Heteromonogamy is really just another way to waste women's time, isn't it?

[solidgoldbrass]

All those books, articles, courses on how to Find The One, Make Him Commit, Keep It Exciting - keeping women occupied with the Perfect Relationship means they don't have time to do anything interesting with their lives.

Sorry, that should read "a lot of time can be spent in pursuing fertility treatment". I didn't meant to suggest that it was wasted time.

SAF- But what is the difference? Say you meet and fall in love at 17 and build a life together for 15 years - you may both not have well-formed ideas about having children at the start. Later if one partner realises they really don't want to have children, how is this different than if one partner has realises they can't have them. In either case it is a hard and heartbreaking situation.

If you don't want to get married, don't. Nobody has a gun to your head. Society disapproves of a lot of things, do them anyway if you want.

This isn't about marriage MsEliot

It is about marriage. And long-term relationships, whatever. Some people want to be able to have kids without them. I think a child is better off with two parents, but that's not always possible. But society doesn't force you to have a child however you want, millions of women are single parents, and how much they are 'demonized' is way over-rated.

Although 70% of divorces are instigated by women, often involving children. I don't believe 70% of men turned out to be violent abusers, I think many women just thought 'sod this I'm bored.' Which perhaps isn't in the best interests of the child.

has anyone mentioned yet that it still seems to be the idea that women trick men into marriage, to deprive them of freedom?

whereas the truth is that single women live longer than married ones, and married men live longer than single ones.

so we 'trick' them into longer life, better health, and greater wealth (as well as the love & security of family life), at the expense of our own lives.

Ooh, good point kickass - HM actually takes time away from women, it wastes it in the most literal sense.

SAF - As I've said clearly there ARE many examples when a woman is wasting her time in a relationship, trying to make it something it isn't, waiting for a prince to ride in, putting off her own dreams until it's too late.

And as ive said before, whatever works for people in their families is ok for me (as long as it works for the kids)

But saying that heteromonogamos relationships are not for everyone is NOT the same thing as saying they are a waste of time, that dillemmas that two people face trying to build a life together are not worth working on, and that the pain and grief you feel when a relationship breaks down, or you want different things, or your partner dies is not 'real' but just conforming to some socially constructed expectation.

Which is what the OP and some commenters seem to be saying...?

Where I agree with the OP is that fixating on a magazine ideal of a perfect lifestyle/husband/body/kitchen etc... Is a waste of time and bad for your spirit. ...but thats not the same as saying it's not worth having a home relationship, body etc... you feel comfortable with and look after.

Yes, there are many ways in which to become a parent, good point Len

SheCutOffTheirTails -

Maybe I've miss understood you - I thought you were saying that investing time and effort into a heteromonogamous relationship is always a waste of time for women (which i disagree with)

But reading your last long post maybe what you are saying is that investing time and effort in the ideal/concept of a heteromonogamous relationship is a waste of time (aka 'one day my prince will come'/ 'the frog prince')...which I do agree with you on.

Himalaya - I'm saying that heteromonogamy as a cultural ideal is constructed in such a way as to waste women's time.

That doesn't mean it won't work for a lot of women, and says nothing about how fulfilling or worthwhile individual heterosexual monogamous relationships are.

but what about women like me who don't want to parent on my own or in a time-share agreement with a co-parent. i WANT to have somebody with me all day and through the night who i share parenting with. i know i could do it alone if i were left or widowed but i don't want to.

these arguments imply that a full-time male monogomous partner is more of a hinderance than a help to a mother.. i don't question that's sometimes true, but surely not 'in general'?

It's hard to tell how much people are happy/unhappy in individual family groups, and how much that is due to the form of their family.

however, look at how often men earn more than women within a relationship. so often, women go part time or give up work when they have kids, because they are already earning less than their partners.

now this is often because 'typical' female careers are less paid than male ones, but there are also many examples of women who have less time/energy for work as they are 'running' the house, often being the one to keep up social & family contact etc. Those things takes up time, and they have less to give to a job. Or their partner is already in a 'full on' job (because women do still marry an older man), so they feel it is unnecessary/too difficult for them to do the same, so they end up being a sort of housekeeper-come-wife-come-worker. When they have kids they then take time out, go part time or give up working, in order to be a 'homemaker'.

It literally dominates years of their lives to keep the family together.

This does not mean that men who work hard & support the family financially, emotionally etc are doing nothing, but as things such as pensions, taxes etc are becoming more about the individual and less about family/partner finances, then they are gaining more, and the 'typical' housewife/mother is losing out.

It's also interesting how so many people interpret criticism of the cult of heteromonogamy as 'Bwaaah, you're going to take my beloved and my happiness from me and make me live in a commune or turn lesbo or something, bwaaaaah!' Heteromonogamy is a) a social construct that just happens to work out nicely enough for some people and b) such a terribly fragile one that is designed to protect some people's interests above others' (ie as a construct it benefits men at women's expense, quite outside of individual setups) and therefore any criticism of it must be vigorously resisted. This is where a lot of anti-gay prejudice comes from - if people are allowed to know that being gay is OK, they might abandon heteromonogamy... if women are allowed to know that single motherhood is sustainable they might abandon servicing men and stroking their egos uncomplainingly...

Not always sAf

Shecutoftheirtails - so for women for whom heteromonogamy does work, do you think that (A) they have managed to adapt a different set of cultural expectations/domestic arrangements such that they are not having their time wasted, but are genuinely in the mutually beneficial partnership they think they are in or (B) they've been culturally conditioned to think that they are happy and fulfilrf but really they are wasting their time ?

I'm genuinely asking, not being argumentative - if it's the first then the thing is to figure out what the cultural changes are that make marriage/partnership reformable. If it's the second then the thing to do is to get women to see that they are labouring under a false consciousness.

"I've thought for a long time finances should all be individualised."

I very much disagree with you about that Lenin.

The great thing about marriage is that it is a legal and financial union that offers protection to all of the people within the family unit.

The thing I find weird about marriage, or civil partnerships, is that they are only open to people in sexual relationships, and monogamous ones at that.

Why must only sexual partnerships have the option of being recognised as a legal unit?

Why couldn't any group of people set up a partnership of this kind to allow them to protect one another financially and work as part of a common, legally recognised family?

Sex is not a matter for the state, or for wider society, but the set up of a family is.

I think it's interesting to imagine a society where families could be established (and dissolved again when their time was past) more easily, but with all the rights that married couples have now, and some of the rights that married couples used to have but have now lost, such as transferring tax-free allowances, so that families had more flexibility over who took on paid work.