated as to feel that sex with other men/women is wrong? Why is it we feel murderous rage against the OW/OM? Would we be happier in so-called 'open' marriages? Why do we get so possessive about our spouses?

Intelligent debate please? I am interested.

It's revealing how many answers are rooted in the centuries of 'marraige' and 'religion'. We are basically animals, and have 'marriage/religion' shoe-horned into our lives. We have been told throughout the centuries that mongamy is the only way. Anyone who says theyre not religious but is possessive about the DH is therefore 'religious' without knowing it.
But why is 'marriage' so restricting to the man? You would think that having been MADE by men, it would have been set-up back inthe dark ages to cater for men's basic need to spread his seed. Lulumama - he has not spread his seed by having x children with you, to guarentee the survival of the fittest, he should spread himself with more than one woman (Not being intentionally vile to you, just illustrating my point )

Lynette - a very good point. But again, it's a woman's POV - and as we knnow, women did not figure much in the making of laws historically. Men's POV were much more important, which is why I wonder why they restricted themselves to One woman? A musllim marriage structure seems much more in keeping with a man's needs, to have 4 woman (and Sally they are expected to keep them all in the same/equal standard)

If it's hard to run a family with 1 adult relationship how on earth would we manage with lots of partners to satisfy? What if he was out with OW mon and tue then on wed the baby kept you both up in the night and then thu you were seeing your man and then friday he got called to help his sick mum etc life is hectic enough without worrying about more people imo. Also what about passing std's etc

I think you have a very odd view on marriage, men and women! tbh.

Men don't just need lots of sex with different women!
Sorry you have marriage problems but that simply isn't true, some men yes but the majority i would say are happy to be in a faithfull relationship.

Could you not sign up for an OU Sociology/Anthropology degree. Broaden your horizons a little bit.

Sparkly - the standard of living was probably equal throughout the family but I doubt if one man could support 3 or 4 women emotionally which was where the first wife seemed to feel neglected as he rarely went to her room anymore. They weren't Muslim but Mormons.

Ok then, lets not call it marriage - that is a term passed down by the church. Lets call it a relationship.
In the beginning, women would live in one cave with all the other women and the ds. The men would roam, forage, hunt bison. Like Lions, they would not form groups of MALES. Females however, took comfort and support from mumsnet eachother. ANd the men would bring a gift of berries/bison and impregnate as many women as poss, before being chsed off by a younger, fitter male. (Wrigglesworth - many different sperm plus many different eggs creates a larger genepool. One type of sperm + one type of egg, creates a tiny genepool and will creat inbreeding.)

Sooooo, what women need (basically, right down to the wire, no TVetc) is warmth, food, wter, sex. So why create something that restricts at least one of those?

BTW this is not a discussion about my marriage - sorry, replationship.

well, tbh, i doubt he would have had better children with someone else

look, your own situation has clearly made your POV what it is...your approach to marriage is very different to mine, job & good genes was not the first thing i looked for...

society has to hve some basic tenets and principles, and a stable family life or certainly the aspiration to that is importnat

if the family ceased to exist, and men went off having children as many as they wanted with as many women as possible, how would all those children etc. be supported

our society has finite resources...

it is beacsue of the emotions involved

sparkybabe, your understanding of everything you're trying to discuss is so limited as to be frankly embarrassing.

You are banging on about religion, marriage, culture, evolution, sociology, anthropology, essentially the entire history of human relationships and how they function, like some demented simplistic teenager.

I'm sorry if your DH cheated on you but that doesn't in any way make the things you are saying less stupid.

Sally - it is not a discussion about emotion. Yes I happen to agree with you that 3-4 wives create an imbalance of emotion, but that is surely becasue we are conditioned to feel neglected becasue the dh has gone elsewhere. If he went to lunch with someone else, we are not conditioned to feel neglected! Because that conditioning has not been passed down the ages.

Sparky, we've already explained to you a perfectly adequate reason for monogamy which is biological, not moral. Lots of animals mate for life, I doubt they think infidelity is "wrong".

