Monogamy

Monogamy and marriage has the effect of protecting the parties in a relationship. While sometimes paternalistic, at least the marriage laws gave some protection to women as they progressed into the "crone" stage while thier partners became "distinguised gentlemen" and could, without the marraige laws, toss away the "crone" and attract any of the willing "maidens" who will trade their bodies for security.

For gay couples, marriage can serve the same purpose, especially in the May-December pairings. And certainly encouraging monogamy among gays would be as welcome as it is in the heterosexual communities just from the aspect of public health.

I voted that men are less monogamous by nature than women, primarily because of the male ability to define narrowly what is or is not "cheating" in a relationship, with the most creative men saying things like "It isn't cheating unless you tell them you love them." Many men feel that sexual contact not involving intercourse is not cheating. I think most men will say that visiting strip clubs is not cheating. Women tend to have a different view of what "cheating" is, with thier magazines full of stories of men having "emotional affairs" in on-line chat rooms, "masturbatory cheating" with pornography, etc.

Disclaimer: Lest you be offended, my thoughts above are not dogmatic stands I take without the ability to consider other views, nor do I intend to give the impression that my views are fixed and consistent. Human relationships are complex, and while I think I have a good perspective as a husband of the same woman for the past 31 years, your mileage may vary.

 

I voted "unclear" for the first. The long and the short: People are too varied, might be "natural" for some, not for others, and all grades in between and beyond...

The second one I was actually tempted to vote "no marriage laws", but ended up going with "other", I would need much more time to contemplate this objectively...

...and the third, I think men and women are totally equal in this respect.

 

I believe this has been studied, and I think the conclusion is that most humans tend to form short-term to medium-term semi-monogamous relationships. That is, people form pair bonds, where they are more or less constant with one partner, but may be occasionally unfaithful; and that these pair bonds are occasionally, but not generally life-long.

The government ought to get out of the marriage business. Couples should be able to enter into whatever contractual agreements they may wish, and churches should be able to conduct their rituals without official government recognition or interference.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ May 17 2006, 09:53 PM) [snapback]257344[/snapback]</div>

Couples can do that now without state interference. You can enter into any contractual relationship you want (although there are restrictions about types of arrangements ... you can't agree to be murdered and eaten, for instance). Churches may also conduct religious marriages without interference by the state, such as the gay marraiges done by the Metropolitan Church. The problem is that government doesn't recognize them and extend the same rights ... including some very important financial freedoms ... to those unions.

The problem is that there are myrid ways in which the culture has extended certain benefits to traditionally married couples, such as hospital visitation, automatic inheritence (i.e., a spouse gets the inheritance before the children), and especially tax laws. The unfair tax laws that charge an unmarried person a greater percentage of their income than an unmarried person are clearly discriminatory and, in my own view, wrong. Single people should not pay higher taxes.

So I struggle with the concept of extending marriage to non-traditional couples, as I'm a social libertarian but hold a conservative theological view. Clearly there are steps I would support like tax law reform and better understanding of what a "life partner" is for those non-governmental cultural institutions like hospitals and churches. I'm much more comfortable with the concept of "civil unions", even if the category is "civil union" and various arrangements are subsets of that same concept (traditional marraige, gay unions, platonic partnerships, etc.)

 

I have seen the RESULTS of being "blase" about monogamy on the family and society. Be theorists all you want...this is a pragmatic issue.

 

Cheating Women Catching Up with Men?

Wed Jun 18, 8:24 AM ET
BERLIN - The modern Western woman is now almost as likely to cheat on her partner as a man, according to a new survey carried out for a German women's magazine.

In an online survey of 1,427 men and women aged between 25 and 35 by the Hamburg-based GEWIS institute for social research for "Woman" magazine, 53 percent of women said they had been unfaithful to their partner, compared with 59 percent of men.


"In recent years, numbers of unfaithful men and women have evened out a lot," GEWIS head Werner Habermehl told Reuters on Tuesday.


The survey revealed that non-sexual desires, such as the need for reassurance and understanding, were a primary motive among women for infidelity.


Habermehl said demographic factors were also behind the change in attitudes but more liberal attitudes to sex, greater knowledge about contraception, and more freedom for women had made having affairs less taboo than ever before.


As the frequency of cheating rose, the gap between the sexes was reduced, and eventually reversed.


Some 17 percent of woman said they had cheated two or three times, as against 22 percent of men. But when it came to having cheated four or five times in the course of a relationship, women moved ahead of men with eight percent against four.

http://www.nomarriage.com/articlecheating.html

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ May 22 2006, 12:01 PM) [snapback]259231[/snapback]</div>

Broken homes, step parents abusing step children, single mothers, absent fathers, children running wild. Increases in ALL these things can be somewhat attributed to the reduction in the nuclear family.

Men and women no longer respect the lifelong committment/contract/whatever they promise to.

 

A study about the children raised from same-sex parents:

http://www.webmd.com/content/Article/113/110762.htm

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ May 22 2006, 10:37 PM) [snapback]259518[/snapback]</div>

Well, I usually think your points are valid and well thought out....in this you are missing the boat. I think if you JUST look at statistics, it is because the vast majority of couples married ARE heterosexual. In other words...what's yer point.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ May 22 2006, 10:37 PM) [snapback]259518[/snapback]</div>

As a marriage counselor and Christian I will have to say that the divorce rate between Christian couples and non Christian couples is the same. The problem is selfishness and lack of commitment. That is why the divorce rate is higher when a couple lives together first. They don't see marriage as being that important of a commitment. That is also why divorce is even higher among couples who have been previously divorced, once again lack of commitment. It really all comes down to selfishness. Love is the choice for the good of another. If you love someone, you will be commited to them.