A modest prediction: Lori Gottlieb's "The Case For Settling" will inspire more reader mail than anything else in the Atlantic's March issue.
(And here's some useful background reading, from our archives.)
« The Analogy Primary | Main | McCain-Forbes '08? » Marry Him08 Feb 2008 11:53 am Comments (203)
The stupid, it continues to burn... Here's a paradigmatic "argument" from Gottlieb: Settling is mostly a women’s game. Men settle far less often and, when they do, they don’t seem the least bit bothered by the fact that they’re settling. My friend Alan, for instance, Really. Her friend Alan. Just in case you were worried he was unrepresentative, she also cites her friends Chris and Gabe. 
Sorry, the quote is: Settling is mostly a women’s game. Men settle far less often and, when they do, they don’t seem the least bit bothered by the fact that they’re settling. My friend Alan, for instance,
While I agree that the article is mostly based on anecdotal evidence from her own selective social circle, I did enjoy it and think she makes some great observations. Still I question the idea of "settling" as it is just another form of "marrying up". What exactly determines which partner is settling? Is it the partner who is more successful, smarter, more attractive? Or the partner who is wise enough to know that there is more to a marriage than what is listed on your resume?
No it won't. Hell, my wife and I were discussing it last night and I found it hard to do without implying that I ever at any point "settled" (I didn't). Married people aren't going to want to touch this with a 10-foot pole, publicly. Seriously dating people, ditto. Single older women, nuh-uh. Single older men will write in against her thesis in order to impress their dates. It'll get lots of email from pissed off 20-somethings.
Her anecdotal evidence isn't even correct. I may out myself as knowing too much about Friends, but isn't Rachel's first fiance a lying philanderer, not just some unexciting shlub?
DivGuy - She's giving advice based on her own personal experience. What do you want her to do? Defend her methodology and results before the committee?
She's giving advice based on her own personal experience. What do you want her to do? Defend her methodology and results before the committee? Well, she could show even the slightest bit of understanding that her personal experience is not universalizable, and her own understanding of her experience may not be someone else's. Instead, she resorts to mocking anyone who disagrees with her, and claiming their different beliefs are a function of false consciousness.
The real problem with arguments like this is that it assumes that monogamy is the only possible long-term option, and then it's a question of either settling or being lonely. I have a feeling a lot of people might find a lot more happiness in non-monogamous arrangements where different people fulfill different needs. But there's too many moral scolds ready to declare any woman a weirdo and a slut if she goes down that road.
I thought the article was funny, and meant to be funny, in a dark sort of way. Of course, just about everyone who gets married becomes mildly discontented and wishes they'd held out for something better; and just about everyone who holds out for something better wishes they'd settled for the mild discontent of marriage. The whole romantic love racket is a cruel and heart-breaking swindle; mother nature is vengeful step-mother and there's nothing the DCFS or self-help books can do about it. That's why Jane Austen novels end with the wedding, and French novels are all about adultery. Unless you want to have a heart of stone, you've got to laugh. Trying to talk yourself, or anyone else, into settling is just one more episode in this sentimental slapstick.
"The real problem with arguments like this is that it assumes that monogamy is the only possible long-term option, and then it's a question of either settling or being lonely. I have a feeling a lot of people might find a lot more happiness in non-monogamous arrangements where different people fulfill different needs. But there's too many moral scolds ready to declare any woman a weirdo and a slut if she goes down that road." Dilan, Whose to say your feelings about her feelings are reliable? The author over-generalizes, but that is a necessity for articles in this genre. Maybe you think such articles should never be written, or at least not without disclaimers ad nauseum about the author's perspective not necessarily being universal. But that seems silly to me. She has her perspective and opinions; she should be able to share it. Your line about the scolds is instructive; you don't mind scolding the scolds....
The line about 'scolding the scolds' is not to the point. What I actually disagree with you about was what was wrong with the article. It doesn't seem to me that it would be improved by an extended reflection on whether having multiple partners, while raising a kid would result in greater happiness. That doesn't seem very feasible to me when children are involved; taking care of kids is an incredible amount of work, and it's unlikely you'll be able to enlist multiple partners to help with that. It seemed to me that the real problem was that she didn't cite anything other than anecdotal evidence, not even the cliched surveys showing married people on average report higher levels of happiness. That might have strengthened her case. I still don't think its a flaw of the article, much less the 'real problem' that she didn't suggest some form of unofficial polyandry is the solution to the difficulty of being lonely with a kid.
I found much to like in the article, but am troubled by her completely unromantic notion of marriage. To the extent she's right about those who over-romanticize what marriage is, she's fallen into her own trap, imagining that a husband is nice because he can impregnate you then watch the kids once in a while so mom can get together with her friends. She has her own life to live, don'cha know!
Lets see if the spam filter lets me through. I have some related thoughts here: http://manwhoisthursday.blogspot.com/2007/07/sympathy-for-devil-career-woman.html
The problem with this genre of magazine article is the way the author invariably buys into the frame that the sort of marriage being described here is "settling." Even Gottlieb, who writes in defense of the idea, considers it to be settling for something less than the ideal. But why ISN'T this the ideal? I'd argue that the core problem is the set of wildly unrealistic expectations that most 20-somethings have about romance (a pathology that seems to be more virulent among women, but is by no means limited to them.) It's a pathology that's deliberately fed by entire industries, because mass neurosis is profitable. The key to happiness, it seems to me, is simply to understand that there are a great many people in the world whom you can marry and live with happily, as long you do not expect this person to be solely responsible for your happiness. Just find someone whom you don't mind living with and you enjoy shagging on occasion, and then get on with your life. The only reason this is so difficult is because nearly everyone, male and female alike, has higher expectations than this. The world is not a Disney movie, for God's sake. Grow up, people.
I nearly had a seizure reading this article yesterday. Have to say I think she's right, at least to some extent. (Don't know if I could overlook halitosis, but then, I'm not 39 yet.) But while I'm sure other women are going to be as upset as I was by this piece, it feels awfully depressing for men, too. How much do men want to feel like their wives are only with them because they couldn't find anyone else and they just got exhausted looking?
As a person who is near 30 and been married since I was 21, I find the article and the responses entertaining. You would figure once people got past high school, they would actually have adult views of romance and love. Instead we have a bunch of people in mid-life just getting out of the early high school mindset. The author has pretty much adopted the cynical view of the high school ideal.
Discman -- She not only romanticizes marriage, she romanticizes even the most unromantic aspects about marriage. Or so she thinks, as she's still too attached to her more romantic notions to actually settle herself, any more than her married friends, who complain about finding someone better and tedium of married life, will actually leave their spouses to do so. Everyone talks about marriage, but no one -- except jhb -- is willing to do anything about it. As for those who petulantly reproach this joke article's failure to consider sociological data --those horny-handed scholars who would calibrate the vibrations of the married heart with the happiness meter -- I am sorry for you.
C.Michol 3:44pm - I am a male in my late 20s, whose girlfriend of several years (also in her late 20s, almost 30) has been repeatedly leaving me for stints of a couple months at a time (then coming back to me) because although, as she says, I'm a great boyfriend, she worries that there might be something more perfect out there for her, more like the movies. I would be very pleased if she decided to "settle" for me.
jhb: I am scolding the scolds for ruling out the possibility that there might be alternative arrangements that would work for many people. And I am not saying that they would work for everyone (though there are various arrangements that can and do work for some people even in the context of raising children). I am just saying that they do constitute one obvious solution to the problem of "settling", and writing an article about why one should "settle" that doesn't even consider that there are options besides monogamy is pretty incomplete.
"But why ISN'T this the ideal?" Face facts, some people are much more desirable partners, in various ways, than others. Not everybody can partner up with the most desireable people. Those who cannot will, to a greater or lesser extent, be disappointed, and such disappointment is not to be airily dismissed. There is a reason why these are hard choices. I would recommend Pride and Prejudice to you. Sometimes, you are a Charlotte, and you will end up with a Mr. Collins, not a Mr. Darcy. That may be an acceptable choice in certain circumstances(Mr. Collins is grotesque, but there is no indication that he is a bad man), but to chide people for not embracing it as an ideal is insulting. "It's a pathology that's deliberately fed by entire industries" Its not a pathology, it's human nature.
I second M.Z. Forrest.
I am scolding the scolds for ruling out the possibility that there might be alternative arrangements that would work for many people. And I am not saying that they would work for everyone (though there are various arrangements that can and do work for some people even in the context of raising children). I am just saying that they do constitute one obvious solution to the problem of "settling", and writing an article about why one should "settle" that doesn't even consider that there are options besides monogamy is pretty incomplete. No, Dilan, you're being annoyed at most people for having profoundly different views of sex and marriage, psychologically, than you do. You also sort of (I suspect) silently edit children out of the picture (or squat them permanently in the state day care camp, to be largely ignored in making decisions), which the author can't really do. There's no real reason, if she doesn't share your perspective (and even most sexually "liberal" straight people in the US signally don't), why she should acknowledge it, any more than when you write articles or posts you add "but then I should add that conventional sexual morality, like Ross and the Pope would prefer, probably works better for a large number of people. Hey, I'm just saying."
@nbt: Really? Damn.
Note that I don't think the author's views are remotely in the same planet as mine, I just don't see why she has to give YOUR particular POV any lip service, any more than she gives it to mine (in which this particular version of the problem is also absurd -- you wouldn't have a child on your own via a sperm bank in my world).
Once in a while I uncharitably suspect Dilan of being like some people I knew long ago as an undergraduate, who espoused to all and sundry a variegated but libertine sexual philosophy in part to provoke but largely to justify their own rather treacherous and squalid behavior, which was often not so much openly dishonest as stubbornly unwilling to grant different emotional perspectives to others, and take such philosophically disturbing things as human emotions (of men or women, but this was mostly men) into account in any way.
C.Michol - In my case, my girlfriend is objectively my equal in terms of status, intelligence, looks, etc. (Sorry if that sentence sounded pompous) She's just being silly IMO in imagining that there's a knight in shining armor out there for her. Objectively, I know that by deciding to be with me she would not be "settling" at all. I don't really care what her thought process is in getting there...
@nbt: Dump her. She's just not that into you. You deserve better.
Agreed with jeet. She's using you. That should not be acceptable behavior in a loving relationship.
I think a lot of people can't see the forest for the trees. I agree with most of her thoughts….I told my daughters that the most important thing when considering marriage is not the physical looks and attraction/chemistry, but rather the values and whether the man is someone you like not just as a lover, but as a friend, and whether or not you are both on the same page/looking in the same direction on most important matters (such as parenting, finances, etc). Because marriages today don’t always last, but parenting is a lifetime commitment. No matter what, the man you marry and have children with will always be in your life—through your children and your grandchildren—whether or not you remain married (and continue on to marry other people), so it is imperative that you like (as well as love) him and are friends with him….before, during, and after the marriage……ask me how I know……and for my friends with sons, it works both ways……
@nbt: In all seriousness, it's one thing to "settle" in terms of looks or money. It's another thing entirely to "settle" for being taken for granted.
Re: I have a feeling a lot of people might find a lot more happiness in non-monogamous arrangements where different people fulfill different needs. Are you in your 20s maybe? At that age a life of bedhopping may seem a wonderful alternative to the ball and chain. Problem is, you will reach a point when you will cease to be desirable unless you are rich (thereby attracting users) or are one of the rare folk whose genetic endowment lets you pretend to be 10 years younger than you are (and even that just prolongs the inevitable). Unless you are ready for celibacy from about 40 on (the exact age varies of course) you need a partner by middle age or you will end up alone.
TMoC writes: "I just don't see why she has to give YOUR particular POV any lip service, any more than she gives it to mine (in which this particular version of the problem is also absurd -- you wouldn't have a child on your own via a sperm bank in my world)." Maybe I missed it in my quick scan of the article, and you'd have to threaten me with a sharpened hockey stick to make me go back to it, but did it actually say she went to a sperm bank? Maybe she "had a baby on her own" the old-fashioned way - met a nice priest at a bar and got a "private blessing."
This was profoundly depressing. It makes me want to call my ex and think about trying it again. I mean, wow. In 2 years I'll be 30, and you gotta admit she's got a solid point. I haven't met a soul I'd tolerate as much as Jack the past 7 months.
Agreed with jeet. She's using you. That should not be acceptable behavior in a loving relationship. I kind of assumed one of the attractions was the non-loving nature of the aggressive sex they have each time she returns disappointed from her searches for Mr. Right. but did it actually say she went to a sperm bank? Maybe she "had a baby on her own" the old-fashioned way - met a nice priest at a bar and got a "private blessing." Not sure she mentions it in the new essay (I couldn't bear to read it all that closely), but her previous grating, self-absorbed rambling in The Atlantic revolves around her decision to be artificially inseminated.
Moe, see the background reading (which I didn't remember from when it was in the Atlantic). She went to a sperm bank.
Yeah, if Dilan wanted to poke at this article for being grating and self-absorbed, and both belaboring the obvious AND insisting on the sometimes-not-true, he'd have my full and fervent support. That said, there's a bit to be said for belaboring (hah!) the obvious, though, again, this is only because many people are stuck in some high school fantasyland, not even the high school where you take the less than perfect person to the prom, because, hey, ya wanna go, dontcha? I am not pointing my wife at this article.
"Moe, see the background reading (which I didn't remember from when it was in the Atlantic). She went to a sperm bank." I believe you, but I'll skip the background, and I wish I could have the two minutes back that I wasted on the article.
Gah, that article is just one long whine that Mr. Right hasn't entered her life and she's enraged that she's going to end up ALONE unless she dumps her "ideals" and "settles". Some of us end up alone. Some of us don't. Some of us realize that marriage is not the end-all-and-be-all of life, and you can end up much more miserable sleeping next to someone in a bed than if you remained by yourself. I've had all those experiences. I've also watched friends go through divorces who have realized that "settling" for someone will be no guarantee of anything long-lasting either.
Agree with everyone who says she doesn't respect me. I may in fact dump her depending how well she behaves in the near future. She has brought me to meet her parents several times, so she is thinking marriage. As for the sex, we're kind of religious, so there isn't an extensive amount of physicality.
TMoC says: "I am not pointing my wife at this article." You have a pointy wife?
"Agree with everyone who says she doesn't respect me. I may in fact dump her depending how well she behaves in the near future. She has brought me to meet her parents several times, so she is thinking marriage. As for the sex, we're kind of religious, so there isn't an extensive amount of physicality." If I were guessing by percentages I'd say, "Maybe not with you, but what's she up to during her "vacations" from you?" You're most likely on a long slow road to an unhappy ending.
what's she up to during her "vacations" from you? A plausible point, but I'm completely sure I'm the only guy she's touched in the last 10 years.
