Is marriage a defunct institution?

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Originally Posted by cacian

an institution is usually forced upon a culture without their prior consent and therefore is a dated concept that plays no major/important role in society.

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Even by your inimitable standards, that sentence is a spaghetti of breathtaking generalisation, unsupported opinion, logical fallacy and almost surreal nonsequitur.

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Originally Posted by Alexander III

Oh, that is adorbaly naive - trust me, they will **** you over far worse than a western gal.

A bunch of western men get a oriental wife because they lack looks and charm and money, but they all end up badly, because if you lack looks and charm she only marries you for money, and she will bleed you dry. I lived a considerbale amount of time in South East Asia, and I travelled the region, and it's allways the same story. White man can't get pretty white woman - so he thinks that he will find one from the orient and she shall love him, she makes him think she loves him - as soon as they get married she bleeds his wallet dry and then leaves him for a man she can actualy love, or a richer man.

But these are the poor oriental women, the rich oriental women won't even look at you unless you are of equall social position as them.

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I don't lack looks or charm and I have no problem getting "pretty white women." I'm just weary of marrying a Western girl, having kids, and then it not working out a couple years down the line. Maybe it is naive for me to think it would be any different with a girl from another culture. I just thought a girl from Catholic South America, or the Muslim Middle East, or some other culture, might have a different conception of what it means to be wed.

My area is full of mennonites. Maybe I'll try my luck with one of them.

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

Even by your inimitable standards, that sentence is a spaghetti of breathtaking generalisation, unsupported opinion, logical fallacy and almost surreal nonsequitur.

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Zing!

Marriage is a act full of optimism about your relationship with another person. The contract is not binding these days - (good) - so there's a get out clause, and, though many marriages fail, only the most unsuitable were not successful for a time.

It would be foolish to think that a marriage will last no matter what - anything can happen - but having someone you know well, whom you can trust, with which you can share all the good times and holidays and kids and grandkids is pretty good.

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

Even by your inimitable standards, that sentence is a spaghetti of breathtaking generalisation, unsupported opinion, logical fallacy and almost surreal nonsequitur.

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Humm..you can't beat a spag bowl though!! it is better then marriage anytime;)

I was right. The rate of divorce in other countries is significantly below that of Canada, the United States, Australia, and most countries in Western Europe. And I found one study which showed that the lower rate holds for Western men who marry women from most of those cultures.

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

True. More to the point, this is nothing to do with marriage. It's just to do with relationships. If people think that the point of marriage is to make you happy in ways that living together won't, they're always going to suggest marriage is ultimately pointless, because it'll fail to do that.

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Well, since this "Is marriage a defunct institution?" was the title of the thread, I thought it was about marriage. Also, how do you know marriage will fail to make you happy in ways that living together won't? And again, while that may be true for you and others, you don't have any idea of what is true for me and others who are married.

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Originally Posted by KCurtis

Well, since this "Is marriage a defunct institution?" was the title of the thread, I thought it was about marriage. Also, how do you know marriage will fail to make you happy in ways that living together won't? And again, while that may be true for you and others, you don't have any idea of what is true for me and others who are married.

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Hang on. I'm only saying that the stuff you talked about - the growth of love, the tolerance, the sadness and all that - is not peculiar to marriage. It's true of all long-standing relationships.

Those who knock marriage seem to be saying that because marriage doesn't necessarily make you happy, there's something wrong with it.

I'm just saying that if you expect marriage to make you happy in some way that not-being-married won't - then you might be disappointed, because marriage isn't a magic spell for happiness - but that's not a reason to say that marriage is defunct.

So, I'm not disagreeing with you. In fact, I'm saying that you're right about how long, successful relationships tend to go - and my only addition is that long and successful relationships tend to go that way whether you're married or not.

It's not an argument against marriage. It's an argument for sticking with relationships.

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

I view it as a lamentable trend. I either won't get married or I'll marry a young woman from some foreign culture where marriage is still respected. Nearly every marriage to take place among my family and acquaintances during my life-time have ended in divorce. I don't see the point.

