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> because marriage is not something you "do", it's something you make. This is a bold assumption that will not hold in many countries and regions that consider
by phoe-krk 6y ago
> because marriage is not something you "do", it's something you make.
This is a bold assumption that will not hold in many countries and regions that consider marriage as something that is "done", especially if the act that proclaims it as "done" it's performed in the presence of some holy man, in a holy building, and if the marriage is, in any way, legally or morally "irreversible" or impossible to effectively unmake even for strongest and most plausible reasons to do so.
Such rules, counter-intuitively, make it much harder for marriages to be happy. If a marriage is "done", then there's no point in trying to "make" it - whether it means to make it better, make it worthwhile, or even make it happen with someone better-suited for the role.
- tcskeptic 6y agoIs this an evidence based opinion? I am trying to find evidence myself -- but my memory is that religiosity is well correlated with marital satisfaction. If you have something that supports the opposite conclusion I would be interested in reading it.
- phoe-krk 6y agoJust a single point of data here, since I come from a rural, highly religious Catholic part of Eastern Europe. Multiple marriages in my family (not my parents', luckily) were broken despite a lot of self-proclaimed religiousness among the people in there. On a second thought I assume it is because poverty, alcoholism, and family traumas (ranging back to WW2 and UPA/UIA raids) are all common in the lands of my origin, and religiousness becomes more like another drug and less like an actual, sane belief system.
- simonsarris 6y agoI disagree. The irreversible nature makes the case for "making" it (work) stronger. I'm reminded of GK Chesterton, in Heretics: "Posting a letter and getting married are among the few things left that are entirely romantic; for to be entirely romantic a thing must be irrevocable."
- goatlover 6y agoExcept for the people who made a bad mistake and chose someone they would be better of not being married too.
- jtbayly 6y agoIt is precisely the sanctity of marriage in those cultural expectations that pushes you to keep making something. I a marriage is irrevocable, you better do your best to "make" it good. In a culture of disposable marriage, there is little reason to invest deeply in building, since the whole thing can be torn down in a second.
- treeman79 6y agoIgnoring beliefs for the moment. Personally I’m of the opinion that historically marriage is Disease control. Imagine life with no medication or testing. Keeping marriage “pure” is a way to keep people healthy. Any society that didn’t follow this would have a lot of STDs. The stricter a society the healthier the people. Hence why so much social pressure developed. Lots of Jewish practices have to do with health and sanitation. Long list of things that makes a person “unclean” for X days. I see many Parallels with Covid. It is creating new traditions that could last generations. Someone coughs, they are “unclean” for 14 days. Social rules are completely different now. Modern medication changes the game drastically. Lots of things are no longer a death sentence.
- gruez 6y ago>Long list of things that makes a person “unclean” for X days. Is there further reading for this?
- Ancapistani 6y agoOff the top of my head, Numbers 19 applies for caring for the dead: https://biblehub.com/niv/numbers/19.htm https://biblehub.com/niv/numbers/19.htm Menstruation is in Leviticus 15: https://biblehub.com/niv/leviticus/15.htm https://biblehub.com/niv/leviticus/15.htm ... in fact, most of Leviticus is about "clean" vs. "unclean".
- smegger001 6y agothe book of Leviticus? Its the 3rd book of the Torah/Old Testament of the Bible. A lot of it is there and would be where I would start.
- harryh 6y agoI can only really speak in much detail about Christianity and Judaism but this is a pretty big misinterpretation of how marriage is supposed to work in both of these religions. While both are generally against divorce they also specify guidelines for how one should behave in a marriage. These guidelines are ways that a marriage is "made" over time. I would imagine that this holds for other religions as well.
- hinkley 6y agoI'm not that familiar with arranged marriages, but what bits I have seen in for instance documentaries suggests that the couple gets a lot of advice about making the marriage work, emphasis on the work. So at least for that segment, it may very much look like something that is 'done' but the reality hits once the well-wishers go home.