From: jclark@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (John Clark)
Newsgroups: soc.couples
Subject: Re: A Question of Everybody (was Re: Any married women out there?)
Date: 19 Aug 92 03:55:54 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

In article <2a917d99-47f.5soc.couples-1@ddsw1.MCS.COM> akcs.xx414@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Ivan Cole Phillips) writes:
+ 
+>...And after it is typical for the woman to 'compromise' to remain the
+>'good wife'.
+This should change; compromise is the duty of both husband and wife.
+ 
+You have criticized the submissive role that many wives play in a
+marriage.  I am unaware of any human societies practicing polygamy
+that give women rights in the first place.

Depends on what society your looking at. There are elements in this
society which are advocating a different from of intemate
relationship bewteen people which does not include monogamy. Whether
you call this 'marriage' or just 'sinful' (sin being defined in such
a way so as not to invoke a deity, such as 'it's unscientific')

+A marriage is not an experiment, it is a commitment.

Almost everything one does, unless on has some 'absolute' reference
is just that. There is hypothesis, "one can commitment early in life
to development and state late in life". Some people that I have met
have been quite happy to spend the rest of their days in small towns
never leaving, or if they do leave only briefly so. Others, if not
most given the 'attractive' power of urban centers, do not stay. The
value judgement which says 'everyone is better off makeing the
commitment to live with only one person for the rest of their days',
both does not account well for behavior and probably is not a 'good'
rule for for all.

Since I can't arbitrate for 'all' (although I came pretty close
above), I will leave it to each person to determin for themself
which of several modes of relationship they wish to pursue. Nor
should you construe this to mean that I don't have certain
prejudices against certain behavior. I dont' really like what may be
called the 'married man classic', wherein a male will feel quite at
ease being non-monogamous, but be horrified if his wife does the
same. 

As for 'commitment' in particular, there are various commitments,
and whether one arrives at strick monogamy via religious beliefs or
beliefs based on some secular humanism basis, the fact remians that
the word can be uniquely defined for each couple or group, in the
case of multiple partnered relationships.

+ 
+It is true that I only gave a single example of the destructive
+nature of divorce.  Divorce is a bad experience for most of those who
+have to go through one.  It is expensive and emotionally disturbing.

It is my beleif that most of the 'pain' has more to do with crushed
illusions, the 'pride' of ownership, and societal contemnation(which
is circular in it's making the 'bad' situtaion worse). I was brought
up in a society where a 'divorcee' was viewed as a potential
'problem' woman. I previously 'blamed' the religious environment for
this until I found that the rest of the society had varying degrees
of the same mind set.

The only culture(not that I've studied them all) that I've run
across that seems to cast a negative shaddow on the man is the
Koreans. The men that I've met and have discussed marriage
differences have typically said that a man who 'loses' his wife is
ostricised by his friends. But this is a culture where the man is
supreme in his house, and spousal abuse not a 'shock', especially to
keep the wife in line. So it seems that the man is black marked
because he let his slave get the better of him.


+ 
+I do not believe open marriage meets that "basic requirement".
+I did not marry so that I could have children.  In fact, I don't care
+if I have any sons or daughters.  Marriage is a promise to stand by your
+spouse no matter what.  Marriage is a promise to be faithful.

Well, where it possible to have several spouses I would 'stand' by
each one of them the same as I do for my current one. Faithful,
again is a 'as defined' word. It is currently defined to be
'sexually, or emotionally monogamous'. Could just as easily be
defined as 'sexual or emotionally bonded and true to several
partners'.

Unfortunately the progeny aspect of the current definition of
'marriage' is in fact a significant portion of the need for long
term commitment. Where men and women able to arbitrarily choose
whether to conceive the need for a long term relationship would be
lessend(and I mean that in the sense of absolutely no 'failures' as
is not the case with most current B.C. techniques).

This does not mean one has no deep meaningful friendships,
but that 'sex => pregnancy => long term support for offspring'
would not be part of the considration. In some senses one maintains
a greater bond with one's family than one's spouse. So the basis of
societal stability would not be greatly challanged were there more
change in partners. What would change is the idea which I still
detect in various rumblings seen here is that to the woman 'joins'
the man's family. This has never been successful, in that in many
cases when the man dies the woman has no claim to the man's family
assests which were not in direct control of the man at the time of
death. Of course if the couple have children the woman may be
gardian for the children relative to new inheritance while the
children are minors. But in reality the woman is never part of the
'family' except in so far as the 'family' make her feel less like a
guest. On the other hand the man may be viewed in the same way by
the wife's family. But until recently, the man could take the
woman's assests either obtained before marriage or after as his own.
The woman until recently being considered a 'minor' in regard to her
own self determination.

