Why get married?

[Els]

yeah, emotionally abusive, another overused accusation against men that we can't defend against.

 

A man who politely disagrees with his wife on an issue can be labelled emotionally abusive with no evidence and basically just an accusation. Some courts and police departments take it a step further and recommend filing a restraining order 'just in case' (even if the complaint is baseless with zero proof) and that starts the downward spiral to ruin. Those restraining orders cause damage financially and to the character of the man without even being convicted of said abuse. I've seen it over and over again.

 

Every woman has a definition for what emotionally abusive even means.

 

Wow, talk about a barely related overreaction to one phrase in my post that is completely unrelated to the topic.

 

It's pretty clear that some of you have a lot of pent-up bitterness towards marriage, judging from the sheer vitriol of your posts, and the fact that even the slightest word in a conversation with another poster can rile you up this much.

 

So, DON'T MARRY.

 

If you feel the divorce laws in your country are not to your liking, DON'T MARRY. Or be a political activist for change.

 

If you feel that you get screwed over by marriage, DON'T MARRY.

 

"Women expect it" is not exactly an excuse. You can't change what other people want or don't want, but you can choose whether or not YOU partake in it.

[Mme. Chaucer]

It's the end result that matters and the end result in many cases is a state enforced wealth transfer from the male to the female.

 

You sound like a very young person who's been heavily influenced by propaganda. And your choice of nouns here: the "male" and the "female"? Is this some kind of nature program? We're talking about husbands and wives here; individual people with individual circumstances.

 

Certainly I'm aware that there are people who get married for mercenary reasons. It's not the norm. And if a person contributes more financially to a married lifestyle than their spouse, that person is likely to pay some form of spousal support - usually for a defined period of time, which is often not long. That person paying is often a women these days, since many women out-earn men. Like me, with my ex husband, for example. And I was not an anomaly.

 

Anyway, I have the impression that you are a teenager with little to no experience with women or with adults who make a conscious decision to marry with full knowledge of the potential risks, both financial and emotional. If one is not prepared for them, they are wise not to go there. It's a choice.

[Mme. Chaucer]

If you're not religious, and you're not looking to have children or be contractually bound than I agree with you why get married?

 

Some people who aren't religious, aren't looking to have children or not thinking of it legally will just tell you it's an expression of love. In their minds their conclusion is marriage equals love.

 

Why is it the concern of anybody why other people get married, anyway? Honestly, I don't get it.

 

I'll tell you why I got married. Twice, even!

 

All my life, growing up, I scorned the idea of marriage and was not interested in EVER doing it, kids or no kids. I was countercultural!

 

Also, I was raised to prepare to provide and create for MYSELF the life I wanted to have for MYSELF. I'm over 50 years old, and again, I am not an anomaly among my friends and social peers. None of us were expecting to be "taken care of" by a man.

 

So, I fell in love and lived with my partner(s) for much of my life. Ultimately, I lived with a man with whom I felt a strong desire to make a formal commitment; to stand up together and publicly plight our troth. Planning formally to spend my life with this man and to merge our assets and liabilities set this relationship apart from my past ones.

 

I also ended up feeling a sense of honor and connection with many generations before me in making the choice to create and participate in this traditional ceremony.

 

It was awesome. I loved it. And probably the fact that I came into it from a place of absolute and pure choice rather than blindly following social conditioning made it all the sweeter.

[man_in_the_box]

Threads like these always boggle me.

 

If you have 2376752 reasons to not want to marry... don't. Not sure who's holding the gun to your head. Just be honest and up-front about it.

 

If you want to marry... do.

 

QED, no?

 

I completely agree but I wouldve appreciated if you changed it to 8373849 reasons to either get married or not. Both pro- and con seems to generate countless arguments for or against marriage but in the end it comes down to whether you want to or not.

[georgia girl]

I agree that marriage is a contract. I am very fond of saying that there are no contracts in dating.

 

And I can see where one side of that argument is that if you need to contractually bind someone to you, then you perhaps have a fatal flaw in the relationship. In those cases, no. One should absolutely not get married.

 

But, consider the other side of the argument. Two people have a very intimate, personal and private bond with each other. They want that bond sanctified. They want to show their partner that they are willing to enter into the most vulnerable contract of their life: where they are willing to commit their heart, time, talent and treasure primarily into this one relationship. At that point, the need for marriage is compelling. It is not so much about assuring each other as it is demonstrating the very strength and level of your commitment.

 

Now, I could argue the third side and that is that marriage is a contract and has lots of neat benefits. Health insurance, survivorship and retirement/shared asset benefits among them. So yes, a cogent financial argument for marriage could also be made.

 

But marriage is about being forced to make a commitment; it's about the compelling desire to make the highest commitment possible to one other person. It's that personal and that unique.

 

Just sayin....

[Eggplant]

If you're not religious, and you're not looking to have children or be contractually bound than I agree with you why get married?

 

Some people who aren't religious, aren't looking to have children or not thinking of it legally will just tell you it's an expression of love. In their minds their conclusion is marriage equals love.

 

If I didn't want children, I would not agree to marriage.

[Els]

I completely agree but I wouldve appreciated if you changed it to 8373849 reasons to either get married or not. Both pro- and con seems to generate countless arguments for or against marriage but in the end it comes down to whether you want to or not.

 

Oh, quite true. I agree with you, though my previous statement was referring to the OP.

 

It's certainly interesting to note the effects of demographic and culture on perception of marriage - on LS alone, there seem to be people who believe that marriage is the spawn of the devil, people who believe that a R is worth nothing without marriage, and everything in between. The trouble obviously starts when some of them, for some reason, feel the need to assert that their belief is The Right One and everyone else who disagrees with them is wrong. I've noticed that the anti-M ones seem to create more threads for that purpose, though.

Edited June 16, 2013 by Elswyth

[Immortality]

With any debate or discussion, responses centred on reiterating free will are entirely without merit: 'if you don't like it, don't do it'.

 

The arguments against the legal institution of marriage in current societies should not be readily dismissed. Moral, social or cultural institutes of marriage should not be confused; the benefits are 'timeless' and as relevant today as at their conception.

 

There is little freedom to do without an institution accepted as a social standard. To do so is to be an 'activist' whether voluntarily or otherwise.

 

The benefit of knowing the hazards of legal marriage is to marry better. To fail to learn from the mistakes of others is to be condemned to forever reliving their errors.