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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The Marriage Foundation
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Hairy Biker
Shipmate
# 12086
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Posted
Do we need a Marriage Foundation in the UK? (Or in any other country for that matter!) Does marriage need a helping hand? Is this just some conservative fundamentalism trying to make divorcees feel guilty or is there a real problem that an organisation like this needs to address? Anyone on the Ship involved directly with this initiative?
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there [are] four important things in life: religion, love, art and science. At their best, they’re all just tools to help you find a path through the darkness. None of them really work that well, but they help.
Damien Hirst
Posts: 683 | From: This Sceptred Isle | Registered: Nov 2006
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Lord Clonk
Shipmate
# 13205
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Posted
For those who don't want to explore the link - they seem to be focused on creating some sort of resource for how to make marriages work (rather than concerning themselves with deciding what marriage isn't).
Posts: 267 | From: Glasgow | Registered: Nov 2007
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Clonk:
For those who don't want to explore the link - they seem to be focused on creating some sort of resource for how to make marriages work ...
Ah, but marriages are already work...
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Clonk:
For those who don't want to explore the link - they seem to be focused on creating some sort of resource for how to make marriages work ...
Ah, but marriages are already work...
--Tom Clune
Very good! But I think it's because marriages work that they want to spread the idea. They seem (from their website) to be a bunch of family court judges and lawyers. They cite their reasons in their newsletter (link here). It doesn't seem to have anything to do with American religious-right type initiatives.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Maybe I should have added that I know two of the founding supporters.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
I think it's because marriages work that they want to spread the idea.
Marriages work? - depends on what you want them achieve, how long you want them to achieve for and how you define "Marriage".
Clearly many marriages do not work for very long - and given that "very long" could mean half a century of two individuals divergently developing from immature teenagers to immature pensioners..............
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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rhflan
Shipmate
# 17092
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Posted
If the goal is for people to *stay* married...then we probably do need some work on that. Approximately 50% of marriages in the US end in divorce...so we don't seem too good at 'sticking with it'...you know?
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www.twitter.com/rhflan
Posts: 135 | Registered: May 2012
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Did you read the link I posted, HughWillRidmee? Pretty well all those items are answered.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
The Aims and Objectives statement seems reasonable.
However, as a gay man, it's very hard not to be uncomfortable about some of the language simply because the idea of 'strengthening the institution of marriage' is so often associated with assertions that letting gays marry would weaken it.
And also, the idea that marriage's entire basis is child-raising is thrown at me quite often.
So forgive me for only giving a very, very cautious thumbs up, on the basis of it maintaining the 'relationship counselling' angle. Given where the gay marriage debate is in the UK at the moment, if it's NOT their intention to distinguish between stable long-term heterosexual relationships and stable long-term homosexual relationships they will have to tread extremely carefully.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Hairy Biker
Shipmate
# 12086
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The Aims and Objectives statement seems reasonable.
However, as a gay man, it's very hard not to be uncomfortable about some of the language simply because the idea of 'strengthening the institution of marriage' is so often associated with assertions that letting gays marry would weaken it.
From their FAQ:
quote:
Question: Is the MF engaged in the current debate around the definition of marriage?
Answer: No. It is not what we are about. The fundamental concern which underlies and so drives the establishment of the Marriage Foundation is in relation to family breakdown and its destructive effects on the lives of children. One of our primary aims is to reduce the number of children caught up in the family justice system and the misery which they experience as a result. For obvious reasons those children are almost entirely located within heterosexual partnerships. We believe that championing the case for marriage “as the gold standard” is the best way of ameliorating this problem. That is, in itself, a huge task and, as a fledgling organisation, we do not have the resources to engage in any other or different campaigns. Accordingly we have nothing we want to say in the current debate.
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there [are] four important things in life: religion, love, art and science. At their best, they’re all just tools to help you find a path through the darkness. None of them really work that well, but they help.
Damien Hirst
Posts: 683 | From: This Sceptred Isle | Registered: Nov 2006
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tomsk
Shipmate
# 15370
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Posted
Orfeo, if anything, I expect TMF will have fewer problems with baggage about what marriage is than other, religiously-based proponents. As HRB says, this is being set up by family law practitioners.
The UK government formerly advocated marriage (even Maggie Thatcher was big on it), but has largely retreated on this. This is probably for various reasons, including feeling like King Canute trying to turn back the tide, a wish not to moralize, to direct public resources to the most needy, as well as a certain liberal view that marriage is 'just a piece of paper'.
From TMF website: 'Our case for marriage is based on pragmatic evaluation of the advantages for children, families, and the local and national community. The richness and diversity of relationships precludes simplistic claims of cause and effect, but there is a significant difference in outcomes and the distinctive features of marriage are an important part of the reason.'
I think it's undeniable that attitudes about marriage being a good thing are at something of a low ebb. It's also the case that family breakdown is a big problem. The government will, I am sure, end up having to legislate protection for unmarried partners who split up - in other words something that looks very much like marriage will be invented for people who haven't chosen to get married.
TMF says it wants to change attitudes, which is an ambitious objective. What's not to like?
Posts: 372 | From: UK | Registered: Dec 2009
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
Exhibit A for how far removed our societies are now from even understanding the concept of any socially significant form of "marriage":
quote:
Originally posted by tomsk:
From TMF website: '... there is a significant difference in outcomes and the distinctive features of marriage are an important part of the reason.'
