From: jclark@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (John Clark)
Newsgroups: soc.couples
Subject: Re: A Question of Everybody (was Re: Any married women out there?)
Date: 16 Aug 92 04:17:06 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

In article <2a8a6c7b-47f.3soc.couples-1@ddsw1.MCS.COM> akcs.xx414@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Ivan Cole Phillips) writes:
+My personal philosophy is very unusual.  I am an atheist and a scientist.
+I do not believe that there are any moral absolutes.  I am not motivated
+by any religious moral imperative.  However, when one

Uh, this is unusual?? It would appear the unusualness is your feel
so.

+introduces an objective such as a smoothly operating society, certain
+"family values" will appear.  I do not believe that rewriting marriage
+contracts to permit extramarital affairs will help the nation's divorce
+problem.  If people want to modify the typical marriage contract that
+doesn't bother me personally, but I don't think it should be encouraged.
+It only masks the real problems we have to deal with.

There ways to provide 'family values'. In quite a number of societal
organizations, various forms of non-monogamy are permitted, and the
societal/family structure remains intact. What seems to be changing
in this culture is no the non-monogamy rate, but the geneder ratio,
i.e. the number of men who are non-monogamous has remained the same
but the number of women who are non-monogamous is rising.

+The first problem is the realization that marriage (and relationships in
+general) takes hard work.  Before marriage, there's very little
+compromise

And after it is typical for the woman to 'compromise' to remain the
'good wife'. However, unlike relatiionships 'in general' marriage is
held up by the society as the 'end all' of relationships. Any
deviation from 'life long' is listed as failure. A 'scientific'
fellow such as your self should realize that 'results not expected
by hypothesis need not imply failure'. There are a number of factors
which as a scientist you should consider when looking at the role of
marriage in the society and between persons in that society. For
instance, is the 'role' of marriage to produce a stable support for
childern? Then what of the 'role' after the children have become of
age to be self sufficient? Is the 'role' of marriage to provide
quality sex partners for the partners. Is the 'role' of marriage
to provide emotional support for the mutual partners? These 'roles'
need not imply the marriage relationship as we currently practice it
and is institutionalized in law.

Furthermore, criticism of 'marriage' need no imply a lack of 'family
values'. In fact, the criticism that the current heterosexual
requirement prohibits the creation of families, since lesbians may
wish to two partner environments for children which have been born
to one or the other, or even adopted if the 'marriage' had been
recognized.(I omit gay males, since that type of union and the
desire for children in such is probably beyond your sociological
event horizon).

So in reality what you are saying is that 'marriage' is only for
stablity for persons who, unless prevented by some misfortune, can
reproduce sexually. Then having met that basic requirement, you have
some how concluded that monogamy is the most stable. And further, that
life long marriage is the best of all.

+The second is communication.  I find that the a high degree of
+communication is required.  In todays day and age where some men have
+trouble just saying "I love you", it is easy to see how far we have to
+go.

Let's see, a man tells a women "I love you". The current implication
is for 'life long commitment', that if uttered in the man's 20's
will be about 50 years. We have in the past 100 years made this
commitment nearly double what it was in the previous 100 years.

The social changes that an extended life span have not yet been
adjusted to. The social changes that result from 2 children need
only be born to a couple to survive to adulthood, rather than some 7
as it was in the early 1800's, has not been adjusted to. There are
many more changes that have affected the 'marriage' relationship
which prevent or make difficult the 'maxims' of previous ages.
Life long commitment in an age were the average life span was 50,
and the median age for marriage was 26 meant a 25 year commitment,
no the current 50 years. An age where a women bore 7 live births,
and 2 - 3 miscarriages, meant that the woman was pregnant from first
married to her late 30's. This also has implications about the age
of the last child relative to the time of death of the mother, say
15 years. Currently women live some 40 years beyond their last
child.

+(I don't mean that in the past when the divorce rate was lower, that men
+&
+women had great communication and wanted to sacrifice for the good of
+their partner...it was just social pressure.)

In the past death of the spouse has been as disruptive of the
'family' as currently divorce is seen to be. But I ask the
rhetorical question, if you truely loved your spouse, would you
rather see them dead or alive albeit separated from you.

+Why is making a marriage work important?  Because it is _obvious_ that
+broken marriages are generally a destructive influence on society.  We
+all
+know how children suffer from the conflicts of their parents.  Not to say
+that all such children have problems, but I think I'm making myself
+clear.

Seems so circular, 'society views divorce and separated families
negatively and the children pick up that attitude'. What may be in
order in schools is training in relationships which take just as
much priority as 'geometry', 'chemistry', 'literature', etc.
Education which is not taugh as a 'oh, by the way...', in the
'health ed' class. But if the class really talks about marriage
relationships or partner relationships in a 'frank' way, there are
protests and howles from certain groups which have a very narrow
definition of 'marriage' or acceptable partner relationships, a very
limited view of what is acceptable 'sexuality' and all based on
either 'as handed down from Sinai' or it's immediate environs or have
dispensed with the deity and just said 'science' has proven this to
be the best of all possible worlds.

+ 
+Sorry I wrote a whole essay.

Uh? Essays have to be at least 10 pages long, remember quantity is
life's most important product.
-- 

John Clark
jclark@ucsd.edu