While many of us are debating the value of gay marriage, Dean Obeidallah denounces all marriage, gay and straight alike. He certainly isn't alone. many people have made the decision to never get married, even if they are looking for long-term monogamous relationships.
He certainly has some points. In the US, marriages live up to their vows less than 50% of the time: the rest end in divorce. With that kind of track record, is getting married just setting yourself up for likely disappointment?
Cultural climate has also changed. For most of history, it was important for people to produce many children, because so many of them died young, and because growing civilizations needed larger populations to really advance. That's no longer the case. The planet is overcrowded, most children survive to adulthood, and large families are generally financially detrimental.
It was also important to know which children were legitimate, and to be sure of it's parentage. But thanks to birth control, women can have even casual sex and not be overly concerned about pregnancy. That simply wasn't a reliable option in earlier times. Many people are choosing not to have children at all, which nullifies this issue altogether.
Marriage was often a contract that united two families. They were planned by the parents of the bride of groom, often without much input from the involved children. And the couple wasn't expected to be in love. They were just supposed to fill a variety of familial obligations. Indeed, affairs outside the marriage were often culturally acceptable, at least for the husbands.
I myself am happily married. But I admit that if something unfortunate happened to my marriage, I'm not at all sure I would remarry. I have no religious motivation for marriage, and I now know I won't be having any biological children. There are some legal reasons why marriage might still be useful, such as gaining spousal benefits or being able to make medical decisions for a partner, but that just pushes the question another step: should the government be encouraging marriage through the various benefits it currently legally confers?
The legal aspects are the only benefits I see. It’s also one of the major reasons homosexuals are fighting for the right to marry. Marriage, in of itself, doesn’t mean much of anything to me. I haven’t decided if I will ever marry, but it’s definitely not at the front of my thoughts either.
Insteresting statistics on cheating at this website:
http://www.truthaboutdeception.com/cheating-and-infidelity/stats-about-infidelity.html
Considering how “religious” the USA is, and seeing statistics like these, one can only wonder just how powerful any religion is in enforcing faithfulness in marriage.
Marriage itself is starting to decline, which in an unintended way is also lowering the divorce rate. In 2000, 55% of people aged 25-34, considered the prime age for marriage, were married. In 2009 that number went down to 44%. http://www.prb.org/Article /2010/usmarriagedecline.aspx
Given that fewer are getting married, and the fairly large swath of people that are married seem to think that cheating is becoming a normal way of life, I can’t help but think that the institution of marriage is pretty much on the way out.
As women have entered the work force and gained economic and educational status, they have put off marriage and also have increased their own extra-marital affairs, while also putting off marriage til later in life. Today, many people don’t get married til their 30’s or later.
The only good news here (if it’s seen as good news) is that people who wait til later in life to marry do tend to have more successful marriages. It seems that they’ve become more settled in their ways, gotten past the early, restless years, and are at a point to settle down. However, that also means fewer children, if any.
Oh wait, my bad…all of this change is due to gays and lesbians wanting to get married. That’s it!
-Dani
I was with a woman for 27 years and we never married. We had decided early on not to have children. Eventually we decided to split. From the standpoint of separation from cohabitation vs divorce it was far, far simpler. Basically we knew who bought what and which items were mutual purchases, like houses and furniture. We also knew which items were given as gifts. So settling everything took only a couple of days. In fairness had it been a divorce we still would have kept it simple.
I believe that if you do have children that it is best to be married and that is is best to have a common name, I think it gives a sense of unity and structure to the children, but that is just IMHO.
As can be expected over the course of 27 years we had our share of ER visits and we never had any problems in hospitals. I suppose had there ever been a decision to terminate life support it could have been different but we both had notarized papers stating that we did not want life support in such case as recovery was unlikely or if we were disfigured by sever burns or extensive injuries.
Is marriage outdated and meaningless in todays society?
No I think it all depends on those involved. I, and my ex, are atheists so there was never any religious aspect. But I know plenty of married atheists and they feel better having the marriage.
While not outdated I don’t see it as required either.
I personally consider the legal benefits given to ‘a married couple’ over ‘two single people living together’ to be a form of discrimination. Our entire society treats single people as if they are strange and as if being single is because you can’t or haven’t found someone ‘yet’. It never occurs to some people that there are people who wish to be single and aren’t losers or irresponsible for being so.
In article: Marriage was often a contract that united two families.
Marriage, divorce, re-marriage, step-parents/step-kids, can just make a contract and union with more than two families. Children consider it normal the same way kids raised with only one parent or gay parents, for instance, consider it normal. Why do “authorities” assume kids raised in a traditional home with the same two parents don’t have the same miseries and difficulties?