Why Monogamy Is Ridiculous

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by KilljoyKlown, Jun 24, 2011.

  1. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    Why does it always have to be all one way or the other. There are both good men and women that get screwed by the system when it come to their children. When it comes to unfair screwing over, women can be as bad if not worse than men. The problem with the system is, it seems to have a built in bias in favor of women when it come to children. Every case should be considered for the children's welfare and if both parents deserve to be in their kids lives then the courts should come down hard on the interfering side.
     
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  3. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    ?? As I am sure you are aware, women abuse children too. Why should a man be powerless to stop a woman who is abusing his child? The opposite is certainly not true.
     
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  5. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

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    Did I say women should have unlimited rights? I was merely contesting the myth that women have all the rights and men are the poor little victims who get screwed over.

    Fact is, it shouldn't be about gender. It should be about the child's welfare. Sadly people are stupid, and people take measures based on knee-jerk emotional reactions.
     
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  7. tombyers Registered Senior Member

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    Imagine heaven. No sex? Or no jealousy?

    The answer doesn't matter. Here in the real world cheating tears families apart and ruins people's lives. That makes it bad.
     
  8. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    I'm sure that prenups will become legal requirements in the future. I think we're already at the point where the majority of marriages end in divorce. It's time to recognize that.

    Nobody wants to be the one to suggest a prenup as a step in the wedding planning, but in many cases both would be relieved for it to be simply a bureaucratic necessity like the blood test.
     
  9. scheherazade Northern Horse Whisperer Valued Senior Member

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    Agreed, although the actual fact of needing to attend to such a logistic might give people cause for pause before marriage. Doing the extra paperwork before making a commitment might actually see an increase in the number of marriages which endure, to my way of thinking. Rather a sort of sobering second thought, rather than rushing into a matter that is designed to be a life-altering event, especially if a family is the objective.

    For others who may be contemplating a relationship, but not of the ''Til death do us part" variety, I believe Robert Heinlein had some excellent suggestions in that people can enter into renewable and extendable contracts, not unlike rental and lease agreements.

    While some might consider this to be very cold-hearted and calculating, I suggest stop and rethink this.

    Most people make emotional decisions, not logical ones. When their feelings change, they often wish they had not acted on those emotions.

    I suggest that if we knew that our conduct was up for review at regular intervals, with potential of consequences, perhaps we would and could treat the others in our life more respectfully.

    If contractual obligations were harder to enter into, my logic suggests that a greater commitment should translate into fewer contracts in need of termination, for the desire to maintain them should be reinforced by the effort of achieving them in the first place.

    To start, simple short term contracts between people, to determine if they are suitable to one another.

    The option of longer contracts as may be mutually agreeable.

    The sticking point in any such arrangement is ever the prospect of 'unexpected pregnancy' which can occur even under the most diligent of birth control programs.

    I believe that planned parenthood makes the most sense, yet nature doesn't always follow our plans.
     
  10. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    I like the legal marriage contract including a prenup idea. Also, a mandatory waiting period similar to that required to buy a hand gun of about 30 days or however long it takes to do a mandatory basic background check on both parties would be good.
     
  11. scheherazade Northern Horse Whisperer Valued Senior Member

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    So, somewhere in the future we can expect to see a whole new range of personal ads, I'm thinking.....

    No photo, no statistics, just the terms and duration of the contract one is desirous of.

    I would be very interested in seeing what kind of personal contracts people would want to draw up.....

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  12. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    Who knows, but a certain minimum amount of information beats blind trust every time. In Japan when a couple plans to marry the families on both sides do complete family background checks back 3 or 4 generations, and I do find this a bit extreme.

    Also, it seems like people now days don't bother with marriage anymore, they just move in together. So maybe there should also be a state sanctioned standard living together contract that defines community property at the time of break up and how it will be split up.
     
  13. scheherazade Northern Horse Whisperer Valued Senior Member

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    There actually already is a recognition of common-law marriage which is recognized after six months of cohabitation in this country, if my memory is correct.

    One wants to give considerable thought even before just 'moving in together' if they have concerns in regard to personal property.

    My personal perspective has always been what's yours is yours, what's mine is mine and what we accomplish together is 'ours' and should we part ways, it is only the 'ours' that should be subjected to division.

    A court of law may not see things from the same perspective. I lived with my partner for eight years before I was comfortable with suggesting that he should ask me to marry him.

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    My second marriage and his first, so we came to this subject with more experience and maturity than many, I would suggest.
     
  14. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    One time when I had a vacant unit a young lady called me and asked if she and her boyfriend could come and see it, and what the requirements were. I told her I didn't care whether they were married, but I always do a credit check on prospective tenants.

    So they showed up the next evening, and she continued to do almost all of the talking. Turns out they were planning on getting married and were looking for a place that was big enough for both of them. They liked the place, and she had already run a credit check on herself and brought the printout.