Hrm, I think left and right, skippy and jiff, karl and groucho, zorro and the Eagle, we can all come together to give personal advice to nbt. I agree -- long slow road to no place you really want to be, most likely.
You have a pointy wife? Sharper than I am, anyway, five days out of seven.
nbt quotes and replies: "what's she up to during her "vacations" from you? A plausible point, but I'm completely sure I'm the only guy she's touched in the last 10 years." So here are three possibilities which would add up to "completely sure." 1. You've had her under constant surveillance by a team of robots. (It would have to be robots - male spies could touch her.) 2. She's actually a lesbian. 3. You have one of those new foolproof cooties detectors. What's the power source? I've left out mindreading, Jesus told you, and she told you, since none of them add up to "completely sure."
I sympathize with the author of the article. The current evolutionary reality is that women have a much narrower window of opportunity than men for reproduction. Men can father children while in their 90s, while women often have to turn to assisted reproduction technologies once they hit their mid-30s to increase their chances of conception. No wonder Gottlieb felt so anxious to have a chlid. As if this cold fact of biology wasn't enough, modern society aggressively promotes cultural messages about love and family that essentially contradict one another. I don't feel the need to summarize or paraphrase what Gottlieb wrote, but she is surely onto something when she criticizes the assumption that "true love" must predicate a good marriage. As if romance and raising children had anything to do with one another! My own thoughts on this are too variegated to spell out, but suffice it to say that the woman I choose to bear children with is probably not going to be the woman with whom I feel the most self-actualized. (Luckily for me, because I am 25 and a man, I won't have to make this decision for some time yet ;-) ) TMoC: Once in a while I uncharitably suspect Dilan of being like some people I knew long ago as an undergraduate, who espoused to all and sundry a variegated but libertine sexual philosophy in part to provoke but largely to justify their own rather treacherous and squalid behavior, which was often not so much openly dishonest as stubbornly unwilling to grant different emotional perspectives to others, and take such philosophically disturbing things as human emotions (of men or women, but this was mostly men) into account in any way. In your own way, TMoC, you're being just as uncharitable and nasty as you suspect Dilan Esper of being, since you have no way of knowing whether he or she has engaged in "treacherous" or "squalid" behavior, as you put it. Really, there is nothing wrong with being an epicure so long as one is upfront and honest about it. For example, hooking up doesn't result in emotional devastation if the parties agree that it's all in good, sexy fun. (...you wouldn't have a child on your own via a sperm bank in my world). I don't know what to make of this parenthetical. It sounds vaguely threatening and moralistic. "You won't be permitted to have children on your own via artificial insemination in my world." Oh, really?
I'm completely sure I'm the only guy she's touched in the last 10 years. Brother, I have heard that before.
Fair enough; call it 99% sure. I have my methods. Many of my friends, and hers, suggest to me that her lack of relations, romantic or physical or otherwise, with any other guys is what makes her waver about committing to me. Not that this excuses her behavior. Anyway when I posted my first comment at 4:05, I wasn't intending to get into a discussion of my personal life (though I do, sincerely, appreciate the advice). Good evening, all!
Really, there is nothing wrong with being an epicure so long as one is upfront and honest about it. For example, hooking up doesn't result in emotional devastation if the parties agree that it's all in good, sexy fun. I think parties often claim this but don't mean it, and people self-servingly make use of it. That is -- because it is expected (and they want more, including, in their best-case scenario, an actual relationship), they pretend to be equally just-for-kicks. Of course, even if everyone's honest and equally soulless, I disapprove -- it's a degradation of the human body and spirit. Well, actually, I'd probably indeed outlaw sperm banks if forced to be Grand Dictator, but I just meant that I doubt if the author's views of sex and marriage and children had anything in common with mine that she'd have done that.
the woman with whom I feel the most self-actualized Avoiding anyone who says "self-actualized" is one of my particular romantic goals, and I hope to heaven it would have been if I'd been a woman...
Well, actually, I'd probably indeed outlaw sperm banks if forced to be Grand Dictator But, Monsieur le Marquis, if we outlaw sperm banks then only outlaws will have sperm banks. The specter of genetically-engineered super villains gives me pause.
I think parties often claim this but don't mean it, and people self-servingly make use of it. That is -- because it is expected (and they want more, including, in their best-case scenario, an actual relationship), they pretend to be equally just-for-kicks. My, how cynical ;-) Of course, even if everyone's honest and equally soulless, I disapprove -- it's a degradation of the human body and spirit. There's nothing "degrading" about celebrating the biological fact that we all have dangly and fleshy bits that feel good when we use them skillfully. The rest about souls and spirits is just so much metaphysical angst on your part. I don't worry about either souls or spirits, because they don't exist.
Avoiding anyone who says "self-actualized" is one of my particular romantic goals, and I hope to heaven it would have been if I'd been a woman... Finally, we agree on something. My original use of the term was meant to be sarcastic.
Eh. In my experience, people of your beliefs, Immoralist, do tend to be shallow and callous. While more humane materialists whose philosophical predilections lead in the same direction come up with some kind of (bogus, often) justification for having a morality at least slightly less hedonist.
Well, dealing with a choice between a hedonist and a religious nut who loves going around insisting that all his wants are validated by God, I've got a better chance at a reasonable negotiation with the former.
shallow and callous Is that where the word "callow" comes from? 'Cause it makes a certain kind of sense.
No, Dilan, you're being annoyed at most people for having profoundly different views of sex and marriage, psychologically, than you do. You also sort of (I suspect) silently edit children out of the picture (or squat them permanently in the state day care camp, to be largely ignored in making decisions), which the author can't really do. Marquis: 1. You are dead wrong to use the word "psychologically". The correct word is "culturally". There are many societies in this world, and many do not use the model of 2 parent monogamous family units that we do. There's nothing psychological about it-- it's just what the culture permits and sanctions. 2. As for the raising of children, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Dilan Esper writes: "I have a feeling a lot of people might find a lot more happiness in non-monogamous arrangements where different people fulfill different needs." This sentiment reminds me of that line at the end of Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! where the dull hero addresses the survivors from the capitol steps, saying, "When we rebuild, I think we should live in teepees, because they're better in a lot of ways."
Are you in your 20s maybe? At that age a life of bedhopping may seem a wonderful alternative to the ball and chain. Problem is, you will reach a point when you will cease to be desirable unless you are rich (thereby attracting users) or are one of the rare folk whose genetic endowment lets you pretend to be 10 years younger than you are (and even that just prolongs the inevitable). Unless you are ready for celibacy from about 40 on (the exact age varies of course) you need a partner by middle age or you will end up alone. Bedhopping?!? I find it quite amusing that social conservatives who have NO FREAKING IDEA about alternative living arrangements nonetheless are convinced that they CAN'T BE RIGHT even though TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE, at least, live in them and thrive.
I personally can't imagine _not_ wanting an actual relationship; however much fun the physical intercourse might be, wouldn't it be _better_ if it were part and parcel of a loving, at best lifelong relationship? To "agree" to a casual hook-up because the other party doesn't want an actual relationship seems like almost the textbook definition of to 'settle', to me. I doubt most people are that soulless, and I think that as you say, it's because they think that's what society 'expects'. Dilan: I don't think that JonF would self-describe as a social conservative, nor would I. I don't think all premarital sex is necessarily wrong, and I certainly don't disapprove of most forms of birth control, but I do agree with condemning casual bedhopping, and non-monogamous relationships. I must confess that I normally prefer not to think about sperm banks, but I suppose I agree that in my ideal society they would not be allowed. Of course there are people who are not able to make it in monogamous relationships. We are all sinners, after all, and hopefully mercy will be shown us, as we show mercy to each other. But that doesn't make it _right_, or _the moral equivalent of monogamous marriage_, or _the norm._
Shorter Gottlieb: I still haven't figured out the difference between (1) realizing that other people are different from me and that I have to compromise with a non-perfect someone to have a viable long term relationship, vs. (2) "settling" for somebody that I regard as fatally flawed in some way, or maybe even beneath me, but less scary than being alone. Also, the movie-writing guy she went to dinner with and was thinking about seeing again sounds like a self-absorbed jerk.
Good gravy, what an article. "Men suck, and they're all the same, so you might as well marry whoever. If you don't, you'll be alone and miserable - and you'll still be miserable married, but you'll have a kid, whatever that's worth." I find relationship advice from Marvin the robot hard to take seriously.
So much fail. And she got paid to write that? How do I get into that racket? And B - It's simple. In (1) you're a mature adult who can interact with other people as though they're real human beings. In (2) You're a self-absorbed twit who views everyone else as flawed reflections of yourself. See? Easy!
This article has provoked so much carping! One response on this board has referred to Gottlieb's "previous grating, self-absorbed rambling" and another has asked, incredulously, "And she got paid to write that? How do I get into that racket?" Actually, I figure the amount of carping is one measure of the article's success. At least Gottlieb got you to think. You are upset that she didn't provide statistics or studies to back up her assertions? Well I work in economic research and can assure you that there are plenty of numbers and studies out there using flawed data or flawed methodology. I'm just as happy to see an author making an argument based on her own experience (given that she isn't proposing any change in policy or law). It's dangerous to generalize based solely on one's experience, but at least Gottlieb's observations are truthful. I'm a 23-year-old woman and won't be surprised if I never marry. Either way, Gottlieb's article will make up a tiny portion of the information going into this decision. But I'm happy to hear a more experienced person's experiences/reflections.
This article has provoked so much carping! One response on this board has referred to Gottlieb's "previous grating, self-absorbed rambling" That was me. I apologize if it came off as "carping." I was aiming for "dismissive sneering."
Dilan wrote: The real problem with arguments like this is that it assumes that monogamy is the only possible long-term option, and then it's a question of either settling or being lonely. I have a feeling a lot of people might find a lot more happiness in non-monogamous arrangements where different people fulfill different needs. But there's too many moral scolds ready to declare any woman a weirdo and a slut if she goes down that road. This is a little counterintuitive, no? That women would be happier in alternative arrangements but those damned men keeping forcing them to be monogamous? I'm not sure what alternative arrangements you have in mind, but it seems that monogamy benefits women a lot more than men. Generally speaking, women lose their looks much earlier on, make less money (as NOW continues to remind us), and are responsible for more of the nesting and childraising. So it would seem to me that they stand to benefit quite a bit more from the stability and partnership of strict monogamy. Men might benefit from alternative arrangements in some ways (evidenced by the fact that polygamy or whatever, even in the present day, seem to always be 1-man, multiple-women arrangements and that men are still far more likely to have a mistress than women to have a mister(?)) but that doesn't mean it's a good thing, of course. I think it's a little stupid to see marriage as settling for a person - what you're really doing, I think, is settling for marriage, and all the loss-of-freedom and compromising that it entails. Marriage means you have to accept the imperfections of another person, which is a lot tougher than accepting one's own imperfections, and an end to the childish daydreams about getting someone who meets all of your ridiculous and useless (from the point of view of maximizing happiness) criteria. If I listed out all the things I wanted my future wife to be when I was an undergraduate, the same way I would on, say, an online dating site, my present wife would likely not satisfy all of them. But that's totally different from saying that I "settled" for her (as many of you will point out, surely, it was the other way around if anything!). That's a ridiculous assumption. The other thing is that these articles always seem to focus on getting what you want out of a partner or marriage. I think this is a huge mistake and contributes to unsuccesful marriages. We should be thinking about what we can contribute at least as much.
I figure the amount of carping is one measure of the article's success. At least Gottlieb got you to think. I could write an article endorsing the Loose Change view of 9/11, but I don't think the hooting response it would get would be indicative of success. Justifying behavior solely by the amount of attention it attracts should be beyond grown adults. Additionally, after a solid essay, we'd be debating the author's points instead of confining ourselves to "dismissive sneering" or kneejerk defenses of our individual preconceptions regarding the general topic. As is, the author's assertions are so cocooned in her own viewpoint and over-the-top that they're hard to take seriously; there's so little substance that there's nothing to discuss point-by-point. You are upset that she didn't provide statistics or studies to back up her assertions? Well I work in economic research and can assure you that there are plenty of numbers and studies out there using flawed data or flawed methodology. Some studies suck, so all of them suck, and data should be irrelevant. Of course. It's dangerous to generalize based solely on one's experience, but at least Gottlieb's observations are truthful. Begging the question. For a purported writer and economist, you're oddly dismissive of the tools or your trades.
*Of* your trades; I'm sorry. I myself am oddly dismissive of the Preview button.
Although, really the most important feedback on the article: The guy was rude to the waiter on _the first date_? Wake up, woman. He's a DICK. That's all you need to know.
It seems like the writer had a thesis - that it's better to settle for someone who's less than perfect than be alone and loved - but then took it to a ridiculous extreme. if you get a cold shiver down your spine at the thought of embracing a certain guy, but you enjoy his company more than anyone else’s, is that settling or making an adult compromise?Neither - it's just twisted.
How much do men want to feel like their wives are only with them because they couldn't find anyone else and they just got exhausted looking? Actually, I and many of my single male friends would be satisfied with that. Having woman after woman dump you because, "You're not exciting enough," or "You remind me too much of my father," is extremely grinding. Once you're in your 30's, you're not suddenly going to become more exciting or less father-like.
Been there. Done it. -Settled, I mean.
who have NO FREAKING IDEA about alternative living arrangements nonetheless are convinced that they CAN'T BE RIGHT even though TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE, at least, live in them and thrive. Well, Dilan. I haven't lived in such an arrangement, it's true, but I know a reasonable number of people who have. I'm unimpressed. Many things that tens and hundreds of thousands of people do and "thrive" are wicked and wrong (heck, being a scheming ambitious soulless corporate stooge seems to bring about lots of "thriving," alas, as Hector and I agree). First, I don't agree with your notion of thriving -- a badly lived but orgasm-and-money filled life is a damnable thing. Second, there are ways of life that some small number of people find congenial that would be disastrous if urged on others. Indeed, modern inequality is partly the result of the poor and lower middle class taking up the amorous habits of the idle rich, and discovering that money and daddy's chums aren't around to perform a rescue. Some people (myself perhaps included) would "thrive" in the most rapacious pure-market capitalism with no safety net. You might, too. Shall we advocate it as man's true destiny? The minimum wage is a shackle! And so's the safety net!
Marquis, unlike you, I HAVE lived in "such an arrangement," and while I stopped doing so for very good reasons, "wicked and wrong" were not among them. Dilan's not being very specific about what sort of non-monogamy she/he suggests for people like Gottlieb, but the gamut of alternative relationships does not begin and end with "bedhopping." The tens of thousands she/he refers to are not all swingers or bedhoppers, but responsible adults who live their lives with integrity. Dilan allows that "there are ways of life that some small number of people find congenial that would be disastrous if urged on others" in her/his post above that includes the passage "I am not saying that they would work for everyone..." Again, it seems to me that what you are accusing Dilan of advocating and what is actually being advocated are two different things. But, if you're having fun, carry on!
