4 ms·

> Being married or not is just signing a paper. If we ignore almost all of human history save for the past 50 years, then yes. If we redefine marriage to not m

> Being married or not is just signing a paper. If we ignore almost all of human history save for the past 50 years, then yes. If we redefine marriage to not mean what most humans that have ever used the word meant by it, then yes. But why would we do these things? If you call all relations between two human beings marriage, you gain nothing, you just lose a word. Marriage is a covenant between two people, a man and a woman, with God, and incidentally, this covenant, not a piece of paper, it's also a precondition for two people to live together and in harmony. It's a commitment by both people to focus not on themselves, but on the family unit and the wellbeing of that family unit. > You can do so without being married and having children, and it's everyday more common. Children of married parents still have better outcomes, and the lower income people are, the bigger the advantage of having married parents are.

malnourish 1y ago
I'm married to my wife. We lived together happily for more than a decade before we married. We are childless atheists in a neighborhood of other childless, atheist, married couples, some of whom have been together almost as long as my wife and I have been alive. By your definition, are we all unmarried or living in disharmony?
- flanked-evergl 1y ago
  > By your definition, are we all unmarried or living in disharmony? If we consider what the word meant up until about 50 years ago, then yes. If we consider the new definition, of "you signed a piece of paper given to you by the government, and gave it back to the government". Then, sure, you are married. I'm not trying to insult you or denigrate you, but again, if we use the word marriage for all relations between two human beings, then we gain nothing, we just lose a word.
  - james_marks 1y ago
    No one is suggesting marriage means "all relations between two human beings". Only that there are many ways to demonstrate and be committed to a person. The legal recognization by a church or government is one version, but not the key ingredient.
    - flanked-evergl 1y ago
      > Only that there are many ways to demonstrate and be committed to a person. And we don't need to use the word marriage for all of them. > The legal recognization by a church or government is one version, but not the key ingredient. The covenant with god has been a key ingredient for centuries.
      - jacquesm 1y ago
        Can you please stop flaunting your ignorant and limited worldview all over this thread? You've insulted a good 30% of humanity by now and are on track to insult the remainder, it's getting a little hard on the eyes and there are only so many links of yours that I'm prepared to flag.
        carlosjobim 1y ago
        I thought flaggers always hid in the shadows, but here you are out in the open. Would you please reconsider your actions? You're doing great damage to a very nice message board, and it is to no benefit for yourself. Flagging is a powerful tool in this small duckpond. Instead of abusing it, you can use HN to learn self restraint, so that when you one day achieve power over other people in real life you have learnt not to abuse it.
        fuzzfactor 1y ago
        >I thought flaggers always hid in the shadows, That's only the wimps that have nothing worthwhile to add.
      - circlefavshape 1y ago
        > The covenant with god has been a key ingredient for centuries In some cultures yes, but pair-bonding is a lot older than the idea of god
      - triceratops 1y ago
        > And we don't need to use the word marriage for all of them. But that's the only word we have for "lifetime-committed couple recognized by some authority". The meanings of words change and evolve. Tough luck. We could use the secular "civil union" for all marriages performed outside of a church. But that would be unnecessarily clunky and pointless ("I got civil union-ed this weekend, it was great!"). And then of course people married under other religious traditions would object to the use of the word "civil" so you'd have to qualify every other union accordingly - "Jewish union", "Muslim union", "Hindu union", etc. Why? You're basically arguing against free speech. I don't understand who it's helping. If the distinction is that important to you, just spell it out when talking about your marriage ("I was married in a church"). Leave everyone else alone.
  - malnourish 1y ago
    I disagree; we have gained the ability to understand how different sorts want to share their lives with their families and communities. Do you hold the same position for marriages in other traditions - for example, Shintoism, indigenous belief systems, Hinduism, paganism, etc? Many such religions don't have the same concept of a marriage as a covenant with God, yet have existed for quite some time.
    - flanked-evergl 1y ago
      [dead]
    - carlosjobim 1y ago
      While I agree with you that involving God is not necessary for the definition of a marriage, surely having sex and having children are usually a must.
- bluecalm 1y ago
  Now I really want to know how you find a neighborhood of other childless atheits!
  - malnourish 1y ago
    Sheerly by luck! Honestly couldn't believe it nor could I be more grateful. We have a weekly fire night and a neighborhood potluck once a month!
- pythonaut_16 1y ago
  Technically it does make you irrelevant to statistics about child rearing outcomes.
  - malnourish 1y ago
    Ha! I can live with that.
darkwater 1y ago
> If we ignore almost all of human history save for the past 50 years This seems pretty narrow-sighted and Christian-oriented.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  It's not even Christian, just a very limited subset of bigots that call themselves Christians.
- prewett 1y ago
  To my knowledge, "marriage" has meant "a man + a woman for a lifetime" in most societies that I am aware of. (In the context of this conversation, I think the lifetime part is what the parent was talking about.) Frequently a man could have multiple marriages, but each was for a lifetime. It might be acceptable to have a mistresses outside the marriage (Rome), but the heirs came from the official wife. I'm told that the pre-Christian Irish renewed (or didn't) their marriages every year. Divorce also existed; I know that both the Romans and the Mosaic Law had divorces. But marriage was usually taken pretty seriously by all societies, especially agricultural ones, regardless of whether they were Christian. The idea that "it's just a piece of paper" seems to me to be fairly rare. Maybe the Romans had that (I think Cicero divorces his old wife for a new young one when he was old), and Jesus criticizes the Pharisees for no-fault divorces, but these seem unusual situations compared to most of history.
ks2048 1y ago
> If we ignore almost all of human history save for the past 50 years, then yes. 50 years ago was 1975. I'm pretty sure there are examples of formalized marriage about as old as historic records.

