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If people consider marriage as a contract of exchange, then it is already a form of legalized prostitution. Monogamy might be a bigger underlying problem. Esth

If people consider marriage as a contract of exchange, then it is already a form of legalized prostitution. Monogamy might be a bigger underlying problem. Esther Perel's Mating in Captivity in a good read on this topic.

bastardoperator 4y ago
People who think like this don't tend to stay married long.
- notch656c 4y ago
  People that don't, don't stay married long. I started out married thinking of it as a nebulous thing. My marriage improved when I realized it was all an exchange and I need to make sure I'm always providing my bit rather than just working towards some nebulous idea of love.
  - bastardoperator 4y ago
    I've been married 24 years and I'm happy my marriage isn't transactional. What happened if you couldn't provide your bit due to an injury? Your marriage ends?
    - notch656c 4y ago
      I have family in healthcare so I hear the stories. Serious unfixable medical injuries almost always end with the spouse at the very least getting sex on the side, at least if they're reasonably young. Getting a long term badly limiting disability in anything but old age is a recipe for divorce. Eventually the loving spouse gets caretaker fatigue and is overloaded from carrying the weight without relief. I fully expect and will not hold it against my spouse if I'm seriously disabled for over a year and the marriage ends. Any high moral ground about love and honor or whatever falls apart when you're grinding in poverty and going to be sucked under yourself with no light at the end of the tunnel.
      - bastardoperator 4y ago
        My wife (in her mid thirties) sustained a nerve injury, couldn't move her leg, lost all mobility, was mostly in bed everyday and needed help standing, a special toilet seat, the whole nine yards. We were told this is a permanent condition. I never left her side or stopped supporting her. I didn't get fatigued, I got motivated and we found one of the best Neurologists in the world. It took a several years and surgeries for her to get better. She can walk, drive, and work today. I couldn't imagine throwing away my marriage over some ass. Also what kind of father would I be if I left their mother when she needed me the most? If your entire marriage is built on sex and money transactions, your marriage will eventually fall apart no matter what.
        notch656c 4y ago
        Lol it's hilarious you pretended to ask a genuine question when you already knew the answer for your marriage. In fact you intentionally withheld it as some kind of poorly executed trap. Talk about a bad faith discussion. Not all marriages involve people with the money to continue supporting the children when both rather than just one parent is bankrupted by medical debt, and not all disabilities end with being able to drive and walk. Usually don't involve people privileged enough to get "best in the world" Neurologists either. There are people out there that may have to divorce precisely because they can't look their kids in the eyes with the marriage as it stands due to the disability, knowing a divorce will separate the finances and possible allow them to find more support for their child. Every human is susceptible to caretaker fatigue and you yourself can't possibly know you would never get fatigued if the disability never ended. Some people can go a 1 year without cracking, others a decade, others 100 years and until it happens you probably won't know your breaking point. The fact of the matter is I get to see the people that deal with hundreds of seriously chronically disabled people. My dataset to work with is that it's a bad bet to expect that the counterparty will sacrifice themselves indefinitely for the sake of the marriage.
        bastardoperator 4y ago
        You walked right into it, that's not my fault. LOL. First you had family that worked in healthcare "I have family in healthcare so I hear the stories.". Now you're able to draw parallels because you get to see the people that deal with others? It doesn't even make sense. I have people that work in the healthcare industry including doctors too. Your evidence is andetoal at best, hearsay at worst. You don't have a dataset, you have stories. So which is it? Talk about a bad faith discussion... The reality is there are plenty of people that would love their partner for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.
- low_tech_punk 4y ago
  Perel's argument was the inverse: people who failed their marriage because they are holding too tight on the monogamy ideal, as they expect everything from a single partner who cannot provide everything. Well, I'm not sure what to think of that. I'm just quoting her theory and I feel it's relevant in this discourse.
  - pwthornton 4y ago
    You shouldn't be getting all of your needs met by a sexual partner. Friends and family are critical. A lot of the people I know into polyamory do not have the best friendship and family situations. They are seeking to get everything met through partners.
treeman79 4y ago
Monogamy was a fantastic tool to manage diseases for thousands of years. Imagine removing antibiotics, vaccines, screening tools, and any other medical treatment. Anyone who was around for the AIDs epidemic will understand how quickly a large segment of the population can start dying off. The early portion, it was literally a mystery disease that was killing off anyone that engaged in risky lifestyle.
- low_tech_punk 4y ago
  Interesting insight from Darwinism point of view! If we have solved the public health problems, does it make Monogamy an empty construct? Or there are other social/economical/biological factors that hold it in place?
  - UncleEntity 4y ago
    Up until my generation it was really hard to raise kids as a single parent. And they take a while before you’re not responsible for their safety/wellbeing.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  As far as I know, there weren't any significantly life-threatening sexual diseases for most of human history in most of the world. Syphilis only affected the Americas before the 1500s, and HIV is much newer than that. Most other sexually-transmitted diseases that existed in most of the world were unpleasant, but not life threatening, even before antibiotics. And it's also worth noting that most primates (and many mammals of all kinds) are not monogamous, and yet they are not plagued by STIs to any significant extent. Instead, monogamy was much more important for managing babies, especially given how much hare human babies need, and for how long, compared to virtually any other animal.
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    Syphillis isn't from the Americas or anywhere specifically. It just gets described in European literature around the time of Columbus first documented contact. If you read descriptions of literature from that time it's either a separate virus or the virus mutated radically since then to become less fatal. As far as primates not having STIs, you might want to read up on the animal origins of HIV a bit. The only reason we have HIV is because SIV can proliferate indefinitely in another species and crossed into humans.
flatline 4y ago
You can have a financially dependent relationship with actual love and affection, prostitution is purely transactional. I agree that monogamy as it is usually practiced has some drawbacks and is not well suited to many aspects of modern society, but it does work well for a large number of people, even if it is a minority.