... The government will, I am sure, end up having to legislate protection for unmarried partners who split up - in other words something that looks very much like marriage will be invented for people who haven't chosen to get married. (italics mine)
If we are talking "social engineering" here, then it is quite clear how you get more marriages that last longer: you make them much more attractive to get into, financially and socially, and much harder and more painful to get out of. In other words, you do exactly the opposite of what most Western governments have been legislating for the last 60 years or so.
If we are talking "idealistic motivation" here, then it is quite clear how you get more marriages that last longer: return to judging all intimate relationships against the gold standard of "no divorce" marriages between one man and one woman. In other words, do exactly the opposite of what most Western societies and many of its religious institutions have adopted as morality for the last four centuries.
If we are talking "emotional guilt", then TMF can indeed do a thing or two. While it is a mystery as deep as the Divine law written on human hearts why people still bother getting married, many indeed still do. And when these marriages hit a rough spot, then maybe it will make a difference if somebody tells them that just letting it go (as both law and ideology agree they should) will seriously hurt their children. Maybe.
The welfare of children is pretty much the last line of attack left against the comprehensive downgrading of the institution "marriage". It is hence not surprising that TMF is exploring this, and I guess good on them. However, since many people - married or not - have gone off having children and caring for them themselves, one wonders how effective this will be. Does it really make that much of a difference whether single children growing up in creches, kids clubs etc. have one or two parents who work around the clock? Or is this simply the middle/upper class telling the lower class that their breeding is too reckless and disorganized?
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If we are talking "social engineering" here, then it is quite clear how you get more marriages that last longer: you make them much more attractive to get into, financially and socially, and much harder and more painful to get out of. In other words, you do exactly the opposite of what most Western governments have been legislating for the last 60 years or so.
Hang on a minute.
If I wanted say, recruits to the SAS or the SEALS, would I make the financial and social benefits of being a member greater?
No. I'd be saying (pretty much what the recruiters do say) that in order to get in, you have to be tougher and fitter than everyone else, and even the training might kill you.
We need to make marriage more difficult to enter into. That way we can weed out the uncommitteds and keep it for the hard-core of matrimony specialists. That's the way to make marriages last longer. That, and long service medals at 20 years.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
It's about time (at the risk of sounding like a Daily Mail leader!).
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
If I wanted say, recruits to the SAS or the SEALS, would I make the financial and social benefits of being a member greater? No. I'd be saying (pretty much what the recruiters do say) that in order to get in, you have to be tougher and fitter than everyone else, and even the training might kill you.
This is a way of making something socially attractive. Being an "elite warrior" does not have quite the status now as it had in say feudal Japan, but it still is a way of getting higher social standing, greater esteem of one's peers and more success with the opposite sex.
That said, the aim of having more marriages is defeated by turning them into an elite institution. Even if those elite marriages lasted longer, that would still fail the overall agenda.
Long service medals already exist, of course.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Hairy Biker
Shipmate
# 12086
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
In other words, you do exactly the opposite of what most Western governments have been legislating for the last 60 years or so.
I think that's their point, isn't it?
[ 03. May 2012, 09:04: Message edited by: Hairy Biker ]
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there [are] four important things in life: religion, love, art and science. At their best, they’re all just tools to help you find a path through the darkness. None of them really work that well, but they help.
Damien Hirst
Posts: 683 | From: This Sceptred Isle | Registered: Nov 2006
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
That said, the aim of having more marriages is defeated by turning them into an elite institution. Even if those elite marriages lasted longer, that would still fail the overall agenda.
Well then, there's the dichotomy. Either you reserve marriage for the really committed, by having a lengthy and arduous training period (and yes, marriage preparation classes should have a practical on sleep deprivation...), or you open it up to the hoi polloi which will inevitably drag your statistics downwards.
Actually, even though this is a bit tongue-in-cheek, marriage preparation classes are a thoroughly good idea if done well. Perhaps a marriage licence should be more like a driving licence.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
We need to make marriage more difficult to enter into. That way we can weed out the uncommitteds and keep it for the hard-core of matrimony specialists. That's the way to make marriages last longer.
It depends on what the problem you're trying to solve actually is.
If all you want is for all marriages to last forever, then restricting them to the most committed couples will clearly work. But if your aim is more along the lines of keeping families together, then it won't work at all - you'll just end up with even more unwed parents who have even less reason to stay together when things get hard than they would if they were married.
It seems to me that TMF aren't concerned with marriage for its own sake, they're concerned with marriage for the effect it has on the family, and especially the kids. And unless you have some crazy idea about restricting childbearing to married couples only, making marriages harder to get into isn't going to make a blind bit of difference to that issue.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Well, so far as making stable relationships and bringing up children are concerned, incentives to marry based on self-interest seem to miss the point. Making a marriage and bringing up children are, above everything else, life experiences which teach us real truths about selfish tendencies in ourselves, our partners, and our children. The journey from erotic love to sacrificial love is not easy, nor is the moving away from any inherent possessiveness.
The corollary to this is that if we really want to encourage marriage (whether or not this includes same sex relationships, whether or not the relationship involves child-rearing) then I think we have to bite the counter-cultural bullet and say selfishness is very bad for us. And particularly so when attempting to forge long-term relationships or making a good fist of raising children.