What's funny is that I (honestly) thought this was going to be an article about the GOP base accepting McCain.
What's funny is that I (honestly) thought this was going to be an article about the GOP base accepting McCain. It IS an article about the GOP elites accepting McCain.
What Paolo said. Mention any sort of non-monogamous arrangement and many social conservatives assume that one is talking about swinging and orgies. But in fact there are all sorts of arrangements that can work for people, including in raising children. There are all sorts of things one can do other than "settle", and they don't all involve licentiousness and libertinism. They just involve transgressing on some social norms that really aren't that important anyway.
Dilan Esper writes: "Mention any sort of non-monogamous arrangement and many social conservatives assume that one is talking about swinging and orgies. But in fact there are all sorts of arrangements that can work for people, including in raising children. There are all sorts of things one can do other than "settle", and they don't all involve licentiousness and libertinism. They just involve transgressing on some social norms that really aren't that important anyway." There are even a huge number of delusional idiots who think that history's ideal family consisted of a young woman, her husband, and a child fathered by someone other than that husband. Of course today's conservatives would revile that family and anyone who would suggest that such a family should be respected. And the clock on the wall sounded, Cuckold! Cuckold! Hey, maybe Mary was so hot that Joey didn't mind that she'd hung out with a Roman soldier or twelve... Or Schlomo the camel boy... or...
Some of what she's saying I think might be true. I think marrying someone that you're willing to be "in the trenches with" for life usually is more important than flaming passion. Flaming passion can be kind of fickle. However I don't see that as settling, I just see it as valuing one quality over another. Preferring a love that "goes from cool to warm" over the kind that tends to go "from warm to cool" or downright cold. What's most irritating is she seems to suggest this is universally true for everyone and I find that ridiculous. For one the idea that being unmarried means you're "alone" or "lonely" would only work if you're an only child with poor people skills. I'm not married, but I'm certainly not "alone." I have three sisters, two brothers, 8 nephews, two nieces, and three great-nephews. I also have friends and a additional support system. For another there are women who are quite sincere in not wanting a child or husband. I've known at least three of them and they are as happy, if not happier, than any married woman I've known. These women are rare, men like this are also rare, but I've seen no evidence they're lying or in denial. This is just how they've always felt. In a related note look at all the Buddhist, Taoist, Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican nuns. Maybe some of them are secretly miserable and want a husband, but all of them? I kind of doubt it. Although not currently a monastic I'll admit, at the risk of mockery, that my belief in God also makes me feel less alone. If she'd limited it to "women who have expressed a desire for children and a husband" I might find it closer to valid. Even then the advantage of marriage in terms of health and life-expectancy, in my jaded opinion, is you have someone to drive you to the hospital or assure you take your anti-depressants. So even if you "settle" you should make sure the person is a good driver, dependable, likeable, and has great insurance.
I should also add one thing. I know women who settled "too much" when young, because they wanted to be married and have a baby, then end up with someone with disastrous problems. Not simply "he's allergic to dogs" or "he doesn't have the same test in literature" or even "I'm not sexually attracted to him." More like "he's in and out of prison", "he's a filanderer", "he's addicted to hard drugs", etc.
"So even if you "settle" you should make sure the person is a good driver, dependable, likeable, and has great insurance." I should've added "sane", "nonviolent" and "has no substance abuse problem." Although "dependable" and "likeable" were kind of meant to imply that, it may not clearly do so. Dilan: "I have a feeling a lot of people might find a lot more happiness in non-monogamous arrangements where different people fulfill different needs." Simply to be rational about it the problem is this "feeling" is not really based in any evidence. If you are unhappy with one man why would two be better? It's true one may have a positive quality the other lacks, but they also may have negative qualities that combine in unappealing ways. Or one man and two women; or two women with two men; or an eclectic group thing; or a serialization of men and women. Although there are people who seem to happily live in an open marriage, group marriage, or polygamy most evidence indicates these arrangements are less successful than monogamy. And I'm even meaning in ideal versions of polygamy where the woman's rights are respected and she marries at 18 or later. Even the comparatively simple American system of serial-monogamy, or serial polygamy depending on your perspective, is not necessarily a success. Some people are happier after having a "starter marriage" than a successful second one, but in some cases the costs of the "starter marriage" can be pretty dang high.
Marquis, unlike you, I HAVE lived in "such an arrangement," and while I stopped doing so for very good reasons, "wicked and wrong" were not among them. I never said "bedhopping" -- and I don't presume just that (I don't really know too many folks who bedhop a lot, now that I'm an old man, anyway). I just think the other arrangements are also unimpressive. Sorry -- see, I don't think that "wicked and wrong" only exist when those doing the wicked and wrong things recognize the wickedness and wrongness. Otherwise, I'd be inclined to think that most of the bad behavior of the current administration was fine and dandy.
Thomas R: The evidence is that alternative arrangements are no less successful than traditional marriage. All sorts of relationships break up, including traditional marriage. Worse, some traditional marriages that SHOULD break up don't. So pointing to the fact that some people try alternative arrangements and then don't like them doesn't prove anything. The point is, it depends on what someone's concerns are. If someone is very concerned about living within traditional boundaries, then no, alternative arrangements probably won't work. But if one's main concern is not having to "settle", alternative arrangements can work quite well. The point is that a lot of people, as soon as they hear mention of alternative arrangements, either envision orgies and swinging and bedhopping or simply assume that anything other than a traditional marriage is "immoral" (which just shows you that many people don't know the difference between their cultural preferences and ethics and morality). But if you are going to write about "settling" and why it is a good idea to settle, you HAVE to address that there are ways, good ways, for a woman to avoid having to settle, and many women live happily within such arrangements.
Marquis, a blanket condemnation of a very general description of a lifestyle doesn't really give us all that much to talk about. If you could say what, in particular, you adjudge "wicked and wrong," I'd find it more interesting. I might even agree.
Paolo, I'm a traditionalist Christian -- it shouldn't be terribly hard to figure out what I dislike here. Sexual relationships should be permanent and should be generally linked to who one raises children with. This isn't terribly interesting, because (though observed quite a bit in the breach as well as in the fulfillment -- see the genetic data coming out on rates of "father is not father of record" and such) it is a topic on which much ink has been shed, for centuries. People won't live up to it, any more than they do to the ideals of charity and kindness, honesty and justice -- but abandoning the ideals is a bad thing. Also: The evidence is that alternative arrangements are no less successful than traditional marriage. Oh, really? What evidence? The evidence on raising of children (which tends to vanish from Dilan's universe, in a happy unicorn-like rainbow of abortions I suppose) is mostly negative or simply not there. I'm not sure what other large-scale evidence there is, that's worth anything... There! I've outed myself as a conservative Christian. Good heavens, what will the neighbors think?
anything other than a traditional marriage is "immoral" (which just shows you that many people don't know the difference between their cultural preferences and ethics and morality) Dilan, you know full and well that some of us know this distinction quite well, but don't happen to agree with you about where the lines appear -- though I suppose there is some case to be made that permanent polygamy is not inherently against the natural law. It's dishonest to pretend that the people you're arguing with are just ignorant, or unaware of this distinction, or to pretend that all we're criticizing is bedhopping (though I think you would say that's just fine too, if it floats your boat, you use contraceptives and are careful about disease).
Well, people may have a sentimental ideal about how marriage used to be until one or the other parties died and now it isn't happening and so it's horrible. Check what used to happen: you used to be able to have this "marriage until we die" schtick because chances were pretty high that one or other of the parties would die in war, plagues, or childbirth. Good grief, the average lifespan of a woman in 1900 was around 50 years of age. People are living much longer--I can't help but feel that this, coupled with the changes in society (you don't automatically go into the same business as your father), has had far more of an affect than anyone realises. "Together until we part" now may mean 60 years together. Not surprising if people decide they want something different.
I'm a traditionalist Christian -- it shouldn't be terribly hard to figure out what I dislike here. That's news to me, Marquis... other that as a character from a fairy tale, I don't know a thing about you. While we're talking likes and dislikes, I think that integrity and honesty counts for far more than permanence qua permanence. The idea that people staying together is a good in and of itself I don't find very impressive, any more than the "ideal" of limiting sex to procreation... but it should't have been terribly hard to figure that out, either. In any regard, I get your perspective now.
I think that integrity and honesty counts for far more than permanence qua permanence I think that "integrity" and "honesty" are often modern euphemisms for "when the going gets tough, get packing" or "love is never having to say 'sorry'" or the like. And sure most people live longer -- but, actually, do most divorces take place at the point where one or the other would have died?
Is it me, or are 99% of these books and articles aimed at young, college-educated professionals "on the go"? Do the lower classes have the romance game all figured out, or do publishers just not care about that demographic?
Marquis, To be fair, I don't think we can conclude that the traditional nuclear family is the 'only' or 'best' locus for raising children, _in the abstract._ Certainly it should be defended within the context of modern America, since it is the best alternative that we have- given the nature of our culture, history and society, today, the most likely alternative to having children raised by their mother and father, on a large scale, is having them not be 'raised' particularly well at all. But it's also true that there have been many traditional societies where raising the children was largely the purview of grandparents, more distant relatives, or the society as a whole. You may have many legitimate criticisms of societies like ancient Sparta, Israeli kibbutzes, or 1960's Cuba in which the raising of the children was the responsibility of the collective, but it would be hard to argue that they didn't produce _well adjusted_ children (although obviously they paid a price in terms of freedom). Personally I would like to see the state and society as a whole take a bigger role in the raising of children. People do change over the course of their lives, and while it would be nice to see ever sexual relationship turning into something permanenet and lifelong, I don't think it's necessarily realistic. What I would say is that I don't think people ought to sleep with each other unless they can _envision_ and _hope for_ a future lifelong relationship ideally open to children. And that while Iwouldn't want to force two people in an unhappy relationship to stay together, I don't think it's asking too much to require that you not be involved with more than one person _at the same time_, or not be sexually involved with a person that you're not deeply attachd to. The fact that people change can't be used to justify a sexual relationship with more than one person _at the same time_. In short, I do think there is a vast middle ground between swinging/casual hookups, and the traditionalist ideal of no divorce, no contraception and no premarital sex. I would consider myself somewhere in that middle ground.
I think that "integrity" and "honesty" are often modern euphemisms for "when the going gets tough, get packing" That's a really bizarre - and quite uncharitable - interpretation of my comments. I think they are ideals that are, as you yourself noted, often not lived up to, but certainly worth the attempt. Of course, "traditionalist Christian" is often a modern euphemism for "moralising hypocrite," so I am taken aback but unsurprised.
Re: The correct word is "culturally". There are many societies in this world, and many do not use the model of 2 parent monogamous family units that we do. Unless you are talking about the fact that in many parts of the world extended families are much more a reality than in the US or Europe, then you are wrong. Single partner monogamy is almost universal (albeit, just about everywhere adultery is also a reality). The only significant alternative is polygyny, and even in cultures that accept it, it's generally limited to a tiny fraction of the elite. Re: I find it quite amusing that social conservatives who have NO FREAKING IDEA about alternative living arrangements nonetheless are convinced that they CAN'T BE RIGHT even though TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE, at least Speaking of people who have no idea what they are talking about, you do realize you are addressing a gay guy who supports gay marriage and who despises Dobson, Robertson and the rest of that tribe? Putting me in the category of "social conservative" is an absurdity of highest order. And I've lived long enough to have seen a lot of different arrangements, inclduing some memorable disasters. Perhaps you'd like to hear about my friends whose open relationship collapsed in a welter of drugs, debts, recrimininations and all around high drama? Yes, Dilan, there's a lot of fun to be had in one's youth, and apart from advice to play safe I don't interefere in anyone's the sowing of wild oats. But there comes a point in life when aging and reality intrude and the youthful fun and games either pall or they destroy you. Re: I know women who settled "too much" when young, because they wanted to be married and have a baby, then end up with someone with disastrous problems. Youthful marriages are usually a very bad idea. Of the marriages of my friends where at least one of the pair was under 25, all but one has ended in divorce. Of course I know several post-30 marriages which ended badly too, but they are the exception not the rule. Re: Worse, some traditional marriages that SHOULD break up don't. Unless you are talking about cases of out-and-out abuse, aren't you being just as judgemental there as you accuse others of being? I mean, who are you to say "You don't belong with so-and-so"? Re: Good grief, the average lifespan of a woman in 1900 was around 50 years of age. Careful. Pre 20th century life expectancies are skewed drastically downward by high childhood mortality figures. An adult man or woman in 1900 (or in 500 BC), having survived the perils of childhood, had a higher life expectancy than the figures suggest.
JonF, Well, I think it's fair to say that there are societies in the world where relationships are typically fairly short-term, or where promiscuity is more common or at least more openly accepted than in the West- I seem to recall having read about a number of such tribal societies. I don't know that youthful marriages are _always_ a bad idea; I know a few couples who I would lay heavy wagers against their ever divorcing, who married at 22 or 23. Of course they haven't been married very long, but I'm sure they won't break up based on the personalities of the people involved. Marquis, Just out of curiosity, to what extent would you try to embody your beliefs about divorce, premarital sex and contraception into the law of the land--or leaving legality out of it, what sort of moral sanctions would you enforce?
Hector, whom I rarely agree with (and don't totally here), has gotten the point that his pro-life friends have missed. You can find well-adjusted children who were raised in all sorts of arrangments, and lots of them, and you can find monsters who were raised in traditional (western) families, and lots of them. And a lot of Christian conservatives spend a lot of time assuming that what is actually a relatively recent (younger than the Christian Church, for instance) development in western civilization is actually the only moral means of procreating. So no, I don't particularly have to point to the specific evidence about people raised in something other than a traditional marriage-- it's rather plain to see once one stops thinking locally and starts thinking globally. Though I would also tell Marquis and JonF that there are plenty of well adjusted children in the US who have been raised by extended familes, group marriages, communes, and all sorts of other arrangements, or by parents who don't have sex with each other but have sexual relationships with other people. And I am just scratching the surface here. There are all sorts of arrangements out there, and many of them bear on the question of whether a woman has to "settle". Just because religious zealots mistake cultural presumptions for moral beliefs (and yes, Marquis, you are doing that here) doesn't mean that these arrangements may not be the best alternatives for women who don't wish to settle.
