busyRevisionist View
Marriage has existed in countless forms across all known human societies. The one you like is just the one you like. It isn't the beginning or the end of the concept. It isn't special. It isn't the only one that works. People have tried everything they could ever think of in marriage dynamics -- some often, some rarely, and with varying degrees of success. Everything extant today is a "revision" of whatever our ancientmost ancestors were doing, which probably involved waving food at a desired mate in hopes of getting laid. The one man/one woman version is just popular because it works adequately for a majority of people.
Marriage is a private union with a public purpose.
True.
The act of uniting spouses in love is inherently linked to procreation.
False. Love is a modern, mostly western feature. Procreation is a prevailing part of marriage, but not the only one. Business and politics are two other driving forces in marriage. The fundamental purpose of a marriage -- and the reason why governments have a right to get involved -- is that this recognizes when 2+ unrelated adults choose to bind themselves as a social unit. That covers not only childbearing but also other things such as sharing a home, inheriting property, etc. The public purpose is that not knowing who's united causes social problems, which is exactly what happens when some people's marriages are acknowledged and others are not. It's not just a problem for the unacknowledged marriages, but for everyone who has to deal with them and the fallout from lack of protection.
Infertile couples may not be able to procreate, but they are still able to unite comprehensively ...
This applies equally to same-sex couples or to groups larger than two.
Emotional unions do not deserve recognition any more than friendships do, for both are inherently private relationships.
This is an argument of kind (emotional vs. sexual relationships) misapplied to a case of intensity (shallow vs. deep relationships). It implies that all sexual relationships are deeper, and all nonsexual relationships are shallower, which is not true. In a practical social sense, and setting aside matters of religious privilege, it is to society's interest to identify which persons are moving through life as a social unit such that they do together those things affecting the culture around them -- living together, sharing family obligations, having joint bank accounts, paying taxes together, etc. Whether or not they copulate is private; whether or not they mingle their obligations and benefits is a matter of public concern.
And what marriage inequality does is attack people's ability to bind themselves as a sociological unit. It doesn't stop them from uniting their lives, but it cripples their ability to do that in a healthy and efficient manner, by denying them rights that other people enjoy. So then it turns into a constant malfunction, deliberately caused by society, which snowballs beyond the individuals -- just because their choice of partner(s) is displeasing to strangers. This is usually based in religion and is an attempt to force everyone to follow the rules of a privileged group to which they may not even belong. It makes society perform less efficiently, does harm, and does no good in the process.
Why two people?
Because it's popular, and it's the simplest option. Every additional person adds complexity, and many people don't want or can't handle that. However, numerous societies have devised multiple forms of marriage throughout history, plenty of which include more than two members. It works just fine.
If marriage is fundamentally an emotional union,
Marriage is fundamentally a social contract. It is always that in every society, because it defines the rights and obligations of people in relation to each other. The emphasis on emotion is popular here and now, but hasn't always been, and won't necessarily be.
then limiting the number to two is arbitrary.
Yes, it is. Not every culture does that. Limiting marriage to two people is just as discriminatory as limiting it to a man and a woman, and just as destructive to people whose religion, love life, political or economic interests, etc. incline them to multiple partners. Polyamory should be acknowledged just as same-sex marriages are, for the same reasons: if society needs to recognize who's moving as a social unit, then it needs to recognize all of them; and if that is not compelling, then it shouldn't be involved in heterosexual love lives either.
Any number of people can enter into a marriage.
Correct. I think the largest attempts have been in the several-hundred range. That's rare. Most cultures seem to prefer 2-4 individuals per marriage. Remember, the more people, the harder it gets to manage all the relationships; but also the more people, the more fault tolerance if one person is temporarily or permanently incapacitated.
What distinguishes marriages from friendships?
Marriages are formal; friendships are informal. The social contract of marriage creates rights and obligations between the spousal members. Friendships do not have legally enforceable parameters. Marriage has a defined timeframe, requiring a divorce to exit early; friendships may be short or long term, but require no legal activity to end. (Societies have also had term marriages -- such as for a year and a day -- and many other variations. Considering the rarity of modern marriages lasting long-term, having only a "meant to be permanent" version seems to be quite far from what people are actually doing. That needs fixing too.) If friends wish to bind themselves as a social unit, they should be free to marry for that purpose. Whether or not they are having sex is really nobody else's business.