Selfish people make lousy life partners and lousy parents. We spent some time yesterday listening to the harrowing life history of a good friend who suffered for years at the hands of a selfish parent (and is still suffering).
And all of us are to some extent affected by selfish tendencies. The roots of relationship breakdowns - and their cure - are more likely to be found down that road then by well meaning attempts at social engineering.
[ 03. May 2012, 12:28: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Did you read the link I posted, HughWillRidmee? Pretty well all those items are answered.
But only from a starting point which doesn't engage the basic questions.
There is a clear concern with financial cost and "success" but no exploration as to whether a system which redefines "success" and has an alternative cost basis to the state might work as well/better.
Seems to me that they are trying to fix a broken system rather than investigate alternatives. I don't offer any specific alternative but suggest that fixing something that is broken is seldom a long term solution.
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
OK - but that presupposes that there is anything else that might meet your objections. Anthropology suggests not, viewing marriage in its broadest sense rather than in a particular local manifestation. Perhaps a fairer view would be that marriage is like democracy. Flawed, but better than other alternatives.
I'm a bit uneasy too about characterising an institution by its problems if those problems are not either endemic or fixable. A discussion along the lines of what those things might be is of course essential at any time.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Just to clarify, in that last post I should have written "...or are either not endemic or are fixable."
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
It seems to me that TMF aren't concerned with marriage for its own sake, they're concerned with marriage for the effect it has on the family, and especially the kids.
From what is on the website, I think that's right. These don't seem to be raving bible-bashers so much as well-meaning lawyers and civil servants and sociologists.
It seems to be the liberal case for marriage:
"Marriage is good because we have evidence that it provides these benefits to married people, and those benefits to society in general. So we should educate people by telling them what the advantages of marriage are, encourage them to marry, and support them when they are married. The state can and should be a force for good in promoting marriage, by education, by laws, and possibly by financial benefits."
That's different from what you might call the "libertarian" case for marriage which might be:
"Marriage certainly does seem to provide benefits, so anyone who wants to get married should be allowed to, but of course anyone who does not want to marry ought to be allowed not to. It would be unfair to disadvantage the unmarried by any special legal or finacial incentives granted only to the married. The state has no business passing laws or raising taxes to interfere in people's private lives."
Or the "conservative" case for marriage:
"Marriage is good because it is the foundation of family, which is the foundation of society, and we must all do everything we can to strengthen it. Couples who refuse to get married are anti-social and do not deserve the privileges of marriage. Broken homes, divorce, unmarried couples, single-parent "families", and same-sex so-called marriages, all tend to weaken ordinary, traditional normal marriage. They make it seem less normal, or even less desirable, they present impressionable young people with apparent choices that they are not equipped to make and will usually lead to trouble in the end. By dissolving (or refusing to form) families they harm the next generation, and that has real consequences and can damage all of society. Maybe we cannot prevent such behaviour but we must not be seen to approve of it. The state has no business supporting selfish people who deliberatly choose to flout the customs and mores of society."
Or of course the modern Christian view:
"Marriage is God's will for almost everybody and it is your duty to find someone to marry and then stay married. Full stop. End of. Its divinely ordained, is the natural way for humans to live, and it is certainly the best way - and probably the only decent way - to raise children. Forget what law and government says, human governments do not have the duty, nor the right, nor the power, to overturn divine creation. Everyone who wants to have a family should marry, and everyone who doesn't marry should be happy to be single."
The pre-modern Christian view, now almost extinct in western Europe and America outside some of the more atavistic bits of catholicism, was that sex was evil, the highest state of human life was virginity, and marriage is meant to control the destructive force of sex (a modern analogy might be to compare it to an electrical insulator or a firewall) It is a doctrine that was imported into Christianity very early from Gnosticism and kicked out again by the Reformation - though the effects of that took a few centuries to percolate into the Vatican. I suspect that most Christians don't consciously hold either of those opinions. Not in this country anyway.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
If I wanted say, recruits to the SAS or the SEALS, would I make the financial and social benefits of being a member greater? No. I'd be saying (pretty much what the recruiters do say) that in order to get in, you have to be tougher and fitter than everyone else, and even the training might kill you.
This is a way of making something socially attractive. Being an "elite warrior" does not have quite the status now as it had in say feudal Japan, but it still is a way of getting higher social standing, greater esteem of one's peers and more success with the opposite sex.
That said, the aim of having more marriages is defeated by turning them into an elite institution. Even if those elite marriages lasted longer, that would still fail the overall agenda.
Don't worry, IngoB. There'll always be socially unattractive single people like me around to make sure you elite married folk maintain your superiority complexes. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Not in my house!
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Marriage is also buying into patriarchy.
In what way?
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Not in my house!
Ditto. One of the house rules is that a husband's place is in the wrong ..
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Val Kyrie
Apprentice
# 17079
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Posted
I have been married (and divorced) twice. Both relationships lasted 15 years (or so) 12 of which (in each case) were spent married. Both marriages resulted in children and, despite everything, all 3 of my kids want to marry (one already has). I'm past my menopause now and living with a man 22 years my junior - so I really don't plan to marry again.