bastardoperator 4y ago

People who think like this don't tend to stay married long.

notch656c 4y ago
People that don't, don't stay married long. I started out married thinking of it as a nebulous thing. My marriage improved when I realized it was all an exchange and I need to make sure I'm always providing my bit rather than just working towards some nebulous idea of love.
- bastardoperator 4y ago
  I've been married 24 years and I'm happy my marriage isn't transactional. What happened if you couldn't provide your bit due to an injury? Your marriage ends?
  - notch656c 4y ago
    I have family in healthcare so I hear the stories. Serious unfixable medical injuries almost always end with the spouse at the very least getting sex on the side, at least if they're reasonably young. Getting a long term badly limiting disability in anything but old age is a recipe for divorce. Eventually the loving spouse gets caretaker fatigue and is overloaded from carrying the weight without relief. I fully expect and will not hold it against my spouse if I'm seriously disabled for over a year and the marriage ends. Any high moral ground about love and honor or whatever falls apart when you're grinding in poverty and going to be sucked under yourself with no light at the end of the tunnel.
    - bastardoperator 4y ago
      My wife (in her mid thirties) sustained a nerve injury, couldn't move her leg, lost all mobility, was mostly in bed everyday and needed help standing, a special toilet seat, the whole nine yards. We were told this is a permanent condition. I never left her side or stopped supporting her. I didn't get fatigued, I got motivated and we found one of the best Neurologists in the world. It took a several years and surgeries for her to get better. She can walk, drive, and work today. I couldn't imagine throwing away my marriage over some ass. Also what kind of father would I be if I left their mother when she needed me the most? If your entire marriage is built on sex and money transactions, your marriage will eventually fall apart no matter what.
      - notch656c 4y ago
        Lol it's hilarious you pretended to ask a genuine question when you already knew the answer for your marriage. In fact you intentionally withheld it as some kind of poorly executed trap. Talk about a bad faith discussion. Not all marriages involve people with the money to continue supporting the children when both rather than just one parent is bankrupted by medical debt, and not all disabilities end with being able to drive and walk. Usually don't involve people privileged enough to get "best in the world" Neurologists either. There are people out there that may have to divorce precisely because they can't look their kids in the eyes with the marriage as it stands due to the disability, knowing a divorce will separate the finances and possible allow them to find more support for their child. Every human is susceptible to caretaker fatigue and you yourself can't possibly know you would never get fatigued if the disability never ended. Some people can go a 1 year without cracking, others a decade, others 100 years and until it happens you probably won't know your breaking point. The fact of the matter is I get to see the people that deal with hundreds of seriously chronically disabled people. My dataset to work with is that it's a bad bet to expect that the counterparty will sacrifice themselves indefinitely for the sake of the marriage.
        bastardoperator 4y ago
        You walked right into it, that's not my fault. LOL. First you had family that worked in healthcare "I have family in healthcare so I hear the stories.". Now you're able to draw parallels because you get to see the people that deal with others? It doesn't even make sense. I have people that work in the healthcare industry including doctors too. Your evidence is andetoal at best, hearsay at worst. You don't have a dataset, you have stories. So which is it? Talk about a bad faith discussion... The reality is there are plenty of people that would love their partner for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.
low_tech_punk 4y ago
Perel's argument was the inverse: people who failed their marriage because they are holding too tight on the monogamy ideal, as they expect everything from a single partner who cannot provide everything. Well, I'm not sure what to think of that. I'm just quoting her theory and I feel it's relevant in this discourse.
- pwthornton 4y ago
  You shouldn't be getting all of your needs met by a sexual partner. Friends and family are critical. A lot of the people I know into polyamory do not have the best friendship and family situations. They are seeking to get everything met through partners.

treeman79 4y ago

Monogamy was a fantastic tool to manage diseases for thousands of years. Imagine removing antibiotics, vaccines, screening tools, and any other medical treatment. Anyone who was around for the AIDs epidemic will understand how quickly a large segment of the population can start dying off. The early portion, it was literally a mystery disease that was killing off anyone that engaged in risky lifestyle.

low_tech_punk 4y ago
Interesting insight from Darwinism point of view! If we have solved the public health problems, does it make Monogamy an empty construct? Or there are other social/economical/biological factors that hold it in place?
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  Up until my generation it was really hard to raise kids as a single parent. And they take a while before you’re not responsible for their safety/wellbeing.
tsimionescu 4y ago
As far as I know, there weren't any significantly life-threatening sexual diseases for most of human history in most of the world. Syphilis only affected the Americas before the 1500s, and HIV is much newer than that. Most other sexually-transmitted diseases that existed in most of the world were unpleasant, but not life threatening, even before antibiotics. And it's also worth noting that most primates (and many mammals of all kinds) are not monogamous, and yet they are not plagued by STIs to any significant extent. Instead, monogamy was much more important for managing babies, especially given how much hare human babies need, and for how long, compared to virtually any other animal.
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  Syphillis isn't from the Americas or anywhere specifically. It just gets described in European literature around the time of Columbus first documented contact. If you read descriptions of literature from that time it's either a separate virus or the virus mutated radically since then to become less fatal. As far as primates not having STIs, you might want to read up on the animal origins of HIV a bit. The only reason we have HIV is because SIV can proliferate indefinitely in another species and crossed into humans.

flatline 4y ago

You can have a financially dependent relationship with actual love and affection, prostitution is purely transactional. I agree that monogamy as it is usually practiced has some drawbacks and is not well suited to many aspects of modern society, but it does work well for a large number of people, even if it is a minority.