Re: I don't know that youthful marriages are _always_ a bad idea Nor did I say that. However the odds for youthful marriages in our time and culture are not good. Dilan: The number of these "alternate arrangements" is statistically negligible, though I did not mean to imply that they did not exist. For the vast majority of people, pair-bonding (whether for the life or sequentially) remains the only viable option. That some tiny sliver of humanity can function celibate, communal celibate (monastics), or in complex multi-relationships should not imply that all people can or should.
Hector, Wait! I'm not arguing against the extended family being more involved in raising children, by any means. I am all for that. However, that "the village" (which we razed a long time ago) or the grandparents/uncles/cousins (and the church) raise kids doesn't really change the nature of the sexual relationships that I'm discussing here. Extended family and community life aren't alternatives to monogamous marriage, they're (in my view) generally supports for it. Husbands and wives might grow slightly less irritated at each other if they weren't little isolates, a two+N either both working all the time and trusting strangers, with whom they have no bonds of blood or deep love, to raise the kids -- or isolates where one stays home and, without much of a community in most cases, tries to do much of that work. I see JonF already made this point.
Paolo, That's a really bizarre - and quite uncharitable - interpretation of my comments. I think they are ideals that are, as you yourself noted, often not lived up to, but certainly worth the attempt. My apologies -- I don't mean that you're using the words that way. I have no idea how you live your life, or how you aspire to -- I just mean that I think many of the people who burble on about these words most are in fact hedonists with a code of "don't get disapproved" and little concern for the feelings of others -- seekers of "self-fulfillment," that demon. Just as many friends of "the family" and morality are hypocrites, at least the politicians.
Just because religious zealots mistake cultural presumptions for moral beliefs (and yes, Marquis, you are doing that here) Come on, Dilan. You know quite well that I wasn't opposed extended family, which is silly to include here as it doesn't change the sexual bonds involved -- but I simply disagree that the societies with either expected impermanence of relations (which are, in general, few or "special", prior to modern life) or multiplicty of ideally-permanent bonds raise children as well -- or serve human needs as well. This isn't a cultural belief, purely (which, say, how extended family should function might be) -- it is, for Christians, a moral belief, with authoritative teaching in revelation and a considerably body of theology. To simply say we're "confused" about our own moral framework is arrogant. YOU may think that we're wrong and these are only cultural presumptions, but I'm not sure quite how that is diffrentiated from you granting that they are moral beliefs, if (in your view) wrong ones. I assume you argue for confusion rather than incorrect morals because it helps you avoid making an actual argument against them, in any context I would buy -- victory for cheap, by way of turning a moral question into one of (pseudo-)sociology!
What is really horrifying about this article is how mercenary it is. She wishes she had married some guy she didn't love for the free babysitting and the income boost. I think a better reason not to marry some guy you don't really love is that it is cruel. Any guy who is good enough to settle for is good enough to deserve to be married to someone who actually likes him. I think this author's single status may have less to do with being too picky, and more to do with not being empathetic towards others. A little empathy and kindness goes a long way towards making a relationship work.
Just out of curiosity, to what extent would you try to embody your beliefs about divorce, premarital sex and contraception into the law of the land--or leaving legality out of it, what sort of moral sanctions would you enforce? Hector: I would tend to oppose no-fault divorce, and have no opposition to civil divorce in cases of cruelty, abandonment, adultery and some other cases -- the Catholic church would operate as it does (with perhaps more charity and less political influence, when granting annulments), roughly, but that's not the guiding light for civil law. Premarital sex? Nothing legal -- it's been happening for as long as man's been around, and will go on happening. I don't see it much as a place where the law can help, certainly not in our context. Contraception? Again, I wouldn't really change the law. If there was good scientific reason to believe a contraceptive working as an abortifacent, I'd outlaw it, but not otherwise. Few Christians live up to this teaching, which is genuinely hard in our context (as Benedict has noted), and there's no way it would be sensible to enforce anything here by law, and there's no grave injustice involved. I wouldn't force pharmacists or insurance companies to cover it, and if Ave Maria Town wants to ban it locally, no problem, but I wouldn't push for state or national laws at all, even if I were in charge. Moral sanctions? On divorce, I think there should be considerably more anger and stigma at those who clearly leave for "self fulfillment" and that alpha males dumping the long-term wife for younger blood should generally be loathed, ridiculed, and looked on as creeps more than they are. For premarital sex, my big change would be to see what could be done about a less sex-drenched culture. Burn the televisions, blow up the internet, and round Madison Ave. into a labor camp, you know, that kind of modest proposal. There's not a lot, realistically, to be done on contraception -- preach the teachings more to the faithful, but to be honest many priests are either conflicted or (if not) incapable of sounding like anything but either Pollyannas or tape recorders on the topic.
Marquis, I wouldn't much quibble with most of those proposals. I don't know that I would really want to _ban_ no-fault divorce....when a couple really hates each other, then I'm not sure I see the value in forcing them to stay together. Make it more difficult, sure- perhaps more time consuming and more expensive, perhaps. A less sex drenched culture would be nice, and i wouldn't object to some measures to get there, but I doubt it will do much to reduce the 95% of Americans who engage in premarital sex. As for contraception, I don't think time is on your side- I think that someday in the next century the Church will eventually come to accept some forms of contraception, like the Orthodox have already done.
Extended family and community life aren't alternatives to monogamous marriage, they're (in my view) generally supports for it. What you don't understand, though, is that once you concede that we can separate child rearing and sex in this way, it's pretty clear that it can be sliced and diced in other ways too. As it is in many cultures, as it has been for many people in Western culture, and as it is now in Western culture by many people who religious conservatives consider immoral. The number of these "alternate arrangements" is statistically negligible I would bet, JonF, that the number of children being raised by their two biological parents are a minority in the United States. it is, for Christians, a moral belief, with authoritative teaching in revelation and a considerably body of theology. To simply say we're "confused" about our own moral framework is arrogant. Marquis, you ARE confused. This stuff either wasn't taught or wasn't considered very important at the time of Jesus. It's much more recent. And the model of the traditional 2 parent family that Catholic and conservative protestant churches now teach as God's ideal, supported by revelation, is simply a far more recent cultural development. Families and sexual practices were very very different 2000 years ago. What happened is that the Catholic Church decided, for various reasons over time, to endorse claims about the traditional family that went far beyond (and in some cases contradicted) what is reflected in the New Testament. And then they do what all churches do when they want people to obey-- they lied their butts off and claimed in came from God. In any event, that's neither here nor there. The point is that our modern culture says that all sorts of things that would actually work for some women are unacceptable, and today's religious conservatives who want to keep it that way ascribe those cultural presumptions to God. And as a result, millions of women who might be happier in other arrangements live unhappy lives. Some morality!
Dilan, "wasn't considered very important"? It's nice how non-Christians (who don't seem terribly well versed in early church history as far as I can tell) go around stating which parts of church teaching were normative and which weren't, when. The two parent family as raising children without extended family help, the Ozzie-and-Harriet/June-and-Ward model is certainly recent, and I have no great love for it -- but monogamous sexual relations were fairly normative at Jesus' time. Polygamy had largely vanished, in the Jewish practice of the time, and was fairly frowned iirc; Jesus' innovation, important enough to get Gospel mention (and cause some scandal) was to A) refer one-man-one-wife back to Genesis itself as a permanently normative concept and B) to reject divorce. Now, maybe it "wasn't important" but I'm not sure anyone elected you to determine which teachings of Christ Christians should or should not pay attention to, buddy.
What happened is that the Catholic Church decided, for various reasons over time, to endorse claims about the traditional family that went far beyond (and in some cases contradicted) what is reflected in the New Testament. How about backing this up, rather than asserting it? I'll grant that the teaching on contraception is hardly evident from the NT, but monogamous permanent pair-bonding is not a novel concept, and certainly doesn't contradict the NT, and that's what we're talking about here. Families and sexual practices were very very different 2000 years ago. I claim that normative Jewish practice at the time (from what I've read) was pretty much monogamous pair-mating. With some divorce, which Jesus wished to further restrict. I'm curious what actual historical sources you have to oppose that. If you mean people slept with their fiancees on occasion, or that some folks had adulterous affairs (generally morally disapproved), grow up. That's not evidence of a different normative teaching, it's evidence that people were people, just like they are now.
To elaborate a bit -- Herod and other "high-ups" did commonly practice polygamy around Jesus' time, there's good documentation. But it looks like rabbinical trends were to condemn it (some schools outright disallowed it) and if memory serves it was not common (or approved) practice among the non-aristocracy, and certainly not among rabbis.
And, of course, unless there's some strong evidence I'm missing, the moral law of the Jews with respect to non-marital sex were not terribly different than, er, what the catechism would say today. No?
Marquis, I think what Dilan might be referring to (in his usual muddled way) is that 1) sexual dalliances were fairly accepted (at least for men) in early medieval Europe- I believe Charlemagne had more than one wife, didn't he?- and also that 2) the cult of romantic love was absent up until the Middle Ages. Contra Dilan, this wasn't in fact because the Church taught anything different from what they do today, rather it was because 1) the Church, well into the early medieval period, was less powerful than it later became and was less able to impose its teachings on society, 2) Northern Europe was not fully Christianized until the end of the first millenium and it took some time for the customs of old Germanic law to pass away, and 3) the cult of romantic love _grew out of_ the early Christian morality and was a deepening and innovation, not a fundamental change. How about that, Dilan- were you aware that romantic love as we understand it today basically originated once, in medieval Christian europe, under the influence of Christianity. It certainly didn't develop in the polygamous cultures of Islam or Africa, for reasons that don't seem unclear. Indeed, I would venture to guess that romantic love is of its nature incompatible with polygamy, so it is no accident that the Muslim world never developed that conception.
I hope Dilan isn't just referring to the fact that men behaving badly was socially accepted in many many cases, and women, in some cases, in dissolute aristocracy. If so, he's the one mixing moral teaching and cultural behavior, in a rather silly way. I really don't know, with respect to the _teachings_ what major elements (you can argue about contraception and such, but that's not the core stuff here) have changed in Christian sexual morality since the time of Jesus. And even the teaching there was a restriction and modification of Jewish teaching, in many ways. Sure, ways of life and how we live in family has changed a lot -- but that's a different matter. It's rather like saying that because the nature and impact of violence has changed dramatically through the centuries it is silly to pretend there has been a consistent normative opposition to murder. In some ways, I find the cult of romantic love problematic, as you know. My wife and I have somewhat romantic temperaments, but in general it produces ludicrous expectations in us all, if taken to extremes.
Marquis, No doubt Jesus did condemn divorce, without reservation, as well as (by implication) premarital sex- as far as I know He didn't say anything about contraception. Where I would disagree with the Catholic position on divorce is this- Jesus made a lot of stringent demands that Christianity has traditionally recognized as not being possible for everyone to fulfil. I mean, Jesus told us to give up _all_ our wealth and follow Him, and to turn the other cheek, etc. That's the _ideal_ but few people, the occasional Tolstoy excepted, have argued that this makes _all_ property and _all_ use of force illegitimate. It's not clear to me whether Jesus was saying that this was the ideal that we should all strive to follow (lifelong marriage), or whether it was an absolute rule that we should all be _required_ to follow at the risk of our immortal soul. In the spirit of charity, I think I would go with the Anglican / Orthodox position on this and conclude that there are some cases in which divorce is the best of a bad set of options. As for premarital sex, it's also not clear to me whether that was applicable to all people at all times or to a particular social context in which an unmarried pregnancy could ruin a girl's life. I'm sure that lifelong marriage is the _ideal_, but I don't think that God necessarily disapproves of all premarital liaisons.
Huh. You learn something every day. I had no idea the Orthodox had (at least a quick google suggests) this different an approach from the Roman Catholic church. Though I can't tell if the circumstances that get you an ecclesiastical divorce there are radically different from conditions under which you'll usually get an annulment. It looks more stringent than the Anglican position, certainly. Hector, I think wondering if the teaching was only about pregnancy ruining lives takes far too utilitarian a POV -- sexual relations are, in Christian understanding, clearly of a sacred nature -- see Paul's comments on both the body of Christ and how this related to prostitution. I think it's hard not to presume God is merciful, given that we are all weak, but I don't see much good theological ground for wondering if pre-marital sex is ok, that doesn't generally incline towards dissolution of all Christian moral teaching except a generalized "be nice."
Well of course you don't see good theological ground. Presumably, you're a Catholic because the Catholic teachings make sense to you. Not all of the Catholic teachings make sense to me, that's why I'm not a Catholic. I would agree that sexual relations ought to be of a sacred nature and involve spiritual bonding, but I'm not convinced that kind of connection can only happen once in your life, nor am I convinced that if two adult people are in a long term and committed relationship, and love each other as much as as most husbands and wives, that they should not be allowed to engage in sexual relations. I would disagree with you about the disollution of Christian moral teaching. Except for a few vulgarians like Dilan, I think most people can tell the difference between loving, committed, monogamous premarital relationships, and prostitution/swinging/casual sex.
In fact, Marquis, I do claim that practice is more important than teaching, for some of the reasons Hector sets out (strange to be (slightly) allied with him here). Obviously, much of what Jesus taught, if one accepts the Gospels' account, was hortatory. And I am not belittling it by saying that-- I am just saying that it seems selective to draw a bright line with respect to hortatory teachings about sex and marriage when one doesn't draw that bright line with respect to so many of Jesus' other teachings. And I would suggest to you that the reason the lines get drawn where they do is cultural, not moral. And I also claim that what we now call the "traditional" family was a product of, yes, Christian teachings well into the second millenium. But the implication of this is that obviously for 1500 or so years Christians didn't think that this was mandated by Christianity. That seems to me to give it a very thin claim as being the actual word of God (as opposed to being the word of some humans that lived over a thousand years after Jesus), even if one works within the Christian tradition. Bottom line, though, is that you guys keep on portraying it as if I am a "vulgarian" who is advocating orgies for everyone. That's a nice straw man, but what I actually said is that there are all sorts of different types of living arrangements that may work better for women who don't want to settle. The truth is, in a sense, I appreciate Marquis' advocacy because he takes some of these things to their logical conclusion-- the condemnation of romantic love being a nice example. Us "vulgarians" leave room in our philosophy for romantic love. We also leave room for sexual satisfaction, and for finding arrangements that work for each of us. What you call vulgar makes a lot more sense than the rules handed down from very different societies (which didn't even follow them).
Umm... 1) the "Courts of Romantic Love" and all that was considered to have been brought back by the Crusaders from the Mideast and then adapted further. 2) The idea of property actually not existing for individuals and the Pope owning everything in the world was argued by quite a few medieval commentators. See Giles of Rome.