I find it unlikely that couples who have been together for 15 years are getting divorced for fun. Depriving children (partially) of one of their parents, becoming financially unstable and being broken-hearted (and ashamed) are not appealing side-effects. Just TELLING your kids that you intend to part is heart-breaking. Apart from my second marriage, where my 12 year old (at the time) son begged me to leave my husband and had planned his own suicide in case I didn't!
Sometimes things simply don't work out and we live for FAR too long now to exist as "married" for the sake of it. What difference can a "Marriage Foundation" make in circumstances like mine? None. The money would be better spent on other things.
And making divorce more difficult would be truly cruel... The process is already horrifying.
Posts: 27 | From: Up North | Registered: Apr 2012
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Sounds like two threads to me leo - though probably after people have finished here(?)
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
OK - but that presupposes that there is anything else that might meet your objections. Anthropology suggests not, viewing marriage in its broadest sense rather than in a particular local manifestation. Perhaps a fairer view would be that marriage is like democracy. Flawed, but better than other alternatives.
I'm a bit uneasy too about characterising an institution by its problems if those problems are not either endemic or fixable. A discussion along the lines of what those things might be is of course essential at any time.
Quick bit of googling says
It appears that the evolutionary benefit of the chemical changes we know as romantic love was to keep a couple together long enough to raise a child to the age of 6 or so - by which time it could operate within the family group/tribe without a male parent. The chemical changes associated with sexual attraction appear to last a year to 18 months but the arrival of a child can produce further, bonding, chemical change for another 4 years or so. (7 year itch?).
Probably there was an evolutionary benefit in relatively short relationships – perhaps by moving on we achieved a more effective stirring of the gene pool and enhanced the species' survival prospects?
As with many other elements of our behaviour we seem to have retained the successful traits beyond society's need for them (prioritising vision over hearing was useful on the savannah but is positively dangerous when surrounded by city traffic).
Perhaps any relationship which survives more than a few years must be routed in something other than attraction – economic interest, habit, social pressure etc? If this is the case it would seem that marriage’s enemies might be economic independence, a culture which exalts fashion over serviceability and a less controlled social environment with increased independence, mobility, education etc..
If this analysis is right I suspect that, short of a catastrophic event, it will prove impossible to put the genie back in the bottle – so looking for a future replacement might make more sense than trying to shore up a concept which is past its sell-by date?
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tomsk:
Orfeo, if anything, I expect TMF will have fewer problems with baggage about what marriage is than other, religiously-based proponents. As HRB says, this is being set up by family law practitioners.
I agree. Perhaps when I talk about them treading carefully, I should be clearer that it's not all in the one direction. They do note that many religions/religious-based groups are giving their support to the new foundation, while making it clear that the foundation itself is not religiously based. I can foresee that religious support evaporating if the Foundation says the wrong 'pro-gay' thing. It seems to me they are going to have to tread a very, very fine line to avoid either having people say "AHA! You support gay marriage!" or "AHA! You're really just a front for the anti-gay marriage bigots."
[ 04. May 2012, 02:03: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
It appears that the evolutionary benefit of the chemical changes we know as romantic love was to keep a couple together long enough to raise a child to the age of 6 or so - by which time it could operate within the family group/tribe without a male parent. The chemical changes associated with sexual attraction appear to last a year to 18 months but the arrival of a child can produce further, bonding, chemical change for another 4 years or so. (7 year itch?).
Probably there was an evolutionary benefit in relatively short relationships – perhaps by moving on we achieved a more effective stirring of the gene pool and enhanced the species' survival prospects?
As with many other elements of our behaviour we seem to have retained the successful traits beyond society's need for them (prioritising vision over hearing was useful on the savannah but is positively dangerous when surrounded by city traffic).
Perhaps any relationship which survives more than a few years must be routed in something other than attraction – economic interest, habit, social pressure etc? If this is the case it would seem that marriage’s enemies might be economic independence, a culture which exalts fashion over serviceability and a less controlled social environment with increased independence, mobility, education etc..
If this analysis is right I suspect that, short of a catastrophic event, it will prove impossible to put the genie back in the bottle – so looking for a future replacement might make more sense than trying to shore up a concept which is past its sell-by date?
Nice use of "it appears" and "probably". But let us take the hypothesis as reasonable, even plausible.
I'm not sure you are really saying this, but I see an implication that if our instinctive (i.e. evolutionarily conditioned) responses point in a certain direction, then there is no point in seeking to foster and maintain cultural norms which run counter to those responses. A kind of "going against the grain of human nature" approach.
Which kind of begs another point, doesn't it? What was the impetus for development of those cultural norms? What aspect of our instinctive, evolutionarily conditioned, behaviour gave rise to these norms in the first place? Surely there must have been something in our evolutionary history which encouraged their development?
It is a very interesting dimension to bring into this debate, but I'm not sure the evolutionary argument points simply in the direction you indicate. In any case, I would have thought that the whole development of laws and customs guiding human behaviour owed just as much, if not more, to the "meme"-like passing on of "received wisdom", i.e. the notion that "this works".
Of course it is right to subject cultural norms and received wisdom to critical analysis, given changed circumstances, but reason, including moral reasoning, surely comes into the process and should not be constrained by considerations of evolutionarily conditioned behaviour. By all means, these factors should be taken into account, but they should hardly be determining.
