The premise is simple and direct: Nobody needs to be married in this day and age, and the legal downsides of divorce are tremendous.
I decided a long time ago that I don't need to be married *ever*, and this was back in 1989 or so when I de-converted from Catholicism. While some of us in our society are deprived of the right I also boycott in protest. As an atheist, I don't want to feed-into the 'married' couple ideal set up by ancient religions which I don't believe in, and any religious prescription to get married is irrelevant to me.
The concept of marriage comes from an institution where women were seen as chattel property. They didn't always have the right to vote and were told to 'honor and obey' their
Pledging lifelong allegiance to a person based on the transient-insanity of sexual desire at a young age (or any age) is not the wisest choice, especially considering the change humans go through and the penalties for 'failure'.
Divorce has historically been shunned or could get one excommunicated from one's social networking group (church) and what many believe is the path to 'salvation'. Worse, divorce in modern times often means huge lawyer fees, alimony payments to maintain the lifestyle of an ex-spouse (usually the female) for a lifestyle she couldn't maintain without the partner in the first-place. On top of all this is community property law in relevant states and ball-busting judges with agendas who basically can decide your fate with the bang of a gavel...but if you're not married (assuming no common-law marriage) then you don't have to worry about the legal entanglements of divorce.
Without marriage, you're free to leave if it suits you and it keeps partners on better behaviour, and there won't be divorce lawyers banging on your door (and your bank account) with all the legal recourse in the world to make you miserable.
Child-support is often alimony in disguise and rarely relates directly to what a child actually needs as additional income (look at what celebrities pay in child-support). Since child-support follows the child, marriage doesn't relate to children at all except in some traditional religious sense, but religion has no effect on those immune from its dictates.
Sure, some of you are screaming at the monitor, 'Get a pre-nup doofus!'. Now, ask yourselves, why do you need a contract to *undo* the horrible contract that comes with a marriage certificate? Talk about a red-flag. It's like going to a car dealer with a lawyer-drafted contract to counter-act the bad contract you're getting into at the dealership. The simple thing to do is avoid the bad-contract in the first place.
Simply put, divorce can be insanely expensive, and confers too much power to the female (usually) and a legal system which has no business in the affairs (literally) of consenting adults.
It's disconcerting to think that the government 'stamps approval' on some relationships, but other taxpaying, consenting adults cannot marry at all because they share the same gender. Likewise, if four women want to marry one guy, what business is it of the government's? Guys with tremendous resources (or a convenient harem-religion) always attract multiple partners (same with powerful women). If they're all consenting adults, it's none of our business.
Oddly, straight couples under the age of 62 cannot even become domestic partners in California, where I live, though they *used* to be able to before politicians removed that law and just left us the 'all or nothing' marriage option.
Sure, companies can *elect* to honor heterosexual domestic-partners with regard to health-coverage, but there is no state-mandate. If you're straight and under 62 in California, it's marriage or nothing. If you're gay, it's domestic partnership or nothing. The logical thing would be to allow both straight and gay couples to enter into marriage or a domestic partnership if they so choose.
It's all a big hot flaming and discriminatory mess and I want no part of it.
Societal conditioning prepares young girls for marriage at an early age, though that trend is probably changing in 2009. There is a reason newsstands are plastered in 'Bride' magazines, but rarely will you find a 'Groom' magazine. There is a reason women want marriage in the U.S. more than men...they have everything to gain, generally speaking, and little to lose, whereas men stand to lose a lot in the event of divorce.
As an atheist, I am not bound by the dictates of the church. I am free to ignore its prescriptions for celibacy before marriage and ignore the very idea of marriage itself. After all, who invented this idea? It's out-dated and simply unnecessary in a modern age.
Some will fall under the misconception (usually promoted by wannabe brides) that marriage=commitment. Wrong. Divorce rates speak for themselves. Over half of marriages end in divorce, even with couples who claim to be religious (since they are the majority in the first place). In fact, unmarried households now outnumber traditional, married households as reported by U.S. Today in 2006. This shows that the trend is going away from marriage simply because it just doesn't work, statistically-speaking, and there's a lot to lose if you're in the more than 50% who end up getting divorced.
Speaking of commitment, some women will use this buzzword to try and get a guy to marry them, and I guess some men might do that, but you'll most often hear this from women on talk-shows, in books, articles, etc. The idea is that if the man doesn't 'commit', then the woman should find someone else to 'commit' and marry her. What is the idea here, to find a spouse or find the *right* person who you want to spend time with? Why do people feel they need a label, a legal paper and an expensive ceremony to feel 'committed' to someone, all the while being willing to let a good person go if they won't sign a legal document? Sounds like extortion to me. Imagine pressuring your friends....'Hey man, be my friend for life or find another friend!'. The logic just doesn't make any kind of sense.
If a woman is willing to leave you, a man she wants to be with forever simply because you won't sign a contract to marry, then she doesn't really want to be with you forever. It's simple. You're easily replaced, and she is telling you that unless you sign this contract, you're going to be replaced by someone else she wants to be with 'forever'...someone who WILL sign on the dotted line.
Commitment is not on a legal document. It's in the mind and displayed in your behavior. Unless I am missing something, people don't go to the altar with the intent to get divorced in the forseeable future (except gold-diggers who nobody should unwittingly marry in the first place). Ostensibly, those who get married take their vows seriously enough, and would prefer to stay married. But, life isn't a fairytale. Some people cheat, they grow bored, they change (sometimes wildly so), they disagree about fundamental issues such as religion, kids, money, in-laws, or what kind of wedding cake to get.
