5 ms·

I guess I'm not seeing what impact marriage has on society as a whole - can you elaborate?

axod 18y ago
Well I'd say to abolish marriage would be a big mistake for society. For me the main function of marriage is to provide the optimum situation for bringing up kids, as well as promoting monogamy and faithfulness which are IMHO good for society. I think hijacking the word to mean other things muddies and confuses things for society, when there's actually an opportunity to use a new word to mean marriage between a same sex couple.
- abstractbill 18y ago
  For me, marriage is something more personal - something a couple does because they want to let each other, and the rest of the world, know they're committed. To be fair, I guess I can't say for sure what I think about whether marriage is important to kids until I have some of my own.
  - kingkongrevenge 18y ago
    This is the fundamental conflict here. Liberals look at marriage and see something people do to be happy. Telling some people they can't marry and be happy is just mean! They fail to see the deeper consequences of messing with tradition.
    - abstractbill 18y ago
      Yes, I think that's exactly right. To elaborate, I see the attitude of not wanting to mess with tradition as being the same attitude that used to make people say "if God wanted us to fly he would have given us wings". Perhaps messing with tradition is risky, as was trying to fly. But I'm ok with that.
    - scott_s 18y ago
      So what are the deeper consequences of allowing homosexual couples to legally marry?
      - kingkongrevenge 18y ago
        It devalues real marriage. The consequences will be much the same as past developments that devalued marriage as an institution and an oath, for examples no-fault divorce and much public welfare. One can reasonably anticipate more out of wedlock births and more divorce.
        scott_s 18y ago
        Just to be clear, you're seriously arguing that homosexual marriage will lead to more out of wedlock births and divorce among homosexual couples?
  - wensing 18y ago
    What is the difference between a father and a mother?
- Retric 18y ago
  Honestly that seems more like a function of a church than a government. But, how does using that word to talk about other arrangements promote monogamy / faithfulness? I mean less than half the people getting married today in the US are going to stay that way for the rest of their life and in many of those that don't get divorced one or both partners are going to get some on the side so I don't think the word really does much at this point. PS: A lot of people stay married to the end because one spouse kills the other is that a benefit?
- abstractbill 18y ago
  Also: As I understand it, marriage used to mean something more akin to ownership, before women got more equal rights. So the definition has already changed once. If that change was ok, why is another change not ok?
- ram1024 18y ago
  promoting monogamy and faithfulness? one needs a legal binding contract for these things? i mean seriously. this is adult stuff, if "the law" is the only thing preventing you from sleeping around, then you aren't mature enough to be in the kind of relationship that requires it. and as far as kids are concerned. i highly doubt a legally binding marriage of two people who don't want to be together being forced into raising a kid would create an optimum situation. if they want to be together, they will be. and if they don't, moving on is far healthier.
  - axod 18y ago
    "if "the law" is the only thing preventing you from sleeping around, then you aren't mature enough to be in the kind of relationship that requires it." Right. And the majority of grown adults are not. Also I think it's a good idea to make breaking up a family hard.
    - elai 18y ago
      And furthermore, nothing in the law really makes sleeping around "illegal"
      - kingkongrevenge 18y ago
        It was illegal as recently as the 70s in many places. I think it was pretty much everywhere in the 50s. The cops would throw you in the slammer for "carrying on with a married woman."
- tptacek 18y ago
  There's nothing suboptimal about a stable same-sex family for raising children. If you want the law to maximize benefits for children, outlaw divorce.