From my previous post, I acknowledged that the journey from erotic love (eros) to a more sacrificial, less self-involved, love (agape) is a difficult one. Difficult does not mean impossible, or not worthwhile. The moral arguments in favour of agape are a lot deeper than considerations of temporary brain chemistry.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
It appears that the evolutionary benefit of the chemical changes we know as romantic love was to keep a couple together long enough to raise a child to the age of 6 or so - by which time it could operate within the family group/tribe without a male parent. The chemical changes associated with sexual attraction appear to last a year to 18 months but the arrival of a child can produce further, bonding, chemical change for another 4 years or so. (7 year itch?).
Probably there was an evolutionary benefit in relatively short relationships – perhaps by moving on we achieved a more effective stirring of the gene pool and enhanced the species' survival prospects?
This is, basically, nonsense.
Firstly, what part of all this has actual scientific support? There would be the question of actual hormonal change during romantic love / child raising. Then there would be the question how these hormonal changes impact on cognition and behaviour. And finally there would be the question of how these changes in cognition and behaviour play out in a social and cultural setting. Of all these, I bet only the first step has anything resembling hard scientific data going for it. And the confounds and uncertainties there are bound to be horrid. For example, the question of who is actually how much in "romantic love" must heavily rely on self-reports, which are almost certainly biased by cultural expectations etc.
Secondly, people are not simple Markov chains. People have memory, form habits and generally base their life choices on a plethora of complex input meshed with a near infinite variety of internal mental states. Hormones do not simply act as an "on-off" switch, as there are no direct control parameters for behaviour in humans. The idea that one will leave one's family just because some hormone level drops is ridiculous from the get go.
Thirdly, "just so" explanations like the one you provide are notorious for allowing "just otherwise" explanations. So here's a little counter-story based on the same "data" (which for the sake of argument we assume to be valid): "Romantic love serves to initiate life-long bonding. In particular, the rush of hormones makes the couple engage in sex, leading to offspring, leading to the next stage. The hormonal timing of 18 months is sufficient for a normal young and fertile couple to conceive. In the next child-bearing/raising stage, another set of hormones is released to strengthen the bond and protect the child as long as it represents a great cost to the couple, i.e., after four years the demands of the child on the parents reduce. Furthermore, taking the contraceptive effect of breast feeding into account, the woman will typically not have another child for about 12-18 months. So the timing of four years reflects the normal maximum time until the next baby, and hence a hormonal refresh, will arrive. By the time the couple has a handful of children, their bond is well and truly habituated and furthermore their children start to "pay back" the investment by increasing social status and becoming support towards old age. Hence human biology is tailor-made to establish life-long bonds through the process of child begetting and rearing, a natural process that is culturally formalized as marriage." Mind you, I am not claiming that this is the truth. I'm just demonstrating that supposed data this sketchy can be turned every which way one wants.
Fourthly, "marriage"- at least in some general sense - is just about the most ubiquitous human relationship behaviour. You find it everywhere and at all times in some form or the other. It is definitely not an invention of Christianity. Men and women simply have never and nowhere done what you claim they should "naturally" do, at least not on average and/or as socio-cultural standard. The idea that relationships between men and women should somehow extend beyond the begetting of one child is clearly as natural to us as breathing. The evidence there is just unequivocal.
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Perhaps any relationship which survives more than a few years must be routed in something other than attraction – economic interest, habit, social pressure etc? If this is the case it would seem that marriage’s enemies might be economic independence, a culture which exalts fashion over serviceability and a less controlled social environment with increased independence, mobility, education etc.
There is some truth to this though. It is quite clear that marriages used to be much more important as social insurance (essentially making available the support of two clans to the couple). Furthermore, children used to be just about the smartest long-term investment one could make. While costing a great deal in their early stages, they "break even" at around six to eight years where they can start to do enough useful work to pull their weight (gathering resources, cooking, minding animals, ...). And by the time they hit their teens they become massively useful in the social setting (support in the assembly, "private army", forming alliances by marrying them off, ...). Finally, when adult, they are utterly essential (protection of family interests, old age care, ...). Also, the investment per child decreases the more one has (because of the "economy of scale" and because children can mind children).
Many of our cultural institutions and arrangements can be understood as abstracting away what used to be "family matters" into a "social net". In consequence, it has become immensely viable to remain single and to not have any offspring (at least on the scale of individual lives). This definitely was not the case in the past.
So we are at the moment in a cultural stage where "marriage" has become in a sense "pure". It is by and large marriage for marriage's sake nowadays. There can be little doubt that this is a major reason why many marriages fail. Perhaps we should be much more amazed at how many marriages hold, given that they have become more of an "artistic" endeavour.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
It appears that the evolutionary benefit of the chemical changes we know as romantic love was to keep a couple together long enough to raise a child to the age of 6 or so - by which time it could operate within the family group/tribe without a male parent.
Appears to who? And how do they know?
quote:
The chemical changes associated with sexual attraction appear to last a year to 18 months but ...
First there is nothing special about hormones being "chemical changes". We think by chemistry. Every thought, every memory, every perception, every feeling we have is physically represented by chemical changes.
