Marriage a most unnatural state of affairs?

[MiniTheMinx]

The monogamous family seems to me to uphold patriarchy better than any other institution. Men have for thousands of years sought to control women's reproduction as a means of controlling wealth. The most obvious way in which they have done this is through marriage.

Having read quite a lot and of course experiencing first hand the joys and the lows of monogamy, with all the emotional fall out, the sense of ownership but also support, the security but also the boredom! (at times) I question just how natural monogamy is.

Women are brought up to believe in fairy tale endings, white weddings and happy retirements, men, meanwhile we are told are naturally less inclined towards faithfulness. Their behaviour proof of biology, our faithfulness and commitment is likewise biologically driven.

I don't believe biology drives our desire for monogamous relationships and think this a materialist social construct which can be accounted for by the study of our material and economic history.

www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2011/04/feminism_and_re_1

www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch02d.htm

jezebel.com/5339211/is-non+monogamy-a-feminist-relationship-choice

I am interested in hearing what others of you think, is marriage and monogamy an unnatural state of affairs?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Seratonin, (for the record) I have been a SAHP parent to DS1 and 2 because I very much believe in what some refer now in attachment parenting, so I very much believe in attachment theory. I am their mother, when I decided to have them I made a deal with them to always put them first, I expect no less of DP. I work from home, I feel very lucky to be able to do that.

However do you not notice something startlingly revealing about what you have just said? "I think modern use of attachment theory accepts that from 6 months anyone who is a main caregiver is............"

Again another high jacking of the theory to fit with governmental, economic and social goals. This fits with maternity rights. Women make up 2/3rds of the worlds poor but they also make up 2/3rds of the worlds work force. This tells me that women's labour is devalued in the home and under paid in the workforce. That capitalism exploits women's reproduction just as it does production.

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.

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 .

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.

GothAnne, sorry, it wasn't meant to be.

That's one of the arguments for marriage, your partner supports you and compensates. What other alternatives are there? What would you propose would alleviate these issues?

OK, in the interests of fairness and debate and all that, I would have to acknowledge that my earning capacity is currently fucked. DS dad does contribute a reasonable amount, as stated above (and it isa reasonable amount, 25% of his monthly income, but he's not exactly loaded); but if it weren't for tax credits and housing benefit, we would be in a hostel or on the streets. I do work, I have several part-time jobs, but none of them are secure or guaranteed. Thing is, we wouldn't be much better off if DS dad lived with us. We might even be worse off. THIS is the real big problem; how to deal with the fact that children need to be raised and looked after by an adult, and the adult doing that job needs an income. It used to be the case that men were simply paid more than women irrespective of whether or not the men, or the women, had any children, on the grounds that 'a man is the family breadwinner, a woman is financially supported either by her husband or her closest male relative'. Reinstating that model won't do: lots of people don't have children, don't have partners, are working at an age where their children if they had any are independent adults. Could you even expect people to accept that parents should be paid higher wages than non parents for the same job?

It seems to me that the answers to this problem might incorporate: raising of child benefit till it meets the minimum wage and paying it to the person looking after the child/children - or introducing much more flexibility in working hours and state-funded childcare 24/7.

Having children is a choice. With that comes good things and bad things. The world is over populated, why should having children be given extra support from a government?

I really think in this scenario it's about team work, community, nuclear families... Whatever you want to call it. Children take resources, those resources have to come from somewhere. The government have a duty to suppor existing children but not to encourage people to have children neccesarily (depends on country). Some women are disabled and can't get support and are discriminated against work wise. It's not their choice though is it?

Actually another question, probably best left for another thread, but is it every woman's right to have a child, irrespective of circumstance? Equally, is it every mans right?

Lizbee, sounds like your experience wasn't great. Human nature though is ever evolving to fit with society.

I was just thinking about privacy while I had a bath. I take a bath in the evening, only time I can get in the bathroom without vistors and spectators. Privacy is a fairly new requirement surely. I think it was GothAnne that mentioned privacy in respect of communal living. Not that long ago children shared a bed sleeping top to toe, some very impoverished families had little in the way of privacy. Wealthy people had less privacy, with ladies maids, other household staff. In the 18th century households comprised household servants, middle class homes would have been crowded spaces with lodgers and staff. Privacy seems to a fairly modern requirement.

Excellent points SGB especially in relation to state sponsored childcare, yy. I think all child care should be state sponsored on the basis that all children need care and almost all parents need to work in order to support children.

ES: Well, for a lot of women it isn't. Women get forcibly impregnated through rape. Women get impregnated by accident/contraceptive failure and refused access to abortion. Women have children with men who promised to love and support those children but then fuck off or behave so horribly that the woman has to throw the man out of the house. Also, couples choose to have children when they are financially comfortable and then something goes wrong; job loss, physical or mental illness, the child has severe SN and needs constant care...

a couple of people have said either that women lose out financially from marriage or men gain financially but surely it's the case that women lose out financially from having children, rather than from being married?
and in fact, is modern marriage in the western world not an attempt to minimise that loss over time?

i married my DH for many reasons but one being that i wanted to have his children and as a self-employed person that would mean bringing in a very minimal amount of money for a certain period of time and possibly a lower amount than pre-children for a significant period of time. i felt that in marriage we had more financial resiliance. (not to mention the fact i love him and want to be socially 'commited' to him and him to me)

SGB that's partly what I was getting at earlier when I said about the state taking on more responsibility (financially) for children. With the number of single parents increasing all the time, we may well find ourselves in the future where government is forced to accept that there is a significant proportion of the population looking after small children and unable to survive unless childcare is more available and affordable to allow them to take on paid work, or they are otherwise given an income. I think a lot will go wrong, and Draconian measures will be taken to keep women 'in their place' before that happens though.

Agree with those scenarios SGB, but doesn't mean it's not a choice for some.

You are right, Mini.
Privacy is a modern concept but it wasn't privacy (or lack of) that was the problem when I lived communally.
If anything the problem was that human nature didn't evolve to fit with the society we were living in!

When living in a commune people took less of a 'live and let live' approach as they felt the others around them encroached on their chosen way of life.
I'm not sure people live comfortably when their ideas, attitudes and values are constantly challenged.
In my experience it makes them more defensive/aggressive, which in turn does not make for happy living!