From: alex@mentor.cc.purdue.edu ( )
Subject: Re: Getting Married: Grounds for Insanity Plea?
Keywords: Off Your Rocker
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 01:08:49 GMT

In article <stone.721680394@cwis> stone@cwis.unomaha.edu (Travis Stone) writes:
>
>
>Can anyone give me (a minimum) of three good, logical reasons
>why people should marry?  It strikes me as a silly and unnecessary
>cultural institution wherein two people legally bind themselves
>together with a notarized, signed document, only to find out some
>time down the road that they really aren't all that crazy about
>one another.  Oh, I freely admit that there are a few freak cases
>floating around out there---statistical aberrations in which two
>people join together for life, and are truly happy with each other---
>but if the divorce rates aren't all fiction, it would seem that, in
>a majority of cases, you and your significant other would be much
>better off not "tying the knot" because, in case of incompatibility,
>you won't have to go through a ton of emotionally-charged legal
>frabbajab to disentangle yourselves.

     I'm hoping that this is nothing more than a very cynical joke.
If it is, it's a very sick one.   But you wanted three good reasons,
so here they are.

1)  It gives one a good excuse to live in the same house as your SO.

2)  Marriage shows that you love your SO enough that you are willing
    to commit your entire life to them, making the bond between you
    that much stronger.

3)  It gives one a personal captive audience for any and all cynicism
    which one chooses to spew from that time forward.

[Many extremely pessimistic observations deleted]

The Idea behind marraige is that two people are willing to work
together, in order to share their lives together with some sort
of greater emotional attachment.  If you are unwilling to work
at problems, don't get married.  For those of us whose relationships
are based on trust and understanding, there is nothing wrong with it.

>
>Now, think about it---wouldn't you have been much better off NOT
>having gotten married?  If the relationship goes sour, either one or
>the other of you can just get up and boogie on out the door, sans
>lawyers, sans legal fees, sans messy and embarrassing court appear-
>ances which, let's face it, you need like a hen needs a flag.
>
>So, seriously, folks:  Why the hell buckle yourself into a social
>straitjacket you'll (statistically) probably want out of a few
>years down the road?
>
>T.R. Stone 

Simply because most people on this newsgroup have no wish to be, or
intention of ever becoming, a statistic.  Statistics are for those who
feel the need to needlessly catagorize everthing.  Most normal
people ignore them and do whatever is going to make them happiest, and
couldn't care less about some figure an irate, cynical mathematician
has come up with somewhere.    Face it, nothing's ever set in stone.
We choose what happens in our lives, and if you choose not to 
make your own choices, then you will indeed wind up as a "statistic".
Live your life, and you'll be too busy having fun to worry about
some pathetic number.

                                                          -Alex
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"There's a lump in my throat,            alex@mentor.cc.purdue.edu
 There's an ache in my heart,            "Organization is rubbish.
 There's tears in my eyes,                the world is screwed enough 
 Because we're an ocean apart..."         without people trying to
                                          organize it!"
               -The Mission U.K.
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Newsgroups: alt.romance,soc.singles