I think you're a bit confused about what you are trying to achieve. Your thread title suggested you are interested in people's view about what marriage is and what it means to them, then you said we aren't allowed to talk about religion, then you bang on about infidelity and spreading seed as some biological imperative when we've already explained it isn't, human biology works a different way.

Are you just trying to make yourself feel better about infidelity in your own marriage? Because that's not what you asked for.

Ski-doodle - my DH has not cheated on me. It is not a discussion of my marraige! I am NOT banging on about anything. I would like to understand, without having the easy answer of 'religion' why we act the way we do.

It is not a discussion of my mariage.

well, i have not mentioned religion, and i don;t understand how you can discuss marriage and sex without referring to emotions

so i;ll leave you to it

Georgimam - 'lots of animals mate for life, i doubt they think infidelty is wrong' - exactly! So why do we?

Yes there are lots of reasons for monogamy, also lots of reasons for bigamy/multigamy (?) or whatever.Butthe reasons for monogamy all seem to benefit the female, and I wondered why? And then females complain when the male goes off, doing what they are programmed to do (while we are conditioned to condemn them for it.)

I am interested in why we do these things, not because dh or I have done them, just that I am interestted.

You wouldn't like an explanation of the way we act the way we do, because if you did you would stop all this ridiculous rubbish of claiming that sex is just the same as eating lunch and moronic ranting about paleolithic people living like Captain Caveman.

You are barring discussion of religion for everybody else, but your argument appears to be founded on the idea that religion somehow magically made people act in a way that was otherwise utterly unnatural to them.

It is not possible to have an intelligent debate with someone whose assumptions and the arguments based on them are so utterly ignorant and inconsistent.

Well, I (and georgimama, as she said) have given you the straightforward explanation of why male-dominated societies came up with the institution of socially exclusive 'relationships' (if you prefer that term).

It's not just about the seed-spreading discharge activity - I think your insistence of that does men, even the most indiscriminate ones, a bit of a disservice - they are actually interested in their own seed being the successful one - and the way a man ensures that is, of course, to make it as impossible as you can for any other man to get at your mate. The whole idea is thoroughly patriarchal and male-favouring.

maybe men also feel the benefit of monogamy and fidelity?

i am finding your posts quite odd, but i dont; know the history of your relationship which no doubt has an impact

Sparkly - You keep saying what the discussion is not about but I'm not sure what it is about.

I posted an example of where 'sharing' a man goes wrong and the reason given (a woman's emotions) - which has been mentioned by several posters on here - is dismissed as not being relevant to the discussion. Can you post what the boundaries are so we can join in an a way you deem appropriate? It's hard to debate if we're not allowed to let the discussion flow.

We are debating emotions when we come down to it. You think that logically there shouldn't be any emotions attached to sleeping with mutiple partners - fair enough, that is your opinion (for the purposes of this debate) - but humans are not logical. We do have feelings and are conditioned to think certain ways for various reasons. The debate should be around exploring why we feel that way, not saying what can be explored/discussed or not.

The bottom line here is morals and our modern day societies principles. If men were fulfilling their basic human needs for sex they would banging their mothers, sisters, daughters etc (sorry to be vulgar but trying to make a point here, it is generally considered morally wrong in this society to cheat on someone you have made an emotional and legal commitment to. Simple as!

Ski-doodle - I am just barring religion because it is too easy to say 'wll we do that because the man 2000 years said so. We are faithful because he said so. I want to trust my dh not to stray because He said so.' There must be more to a debate than 'just becasue we are told'. I personally do not want to do something just because I am told to, I want to know why. Moral, modern-day principles notwithstanding, why do we feel such anger towards unfaithful people? Sally, that is what I wanted the discussion to be about - why we feel this way, as you say. WHY are we conditioned to feel this way? Many posters feel that it is wrong, but haven't given me a reason why they feel it is. Just that it IS becasue it is. Because they have been conditioned to feel like that. Can we get past the conditioning and discuss WHY?

the terminology 'basically and animal'....well i am having difficulty with this.

i am much more than sex and procreation

basically an animal - would fight others for their goods

i don't do that

basically an animal

wouldnt pay at tesco - its a food souce - basic animals need to eat as its a basic function, so basic animals would go into tesco and well///basically just eat stuff.

basic animals shit anywhere

i shit in a toilet

its a basic function of a basic animal - shitting - and i use the facilities provided.

now, i am much more than a basic animal

i have basic animal instincts
i have social pressures and constraints
i have influences from parents and peers.
i have a set of beliefs and values

you cannot KEEP INGORING POSTERS who are pointing this out to you.

sure basic animal stuff is a PART - but a PART not the whole.