malnourish 1y ago

I'm married to my wife. We lived together happily for more than a decade before we married. We are childless atheists in a neighborhood of other childless, atheist, married couples, some of whom have been together almost as long as my wife and I have been alive. By your definition, are we all unmarried or living in disharmony?

flanked-evergl 1y ago
> By your definition, are we all unmarried or living in disharmony? If we consider what the word meant up until about 50 years ago, then yes. If we consider the new definition, of "you signed a piece of paper given to you by the government, and gave it back to the government". Then, sure, you are married. I'm not trying to insult you or denigrate you, but again, if we use the word marriage for all relations between two human beings, then we gain nothing, we just lose a word.
- james_marks 1y ago
  No one is suggesting marriage means "all relations between two human beings". Only that there are many ways to demonstrate and be committed to a person. The legal recognization by a church or government is one version, but not the key ingredient.
  - flanked-evergl 1y ago
    > Only that there are many ways to demonstrate and be committed to a person. And we don't need to use the word marriage for all of them. > The legal recognization by a church or government is one version, but not the key ingredient. The covenant with god has been a key ingredient for centuries.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      Can you please stop flaunting your ignorant and limited worldview all over this thread? You've insulted a good 30% of humanity by now and are on track to insult the remainder, it's getting a little hard on the eyes and there are only so many links of yours that I'm prepared to flag.
      - carlosjobim 1y ago
        I thought flaggers always hid in the shadows, but here you are out in the open. Would you please reconsider your actions? You're doing great damage to a very nice message board, and it is to no benefit for yourself. Flagging is a powerful tool in this small duckpond. Instead of abusing it, you can use HN to learn self restraint, so that when you one day achieve power over other people in real life you have learnt not to abuse it.
        fuzzfactor 1y ago
        >I thought flaggers always hid in the shadows, That's only the wimps that have nothing worthwhile to add.
    - circlefavshape 1y ago
      > The covenant with god has been a key ingredient for centuries In some cultures yes, but pair-bonding is a lot older than the idea of god
    - triceratops 1y ago
      > And we don't need to use the word marriage for all of them. But that's the only word we have for "lifetime-committed couple recognized by some authority". The meanings of words change and evolve. Tough luck. We could use the secular "civil union" for all marriages performed outside of a church. But that would be unnecessarily clunky and pointless ("I got civil union-ed this weekend, it was great!"). And then of course people married under other religious traditions would object to the use of the word "civil" so you'd have to qualify every other union accordingly - "Jewish union", "Muslim union", "Hindu union", etc. Why? You're basically arguing against free speech. I don't understand who it's helping. If the distinction is that important to you, just spell it out when talking about your marriage ("I was married in a church"). Leave everyone else alone.
- malnourish 1y ago
  I disagree; we have gained the ability to understand how different sorts want to share their lives with their families and communities. Do you hold the same position for marriages in other traditions - for example, Shintoism, indigenous belief systems, Hinduism, paganism, etc? Many such religions don't have the same concept of a marriage as a covenant with God, yet have existed for quite some time.
  - flanked-evergl 1y ago
    [dead]
  - carlosjobim 1y ago
    While I agree with you that involving God is not necessary for the definition of a marriage, surely having sex and having children are usually a must.
bluecalm 1y ago
Now I really want to know how you find a neighborhood of other childless atheits!
- malnourish 1y ago
  Sheerly by luck! Honestly couldn't believe it nor could I be more grateful. We have a weekly fire night and a neighborhood potluck once a month!
pythonaut_16 1y ago
Technically it does make you irrelevant to statistics about child rearing outcomes.
- malnourish 1y ago
  Ha! I can live with that.

darkwater 1y ago

> If we ignore almost all of human history save for the past 50 years This seems pretty narrow-sighted and Christian-oriented.

jacquesm 1y ago
It's not even Christian, just a very limited subset of bigots that call themselves Christians.
prewett 1y ago
To my knowledge, "marriage" has meant "a man + a woman for a lifetime" in most societies that I am aware of. (In the context of this conversation, I think the lifetime part is what the parent was talking about.) Frequently a man could have multiple marriages, but each was for a lifetime. It might be acceptable to have a mistresses outside the marriage (Rome), but the heirs came from the official wife. I'm told that the pre-Christian Irish renewed (or didn't) their marriages every year. Divorce also existed; I know that both the Romans and the Mosaic Law had divorces. But marriage was usually taken pretty seriously by all societies, especially agricultural ones, regardless of whether they were Christian. The idea that "it's just a piece of paper" seems to me to be fairly rare. Maybe the Romans had that (I think Cicero divorces his old wife for a new young one when he was old), and Jesus criticizes the Pharisees for no-fault divorces, but these seem unusual situations compared to most of history.

ks2048 1y ago

> If we ignore almost all of human history save for the past 50 years, then yes. 50 years ago was 1975. I'm pretty sure there are examples of formalized marriage about as old as historic records.