  - axod 18y ago
    "There's nothing suboptimal about a stable same-sex family for raising children." Seriously? You don't see any value in having both a male parent and a female parent?
    - tptacek 18y ago
      Well, I'm a male parent in a stable, conventionally-married Catholic two-parent family. Do my kids get value from being raised by Erin? Yes. For one thing, they eat yogurt; for another thing, they can dress themselves. Do they get value from me? Yes. For instance, I am good at making pancakes. Is there some huge man-woman socio-cultural hoo-hah I'm missing about what our relationship imparts on our children that would be dramatically different if I was replaced with an equally loving woman? Perhaps the pancakes would become crepes (though I'm good at that too). The whole of western civilization shudders. There might be a real argument you have to make, axod, but you have to actually make it. Innuendo doesn't cut it.
      - axod 18y ago
        What??? Look into how badly boys do at school when there teachers are female - or how badly girls do when their teachers are men. The evidence is that neither do well in those circumstances. Women and men are very very very different thank goodness. If you're missing out on either of them, you're missing out on a complete other world.
        azanar 18y ago
        Source, please. Just from my own anecdotal evidence, my ability to learn from a teacher was based far more on their knowledge and passion than their genitalia.
- tdavis 18y ago
  ...provide the optimum situation for bringing up kids... The fact that roughly 50% of marriages end in divorce (at least in the U.S.) makes whether or not marriages create said optimum situation the decision of a rounding error, more or less.
ram1024 18y ago
people should have every right in the world to define their relationship to each other in any manner they like. the law should simply allow simplification of contract terms should they be required (custody, assets, etc). the idea that "marriage" is a set legal method that is rigid and unyielding to change is retarded. the concept is so ridiculously outmoded. society and culture have moved on, it's time for "marriage" to get with the program
kingkongrevenge 18y ago
> I guess I'm not seeing what impact marriage has on society as a whole Are you blind? You haven't noticed that it's ghetto shit-hole everywhere in modern world that stable two parent families aren't the norm? Marriage in its traditional form is an institution arrived at through a Darwinian process of cultural selection. It has been proven by time to be the best way to further a society. Messing with it is extremely dangerous. Cultural conservatism is much like environmentalism. You just don't want to go blindly messing around with complex natural systems. The consequences are usually bad.
- Retric 18y ago
  For most of human history people married who their parents told them to. Calling what we do now traditional marriage is silly because it's been changing fairly rapidly over time. Look at marriage in nortic countries and you will see a large separation between having kids and getting married yet they are doing better than most of Europe and the US on most measurements of heath, happiness and economic growth. Looking back it's hard to extrapolate the value of "traditional family values" because we have a lower crime rate, better educated population, and a better economy now than we did back with they where more common.
  - kingkongrevenge 18y ago
    > because it's been changing fairly rapidly over time No, it's been changing fairly rapidly for less than 100 years, and usually with serious unforeseen consequences. > Look at marriage in nortic countries I'm tired of hearing about nordic countries. First, they aren't nearly as great as the pom-pom crowd thinks. If you do an apples to apples comparison of middle class whites in northern US states to nordic countries, they're really not so fantastic. And there is plenty of hand-wringing about social degradation in Sweden. They're, what, one generation in to their shift away from more conservative arrangements? Give it time and you'll see problems.
    - Retric 18y ago
      Edit: Deleted double post.