Do you think it is wrong? If so why and if not why not? Not everyone think it is wrong to go around shagging anything that moves just the same as other people do. I know you were just trying to start an interesting thread but this could go on for eternity cos everyone comes from different cultures, belongs to different religions (not all of which believe in monogamy)etc.

Random waffle:

Laughed at the mention of the OU course, because in my OU philosophy course we actually discussed this a little bit. We had to look at the implications of the most extreme version of Darwinism (the view that we are, by and large, products of our genes more than anything else) for things like free will, feminism and human relationships.

You can put humans in the same group as animals and then wonder why we have such a big problem with infidelity when it used to make sense for the cave man, and still makes sense of some animal groups. But that is implying that people these days want to go out and have multiple partners. Not everyone does - so there's clearly a strong variotionamong both men and women in whether they find this acceptable or not. So it's hard to look at things from a purely emotionless, animal point of view - humans aren't like that. Men may have a slight genetic predisposition towards multiple partners, because that was the most effective way of getting their genes into the next generation in ages past. But we aren't all our genes. We are other things too, our upbringing, surroundings and conditioning. And most importantly, we aren't slaves to our genes OR conditioning. We can choose to ignore any predisposition they give us.

If you look at it from a PURELY darwinian point of view, women would have the biggest reason for kicking off because their partner is sleeping around; in the past it would have impacted adversely on their home security and ability to raise any children they may have with a partner. Plus they wouldn't want that partner to 'divert' resources to any new children with other women.

So in that case, why do men get crazy when their partner sleeps with another man? That doesn't seem to be explained by a purely Darwinian view of things. It could be the mans upbringing/conditioning etc; he was always taught that certain things aren't done. And then I'm afraid the religion thing comes back again, because such attitudes are probably taught without thinking and passed down from generation to generation. They may well be rooted in belief in God or some kind of religious/moral code, so it's hard to exclude the religion side of things. Up until recently, we were quite a God fearing country, and the bible teaches that these things are wrong. So those messages are still part of society and, even if you have no religion yourself (like many people these days), it will take ages for the social stigma of adultery to fade away.
Food for thought?

Custardo, you have put it beautifully, especially the shitting part (lol).

I doubt it OP

However I have stated my opinion on marriage many times. It's an economic arrangement first and foremost. To support both partners and any children that are born. Through thick and thin, for richer for poorer etc etc. It's unrealistic to expect to be 'in love' with the same person for the rest of your life - not in the way that you are to start with. And if that's what you want don't get wed. It doesn't mean you can't 'love' each other as long as you're expectations of love don't require swooning passion and undying desire Respect, affection, good sex, conversation, laughter. That's still a hell of a lot to be thankful for.

IME men don't neccesarily want sex with lots of women. They just want lots of sex. Preferably enthusiastic sex. Which may or many not be a problem in itself in a long marriage.

Marriage is an out-dated institution if you want to weld the old-fashioned notions of economic and social security, with newer ones of Mills and Boon type forever-and-ever passion. It doesn't work. Sorry. I'm not sure that I realised this before I got married but it's so blindingly clear now. I have accepted the bargain now, but I'm not sure I would have if I had understood it at 27.

Why are we so hung up on sex? Because sex was the economic corner stone of a marriage. Sex meant babies. Men and women together raised the children. If a man 'strayed' the legitimate children were still the main beneficiaries of the marriage. Made sense. But now we've made marriage all about love, we get jealousy thrown into the mix.