So basically ...
* I disapprove of discrimination. It is cruel and destructive.
* I do not privilege one society over others, or one religion over others. That is foolish and impractical.
* I want the government to have what powers it needs for the practical management of social ties. I do not want it to have any powers beyond that absolute minimum. I do not want it to set boundaries based on religious or other abstract divisions instead of practicalities. Whether the members of a marriage have a penis and a vagina, or two vaginas, or two penises and a vagina, or whatever does not affect how their money behaves when they buy a house or pay taxes, nor does it inherently impact their ability to raise children (although it influences how they may have children). Those kinds of practicalities are a government's business; what people do with their genitals really is not.
* I prefer a society to be efficient and stable. Undermining social bonds instead of supporting them is detrimental to this. I am alarmed at the steady erosion of family ties over recent decades, such that many people now move through life in ones and twos rather than extended families that provide a support network. That drop in fault tolerance is causing a great deal of problems that people don't realize are connected.
August 13 2013, 01:46:40 UTC 7 years ago
My family is a living illustration of this. My extended relations on my mother's side have gathered for years for a midsummer family reunion, and a Christmas celebration. On my father's side, basically just Christmas. But in the past twenty years, many aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandchildren have scattered very widely and just can't be present any more, while older members of the families have died. Where I used to do things with my cousins, I've just become this awkward point of non-discussion because of my homelessness and spiritual abilities.
I can't go to Grandma's anymore, I can't visit my Nana and Grandbear anymore (all my grandparents are now dead), and seeing family isn't a regular thing for me anymore, where my sister and I used to go to their homes for a week or two during the summer and occasionally spend time with cousins as well. I don't even have my sister nearby for social comfort since she and her husband moved away, and have now moved again.
Thankfully, I am done with homelessness for what I hope to be a good, long while; maybe even the rest of my life. If I'm lucky.
But that leaves the fact that I'm not like most of my family, and while they apparently love me, I can't visit them as often as I'd like. There really isn't a supportive social network there for me anymore.
Alas!
August 13 2013, 04:11:21 UTC 7 years ago
That is so sad.
>> Thankfully, I am done with homelessness for what I hope to be a good, long while; maybe even the rest of my life. If I'm lucky. <<
That's good, though.
For me, there was much more family contact when I was younger. Some of that was good, some ... really not so good. I'm still in frequent contact with my parents, but that's about it. The loss of other connections has been because there's behavior I won't tolerate, and what I want from family vs. what other people want is often not compatible. Nor am I what they want, and I can tell when they're trying to interact with a delusion instead of the person I actually am. It's very disappointing.
I've tried to replace that with found-family, which has been only temporarily successful at various times. I'd really like to have a close-knit community but people just don't have the skills or resources for that anymore.
August 13 2013, 05:04:27 UTC 7 years ago
Thinking of romance subplots and romance stories I've seen, the prevailing message was "you marry someone you love", not "you marry someone genetically compatible to produce healthy children", or "you marry someone who would make a good co-parent".
March 6 2014, 20:44:06 UTC 7 years ago
"Marry someone you love" is a nice message of social control. No matter what the other does, you love them, and you took a vow.
"Don't have sex with anyone you wouldn't want to share custody with" would be a good message.
August 13 2013, 05:24:38 UTC 7 years ago
"Marriage is about Babies. BABIES BABIES BABIES! But infertile opposite-sex couples marrying is OK, because they can have penis-in-vagina sex."
March 6 2014, 20:34:42 UTC 7 years ago
Multiple marriages are certainly more honest than men having a wife and a girlfriend, which makes the wife a legal class of prostitute. (As opposed to classing her legally as a prostitute, which might or might not apply to the girlfriend.)
Their fear of multiple marriage (though they likely think it's a rhetorical wedge) is that you might have some homosexuality happening, or someone would hide a body that had been a total waste of rose food. Aka, they are getting their nose where it doesn't belong, because they want to make sure power is playing their song.