Humans are dynamic creatures, and evolution didn't shape us (notably, males) for long-term monogamy. Women drop an egg a month, men generate billions of sperm a day. If monogamy happens, great, and those who enter into relationships should honor the physical well-being of their partners and not spread diseases they might catch in a tryst. The moment one cheats, it behooves that person to tell his/her partner and abstain from sex until then. It's one thing to change your mind, but it's another to expose an innocent party by way of undisclosed dalliances.
That said, humans change...it's guaranteed. Whether you will change together or not cannot be known and it's another reason not to try and put a 'forever' label on marriage.
Let's pretend for a second that 'marriage' is just the first of two-stages of arbitrary 'commitment' labels. What if there was another level called 'Flarriage'? Would the partner then be comparing and contrasting with her friends, annoyed that the hubs will marry her but not 'Flarry' her? It could get ridiculous. One of the reasons I think that women get annoyed when they're not married is that they see it as some sort of personal failure, as if they weren't 'good enough' to 'get' a guy to marry them. But, there's no competition. What matters is whether you enjoy spending time with the person and whether you want to mutually continue.
The analogy just demonstrates that the label 'marriage' is arbitrary, even if it's widely thought to be something more. With regard to real commitment, it's in your brain and your 'heart' so to speak, not on a legal document. In fact, the false-security of marriage might cause some people to cheat, simply because they feel more trapped than they otherwise would....and they feel trapped because in a very real legal sense, they are.
The reason people get cold feet, most notably men, is because they are about to sign a paper which assumes they'll be together forever in the eyes of the law and their church for those who are religious, but with a huge penalty for failure (divorce) leading to a serious financial hit which can last a lifetime. In California, an alimony award (usually to the female) will cost the male *for life* if the couple were married over 10 years. Yeah, cold-feet isn't just a worry about the open-bar tab after the reception. Imagine deciding you'd rather have a Mini-Cooper than a paid-off Honda, but you still have to pay for the Honda even when someone else is driving it!
Some marriage proponents (or those seeking company in their misery) will note the perks that come with the legal rat's-nest of matrimony. Yes, there are rights conferred to married people that are withheld from gay or unmarried straight couples, but this is discrimination and should be treated accordingly...even by people who are allowed to get married.
Take hospital visitation, for instance. The law allows family and spouses visitation rights whereas it's disallowed for unmarried partners. Domestic partners who are government-recognized have these and next-of-kin rights in some states, but straight-couples under 62 cannot even get domestic partnership status if they wanted to!
It's not up to the hospital to decide who should visit you. If you're conscious, you should have a list of people who are allowed to see you, and those who are blocked at the nurse's station. Some people may have a dear friend they'd love to see and family they never want to see. Simply because someone is a spouse or family-member has nothing to do with visitation, but those who aren't having government approved sexual relations suffer the abuse of discrimination, simply because they are not married or straight. This will change, but it's been an issue.
With regard to death benefits...anyone can set up a will or other legal means to protect the partner in the event of death and through life-insurance. You certainly don't need marriage for this.
In the old days, you could not get a hotel room with your girlfriend/boyfriend without being married. Those days are over. Common law marriage was an awful Draconian practice where the government would 'marry you anyway' if you lived with someone for 7-10 years, depending on your state. Thankfully, this ridiculous law is off the books in most states (including my home state of California).
The downsides of unmarried relationships are minimal nowadays, but the downsides of divorce remain colossal. If you're unmarried, you're there because you want to be...like your parents, your brother or sister, your dog or cat, and your job. In California, businesses generally hire you 'at will', meaning they can fire you anytime for any reason, and you can leave when you want. This is ideal, since the employer is not saddled with a sub-par employee and the employee can always pursue a better deal.
Relationships are no different. There are always options, and no legal paper will disguise that. A woman can find a better-looking, richer guy who cuddles more and is better in bed. A guy can find a hotter, younger woman who is a nympho and part-time chef and gets season passes to baseball games. Staying with someone 'at-will' is far more noble and freeing than being married, without the ever-looming threat of messy, expensive divorce. You're there because both of you find it mutually beneficial.
Here's another example. Think of anyone you ever broke up with. Things started well, right? But, when things went sour, you were glad you didn't marry them. Since over-half of marriages end in divorce, everyone who gets divorced probably wishes they were never married either...though that doesn't mean they wouldn't still have had a relationship. You never know if you 'should have gotten married' until it's too late, but if you never marry in the first place you won't set a legal bear-trap for yourself just because things changed in a manner you didn't predict.
Nobody needs marriage. It's unecessary in a modern time, and the downside of divorce is tremendous and could lead to financial ruin for some. What we're seeing is the slow dissolution of the marriage idea before our eyes, changing incrementally by generation. First, gay couples can't get married, then they can, then it's voted down, but we all know that eventually, gay-marriage will be common, unremarkable and available to any gay couple.
Social progress is slow and the religious conservatives continue to do their level best to oppress others through legislated social-retardation, but in the end social-progress wins....the religious could not keep slavery, they couldn't keep women from voting, they couldn't keep Jim Crow laws and segregation, they can't suppress evolution, astronomy or science at large, and they certainly won't be able to 'save' marriage or even religion itself once people realize they don't have to allow the church to think for them. As religion dies its slow death, marriage will die along with it.
I predict that in 10 years, maybe less....marriage will be seen as the old-fashioned, quaint yet hopelessly naive, outdated and unnecessary institution it is. Unmarried households already outnumber married households in the U.S.. The shift has already started.
Finally, here's the unassailable logic in its simplest form: If you're gonna get divorced you shouldn't have gotten married and if you're gonna stay together, you don't need marriage.
-Happily unmarried for 12 years.
-dB-
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