Second we don't actually have much idea what the "chemical changes associated with sexual attraction" are, or what causes them, other than it seems to be complex, and there is certainly wide individual variation. And if we did know, someone would have bottled it and sold it by now. A genuine working love potion? What would people pay for that?
quote:
... but the arrival of a child can produce further, bonding, chemical change for another 4 years or so. (7 year itch?).
There is actuially some real research behind that, but I don't think it says what you seem to think it says. Also the main effect seems to be to increase emotional commitment to the child, not the other parent. And it provable lasts a lot more than a few years.
[Crudely and off-topic, there probably really is a "maternal instinct" and not all mothers have it. There are apparent changes in brain function and endocrine systems in most but not all pregnant women and new mothers that can last for a long time, possibly permanently. And men can get it too. At least some men who spend a lot of time in the company of a pregant woman or a new-born children sometimes go through the same sort of hormone changes that women usually do after giving birth. There are measurable effects, and they can be long-lasting. And the same happens in some other primates, not just humans.
Which would be a clue that paternal abandonment is not a universal human trait and probably never was.
One thing that does seem to be a near-universal human trait is patrilocality, in that it is more common in almost all societies than matrilocality is. In other words its much more common for women to live with their husbands family than the other way round. And its been going on for a long time. (That is one of the few things in this field we do know for sure because of the differences in distribution of Y chromosomes and mitochondrial genes)
Again a big clue that fathers, or at any rate fathers kin, are often involved in the upbringing of children have have been throughout pretty much our whole evolutionary history as a separate species.
quote:
Probably there was an evolutionary benefit in relatively short relationships – perhaps by moving on we achieved a more effective stirring of the gene pool and enhanced the species' survival prospects?
A "species survival prospects" are not the subject of natural selection and pretty irrelevant to evolution. It is the individuals and their families that count. And there are potentially lots of evolutionary successful mating strategies. What evidence there is is that humans employ a large number of them and change the way they do it in doifferent circumstances. (Nothing special about that - so do chimps, though different ones). Also when one strategy is more common in a population there is often benefit in trying another one, so many of them can survive together.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
A kind of "going against the grain of human nature" approach.
The reason for the "probably" was that there seems (and I'm not claiming expertise) not to be a "unified theory of attraction" but a quick google shows several recentish studies which are relevant. Rather than put all our eggs in to a basket marked "how it used to appear to be when we were kids and we think it would be a good thing if it was like that again" shouldn't we be trying to understand all the questions which you, I and others have raised before crossing the Rubicon? Traditional marriage may have enduring value, but it needs to be justified rather than simply preferred.
quote:
Which kind of begs another point, doesn't it? What was the impetus for development of those cultural norms (HWR I’m assuming the context implies the norms = marriage)? What aspect of our instinctive, evolutionarily conditioned, behaviour gave rise to these norms in the first place? Surely there must have been something in our evolutionary history which encouraged their development?
There is probably no clearer demonstration of power than the gathering of a harem at the expense of other men - nor the power to permit favoured men to have a mate.
quote:
Of course it is right to subject cultural norms and received wisdom to critical analysis, given changed circumstances, but reason, including moral reasoning, surely comes into the process and should not be constrained by considerations of evolutionarily conditioned behaviour. By all means, these factors should be taken into account, but they should hardly be determining.
And who do we trust to supply the "moral reasoning"? (Politicians, priests, doctors, newspaper proprietors – perhaps a committee?) And does the current financial crisis, the problem of child-abuse, the prevention of AIDS via monogamy etc. augur well for the success of moral reasoning if it conflicts with "human nature".
quote:
From my previous post, I acknowledged that the journey from erotic love (eros) to a more sacrificial, less self-involved, love (agape) is a difficult one. Difficult does not mean impossible, or not worthwhile. The moral arguments in favour of agape are a lot deeper than considerations of temporary brain chemistry.
I don't disagree, I question whether expecting most of humanity to bother is not a little naive.
My experience is that it’s usually a lot more successful to try to divert the flow than dam it.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
“The idea that one will leave one's family just because some hormone level drops is ridiculous from the get go.”
quote:
It (HWR marriage) is definitely not an invention of Christianity
Which may explain why I said neither – but you will have your little strawmen won’t you? I think you’ll find that what tends to happen is that the hormonal reaction becomes transferred to someone other than the original recipient.
Generally you are just reinforcing my point that we need to understand the terrain before we plan our journey through it – for which I thank you.
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
First there is nothing special about hormones being "chemical changes".
Did I suggest there was?
quote:
Second we don't actually have much idea what the "chemical changes associated with sexual attraction" are, or what causes them, other than it seems to be complex, and there is certainly wide individual variation.
All the more reason for getting those ideas before committing to a strategy I would have thought.
All - Interesting discussion guys – I rather think, upon reflection, that you will have surprised yourselves by agreeing with my main thrust whilst, quite reasonably(mostly), disputing the detail.
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
I don't really see how this theory that "My DNA wants me to do so and so I can't be happy unless what I want to do is socially vindicated" makes any sense at all. I've generally thought through most of my life that self restraint and control are the means to happiness instead of being enslaved to these mysterious evolutionary forces. And I'm pretty content most of the time, probably happier than some people I know who do go more for the simple hedonist way of living. It's really a lot harder running around all the time trying to get maximal gratification for your biological urges.
