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.

Men wanted to make sure that the only children they were raising and supporting were ones they had provided the sperm for. THat was what marriage was about: it evolved when human beings started 'owning' land. It's a legal agreement to safeguard property.

All the rest is various layers of cultural and superstitious bullshit, which individuals can take or leave. But most individuals don't really want to work things out for themselves, they will just accept what they are told and then shit themselves if anyone queries the use of particular taboos and compulsions.

I remember vaguely reading somewhere that men favour male monogamy (in societal terms) because it means that more men get access to women to have sex with, than if the social standard was 'men have free rein to have sex with whoever they want', because if that was the case the more dominant men in the group (the alpha males) would be the only ones having sex, and the rest of the men would be fighting all the time.

I am not putting that very well but I am having trouble remembering the finer points of it.

ALso, it's not 'natural' or 'instinctive' for human beings to want monogamous relationships. If it were, there wouldn;t need to be all this social pressure and brutal enforcement of monogamy. You don't need propaganda and the threat of violence to make you breathe, or eat, or shit, do you?

solidgold, no need for "finer points" - the alpha male argument makes very logical sense.

I only disagree, ever so politely, with the rest is bullshit conclusion. I think it's about what one, as an individual, buys into, isn't it? - and with another individual. So I'd be miffed with dh if he played around, because that's not the deal I made with him (or he with me, of course). Goalpost-shifting in any interaction (whether a relationship or an internet debate ) is not really on.

Spark - Maybe as children they witnessed the break up of their parents in a relationship and either decided so that's how it is or may be they reflected on the outcome and decided for themselves that monogomy is what they wanted with or without a marriage.

My own personal reasons are that I love my husband and am still in love with him. Love - one word with a multitude of meanings, other languages express it better. Marriage to me is something personal and individual,the values of which I believe my husband shares.

There are some advantages to marriage for men, but you will have to wait for one of them to post their emotional reasons. I know from a life expectancy and health issues that a married man is better off in this respect than a single one.

Also married men tend to see their children grow up and form better relationships with them (in general)and tend to be more satisfied in this aspect than those men who have separated from their wives. Most married men who commit adultery tend to not want their marriages broken up and not just because of children, so there must be some other driving force behind this.

Monogomy - what exactly is wrong with it if that's what two people want out of a relationship?

And men don't also like the idea of sharing their sexual partner with another person, a couple are more likely to split up if it is the woman who has commited adultery.

Thanks cheerfulVicky - justthe sort of debbate I was hoping for. The others - well, I still say that religion has a lot to do with it. We have values/morals/principle now BECAUSE of the 10 commandments and anyone who sayus they are not religious but is possessive abour DH sleeping around is lying. Our whole culture is based on what religion has indoctrinated us into - and my question is : why? Why can't we get away from what we are told is wrong (by the church one way or another, down the ages)and wouldn't it be better these days to do so? There would be no guilt/outrage about infidelity, no heartbroken men/women who thought that they were in it for life.

This is not a thread about marriage and what it means to you. It is about basic human nature, versus a constraint passed down through the centuries. Is that constraint relevant any more?

And those that are getting a little abusive towards me - it is NOT about me!

Oh Custy - tesco is not a food source. A chicken is a food source.

Sparkybabe, maybe you should ask men what they think of marriage, as you seem to think that they are so hard done by.... I think that you will find the majority of them get married for the same reasons as women, Love, wanting to share your life with that one person and everything else that comes with a normal relationship.

I doubt that you will find that all they want from life is to shag around.

I don;t accept that flynnie. Too easy to say that's what men want. Why then do so many cheat - and I mean women as well? IS it human nature to want someone new? And a 'normal relationship' is only normal bacause of 2000 years of it being so. As against millenia of being ...well, animals.

Let's turn it around - if there was no religion, would we still be so possessive about 'keeping only unto him/her'? Would we still be hurt if he/she went with someone else for a night?

Not religious. Cultural maybe. Not specifially religious.

i think we buy into what makes a marriage, before we even met our "other half", if men had a mum who was good to them, thats what they want,irrespective of how this really was. maybe women want an image of manliness (if not dad then other role model).

maybe women and men should marry twice, once to kill ingrained assumptions and when they prove unworkable ,and then later when they are more mature.

They other woman, thing is half extreme disappointment in one of our own, and half protection of assets gained during the marriage.

For a non-religious person, you are quite obsessed by it, sparky.

Sexual exclusiveness as a feature of human society goes back much much further than 1 AD. Like the development of festivals at Christmas and Easter, pre-existing primitive rituals and significances get adopted by formalised religions ... the sexual exclusiveness taboo derives, as people have tried to show you here (but which has gone entirely unacknowledged), from structures developed to protect male ownership of assets within a male-dominated economy.

