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Please elaborate how his divorce is either illegal or directly relevant to his writing

by bauerd 8y ago

aklemm 8y ago
Character is a theme (and title!) of many of his writings. Ending an avowed life-time commitment in the circumstances around the way he did it brings that into question. We should all be questioning it, even if we're free to come to different conclusions.
- gkya 8y ago
  > an avowed life-time commitment That's everything what modern marriage today isn't. That's basically a religious view of marriage, which can freely exist, but has no legal binding at all, and whether divorce is ethical or not for one or some religions/"philosophies" is not necessarily universal.
  - aklemm 8y ago
    If that were the case, no one would bother with marriage. It would be completely meaningless. This is an incredibly naive view. The relevant question is not whether it's legal nor what one's religion has to say on the matter. The question is whether he showed character, and we can evaluate that by whether he lived up to his word and--especially--by how his wife took it.
    - gkya 8y ago
      Sorry but BS. Marriage is an economical (oiko- in oikonomia---the Greek word that is the etymological origin of economy---means family/home), legal and religious phenomenon. In modern societies the accent is on the first two, and we separate the legal meaning of it from its religious one; the former being an official bond regarding two person and their children, which governs how responsibilities, goods and resources belonging to a family core are parted and used among those individuals. That's the big part of why people bother with marriage (or things like civil unions) even if they are not religious. Regardless, "living up to one's words" means nothing regarding the validity of a statement. I can say 1 + 1 = 1, but then in my private life behave as if it was 2; that does not affect the truth of the former statement.

Please elaborate how his divorce is either illegal or directly relevant to his writing

by bauerd 8y ago

Please elaborate how his divorce is either illegal or directly relevant to his writing

Character is a theme (and title!) of many of his writings. Ending an avowed life-time commitment in the circumstances around the way he did it brings that into question. We should all be questioning it, even if we're free to come to different conclusions.

gkya 8y ago
> an avowed life-time commitment That's everything what modern marriage today isn't. That's basically a religious view of marriage, which can freely exist, but has no legal binding at all, and whether divorce is ethical or not for one or some religions/"philosophies" is not necessarily universal.
- aklemm 8y ago
  If that were the case, no one would bother with marriage. It would be completely meaningless. This is an incredibly naive view. The relevant question is not whether it's legal nor what one's religion has to say on the matter. The question is whether he showed character, and we can evaluate that by whether he lived up to his word and--especially--by how his wife took it.
  - gkya 8y ago
    Sorry but BS. Marriage is an economical (oiko- in oikonomia---the Greek word that is the etymological origin of economy---means family/home), legal and religious phenomenon. In modern societies the accent is on the first two, and we separate the legal meaning of it from its religious one; the former being an official bond regarding two person and their children, which governs how responsibilities, goods and resources belonging to a family core are parted and used among those individuals. That's the big part of why people bother with marriage (or things like civil unions) even if they are not religious. Regardless, "living up to one's words" means nothing regarding the validity of a statement. I can say 1 + 1 = 1, but then in my private life behave as if it was 2; that does not affect the truth of the former statement.