I also am very glad my dad stuck to his wife who was and is permanently disabled, even if it might not be what his DNA wanted him to do. There are boatloads of ethical choices in play beyond "what's easiest for me." I also don't really want to live in a society where "Oh, just do what's easiest because that's what evolution has made you into" is the basic assumption.
I'm also led to think from experience that romantic love is highly overvalued in our culture, and that any relationship based solely on that is doomed. Post-romantic love is so much more interesting, and saner.
"Tried and found wanting" versus "wanted and found trying" comes to mind.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
I'm also not sure how "stirring the gene pool" is necessarily a good thing in itself. That just seems loaded with assumptions. Unless the environment is going through some kind of change, I'm not sure how an increase in mutation is a net gain. Seems more like a net crapshoot.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
HughWillRidmee
A few observations.
Firstly, you will get no argument from me that polygamous or monogamous relationships based on power or treating women as property are morally defensible. Regardless of whether they were (or are) considered as desirable social norms by others, I dissent! Same goes for notions of male headship.
I've lived out that dissent, very happily, in the context of our very long marriage (44 years coming up). We started off dancing to the beat of a different drummer, continued on that road and we're both very glad that we did. The old patriarchal model looks to me to be dying and I shall be glad to see it buried.
Secondly, so far as the determination of a moral compass is concerned, that seems to me to be a matter for each of us and all of us. Given that I am a long term nonconformist, you would hardly expect me to argue that some corporate determination overrides either freedom of conscience or a duty to behave in responsible ways in accordance with that conscience. The outworking of that may get complicated, but that's where I start.
Thirdly, your packaging together of "the current financial crisis, the problem of child-abuse, the prevention of AIDS via monogamy etc" struck me as very odd! I really did not understand what sort of common thread linked them together when considering going with or against the "grain of human nature". Each seems to me to provoke rather different questions within the moral spectrum. Maybe I'm just being thick? Would you mind clarifying?
Fourthly, it's in the nature of the agape way that it does not insist on its own way. So even if its proponents are few, even if we sometimes seem a bit like King Canute, it's what we've found is best. Rather like His Bobship, singing prophetically about the Hard Rain, "I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinking, and I'll know my song well before I start singing". The inestimable value of selfless sacrificial love is a song I know well.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
All - Interesting discussion guys – I rather think, upon reflection, that you will have surprised yourselves by agreeing with my main thrust whilst, quite reasonably(mostly), disputing the detail.
No, I think yoiur point is nonsense - and if your main sopurce of information is wikipedia it might be that you don't know enough about it to understand why its nonsense.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
I'm not sure at this point what the main thrust is, apart from the things that I strongly disagree with.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by tomsk:
Orfeo, if anything, I expect TMF will have fewer problems with baggage about what marriage is than other, religiously-based proponents. As HRB says, this is being set up by family law practitioners.
I agree. Perhaps when I talk about them treading carefully, I should be clearer that it's not all in the one direction. They do note that many religions/religious-based groups are giving their support to the new foundation, while making it clear that the foundation itself is not religiously based. I can foresee that religious support evaporating if the Foundation says the wrong 'pro-gay' thing. It seems to me they are going to have to tread a very, very fine line to avoid either having people say "AHA! You support gay marriage!" or "AHA! You're really just a front for the anti-gay marriage bigots."
I don't think gay marriage is big enough of an issue in the UK to make this such a huge problem for them. We already have civil partnerships, and gay marriage seems to be more of an issue for politicians, pressure groups and small religious groups rather than a burning issue for everyone.
However, those who argue in favour of gay marriage seem to do so mostly out of a desire for equality rather than for social cohesion. The Marriage Foundation (MF) is presumably more interested in the latter; they suppose that social cohesion is best served when children are nurtured by their biological parents (rather than by one biological parent alone, or with a steparent). Gay marriage isn't about biological parents, though, since only one of the parents will be biologically related to the child.
The Marriage Foundation wants to discourage divorce, but the gay marriage argument isn't about discouraging divorce so much as it's about the right to marry. In fact, one argument in favour of gay marriage is that it ensures that gay people benefit from the legal protection offered by divorce, should the couple split up.... In other words, divorce is viewed as a benefit of marriage, rather than a disadvantage. Again, this must be problematic from the viewpoint of the MF.
The focus isn't the same at all, so trying to bring these two issues together in this one organisation would confuse matters tremendously.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I regret I can't understand the question in the OP.
It is self-evident that many marriages fail. So it has to be obvious that if an organisation is set up to encourage people to build relationships that hold, as a concept that must be a good thing. You may look at the organisation and say, 'they aren't doing it the right way', or even 'the rot has set in so thoroughly that it's a waste of their time even trying'. That would be depressing and one hopes incorrect. But the core idea must be a good one.
I don't know anything about this organisation, But, unless they're doing it wrong, they have to be on the side of the angels. The alternative is the equivalent of saying an organisation to encourage honesty, integrity, or non-violence would be a bad thing.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
No, I think yoiur point is nonsense - and if your main sopurce of information is wikipedia it might be that you don't know enough about it to understand why its nonsense.
Ah - I was just about to say that, but as ken has said it let me add the following.
The main assertion I challenge is this one:- quote:
Seems to me that they are trying to fix a broken system rather than investigate alternatives.