I don't see how you can exclude religion anyway. Its part of who humans are from the people who worshipped the sun or moon or waves to Catholics and Muslims its part of human nature. You can't just exclude a factor beacuse you choose to when it is relevent.

Good point dittany - but if a woman belonged to a man, why is the law such that men are constrained by it too? If the laws are made by men surely they would build in some sort of lee-way for themselves? And after 2000 years it would be seen as ok for the man to sleep around?

As Sparky says - not religious, cos religion was also instigated by men.

Can women think for themselves without the trappings of 2000 years round them?

Not obsessed by it Bink, tho some people are. Not interested at all in fact in religion per se, other than why people act the wasy they do in it's name.

What is interesting is the number of people who have posted saying how they need to be able to trust DH, that they would be devastated if he had an affair, but were not able to explain why? Why they thought like that? Why they have these feelings?

Come on! Maybe it is religion, maybe cultural (same thing IMO) maybe human nature. That is the question! Enlighten me... but at least think about it!.

i am not religious per se, i don;t think 'i would be devastated if DH had an affair/one night stand becasue he is breaking the ten commandments'

i would be furious and devastated that my life long partner, and father of my children would have lied to me,betrayed me and doing something incredibly intimate and emotional with anotehr woman

which bit of that do you not get?

i don;t understand why you are being so black and white about this, when human emotions are involved, tehre are a million shades of grey

Lulumama - not trying to upset you but why?Why is it a lie? Why is it betraying you? You are upset at DH breaking a vow to you to be faithful. This is a vow 2000years old, passed down from the Man. If there was no 'thou shall not commit adultery' would you still be upset? Or would you see it as basic human nature coming out?
Your emotions are exactly that - shaped by centuries of indoctrination that faithlessness is WRONG!

Can you see that?

regardless of any religious marriage vows, and you are simply presuming i had a christian wedding... for me and my dh, and many people regardless of any religious vows or indoctrination, i feel that fidelity is important

my DH does not have the time , finances or whatever else is required to maintain two or more families , or another relationship

i feel fidelity is key

for reasons i have outlined before, and you seem to be totally ignoring what i post

you seem so set on the fact that sex is just another practical function , like eating , taht does not have any power or meaning.

and i think that is wrong

look, even if there were no laws against child abuse, i think a civilised society would rout out perpertrators of it. some things are intuitive and don;t need legislation .

i think fidelity is another cornerstone of society, rightly or wrongly.

are you really saying that i am so dim and stupid that if it weren;t for religion i would not give a shit if my DH went out shagging anything that moved?

Get. A. Grip

you have no idea what my religious ideals or affiliations are

I see your point. Of course. Why does sex take on such a huge importance?

I think the only answer is that it just does! I don't think there is a satisfactory answer. We place it on a pedastal far above other human interaction. Even without religion we do that. Maybe because there is a certain emotional connection that happens between two people that have sex and in many cases it becomes hard to differentiate between the connection (which might be temporary) and what we call 'love'. And children can come from sex - which adds a whole new complexity.

Agree with SGB and Dittany. Marriage started due to our patriarchal society eg the land and feudal thing and women as property.

This has become ingrained in our culture and even though I have been married, I always questioned it as an institution and wondered who it benefitted.

As another poster said men made the rules of marriage but doesn't mean to say they abide by them.

It does sadden me that people just go into it without thinking about it's wider relevance and why it exists and personalise it to some extent.

it also annoys me that women are fed such utter romantisced bullshit about marriage. I was subject to that. I am a romantic and I do believe in love btw

There may well be other ways to construct our society.

Come the revolution LOL

Sorry rather incoherent ramblings but hope you get the point.

I've never heard such rubbish in my life!

I don't know anybody who would be ok with their partner having a relationship with somebody else, and religion has nowt to do with it!

'Conditioned' my arse. If you love and trust somebody you expect the same back.

As for all this venus and mars shit about men needing to have sex with other women and women not letting them, that's utter male apologist guff.

Sex is not a basic need. You don't die without it. And you might have noticed that women quite like it too.

You just sound like you want to see men let off the hook for shagging around. Frankly, if you're allowed to accuse me of lying about not being religious then I can accuse you of lying about this whole bizarre-o thread being related to your own relationship.

Spark - people are entitled to personal feelings - sex means different things to different people as do realtionships, the love you feel for a partner differs surely with how you love a child and a sexual relationship to some invokes an aspect of an emotional attachment that would lessen (rightly or wrongly) if that person was also having a sexual relationship with someone else.
Something tells me that even if the cultural norm was to have complete open relationships you would still find monogomous couples out of choice and it would be interesting would it not if their offspring in some way had an advantage over their peers.

If the scenario was how you are suggesting who would be financially responsible for all those children born? If it fell to the state then that doesn't bode well for any of us - would you want the responsibility to fall on the woman? I predict the birth rate would drop rapidly leading to an eventual collapse of society as we know it!