Dilan:"The evidence is that alternative arrangements are no less successful than traditional marriage." Umm no. I really doubt you can show this as the evidence just is not there. Even in societies that allow alternate arrangements these are usually done by only a small minority of people and abuse or instability is at least somewhat more common. Now many of those societies nevertheless consider these arrangements "a success" because instability is simply seen as part of it or because the gain in sexual experience or status is seen as counterbalancing any cost. However "no less successful" in any normal sense of the word is just not happening. Still if it helps you to believe otherwise that's fine.
It seems obvious that the "traditionalists" here are ignoring the high failure rate of their "successful" traditional marriages. It's also true that being religious doesn't make one more likely to have a successful marriage. Divorce rates in the Buybull Belt are much higher than they are in more secular areas of the country. So much so that the phrase "just another divorced fundamentalist" is a punch line we rationalists get many, many opportunities to use.
"either envision orgies and swinging and bedhopping or simply assume that anything other than a traditional marriage is "immoral"" No I'm thinking of various forms of polygamy, open marriage, and group marriage. In specific those practiced by many cultures or communes in history. Going by that I'm still aware that One: There is what economists might call "opportunity cost." By dividing your time between two or more you are spending less time with any individual. Resentment can follow and any attachments might be weaker. It is not unusual for one spouse to be "favored" and the other to become almost like a semi-servile concubine. In open marriage there is the possibility of similar happening as the spouse, or both spouses, develop other attachments that may threaten their main one. Group and complex-marriage dynamics are different, but similar difficulties can arise. The Oneida Commune was a relatively successful attempt at this that maintained the system for 31 years and only abandoned it due to external pressure. However abuses were not uncommon. Higher status elder males often got what women they wanted more than lower-status males. Statutory rape also occurred. Although quite different statutory rape and sexual abuse is also linked to the free-love "Children of God" aka "Family of Love." Two: Child-rearing and pair-bonding. In animal species when the young are born relatively weak a "pair bond" forms so the offspring can be protected to maturity. Even if this bond is temporary, say 5-6 years or up to when infancy ends, it tends to exist. Put more normally most people develop a strong attachment, whether it be passionate or kindredish, to an individual not a duo or collective. Non-traditional arrangements are therefore unsatisfying for most people. They also tend to be more unstable in child-rearing. Three: STDs. If one member of the group gets an STD it can spread to all. This is an issue in parts of Africa. If one spouse gets an STD from cheating, unless s/he cheats with multiple people, only one other person is at risk. Four: Group dynamics. In a group of people you are dealing with far more variables and their interactions. To think that maintaining this is the same or just as likely to succeed is bordering on an extraordinary claim and the proof is just not there. I'm not denying he existence of rare people who can make this work, but it's certainly not even an answer to most unmarried and lonely people.
Umm no. I really doubt you can show this as the evidence just is not there. Thomas, read my 2/11 2:03 a.m. post, and Moe's 2/11 6:18 p.m. post. The evidence is pretty clear, once you think more broadly than orgies and bedhopping. Huge numbers of children are raised in alternative arrangements all over the world. The nuclear family is far from the manner in which the majority of children are raised.
"Divorce rates in the Buybull Belt are much higher than they are in more secular areas of the country." Evangelical Protestantism allows or even encourages a cycle of "wild/saved" periods in one's life. That instability can lead to temporary marriages. Nevertheless the divorce rate in Georgia is low while their church-going rate is in the top-ten. http://www.statemaster.com/graph/lif_div_rat-lifestyle-divorce-rate Going by religion the divorce rates among church-going Catholics and Lutherans is low. The Bible Belt has comparatively few Catholics and Lutherans. However if you'll check the "Lutheran belt" of Minnesota and the Dakotas has one of the lowest divorce rates. The church-going rate in Nebraska is also quite high while their divorce rate is below US average.
Thomas: You are holding out large communal marriages as the standard for all alternative arrangements. (Also, some of your points about even large communal marriages are wrong, but I don't think I need to get deep in the weeds here.) Bear in mind, an alternative arrangement can be nothing more than an agreement to have sex with someone other than the person you are raising your child with. There are all sorts of different arrangements. And your generalizations don't apply to all of them. Further, one can also generalize about traditional marriage. For instance, one can argue that just as people will "inevitably" get jealous in a group marriage, people will "inevitably" get bored with sex with one person in a traditional marriage. It's just as valid. The fact is you are simply stacking the deck, ignoring all the things that make traditional marriage an absolutely awful arrangement for many people while playing up the problems with one particular other type of arrangement. That's a completely stacked comparison.
However if you'll check the "Lutheran belt" of Minnesota and the Dakotas has one of the lowest divorce rates. The church-going rate in Nebraska is also quite high while their divorce rate is below US average. Yeah, but Lutheranism is considered a pretty liberal form of American Christianity, especially compared to Southern fudamentalism. They certainly haven't been pushing the covenant marriages and marriage protection amendments that the Southern white churches have. I think Moe's point was that the members of the churches that are most likely to be pushing the "protect marriage" BS and opposing deviations from that principle are also the churches whose pews are most likely to be filled with divorcees whose marriages fell apart. The truth is-- and religious conservatives will never accept this, but it IS true-- that the more constraints you put on yourself based on what constitutes a "moral" sex life, the harder it is to get your relationships to work within the constraints. (This does NOT, by the way, apply to constraints that one places in order to please a partner. Rather, it simply deals with sexual morality coming in. Nor does it say that all constraints are invalid-- I would hope people recognize constraints against such things as bestiality and pedophilia.) If you want to find a happy arrangement, having a bunch of preconceived notions that various non-harmful arrangements between consenting adults are per se impermissible makes it much less likely that you will find that happy arrangement. And then, you end up deciding whether to "settle". Thanks, Christian conservatives, for ruining so many people's lives.
"The evidence is pretty clear, once you think more broadly than orgies and bedhopping" Which I do. I've been reading anthropology and history since I was 11. You're evidence is mostly just assertions, which I can refute with only a little energy. (Maybe more than I wish to expend at the moment though) I can show a large number of monagamous marriages that are successful and lasted more than 70 years. I'm skeptical you could do the same with any system of complex marriage or polygamy. And even in societies that have polygamy the arrangement is rare among the general populace. I don't ever intend to even get married, but what you're suggesting just doesn't fit reality. The countries with the lowest divorce-per-hundred marriages are highly traditional non-Protestant like Greece, Poland, and Mexico. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_div_per_100_mar-people-divorces-per-100-marriages In the Islamic world divorce is easy for a man while in polyandrous societies the woman lives as a virtual slave.
"That's a completely stacked comparison." Dilan Yes when history and empirical facts are stacked against you it can be annoying. "Yeah, but Lutheranism is considered a pretty liberal form of American Christianity, especially compared to Southern fudamentalism." Perhaps you're unaware that the Dakotas are highly Republican and that the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod or the Wisconsin Lutheran Synod are both Biblically literalist.
And besides which even if all Lutheranism somehow were liberal this does not explain the low divorce rates in Georgia or the 20% below US average rate in South Carolina.
I can show a large number of monagamous marriages that are successful and lasted more than 70 years. I'm skeptical you could do the same with any system of complex marriage or polygamy. So, because maybe .01 percent of all traditional marriages (and no, I don't buy that they were monogamous) last 70 years, that proves that the institution is superior to alternative forms? And besides which even if all Lutheranism somehow were liberal this does not explain the low divorce rates in Georgia or the 20% below US average rate in South Carolina. There may be some explanation for Georgia, but as Moe noted, the rest of the Bible Belt is Divorce Central.
There's no doubt that there's plenty of truth in some of what Dilan and Moe are saying here - namely, if we Christians (without getting into subdivisions or denominations) want to strengthen marriage, what we should really be focusing on, rather than denigrating gay relationships, premarital sex, et cetera, is simple: making our marriages stronger. Christians as a whole don't exhibit lower divorce rates than other groups, that's true, but I wonder whether that statistic is useful when it doesn't control for the other factors in how successful marriages are. What I mean to say is that, I would never argue that adopting a particular set of religious beliefs alone would result in a healthier marriage or one more likely to succeed, by whatever measure you wanted to use. But what does lead to a healthier marriage is the essential truth found in more than one religion and quite often in those with no religion at all: we are imperfect, but possessed of something essentially greater than the sum of our genes and imperfections -- if we can show just a fraction of God's grace to our husbands/wives and focus just a little bit on what we can contribute to a marriage instead of just what we can get out of it, our marriages WILL be stronger and happier and our children will be better off for it. I'm of the opinion that the Catholic Church's teachings on love, marriage, and sex, while admittedly quite imperfect, on the whole, provide the most fertile ground on which to grow a marriage and a family. But I'm a Catholic (though of course not for that reason) so I don't expect others to share my opinion necessarily. I don't see no-fault divorce, sex-obsessed culture, or rampant adultery as problems themselves (surely people who hate each other should not be forced to remain together), but symptoms of a much deeper problem - we are glorifying the exact opposites of the things we should be building our families and marriages around -- lust, selfishness, immediate gratification. We are battling over the symptoms while we ignore the disease. But I think the rub is that everyone knows it, not just us Catholics. I can look at it and say "this is exactly the opposite of what my beliefs say love and marriage should be about," but a Jew, a Buddhist, a Muslim, an Evangelical, a Native American with traditionalist beliefs, a secular atheist liberal, a Hindu, they'd all say the exact same thing. So I'm wary of exceptionalism with regard to the issue, even though at base I believe my religion's take on the issue is exceptional. Let's face it, marriage was not at its strongest point when the Church was at the apex of its influence. That's why I think these "alternative arrangements" or whatever are essentially a great lie - they try to convince us that the problem is cultural and everyone would be happier if we gave up on strict monogamy, when in fact abandoning loose sexual bonds and separate male-female heirarchies was one of the prime forces in the human ascent from its common chimp-human ancestor and its meteoric rise from other primates. This kind of argument tells us to abandon everything that almost every culture and religion have to teach us about ourselves and how to elevate our race even higher. Sorry for what is clearly a bit of a rant.
Dilan: I was not referring to how children are raised (where there is and always has been enormous variation: adoption, fostering, single parenting, step-parenting, grandparenting, etc.) but to actual relationships. Ask any non-celibate person what sort of relationship s/he is in or wishes to be in and in all but a statistically tiny number of cases s/he will give you some sort of pair-bond as an answer. Even in my demographic, which is a bit more adventurious than yours, this is true. My friends who had the open relationhsip that collapsed nevertheless presented themselves (and saw themselves) as a couple; their other sexual partners had no role in their lives except as passing fun. Out of six billion humans (or even 300 million Americans) I'm sure you can find some small number that will experiment, even happily, with plural marriage and the like but coupling, even if just temporary or serial coupling, is the overwhleming and instinctual romantic goal of homo sapiens. Re: the "Courts of Romantic Love" and all that was considered to have been brought back by the Crusaders from the Mideast and then adapted further. Given Islamic polygamy and misogyny this is wildly unlikely. Unless maybe you think the Byzantines came up with the notion? Re: The idea of property actually not existing for individuals and the Pope owning everything in the world was argued by quite a few medieval commentators. Replace "pope" by "God" and you have the basis for medieval communism (small "c") which was indeed argued by radicals, heretics, and some reformist monks. Re: It seems obvious that the "traditionalists" here are ignoring the high failure rate of their "successful" traditional marriages. A true traditionalist would not be overly troubled since divorce is an ancient tradition too. Re: In animal species when the young are born relatively weak a "pair bond" forms so the offspring can be protected to maturity. This varies enormously across species! In housecats the toms are kept completely away from the kittens (and have no interest anyway in their mothers when they are not in heat). At the opposite extreme are animals that mate for life. And still others where an aplha male collects a harem. No lessons can be drawn from the animal kingdom in this matter. Re: If you want to find a happy arrangement, having a bunch of preconceived notions that various non-harmful arrangements between consenting adults are per se impermissible makes it much less likely that you will find that happy arrangement. This is only true if you're inclined in some direction and have to repress those desires with shame and guilt. Most people have no such inclinations (though they may of course occasionally lust after others to whom they are not married; but that's just lust.) Re: Perhaps you're unaware that the Dakotas are highly Republican and that the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod or the Wisconsin Lutheran Synod are both Biblically literalist. I cannot credit that the term "Biblical literalist" can be used of any Lutheran body. "Traditionalist" would be more accurate, in much the same manner that the Catholic aned Orthodox Churches are traditionalist while allowing for (even demanding) non-literal interpretations of the Bible.
Dilan, The divorce rates in Northeastern states are lower because the marriage rates are lower. Once you correct for lower marriage rates, the _fraction of marriages_ that end in divorce is statistically about the same in New England and in the South- 50%. Please don't assume that such monogamous marriages were not in fact monogamous. Thank the Lord, not everyone is as cynicall as you, or as obsessively in the quest for the perfect orgasm. There have been societies which were somewhat more lax about divorce and premarital sex, and substantially less insistent on permanent marriage than the traditional Catholic ideal. Some of them, like the Israeli kibbutzes, the South Pacific islands, modern Sweden or Cuba, raised quite well adjusted children. None of them, however, encouraged the pursuit of more than one partner at a time, group marriage, 'swinging', or casual sex like the kind of ideal you are pushing. Spend some time in a society where promiscuous sex is culturally accepted. I have. Then think about what historic Christian civilization uniquely contributed to our understanding of love, marriage and sexuality. Whether or not you agree with all of its conclusions (and I don't agree with much of the 'traditional' understanding) you should at least see the value of what it was trying to achieve. Abandoning the minimal requirement of _one partner at a time_ and no _casual_ sex would be to court disaster and great unhappiness for most people.
Dilan: I was not referring to how children are raised (where there is and always has been enormous variation: adoption, fostering, single parenting, step-parenting, grandparenting, etc.) but to actual relationships. I think it is silly to assume that childrearing is going to be permanently affected by whether the people who are raising the child are having sex with each other, having sex with other people, or not having sex at all. And once you realize that who the parents are having sex with doesn't really determine how the child is going to be raised, then there's no reason to hold onto these quaint notions that only the traditional family works. Please don't assume that such monogamous marriages were not in fact monogamous. Thank the Lord, not everyone is as cynicall as you, or as obsessively in the quest for the perfect orgasm. Hector, look at some sex surveys sometime. VERY FEW long marriages have no cheating. And that assumes that everyone who cheats tells the truth to the surveyors. And you shouldn't reduce cheating to the quest for the perfect orgasm. People cheat for all sorts of reasons. The point is, you can obsess about who people are having sex with. Or you can let people form whatever arrangements work for them.
I think it is silly to assume that childrearing is going to be permanently affected by whether the people who are raising the child are having sex with each other, having sex with other people, or not having sex at all. Given that sex is pretty important stuff in most of our lives, I think it would be silly to assume otherwise. But perhaps you progressives are more eunuchs than we traditionalists? Hector, look at some sex surveys sometime. VERY FEW long marriages have no cheating. And that assumes that everyone who cheats tells the truth to the surveyors. Hmm? I don't recall that being the case, unless you look to rather oddball data, like Kinsey. Particularly when you take the other factor -- that sexually conservative folks are less likely to be willing to answer questions at all -- into account. Again, Dilan is long on claims and short on any actual data or references.