    I asked the boyfriend what he wanted to do and he said he wasn't familiar with credit checks. I told him we could do it right there on my computer if he trusted me with his numbers, and he said sure. So we ran it and the girlfriend grabbed it out of the printer before I even had a chance to look at it.

    I saw her eyes getting larger and her jaw dropping. She stared at him and said, "You're paying a thousand bucks a month to an ex-wife I never heard of, to support a child I don't know about???"

    They left rather abruptly after that, not even saying thank-you or goodbye. I was cool with that, I could see that these two were not going to be doing anything together ever again once they got out of the car.

    But two days later she called me to apologize for her rudeness, and to thank me for stopping her from making the biggest mistake of her life!
    This is a very good reason for a long engagement, or at any rate a long intimate relationship, before tying the knot. The rainbows, fireworks, birds singing, bells ringing, and all that stuff can sometimes last as long as two years after two people meet and really hit it off. Then it all starts to wear off and they're faced with each other as regular folks. It's the regular folks who have to be compatible, who have to appreciate each other, who have to be willing to fill in each other's blanks, who have to be excited about building a life together... not the starry-eyed kids who spend half their time smooching and planning romantic getaways.

    This is also a good reason why the place where most Americans meet their spouses--at work--is one of the best places to do that. At work you're not putting on airs. You're being your responsible self, part of a team, showing off your strengths and weaknesses, and speaking frankly to each other. If you're attracted to somebody in those circumstances, wouldn't that be a good glimpse into what they'll be like in the "team" of husband and wife, how they can cope with the travails of daily family life, how they resolve disagreements, how strong they are under pressure? Once you've been married for a few years, entire weeks can go by without any rainbows or fireworks, but you'll have real-life situations to deal with every single day! Wouldn't you like to be married to somebody who can carry their weight, make wise decisions, and not bitch about it?

    If you don't know the answer to that question, well I hope you're not planning on getting engaged any time soon!
    The lawyer who handled my divorce forty years ago (which was a lot more degrading than it is today; one of us had to stand before a judge and say that they had been mistreated by the other one, and you had to bring a witness to say they had observed it) said the problem was not that divorce is hard, but that marriage is too easy!
     
  15. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    In the states it's determined by each state. Most states do have common law marriage with no fault break ups. However I do know that Arizona does not have common law marriage, so things in Arizona probably don't work out as well for women.
     
  16. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    Counselor Fraggle Rocker, good advice. Now I know what you can do if you ever give up your day job.

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  17. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

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    Totally with you.
     
  18. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

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    Seconded...Fraggle is officially awesome.
     
  19. chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    My wife and I shacked up for five years before we signed the paperwork.

    We exploited a rather interesting legal loophole...not at liberty to talk about. But us getting a divorce might be complicated. I really hope we never get to that point.
    But my universal fear of everybody is...constant.

    I'm still trying to figure out why she puts up with me.
    It's been nine years and she has not come to her senses.:shrug:
     
  20. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    Where the fuck did you work? How can I apply? I have NEVER worked somewhere where people did NOT put on "Airs" about just about everything...
     
  21. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Getting a divorce is always complicated.
    Hope and two bucks will buy you a hamburger. Don't "hope." Make it happen!
    I don't understand. Fear that they will do what? Or is it fear that you will let them down?
    Believe me, whatever it is that you think she has to "put up with," she notices it. It's just that you have many other good qualities that she has decided make it worth putting up with your bad ones.

    When Mrs. Fraggle accepted my marriage proposal she said I was the only man who could ever beat her in an argument and that was worth putting up with everything else that came with the package.
    She was never out of touch with her senses. It's you who can't see what it is about you that she loves. She's probably told you a hundred times. She'll get tired of you not believing her, but that's not a license to start being conceited.

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    I've worked in a variety of places, but always in IT. I have a great job now with a government contractor, and everybody in the whole building is real.
     
  22. chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    Working on it.

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    Destroy me. Everyone I love I fear; loving someone gives them the power to hurt me. The more I love, the more dangerous they are. It's just my thing.
    Sorry I brought it up.

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    should not have dredged it up again.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2011
  23. scheherazade Northern Horse Whisperer Valued Senior Member

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    Thank you for your sharing and candidness, chimpkin.

    The fear of loss, of abandonment, is a fear that we all share to some degree. Yet the absence of a loving presence is a greater loss in our life, I would suggest.

    When we share our lives with a significant other, and all the others who enrich our being, that experience is ever with us, even if we lose that person at some point in our lives, regardless of the cause.

    The challenge lays in learning to live completely in the now, and as my horses are frequently reminding me, it is always 'now', and every 'now' is unique in it's own way.

    The past cannot be reclaimed, and the future has yet to unfold.

    Now is the 'present' that we must learn to give ourselves.
     

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