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So what if people around you are getting divorced. All the friends (except for one) my husband and I had got divorced. We didn't, we just trudged on day after day, enjoying each others company, went to work, came home, had a son, had good times and bad. As the days accumulated, and became years, we realized how long we have been together. We wanted to be together, so we are. It's really that simple.

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

Hang on. I'm only saying that the stuff you talked about - the growth of love, the tolerance, the sadness and all that - is not peculiar to marriage. It's true of all long-standing relationships.

Those who knock marriage seem to be saying that because marriage doesn't necessarily make you happy, there's something wrong with it.

I'm just saying that if you expect marriage to make you happy in some way that not-being-married won't - then you might be disappointed, because marriage isn't a magic spell for happiness - but that's not a reason to say that marriage is defunct.

So, I'm not disagreeing with you. In fact, I'm saying that you're right about how long, successful relationships tend to go - and my only addition is that long and successful relationships tend to go that way whether you're married or not.

It's not an argument against marriage. It's an argument for sticking with relationships.

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Oh...... that's what you meant. Okay, I agree. And no, getting married won't make an unhappy relationship better. And yes, I agree that you don't have to be married to have a long term relationship. Also, there are many gay people (before the new marriage laws) who have and had decades of happiness with a partner.

Nostalgia, in reply to your very cogent, thoughtful and conversation-sparking question .... ....

Anyway - I'm an "idealist" when it comes to love, although I hesitate to use a term like that, because I don't think it quite describes who I am. But in the sense that I do believe in the possibility of extremely beautiful and blissful love, I am an "optimist." Marriage is cultural, but it isn't always portrayed idealistically. In fact, it's often portrayed very negatively, in many different contexts. In the end I think anything is possible. While it won't always be blissful, life can be incredibly beautiful, and it has periods that are mostly blissful. :smile5:

I know that people can be married and grow every day of their lives together, and love each other deeply their whole lives. It's possible, and it even should be the norm. We've evolved so far to where we are now, it is easy to envision a future humankind that has solved many of the more elusive sociological and existential problems that we currently face.

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Originally Posted by NikolaiI

I know that people can be married and grow every day of their lives together, and love each other deeply their whole lives. It's possible, and it even should be the norm. We've evolved so far to where we are now, it is easy to envision a future humankind that has solved many of the more elusive sociological and existential problems that we currently face.

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I praise you for your optimism but I unfortunately do not share it. If anything it seems to me that we are devolving, especially when it comes to marriage, seeing as how the rate of divorce has skyrocketed in the West, currently sitting round about 50 percent in many nations.

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

I praise you for your optimism but I unfortunately do not share it. If anything it seems to me that we are devolving, especially when it comes to marriage, seeing as how the rate of divorce has skyrocketed in the West, currently sitting round about 50 percent in many nations.

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The rate of divorce has risen, but has the number of marriages that shouldn't have happened risen, or are people just feeling less bound to stay in marriages that are loveless or even abusive?

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Originally Posted by Calidore

The rate of divorce has risen, but has the number of marriages that shouldn't have happened risen, or are people just feeling less bound to stay in marriages that are loveless or even abusive?

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I think that has a lot to do with it. I said earlier that women are working now and so if their husbands cheat on them or beat them they now have options and aren't trapped. I have a lot of theories. The obesity pandemic can't be helping much to combat marital dissatisfaction. All our distractions - video games, computers, screen of all sorts - have to be playing some role.

I remember reading an article in Time a while ago that said that statistics suggest that the educated and the upper middle class were more likely to have successful marriages. Apparently, this statistic improved even more when the wife had a similar level of education to her spouse.

Also, in general poor people are a lot less likely to bother with marriage at all, and is becoming an increasingly middle class cultural phenomena.

(Edit: the divorce rate in Canada is actually 38% according to Statistics Canada though)

(Edit2: Also, if you look only at first time marriages you have a fairly good chance (between 60-70%) of having a lifelong marriage, the likelihood of your success at marriage decreases if you've had one divorce already)

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

I praise you for your optimism but I unfortunately do not share it. If anything it seems to me that we are devolving, especially when it comes to marriage, seeing as how the rate of divorce has skyrocketed in the West, currently sitting round about 50 percent in many nations.

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And what are the other 50% doing? As one in the other 50%, I don't think about the 50% who are divorced, I just live my life.