Hector writes: "The divorce rates in Northeastern states are lower because the marriage rates are lower. Once you correct for lower marriage rates, the _fraction of marriages_ that end in divorce is statistically about the same in New England and in the South- 50%." Um... no. That's simply stupid. The rate isn't based on population, it's simply the percentage of marriages that end up in divorce. It's DIVORCES PER 100 MARRIAGES. You're doing very poorly in the argument area these past few days, Hector - are you suffering from migraines?
Some evidence suggests that gay marriages have lower divorce rates than heterosexual ones. If this proves to be the case perhaps traditionalists will someday agree that priests should be able to marry each other... http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:XEIRW7loHVAJ:health.yahoo.com/relationships-couple/lessons-from-gay-marriages/pt--Psychology_Today_articles_pto-19970501-000017.html+%22divorce+rate%22+%22+gay+marriages%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us Okay, that was a cheap aside. But evidently gays are more suited for successful marriages than, say, fundamentalists are.
Moe, Oh, no. The divorce rates are based on population. I looked up several tables including the Statistical Abstract of the US. The methodology is always per 1,000 population, not per number of marriages. And gay relationships, with many honorable exceptions, do tend to be less long lived than straight ones, for what I would think are basic structural reasons. The fate of the famous Goodridge couple who brought gay marriage to Massachusetts are no exception. Dilan,
"namely, if we Christians (without getting into subdivisions or denominations) want to strengthen marriage" I'm not wanting this to be solely a religious issue. Oneida and the early Mormons considered themselves Christians, The Druze practice monogamy as do many atheists. As well as some Neo-Pagans, non-religious lesbians, and others. I'm contending monogamy is usually preferrable regardless. Although as a rule it's more preferrable if it is supported by a tradition or culture that nurtures it. Thus far I've primarily mentioned Catholics, Lutheran and Eastern Orthodox as that tradition. However there are several non-Christian traditions that in principle could do as well as on this issue. For example some forms of Confucianism that emphasize stability and monogamy. As well as the aforementioned Druze. Or for that matter I see no reason a non-theist humanist philosophy couldn't do it. "I cannot credit that the term 'Biblical literalist' can be used of any Lutheran body." I did make an error on that. I should've said "Biblical inerrancy" rather than "Biblical literalism." There is an important and notable difference. Catholicism also teaches Biblical inerrancy, of a kind, although unlike Lutheranism it is not Sola Scriptura. Here's a relevant LCMS passage. The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod's description sounds closer to literalism. http://www.wels.net/cgi-bin/site.pl?1518&cuTopic_topicID=39&cuItem_itemID=12772
I was responding to two different people there, but forgot to indicate that "namely, if we Christians (without getting into subdivisions or denominations) want to strengthen marriage" is hugo I think. "I cannot credit that the term 'Biblical literalist' can be used of any Lutheran body." I believe is JonF
Hector, even if you're right about the statistical basis, your claim that the rates even out if you account for higher percentages of married people doesn't seem right. You certainly haven't supported it in any way. As for your bizarre use of one marriage to try to point out that gay marriages are unstable, I'll let your past anti-gay bigotry explain that. One marriage doesn't illustrate jackshit. As more and more enlightened nations allow these marriages we'll have more data, but what we have now certainly doesn't suggest that gays are more likely to divorce than Bubba and Cindy Lou Snakehandler are. It suggests the reverse.
Well, I think the data on gay marriage is simply too scarce and abnormal (it's only, generally, very determined gays -- and there's little institutional history to bring in mere default marriages). We'll see in twenty years or so, I'd wager. For one thing, gay marriage simply hasn't been around long enough for good "seven-year-itch" data to be in. The Bible Belt is mostly explicable in terms of earlier marriages -- I'm curious. Is Hector correct? Is this always per population, not per marriage? If so, that's annoying because it makes the data hard to compare reasonably. There must be adjusted data out there. More generally, I think there's more than just religion at work here -- the Bible Belt has more to it than the Bible. That social conservatives there clamor for "help" more while people with (sometimes) more socially conservative lives on average don't isn't surprising. The people who feel under siege are generally those who see a social scene collapsing, not those who see stability. High crime rates can produce anxious law and order types, and high divorce rates can produce anxious social conservatives where others might be inclined to live and let live.
TMoC replies: "The Bible Belt is mostly explicable in terms of earlier marriages -- I'm curious. Is Hector correct? Is this always per population, not per marriage? If so, that's annoying because it makes the data hard to compare reasonably. There must be adjusted data out there." This argument undercuts every previous one you've made. It suggests that even you think there's something wrong with the lifetime monogamy model if "early marriages" are problematical for you. And since the divorce rates are doubled in most of the Buybull Belt states compared to the DEN OF SIN that is Massachusetts, only a mathematical moron could suggest that things would even out due to higher marriage rates. Is Hector saying twice as many people in Oklahoma are married per thousand? What is he saying, exactly? None of it seems to be supported by anything except wishful thinking.
"It suggests that even you think there's something wrong with the lifetime monogamy model if "early marriages" are problematical for you." MLAJ on TMoC. A response from TRCHIHAURU I'm not sure I agree with all his points, but I'm not sure why you think his statement on early marriage would suggest this. If you believe in lifetime monogamy as ideal that doesn't mean you believe every marriage situation will automatically produce it. I think what he means is that people who get married too early may not be discerning enough to pick the partner they will successfully spend a lifetime with. Usually societies that believe in lifetime monogamy have a period of instruction and consideration. The one's that have teen marriages that last for life have a vetting process by elders and or matchmakers. I don't know of many that think a 15-year-old choosing their own spouse is no different than any other age doing so and will produce a lifetime bond. You're statement is almost like saying that as Catholics no longer believe in letting teenagers become priests we don't have faith that anyone can be a priest. Possibly you simply didn't understand what he meant.
Re: The divorce rates in Northeastern states are lower because the marriage rates are lower. Which in turn is true because the population is older, hence cycling back to my point that older marriages are less likley to end in divorce Re: VERY FEW long marriages have no cheating. Nope. The stats do show that adultery is more common than is generally assumed. The figure I have seen is that 1 in 3 marriages may involve it-- but even that's far from a majority as you posit. Re: And gay relationships, with many honorable exceptions, do tend to be less long lived than straight ones Insofar as gay marriages are more likely to be lesbian marriages between two women they may indeed be more stable and long-lived than heterosexual marriages.
Aye -- I've seen stats in line with JonF's 1/3. Of course, these kinds of statistics are always difficult to use, because various biasing effects are hard to avoid here (people lie; people 'like me' would tend to say "none of your damn business"). I think Bible Belt culture in various ways isn't that great for long, well-chosen, marriages. For one thing, the emotionalist, "always saved" drama-story of a lot of Southern Protestantism isn't the best route to measured life-long virtue. It's also a place particular rife in the "animal spirits" among teenagers (I grew up there, trust me) -- and my problem noted above with "romantic love" isn't perhaps exactly what Dilan imagines. It's more that love is an active, radical, and dangerous choice, mostly lived out in small repetitive moments of choice, not a high school crush with butterflies in the tummy and sweating about the prom. But modernity (and yes, the romance poets) tend to act as if the butterflies (and the wild sex) were all there is, or alternatively Lifetime's weepy sentimentalism. This isn't so much the chivalrous cult of romance (which also has its faults) as teen-agerism extended to all of life, like those men of twenty-five who cannot live without their "video game time".
Most normal people do think that who their partners are sleeping with is a very big deal indeed. Hector, on the one hand, you are certainly correct that people think it is a big deal. On the other hand, you and other advocates of traditional marriage should be very careful about talking about long-term marriages as some sort of endorsement of monogamy. It's impossible to pry inside private arrangements between couples, but the idea that all these people are being monogamous with each other (let alone not doing other sorts of things on the side that fall short of sex but which would not be considered a part of traditional marriage, such as going to strip bars or masturbating to porn) is obviously a VERY questionable assumption. The truth is that all sorts of people make all sorts of arrangements, including WITHIN marriage, but since they don't trumpet them out in the open, social conservatives get to claim that "traditional" marriage is a much more workable institution than it is.
But Dilan, shouldn't you have SOME evidence that marriages are such hotbeds of infidelity? I've been married a while now -- have you? If you have something to back up your "most long term marriages involve infidelity, Hector, you could look it up" snark, please put it forth. I am flatly doubting you have good evidence for this, and if you do, I want to see it. As to "think globally, not locally" with respect to outcomes for children -- er, don't we generally have good evidence in the US that many many many life outcomes are significantly enhanced by being raised by mother and father together, independent of other variables? And, globally, while I don't love the US, I'm not sure what hotbed of alternative arrangements you're pointing to as a great example of a society functioning very well. Islam? Europe? But the European elite, I thought, was like the US, somewhat the product of more conventional behavior than the moral tropes of elites would suggest.
Dilan, I'm not an advocate of 'traditional marriage' necessarily, I'm an advocate of couples living together in committed, loving, monogamous, and ideally lifelong partnerships in which they bear and share responsibility for the raising of children. If they don't care to have that relationship solemnized by the church or the state, that's OK with me. By the standards of most of Christendom prior to the late 1960s, I would be considered a flaming liberal in sexual matters, and I would still consider myself a liberal today. I don't know what _your_ friends do in their spare time, but I'm trying to think if I know of anyone who visits strip bars or makes extensive use of porn (married or not), and coming up short. I _certainly_ don't know very many people who cheat on their wives, girlfriends, or whoever. Adultery is more common than some people believe, but it is _far_ from a reality for most people who are either married or in steady relationships. I would venture to suggest that even if marriage only worked for 25% of people, it would still be an ideal worth defending- most of us can't live up to other ideals as well, but that doesn't mean we should abandon the ideals. In point of fact of course, marriage works for well over 25% of people- probably no more than 1 out of every 3 couples cheat, which is quite impressive. Thomas R., I don't think that Confucian and Buddhist cultures
I'm an advocate of couples living together in committed, loving, monogamous, and ideally lifelong partnerships in which they bear and share responsibility for the raising of children. If they don't care to have that relationship solemnized by the church or the state, that's OK with me. Part of my disagreement with you, Hector, is that I think you are unwise to imagine that what you advocate will not be considerably frustrated by not being solemnized by anyone: most relationships undergo serious strain at various point, and the fact of having made a visible commitment to God or to a community that matters is part of what keeps people doing during those times when it's hard to make "choices for love."
Marquis: We have sex surveys that show that infidelity is common (and those numbers will be low because some will not disclose it to a pollster). We also know that there are millions of admitted swingers (and obviously there are going to be some more who don't admit it because of the stigma attached to it). There's huge amounts of celebrity infidelity, and politician infidelity (really, do you think the Clintons' marriage is that uncommmon), and sports figure infidelity. We all know people who have had affairs. And yet, many of those marriages stay together. But they are not "traditional". The truth is, as long as your side continues to stigmatize any nonconformance with the dictates of traditional marriage, it is going to be very hard to get all the data out about this. But everything that we can observe anecdotally shows that it comprises a huge number of "traditional" marriages. And because so much of it is done on the QT, your side continues to pretend that there are all those traditionally monogamous couples out there when that number is almost certainly grossly inflated.
Dilan Esper writes: "There's huge amounts of celebrity infidelity, and politician infidelity (really, do you think the Clintons' marriage is that uncommmon)" It was common knowledge in Washington and beyond that Bush I had a two-decade long affair with a woman named Jennifer Fitzgerald. This received little attention from the "family values" crowd.
Actually, a marriage where one partner cheats once but doesn't leave, and the other hates this but doesn't leave, and there's a general agreement that it's wrong -- I don't see why that's not traditional. Someone did wrong, but my goodness, people do wrong all the time. Hector's the one who imagines the Republic of Saints. I don't. In other words, you make assertions and tell Hector to look things up -- but you're just making up the story that fits what you expect to see, for ideological reasons. I'll admit that the numbers are pretty bogus, but what little data there is doesn't seem to suggest a tidal wave of infidelity. Look, modern genetics is starting to give us some insights into this -- if I recall, the numbers that are being given for father as "other than father of record" for a good bit of the past is 10%-ish. Which is higher than the Church Lady might expect or admit, but it seems about "right" to me -- it suggests (given the realities of birth control and such in the past) a storyline where there was lots of infidelity, but also a good bit more fidelity. More to the point, the number of marriages where there are affairs that NO ONE MINDS, among normal people (let's leave the "aristocracy" and the Clintons out of it, shall we?), doesn't look to be very large, by any statistical reports I've seen. Taking "we all know" data and turning it into a narrative supporting your agenda is what too many conservatives do. I guess when your case is weak and you really just want to say "look, we don't know anything, but I'd really like to see if further unbottling this potentially disastrous genie of behavior can help people, though of course others think it will cause great harm, and I have no support for it doing good and not much for it not doing harm..." "everything that we can observe anecdotally" -- we don't OBSERVE much of anything with anecdotes, and many of us are not particularly inclined to find your anecdotes compelling. Perhaps you just know a lot of dishonest and weird people.
Look, modern genetics is starting to give us some insights into this -- if I recall, the numbers that are being given for father as "other than father of record" for a good bit of the past is 10%-ish. Which is higher than the Church Lady might expect or admit, but it seems about "right" to me -- it suggests (given the realities of birth control and such in the past) a storyline where there was lots of infidelity, but also a good bit more fidelity. Actually, Marquis, it suggests tons of infidelity. Or don't you think that people who are having sex with someone other than their spouse are more likely to take precautions against pregnancy? Most likely, that 10 percent rate means that the rate of infidelity is much, much higher. More to the point, the number of marriages where there are affairs that NO ONE MINDS, among normal people (let's leave the "aristocracy" and the Clintons out of it, shall we?), doesn't look to be very large, by any statistical reports I've seen. Marquis, just like on every other issue, you have to understand the world isn't black and white. There are huge amounts of gradations between "no one minds" and "breaks up the marriage". How about "I'd rather he doesn't, but on balance I don't want to break up the marriage"? Or "I wish we could have a better sex life together, but as long as we are discreet it doesn't harm anyone"? Or "boys will be boys"? I would suggest to you that what you think is exceptional and confined to celebrities, i.e., the Clintons, is actually quite normal and common. And I have a great piece of evidence for this proposition, which is remember how the Republicans were SURE in 1998 that the Monica scandal would help them and the public would come around to their position? Well, the public didn't and in fact gave the GOP a bloodbath in the election in 1998. Do you remember the exit polls and focus groups for that election? Turned out a lot of people believed that the Clintons' marriage, like all marriages, could only be judged by the two people inside it. Guess what-- that was the verdict of a populace that was intimately familiar with these sorts of issues. Basically, you want to assume that because X percent of the people are married for a long period of time, that means the "traditional" model of marriage where nobody has sex with anyone else works. In fact, there's no basis for that assumption-- and plenty of evidence out there that what it really proves is that people can make all sorts of arrangements and compromises when it comes to sexuality; they just do it within the framework of marriages.
