5 ms·
marriage isn't about giving birth.
by Sujan 18y ago
marriage isn't about giving birth.
- axod 18y agoI agree. But you can't claim that "men and women are interchangeable", when for some things, they are clearly not.
- Sujan 18y agoI understood his point was that in marriage (without the stuff culturally connected to it) they are. And this sounds valid to me.
- cousin_it 18y agoWhoa there. Marriage is not so much a right as a societal mechanism with many purposes. For the female: make sure the provider doesn't run away. For the male: monogamy gives non-alpha males a chance of having offspring. For the child: life support. For government: bind people into clumsy units that you can tax, threaten etc. at will. For ethnic and religious groups: arranged marriage is a way around natural selection, letting you enforce "proper" genetics and upbringing of the next generation. When people start talking about gay marriage, all of this gets instantly forgotten.
- IsaacSchlueter 18y agoWhen people start talking about gay marriage, all of this gets instantly forgotten. What a strange sentiment. You know, I and my wife aren't together romantically, don't live together, don't share money, and don't have any offspring. Since we're amicably separated, and that amicability is protected by a post-nuptial agreement, and we have no intention of marrying anyone else, we haven't seen the point of going through a divorce. A friend of mine has lived with his partner for 15 years. They're happy, share money, live together, and love each other in a very romantic way. I wouldn't be surprised if they adopted a kid. So, who's REALLY destroying the so-called "institution of marriage"?
- cousin_it 18y agoI'm not against gay marriage, but after pattern-matching the particular story of your friend I don't see why he needs to marry. It's like getting a government-sponsored car that you don't want to drive. Is it for the tax breaks? Think of it like this: they're a way to lure the provider into marriage. If you don't buy the traditional view of marriage, you'll have a hard time justifying tax breaks. I don't believe you can build a logical line of argument from romantic love to tax breaks :-)
- GHFigs 18y agoThe argument is that a certain class of people ought to have the same rights as all others do unless there is a just reason to deny those rights. Surely you can think up an argument to support that notion. The exercise of those rights isn't important, i.e. I should not be denied the right to a fair trial simply because I don't intend to commit any crimes and thus don't "need" the right. Moreover, while the institution of marriage may serve a societal purpose, the denial of marriage rights is itself a mechanism of social control independent of that purpose. Hence, "gay marriage" is the subject of debate, while "marriage" is not.
- cousin_it 18y agoIt's like the science fiction cliche where humans puzzle over artifacts of ancient alien technology. A mind brought up on modern politics is bound to be often baffled by strange and archaic things seemingly created by nonhuman beings. What's common law? What's religion? What's marriage? Our only framework for understanding is the idea of democracy and human rights, but this stuff predates human rights by hundreds or thousands of years, and the shoehorning fails. Slightly exaggerating, if you call marriage a "human right" today, you must also believe that free speech mandates taxpayer-sponsored newspapers to publish everyone's words :-) First make marriage totally non-binding on both partners and the government. Make divorce as easy as signing a paper. Abolish alimony and child support. Drop the tax breaks. Make hospital visitation rights, etc., a matter of civil contract. Those measures will change marriage from a state-sponsored targeted subsidy into a proper "human right".
- kiplinger 18y agono, not now, but it used to be.