Sez who? There is bucketloads of peer-reviewed evidence that at many levels both partners benefit from marriage. If you want a decent conspectus of current published work, try:
"How does marriage affect Physical & Psychological health? - A Survey of the Longitudinal Evidence", by Wilson, C.M. & Oswald, A.J.
Andrew Oswald is Professor of Economics at Warwick - you can find a link to the paper on his website, no doubt with the full details of the journal it was published in. Citing from that work:-
...evidence, after looking across studies in a variety of literatures, suggests that:
- marriage makes people far less likely to suffer psychological illness
- marriage makes people live much longer
- marriage makes people healthier and happier
- both men and women benefit, though some investigators have found that men gain more
- these gains are not merely because married people engage in less risky acticities
- marriage quality and prior beliefs can influence the size of the gains.
... The pattern in the data is not a cross-sectional illusion. Moreover, it is large...
He could have added that on average, both men and women earn 10-20% more on a lifetime basis if married, a statistic that surprised me too.
I've been tracking this subject, on and off, for some years, and honestly I have never seen a single peer-reviewed paper that contradicts the beneficial effect, at the population level. That is one hell of an observation - anyone used to dealing with the social sciences will know that it more usually takes years for patterns to emerge out of apparently chaotic findings. Not here though.
And none of this even touches on the subject of children, one of the motivators for this exercise. They cite the fact that 67% of children in trouble with the courts (let alone problematic at a lesser level) are from families where one of the parents is missing. Currently 23% of children in the UK are living in a single parent household (source: Gingerbread, the single parent charity). If my mental calculations are right, that makes them six times more likely to get into trouble. That's a big downer on your chances as a child.
As to other things, and really just in passing, it is factually incorrect to say that erotic attraction only lasts for 6 years or whatever. Erotic attraction can and frequently does last for life. Maybe erotic infatuation fits that timescale, but I fail to see what evolutionary antecedents may play in arguing your case. As IngoB points out, the narrative is a "just-so" story; we can all crank our own story out and vote on which sounds the most plausible, but where the truth lies is another matter entirely.
And in any event, surely the relevance of six-year olds being ready for a spot of goat-herding is pretty limited in most societies today? The statistics cited concerning children above surely argue that if anything, the societal need is now for marriages to last at least three and a half times longer than the youngest child, all other things being equal.
So the challenge is this - I would like to see some - any - evidence the the institution of marriage is broken. I fully accept that we need to constantly monitor how it is being used, and how to improve existing or emerging defects. But given the evidence of its benefits (and cohabitation does not provide those benefits to anything like the same degree, and in some instances not at all), it's going to need to be a powerfully supported case.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I regret I can't understand the question in the OP.
It is self-evident that many marriages fail. So it has to be obvious that if an organisation is set up to encourage people to build relationships that hold, as a concept that must be a good thing. You may look at the organisation and say, 'they aren't doing it the right way', or even 'the rot has set in so thoroughly that it's a waste of their time even trying'. That would be depressing and one hopes incorrect. But the core idea must be a good one.
I don't know anything about this organisation, But, unless they're doing it wrong, they have to be on the side of the angels. The alternative is the equivalent of saying an organisation to encourage honesty, integrity, or non-violence would be a bad thing.
I would have thought so too, Enoch, but it has been challenged. And to be fair the OP did ask whether it is some sort of fundamentalist initiative, to which the answer seems to be "no".
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
However, those who argue in favour of gay marriage seem to do so mostly out of a desire for equality rather than for social cohesion.
Funny, because I argue for it out of a desire for equal social cohesion.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Honest Ron
Although I was prepared to accept pro tem the thesis for the sake of argument - even if only to point to its partiality - I'm inclined to agree with you (and IngoB, and ken) about the "just so story" (a happy phrase for those of us who remember Kipling, leopard and spots, camels and humps etc).
Nevertheless I do think that lifelong marriage as an institution is in trouble in the western world. The divorce stats surely tell us that much. I know remarriage rates are high (triumph of hope over experience as some put it). For far too many folks, the project of marriage follows the six stages of all projects (a bit of wisdom I came across in project management training).
Wild enthusiasm
Confusion
Disillusionment
Search for the guilty
Punishment of the innocent
Time for the next project
Given the suffering caused by relationship breakdown, there seems to me to be some value in looking critically, and broadly, at why. Which, I guess, might include some consideration of instinctive behavioural tendencies. Like IngoB, I reject determinist arguments about those, but knowing something about tendencies can be helpful.
You're certainly right about the persistence of eros in some relationships. Personally, I think the more one "gets" agape the better the eros. Selfish people make lousy lovers.
And there's that word again. Narcissistic cultures and marriage do not fit well together.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
From having a bit of a gander at the website, and looking at the (legally qualified) people involved, my guess is they're looking at the increasing number of families where the parents have never married, not so much those who have divorced.
In many ways, I would support the idea, although I think its an attempt by the educated to shift the habits of those not so educated, and thus doomed to fail. All the lovely words in the world aren't going to change the situation at the bottom of the heap. I don't think they're aiming at middle class families, to be blunt.
Patriarchy is alive and festering at the bottom of the heap, with some men fathering up to a hundred children to many women and then not supporting the children or their mothers. I suspect this is the situation the legal profession would like to change. I'd love it to change - it would make my job somewhat easier.
Good luck to them.
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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