TMoC is charmingly naive: "Actually, a marriage where one partner cheats once but doesn't leave, and the other hates this but doesn't leave, and there's a general agreement that it's wrong -- I don't see why that's not traditional." I like that "cheats once." Hilarious. Lays are like potato chips - people seldom manage "once." But it's nice that your optimism is still in place.
Moe -- True. But I think the statistical studies (such as they are, they're what we have to go on) do suggest a surprising number of "one incidence" affairs. They seem to exist, anyway (especially, again, I'm just going off half-remembered articles somewhere), especially where the woman cheats once. Or reports once. plenty of evidence out there that what it really proves is that people can make all sorts of arrangements and compromises when it comes to sexuality; they just do it within the framework of marriages. I guess this may point up our central difference, or at least one of them, in politics. Sure, people probably do all kinds of things, and there's lots of murky non-public compromise and immorality lurking out there. So? You are the modernist crusader, intent that HONESTY is the name of the game, and people should be open and free with their ways of life, though the republic fall and the kids (who you don't really care about, anyway -- social libertarians are all, at heart, apres moi let 'em drown types, if suddenly excited by distant global warming). I say "sure, marriages cover a variety of sins and virtues, and it's hard to know which ones." Why assume that more openness to a greater variety of things won't lead to more disarray, dishonesty, and chaos? People don't make good choices, and often need the heavy hand of social disapproval to make even moderately good choices. The individual is foolish, really. Giving everyone more "choices" that nobody disapproves just means more people will tend towards short-term selfish dead end choices. I don't care for that, and you don't see the harm because at heart you're an optimistic pollyanna.
The 10% "cookoo" rate (to use a very old term) implies that about 10% of wives cheat in their marriage (since they are the ones bearing children). I'm prepared to believe that the infidelity rate of men is indeed higher-- but by maybe a factor of 3 or 4, getting us back to around the fraction of 1/3 which I mentioned earlier. Dilan, I suspect you are conflating premarital sex (which really is very general) with extramarital sex.
You miss my point, Marquis. My point is that your side makes all sorts of claims about how anything other than the biological parents of the children within the marriage having sex with each other during that marriage is both immoral and bad for the couple and for the children. And the fact-- which you have finally conceded-- that people do all sorts of things within the framework of marriage OTHER than the "traditional" model set out above indicates that, in fact, advocates of traditional marriage can't prove the superiority of the model just by pointing to marriages that stayed together and children that turned out well. You see, I don't think your side is just making a claim about keeping this stuff discreet. Am I right? A sin is a sin, even if it is kept under the rug. Indeed, I would think that when people DO transgress, your side would probably say that at least the person needs to take it to confession and probably also needs to come clean to his or her spouse, correct? And once they come clean, they need to repent and endeavor not to do it again, correct? That means no long-term arrangements or compromises, right? Go forth and sin no more. So I don't see much room in the position of social conservatives for arguing that people can make these sorts of arrangements but just shouldn't be open about it. And bear in mind, the other side of it is I am not really taking a position about openness either. There are plenty of reasons why people might keep these things between themselves and their partners. Especially in a society where there are a lot of people who will condemn a person for having anything other than a traditional arrangement. The point, though, is my original one. One doesn't HAVE to "settle". There are other options that work for some people. And in saying that, I wasn't only talking about explicit polyamory (as some commenters assumed) but also all sorts of informal arrangements within traditional marriage which you now concede exist. So when writing about the necessity of "settling", one needs to address this point. One is only forced to settle if one takes a very constrictive view of marriage as non-negotiable.
One is only forced to settle if one takes a very constrictive view of marriage as non-negotiable. Well, in the context of the article, I'm sure that "I'll marry some schlub I don't find sexually exciting, but notify him that I'll be getting my sexual kicks with more desireable people on the side" will up her options. Hrm. Wait. No I'm not.
One is only forced to settle if one takes a very constrictive view of marriage as non-negotiable. Ok, so even backing off from the social revolution stuff, how is this true? I really don't think that, for the vast majority of women, noting these on-the-side arrangements will do much about the fundamental dilemma this writer is talking (in an annoying way) about. Indeed, expanding beyond this, it seems absurd, even if you don't have any moral problems with such arrangements, to think they'll do much about settling: life is generally about settling, and getting by, and more sexual options don't really change that fact. Life is limited and finite, and then you die. You almost never can get most of what you want, and you often can't really get any of it, without taking on other things you don't want at all. I get the feeling this is not something Dilan has any feeling for at all. It's a larger issue than conservative/liberal, traditional/hedonist, etc., in a way -- life is limited and finite, and "settling" of some form or other is what people _do_.
Obviously, in some sense, everyone settles in life. The question is whether, ex ante, one should feel constricted to "settle" in the sense of artificially constricting one's opportunities for companionship, good partnering and parenting skills, and sexual pleasure because of traditional morality. And that PARTICULAR type of settling is somewhat avoidable for some people. All you have to do is throw away some artificial constraints that many people end up disregarding anyway while doing no harm to their own lives or their children's.
JonF, You're right to point out what hasn't been pointed out enough in this thread, that many societies with a 'conservative' and patriarchal sexual morality did include _a lot_ of prostitution, and this is one of the reasons why I don't ever want to go back to the pre-sexual revolution days. What did St. Augustine say- 'get rid of prostitution and the world will drown in lust'. The kind of idealized conservative sexual ethic that the Marquis has been defending, I suspect, never really existed, and if we want to have a workable sexual morality at all, we should try to construct a somewhat more liberal and open one, one that can differentiate between, say, college boyfriends and girlfriends on the one hand, and 'swingers' on the other. I don't believe that the choice is between Angelo's Vienna and Malinowski's Trobriand Islands. Dilan, on the other hand, appears to be an enthusiastic supporter of the Trobriand sexual ethic, complete with adultery and casual sex. One would think that adultery was kind of the reductio ad absurdum of a liberal sexual ethic, and one that most people would stop well short of. But Dilan appears to have taken the plunge. Why would anyone get married at all if 'other arrangements' are going to be part of the bargain?
while doing no harm to their own lives or their children's. Well, now, see -- you just assert that. You sure haven't shown it, or even given me any reason to suspect it's true.
Hector, I guess I'm just not so sure the liberal sexual arrangements are particularly tied to the (laudable) increase in concern for MALE virtue. That is, increased equality and the easier availability of divorce (which I wouldn't object to in cases of infidelity, even though that's not grounds for annulment by Catholic standards) seem to me likely to be the powerful drivers, and those wouldn't change much even if we frowned a bit more on college boyfriend and girlfriend having sex (while knowing, of course, that they likely would in many cases). The problem, Hector, is that I think you can't "stop frowning" and make a slight liberalization stop -- you end up with our current world, where most college newspapers carry a "sex column" giving advice on how best to fellate that guy you met at the party last week.
Well, now, see -- you just assert that. You sure haven't shown it, or even given me any reason to suspect it's true. What I have done is shown that there is no evidence that children are actually harmed because the parents aren't sleeping with each other or are also sleeping with someone else. And since pointing to traditional marriages and their children is the ONLY evidence that the right wing points to in making these claims, I think that it is the right wing that has the burden of proof on this. Given the number of children who are not raised by their biological parents who remain in a continuing sexual relationship, if whom the parents were having sex with were really important, we would see the world going to hell right now, and it's not. Dilan, on the other hand, appears to be an enthusiastic supporter of the Trobriand sexual ethic, complete with adultery and casual sex. Hector, at this point, you are simply deliberately mischaracterizing my position. My earlier posts make it clear.
And since pointing to traditional marriages and their children is the ONLY evidence that the right wing points to in making these claims, I think that it is the right wing that has the burden of proof on this. Nonsense. That's liberal-madman-insanity, frankly. The burden of proof is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, on those who want a revolution, a major change in morals and traditions. The laws of unintended consequences are harsh masters, and suggest that since studies certainly show that being raised by parents who are together (and who we have no great reason to assume aren't faithful, at least in many cases), perhaps upheavals that further the disarray in marriage/childraising at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum, and advance it upwards in social class, might be bad. It's sheer insanity to expect that your ideas can work by sheer logic, and that people's emotions won't get the better of them -- as Hector says, why marry at all?????
Re: The problem, Hector, is that I think you can't "stop frowning" and make a slight liberalization stop -- you end up with our current world, where most college newspapers carry a "sex column" giving advice on how best to fellate that guy you met at the party last week. Herein lies the essence of our disagreement. respectfully, I think that nothing in history is _inevitable_, and that we can put on the brakes where we choose to do so. the problem is that so far, we haven't chosen to do so, because there are too many people like Dilan who like adultery and casual sex. I think that the all-or-nothing, Elizabeth Anscombe argument that once you accept contraception, you will inevitably accept orgies, homosexual marriage, and abortion, is intellectually compelling. I also believe it's wrong, and this is one reason that I strongly oppose people like Dilan who seem intent on making the Anscombe argument from the other end.
That's liberal-madman-insanity, frankly. The burden of proof is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, on those who want a revolution, a major change in morals and traditions. What I am arguing for, Marquis, is not a revolution. What I am talking about ALREADY HAPPENS. The revolution is being argued for by right-wingers who want to force their no-sex-except-between-the-biological-parents agenda on people who don't accept it. I MIGHT have the burden of proof against someone who argued that the best practice is to do all this stuff discreetly and not openly. But not against someone who argues that 95 percent of Americans have immoral sex.
because there are too many people like Dilan who like adultery and casual sex Again, Hector, stop lying about my position.
TMoC writes: "I think you can't "stop frowning" and make a slight liberalization stop -- you end up with our current world, where most college newspapers carry a "sex column" giving advice on how best to fellate that guy you met at the party last week." I guess that's a negligible price to pay to move on from your preferred world, TMoC - you know, the traditional one where marital rape wasn't a crime, the rape of children by priests was hushed up, and birth control was illegal. If you can explain to me how you "traditionalists" would have changed such obscenities on their own, without being forced to by rational progressives, I'd be interested. But you wouldn't be able to do so without being dishonest.
Re: What I have done is shown that there is no evidence that children are actually harmed because the parents aren't sleeping with each other or are also sleeping with someone else. The lack of harm generally arises from the fact that the neither the children nor the other spouse knows anything about the adultery. Re: My point is that your side makes all sorts of claims about how anything other than the biological parents of the children within the marriage having sex with each other during that marriage is both immoral and bad for the couple and for the children. This is grossly overstated. First off, no one is stating that maried people must always have children, so can we leave the "parent" part out and talk about "spouses" instead? Secondly, no one is objecting to the notion that adopotive parents, foster parents, even yes, step-parents can do a good job of child-rearing, so the "biological" qualifier needs to go too. Re: One is only forced to settle if one takes a very constrictive view of marriage as non-negotiable. I think you have strayed considerably from what the original article described as "Settling". It's talking about the fact that a woman (or perhaps also aman) may have to settle for someone who is not 100% their romantic ideal. You seem to assume that their 100% romantic ideal is actually available for sex on the side. That simply isn't true for most people. The available sexual partners we might have are also less than (perhaps a good deal less than) what we would call perfection. Earlier I assumed you were young. Here I am starting to assume you are also good-looking so that you can hop into bed with just about any willing partner you desire. For most people that is not the reality.
"this is one of the reasons why I don't ever want to go back to the pre-sexual revolution days." Hector Is there anything to back-up the idea that prostitution was more common before the sexual revolution? It makes sense, but I'm not sure there's any factual basis for it. "If you can explain to me how you 'traditionalists' would have changed such obscenities on their own, without being forced to by rational progressives, I'd be interested." MLAJ Marital rape is condemned by Thomas Aquinas as I recall. I'm skeptical that laws on the matter never existed anywhere before rational progressives. Going back centuries it was required that priests be chosen from men who are shown to be safe around children. Abuse nevertheless was covered up even in the Medieval era as occurs in any other group with any kind of "group spirit." (Cops protect cops and teachers have so effectively hushed up sex-abuse among their own that the problem is only spoken of as a tabloid amusement) Still ideally the Church, in earlier times, was theoretically able to imprison people in isolated Abbeys. Sadly the Church is no longer able to create its own gulags for such individuals. Although this is admittedly in part because it failed to ever create adequate or fair gulags. (No, I'm not be ironic. Ideally the Church should be capable of sequestering these pervs to a level of isolation no modern state could muster. Death would be preferable, but even I can see why the Church going around assassinating pedophile priests would be risky for society)
Dilan, I'm sorry for misrepresenting your position. COuld you please inform me then, what is your simple answer to the question: are 1) adultery and 2) casual, 'no-strings' sex generally morally wrong? Feel free to add any exceptions that you feel like. If your answer is, in general, 'no', then I'm not sure how far I misrepresented your position. For your part, you've been more than a little bit intellectually dishonest. No, '95%' of Americans do not engage in adultery or casual sex. Some 95% of Americans do engage in premarital sexual relationships, which are entirely different, and not what is at issue here. As far as I know, neither JonF nor I, nor most Americans, would argue that premarital sexual relationships are inherently immoral. The Marquis, I guess, would disagree, but that's not the basis of his disagreement with you- you and he are arguing very specifically over whether someone who is _already in_ a romantic relationship, married or not, should be able to pursue sexual relations outside of that relationship. I think most people in America would agree with him, and me, on that question, and not with you. You're doing something analogous to what you do in abortion debates. It's true that some people who oppose abortion also oppose contraception, and some people who oppose adultery and casual sex also oppose premarital relationships. But 1) that isn't true of the majority of people, 2) traditionalists like the Marquis oppose abortion _on different grounds_ than they oppose contraception, and oppose adultery _on different grounds_ than fornication, and therefore 3) their opinions about fornication are completely irrelevant when they are discussing with you about adultery.
Aish Hatorah will be overjoyed with this article. People who grow up frum and are pressured to settle at the age of twenty-five will never read it and will not be.
The sexual morality of Devarim, not to mention the laws of the female Jewish slave, has language such as "he afflicted her". This has little to do with whether the girl could get pregnant IMHO and much more to do with a kind of emotional abuse.