Several people have commented that the above refers to the past.
This is true. But I feel that human behavior changes on the average
very slowly, and the language which we used to describe marriage,
sexual relationship between individuals, and the reason for
'marriage' in the first place, lead me to believe that in many cases
the concepts haven't changed all that much in the past 100 years,
although the 'vocabulary' has.

+Not a promise to stay with her until someone better comes along.


Again your hypothesis is 'marriage == only one per customer'.

+True. Marriage is not for the faint of heart.  Perhaps we should have
+a 10 year renewable marriage contract.  Much easier to agree to that.
+I don't think it will be any more comforting to learn that the next
+10 years with your spouse has already been taken by another bidder.
+What is the advantage of an open marriage?  More sex partners.
+The disadvantages are numerous, among them, the insecurity that your
+partner will not only find sex more enjoyable elsewhere, but have
+stronger emotional ties to someone else.  How will you fix this? By
+adding a marriage vow to engage outsider's bodies only, not their
+minds?

The disadvantages you list are real. The advantages you list are
possibly biased toward a condemnation of 'pursuit of you own
pleasure'. A dominant theme since the birth of Christianity has been
denial. One denies the 'flesh' to purify the soul. There were
non-Christian 'denial' cults as well, so the Christians were no
alone. The Roman view of sex differed very little from our own. Sex
was good for the marital bed, it's serrogate the prostitute(the
stand-in), showing dominance, and done a night. Women were for men's
pleasure, and the adulterous husband were he discrete never
chastized. Only when major breaches of conduct occured was a Roman
man chastized for his actions(there was the small matter of having
sex with slaves, male or female). The main theme was monogamy,
romans were 'horrified' at polygyny (polyandry never heard of), and
maintained absolute marital chasity for women and winking
disapproval of infidelity for men.

I would be somewhat fasicious to say that non-monogamy is with
difficulty, even in a society where the relationship was equally
approved of by all, independent of one's own choice of relationship
mode. Dealing on an intemate level with more than one person would
pose problems and in fact have greater capacity for hurt all around.
On the otherhand, by living in a multi-partner arrangement, the one
person has to 'solve' the emotional support problem for another, may
be greatly deminished. A number of activites can only be done in
groups. Since the idea of group sex holds so much 'erotic' energy
for many, they only see the sex, not the emotional bond possiblity.

+Rewrite marriage vows to reflect your point of view, and see what you
+come up with.  I wouldn't sign such a contract.

I have a hard time signing variable interest rate home loans too.
But I have an even more difficult time signing 30 year fixed loans
as well. But then I don't want to feel like I'm 'buying' a spouse.
Sounds sort of like an auction, 'do I hear 30... yes the fellow in
the boller, do I hear 35 ... yes the fellow in the bathing suit...
40... 40 .... 40 ... yes 35 to the bathing suit'.

+Marriage does not cause your partner to die.  I do not understand
+this argument.

Your arguement that 'disruption of marriage unsettles society' does
not hold, since in past times marriage was disrupted by death of the
spouse. Now you may argue that 'tis better he be dead than with
another'. Come to think of it, maybe that is the point, since one
can not harrass the dead, shoot the dead's new partner along with
the dead, fill the court with back and forth arguments on the
settlment of the marriage property and children.

+I do not refer to the 'attitude' of children in this unfortunate
+situation.  Many children feel guilt and a lack of self esteem as a
+result of divorce.  I claim that most of this misery is avoidable.
+This is a well documented phenomenon.  If the only effect of divorce
+was more divorce, I would not be discussing this at all.

Again the effect one observes has possibly more to do with the
current 'high esteem' held for 'marriage' and that all divorces are
an indication of 'failure' than the changes of state.

The usual way in which divorces occur is that both parties stick it
out, hoping that somehow the end of the rainbow will be seen. Once
the inevitable is accepted, the round of bickering about property
settlement, child support, child custody, bring much upset to all
and since often children are measuring the adult behavor relative to
their preception of 'marriage is the utimate good', see the anger
and hatered between their parents. The studies seem to look at
predominantly bitter divorces(I can hardly say this is not the
usual), and come to the conclusion that divorce has a negative
impact on children. What may a better approach is to study 'positive'
separations, and try to get more divorces to be that way.
-- 

John Clark
jclark@ucsd.edu