axod 18y ago

Well I'd say to abolish marriage would be a big mistake for society. For me the main function of marriage is to provide the optimum situation for bringing up kids, as well as promoting monogamy and faithfulness which are IMHO good for society. I think hijacking the word to mean other things muddies and confuses things for society, when there's actually an opportunity to use a new word to mean marriage between a same sex couple.

abstractbill 18y ago
For me, marriage is something more personal - something a couple does because they want to let each other, and the rest of the world, know they're committed. To be fair, I guess I can't say for sure what I think about whether marriage is important to kids until I have some of my own.
- kingkongrevenge 18y ago
  This is the fundamental conflict here. Liberals look at marriage and see something people do to be happy. Telling some people they can't marry and be happy is just mean! They fail to see the deeper consequences of messing with tradition.
  - abstractbill 18y ago
    Yes, I think that's exactly right. To elaborate, I see the attitude of not wanting to mess with tradition as being the same attitude that used to make people say "if God wanted us to fly he would have given us wings". Perhaps messing with tradition is risky, as was trying to fly. But I'm ok with that.
  - scott_s 18y ago
    So what are the deeper consequences of allowing homosexual couples to legally marry?
    - kingkongrevenge 18y ago
      It devalues real marriage. The consequences will be much the same as past developments that devalued marriage as an institution and an oath, for examples no-fault divorce and much public welfare. One can reasonably anticipate more out of wedlock births and more divorce.
      - scott_s 18y ago
        Just to be clear, you're seriously arguing that homosexual marriage will lead to more out of wedlock births and divorce among homosexual couples?
- wensing 18y ago
  What is the difference between a father and a mother?
Retric 18y ago
Honestly that seems more like a function of a church than a government. But, how does using that word to talk about other arrangements promote monogamy / faithfulness? I mean less than half the people getting married today in the US are going to stay that way for the rest of their life and in many of those that don't get divorced one or both partners are going to get some on the side so I don't think the word really does much at this point. PS: A lot of people stay married to the end because one spouse kills the other is that a benefit?
abstractbill 18y ago
Also: As I understand it, marriage used to mean something more akin to ownership, before women got more equal rights. So the definition has already changed once. If that change was ok, why is another change not ok?
ram1024 18y ago
promoting monogamy and faithfulness? one needs a legal binding contract for these things? i mean seriously. this is adult stuff, if "the law" is the only thing preventing you from sleeping around, then you aren't mature enough to be in the kind of relationship that requires it. and as far as kids are concerned. i highly doubt a legally binding marriage of two people who don't want to be together being forced into raising a kid would create an optimum situation. if they want to be together, they will be. and if they don't, moving on is far healthier.
- axod 18y ago
  "if "the law" is the only thing preventing you from sleeping around, then you aren't mature enough to be in the kind of relationship that requires it." Right. And the majority of grown adults are not. Also I think it's a good idea to make breaking up a family hard.
  - elai 18y ago
    And furthermore, nothing in the law really makes sleeping around "illegal"
    - kingkongrevenge 18y ago
      It was illegal as recently as the 70s in many places. I think it was pretty much everywhere in the 50s. The cops would throw you in the slammer for "carrying on with a married woman."
tptacek 18y ago
There's nothing suboptimal about a stable same-sex family for raising children. If you want the law to maximize benefits for children, outlaw divorce.
- axod 18y ago
  "There's nothing suboptimal about a stable same-sex family for raising children." Seriously? You don't see any value in having both a male parent and a female parent?
  - tptacek 18y ago
    Well, I'm a male parent in a stable, conventionally-married Catholic two-parent family. Do my kids get value from being raised by Erin? Yes. For one thing, they eat yogurt; for another thing, they can dress themselves. Do they get value from me? Yes. For instance, I am good at making pancakes. Is there some huge man-woman socio-cultural hoo-hah I'm missing about what our relationship imparts on our children that would be dramatically different if I was replaced with an equally loving woman? Perhaps the pancakes would become crepes (though I'm good at that too). The whole of western civilization shudders. There might be a real argument you have to make, axod, but you have to actually make it. Innuendo doesn't cut it.
    - axod 18y ago
      What??? Look into how badly boys do at school when there teachers are female - or how badly girls do when their teachers are men. The evidence is that neither do well in those circumstances. Women and men are very very very different thank goodness. If you're missing out on either of them, you're missing out on a complete other world.
      - azanar 18y ago
        Source, please. Just from my own anecdotal evidence, my ability to learn from a teacher was based far more on their knowledge and passion than their genitalia.
tdavis 18y ago
...provide the optimum situation for bringing up kids... The fact that roughly 50% of marriages end in divorce (at least in the U.S.) makes whether or not marriages create said optimum situation the decision of a rounding error, more or less.

ram1024 18y ago

people should have every right in the world to define their relationship to each other in any manner they like. the law should simply allow simplification of contract terms should they be required (custody, assets, etc). the idea that "marriage" is a set legal method that is rigid and unyielding to change is retarded. the concept is so ridiculously outmoded. society and culture have moved on, it's time for "marriage" to get with the program

kingkongrevenge 18y ago

> I guess I'm not seeing what impact marriage has on society as a whole Are you blind? You haven't noticed that it's ghetto shit-hole everywhere in modern world that stable two parent families aren't the norm? Marriage in its traditional form is an institution arrived at through a Darwinian process of cultural selection. It has been proven by time to be the best way to further a society. Messing with it is extremely dangerous. Cultural conservatism is much like environmentalism. You just don't want to go blindly messing around with complex natural systems. The consequences are usually bad.

Retric 18y ago
For most of human history people married who their parents told them to. Calling what we do now traditional marriage is silly because it's been changing fairly rapidly over time. Look at marriage in nortic countries and you will see a large separation between having kids and getting married yet they are doing better than most of Europe and the US on most measurements of heath, happiness and economic growth. Looking back it's hard to extrapolate the value of "traditional family values" because we have a lower crime rate, better educated population, and a better economy now than we did back with they where more common.
- kingkongrevenge 18y ago
  > because it's been changing fairly rapidly over time No, it's been changing fairly rapidly for less than 100 years, and usually with serious unforeseen consequences. > Look at marriage in nortic countries I'm tired of hearing about nordic countries. First, they aren't nearly as great as the pom-pom crowd thinks. If you do an apples to apples comparison of middle class whites in northern US states to nordic countries, they're really not so fantastic. And there is plenty of hand-wringing about social degradation in Sweden. They're, what, one generation in to their shift away from more conservative arrangements? Give it time and you'll see problems.
  - Retric 18y ago
    Edit: Deleted double post.