The available sexual partners we might have are also less than (perhaps a good deal less than) what we would call perfection. Actually, JonF, much of the problem with "settling" is the best sexual partners don't always make the best business partners, or the best roommates. And that's why you have to address whether alternative forms of relationships can work. Indeed, the fact that the best sexual partners are sometimes terrible business partners and roommates, and vice-versa, is one more evidence that the beliefs of devout Christians relating to sexual morality are utterly false and idiotic and were clearly not the revelation of an omniscient God.
Is there anything to back-up the idea that prostitution was more common before the sexual revolution? This is another example of conservatives stacking the deck. You see, in the traditional society, there WERE NO SEX SURVEYS, BECAUSE CONSERVATIVES OPPOSED THEM. Many still do-- when "Kinsey" came out, you could see some of it on sites like National Review. But the thing is, conservatives then use the lack of reliable data to infer that things were really great in the past. In fact, it's pretty clear if you do any serious historical analysis that things were awful. Not only full of prostitution, but full of adultery, marital rape, child molestation, domestic violence, shotgun weddings, and wife-killing. And with just as much teenage pregnancy and plenty of premarital sex. But to the extent we can't say this with precision, it is precisely because CONSERVATIVE morality prevented people from taking sex surveys.
Dilan: Indeed, the fact that the best sexual partners are sometimes terrible business partners and roommates, and vice-versa, is one more evidence that the beliefs of devout Christians relating to sexual morality are utterly false and idiotic and were clearly not the revelation of an omniscient God. Right, because optimizing our orgasms is clearly the fundamental purpose of life.
COuld you please inform me then, what is your simple answer to the question: are 1) adultery and 2) casual, 'no-strings' sex generally morally wrong? Feel free to add any exceptions that you feel like. If your answer is, in general, 'no', then I'm not sure how far I misrepresented your position. 1 is wrong because it is dishonest and breaks important promises. 2 is not wrong at all. But you are missing that there is a distrinction between what I think is not wrong and what I am advocating here. And what I am advocating here is not that everyone have all the sex with everyone no matter what their regular partners want, but that people should have freedom to define their own relationships and make their own arrangements, and that these arrangements can be a healthy alternative to "settling". For your part, you've been more than a little bit intellectually dishonest. No, '95%' of Americans do not engage in adultery or casual sex. Some 95% of Americans do engage in premarital sexual relationships, which are entirely different, and not what is at issue here. As far as I know, neither JonF nor I, nor most Americans, would argue that premarital sexual relationships are inherently immoral. The Marquis, I guess, would disagree, but that's not the basis of his disagreement with you- you and he are arguing very specifically over whether someone who is _already in_ a romantic relationship, married or not, should be able to pursue sexual relations outside of that relationship. Hector, you are 30 years behind. Most sexually active Americans have engaged in casual sex. 95 percent have had sex outside of a marital relationship. And I was making this point in response to Marquis, who WAS arguing that I was pushing for this big change in society and had the burden of proof. No, I am arguing for how things already are. Marquis is trying to roll things back. He has the burden of proof.
But to the extent we can't say this with precision, it is precisely because CONSERVATIVE morality prevented people from taking sex surveys. Come on, Dilan. You're becoming a caricature of yourself, and looking less sharp and sane than you usually do in these threads. You really think the lack of sex surveys pre-Kinsey was mostly the result of some horrid conservative conspiracy? I'd guess it was the result of, er, you know, the infancy of sociology? Anyway, as science, sex surveys remain genuinely problematic. I wouldn't answer one, because it is, essentially, none of the surveyor's damn business. People lie, in ways that are hard to control for, and bias effects are strong (sexually conservative women, some meta-studies suggest, I believe, are particularly unlikely to answer survey questions). They're somewhat interesting, but beginning with Kinsey, the field has been troubled by studies and methods designed to find the results the study author wants (Kinsey is a great example), and the difficulty more honest scientists have in determining the statistical validity of results. Sex surveys are problematic for reasons essentially embedded in human nature: they may work better as folks like Dilan work to expunge the last bit of privacy and modesty from mankind, seeking a world full of myspace/Jerry Springer tell-all fools, neither liberal nor conservative but sure to buttonhole you and give you their most intimate lives for your "consumption", but chances are they'll still have problems. And Dilan knows it, unless he's stupider than I think.
Right, because optimizing our orgasms is clearly the fundamental purpose of life. Actually, Marquis, having a fulfilling sex life is right up at the top. But so is being comfortable with the people you live with, finding a responsible person to raise children with (if you want them) and being able to do your business dealings with people you can trust and work with. An omniscient God would want us to have all those things. And therefore, that omniscient God would never tell us that they all have to be the same person. The God conservative Chiristians worship is a complete imbecile.
Marquis, I actually agree with you about some of the weaknesses of sex survey data. But you are dead wrong about conservative views about the issue. When Kinsey did his research, he faced pretty intensive and organized opposition from conservatives. Further, conservativism was responsible for the DIFFICULTIES in conducting sex surveys. It was conservatives, after all, who created the climate where sex was repressed and you weren't supposed to talk about it. So conservatives both created a climate where it was difficult to do research, and protested the research itself.
Hector, you are 30 years behind. Most sexually active Americans have engaged in casual sex. 95 percent have had sex outside of a marital relationship. Dilan, you keep tossing off these "facts." I agree that 95% of Americans have had sex outside marriage, but where's the study that most sexually active Americans have engaged in casual sex? You're surely not conflating those two points -- Hector wouldn't, and I wouldn't. I haven't seen the casual sex statistic you claim, and I'm at least somewhat dubious about it, given your "most long-term marriages involve infidelity" claim, backed up by nothing but your own opinion. More to the point -- sure, I want to "roll back the clock" -- I assume you and I both would like to, for example, roll back the clock on some recent civil liberties changes in our country, so what's so absurd there? I think you ARE arguing for a revolution when you say that articles like this one should, of course, include a serious discussion of how maybe you could come to some explicit agreement where X talks to you and raises your kids, while you bang the hotter Y on the side (I guess X gets his extras too?). Behavior may have changed, but alterations in people's ideals of what they want are just as radical (and change behavior a great deal), and require just as much justification. The general public, and even Atlantic readers, don't see this disassociation of the sexual and marital relationships (which you summarize so "romantically" as a "business partner and roommate") as an "obvious" point that must be covered, and you want it to be such. That's revolutionary.
Dilan, you keep tossing off these "facts." I agree that 95% of Americans have had sex outside marriage, but where's the study that most sexually active Americans have engaged in casual sex? You're surely not conflating those two points -- Hector wouldn't, and I wouldn't. I haven't seen the casual sex statistic you claim, and I'm at least somewhat dubious about it, given your "most long-term marriages involve infidelity" claim, backed up by nothing but your own opinion. Marquis, do you know anyone who lives in an urban area and doesn't go to a very conservative church every week? Do you know any people who go to college? Do you know any people who frequent clubs and bars? You really don't seem to have any idea of to what extent America has rejected your values-- it really isn't just that people think that if they are in love they don't have to wait until marriage; we are far, far beyond that.
Er, I believe that the Marquis mentioned that he teaches at a college campus. I grew up in Massachusetts, and I'm a mid-20s graduate student now, so I do know a lot of young people of liberal inclinations. For most people that I know, it is really 'people who are in love that think they don't have to wait until marriage." Most of the people I know do not have sexual relations outside the context of some kind of committed premarital relationship. Pace "Charlotte Simmons", _most_ young people today, even though they have separated sex from marriage, haven't separated it from love or relationships. I don't know anyone who would be fine with an open marriage or whatever kind of 'alternative arrangement' you keep suggesting (and I note that you've been carefully dancing around the question of exactly what you mean.) Anyway, there's a difference between someone who takes a guy home from the club _once_ and regrets it the next morning, and someone who does it persistently. I hardly think that the first one is evidence of some kind of wholesale rejection of my values. I think you've been looking at Hollywood and thinking that that lifestyle is actually what most Americans practice. It really isn't, not even among young people, and it's your perception of what is normal today that is really out of whack. Do you have _any_ good evidence that many Americans engage in casual sex (and please define what you mean by casual sex before you fire off a statistic.)
But you are dead wrong about conservative views about the issue. When Kinsey did his research, he faced pretty intensive and organized opposition from conservatives. I didn't say they didn't. They opposed it, and, in my opinion, quite rightly so. Kinsey did bad science, and was a lousy man -- and his work was fuel for people up to no good. In general, it'd be sort of nice if there was a good way to get this data without doing anything immoral, but there isn't, so we should do without it, just as we don't test potentially deadly drugs on prisoners, though it sure would be convenient. Further, conservativism was responsible for the DIFFICULTIES in conducting sex surveys. It was conservatives, after all, who created the climate where sex was repressed and you weren't supposed to talk about it. Wow! Conservatism created human nature and the sexual moralities of most world religions and quite a few cultures. I had no idea we were so powerful. Gee, Dilan, I'd just give up facing that kind of opposition, if I were you. Conservatism created the tendency of people to lie about their sex lives? Dilan, have you ever, actually, met a human being?
Dilan, Here's a bit of information about your precious Kinsey....Tukey, by the way, is the famous statistician who invented the Tukey HSD test. WHat kind of a fool makes grand conclusions about American sexual morality based on a sample of prisoners and prostitutes?
"In addition to moral objections, academic criticisms pertain to sample selection and sample bias. In 1948, the same year as the original publication, a committee of the American Statistical Association, including notable statisticians such as John Tukey condemned the sampling procedure. Tukey was perhaps the most vocal critic, saying, "A random selection of three people would have been better than a group of 300 chosen by Mr. Kinsey."[14][15] Criticism principally revolved around the over-representation of some groups in the sample: 25% were, or had been, prison inmates, and 5% were male prostitutes.[16]"
Marquis, do you know anyone who lives in an urban area and doesn't go to a very conservative church every week? Do you know any people who go to college? Do you know any people who frequent clubs and bars? Er, Dilan. I'm a scientist with a PhD, living in one of the largest urban areas in the country, and I spend some part of almost every day on a top-10 research university campus. Yeah, I think I've met some folks other than Ma and Pa Kettle. I still want to see your statistics here. I mean, it may be that science and engineering types are more repressed than the populace in general, but I don't think more than 45% of the folks I know have had _casual_ sex. More casual than I'd allow, sure. I don't consider people who would say "I'm dating X", even if they aren't engaged to marry or whatever, to be having casual sex. You really don't seem to have any idea of to what extent America has rejected your values-- it really isn't just that people think that if they are in love they don't have to wait until marriage; we are far, far beyond that. Well, sure. But I don't think we're where you think we are, and I'd like to see some evidence we are. Do you have anything to support this "most sexually active Americans have had casual sex"? Do you? It's a simple question. I wouldn't be shocked if you do, as I said -- I'd imagine maybe 30-40% of those I know have, but I'm also in a biased world (the number would be lower among the people I grew up with).
Marquis, COuld you give me some more information about Kinsey being a lousy man and the uses that were made of his research by people 'up to no good'? I'm curious as I know very little about Kinsey other than that he systematically biased his results.
I'll admit that of my college girlfriends, the number who'd had casual sex was higher. But I dated journalism and art major who hung out in smoky coffee joints, so again -- sample bias.
Hector, I'm no expert on Kinsey, I just mean that he was a terrible, terrible scientist, which I (perhaps hypocritically) sort of equate to being a lousy man. I have no idea if he was personally an awful fellow -- I'd imagine that neither the conservative portraits of an evil pervert or the liberal lauds of a bold lion of truth-telling are accurate. As to people using it to bad ends -- I just meant that Kinsey's numbers were bogus, and intended to inflate the sexual oddity and immorality of actual behavior, and many many many interested people on what I think of as the social left used this to say "see, everyone does these things, so they can't be wrong?"
Also, it's pretty funny to call the church I attend "pretty conservative" -- it's a random American Catholic church, not Mel Gibson's backyard. I mean, it's conservative compared to the local Episcopal church or to the First Church of Christ, Abortionist, but it's hardly some fundamentalist hotbed of reactionary agitation. I, like many American Catholics of even moderately conservative tendencies, have occasionally been in confession wanting to argue "well, er, actually, I'm pretty sure that was a serious sin on my part, Father, but ok."
Hey Dilan, I just looked up the Wikipedia article on Kinsey. Hmm. It seems that he chose not to report his pedophile subjects to the police. That's mighty interesting, as it's exactly what people like you censure the Catholic church for doing. Why the double standard? Someone who covers up for a pedophile in order to preserve the Church is a villain, but someone who does so in order to normalize sexual deviancy is a hero? It appears as though Kinsey also coerced his wife into group sex, produced homemade porn, and falsified his results. Very nice.
And of that 45% I'd guess among people I know, a good number fall into the category of "did it once or twice, was really drunk at the time, sort of regret it." With the regret less likely if the person is male, but often still with no great defense of the incident(s). I think surveys still show only about 30% of Americans (more men than women) are willing to say that sex without emotional commitment is morally ok. Again, Dilan, where's your evidence, other than "I mostly know people with no morals"? Actually, let's turn this around. DILAN, do you know anyone who goes to a conservative church weekly? Do you know any non-urban people? Do you know anyone over age 45? Do you know any people who don't frequent clubs and bars?
Several replies at once: On prostitution stats: in the not too distant past (pre-1900) brothels were legal business and they generated the sorts of public records that businesses do. That gives us a baseline for assumptions about the number of prostitutes quite independent of any “sex surveys”. Of course one must allow for “freelance” prostitutes who would not have been captured in tax or real estate records. Hector: Of course the content of a religion matters. But that content is not static, and certainly not independent of the social, political and cultural milieu in which the religion operates. Sure, core doctrine (Trinity, Eightfold Way, Hajj, etc.) are pretty unchanging but there’s a lot of stuff that does change. In the centuries when the Christian church was conducting its adulterous affair with the State (to keep with the theme here!) Christianity became contaminated with the tools of the state, and the chief state tool is violence. Since State and Church divorced (or at least amicably separated) Christianity has cleaned up its act and become more in line with what it preaches. A similar record applies rather generally: crusades, jihads, suttee, kamikazes, human sacrifices, etc. Whenever religion and government and holding hands religious violence is never far away. Islam is approximately where Christendom was at 400 years ago. Should mosque and state go their separate ways I would expect something like Sufi pacifism will become dominant over Wahabbi jihadism.
" You see, in the traditional society, there WERE NO SEX SURVEYS, BECAUSE CONSERVATIVES OPPOSED THEM." Dilan Umm that's not what I was talking about there. Could you please not go into a confusing non-sequitir? I asked is there any evidence PROSTITUTION was more common before the sexual revolution than after. This has nothing to do with sex surveys. I wasn't asking if S&M, homosexuality, threesomes, etc were more or less common from one era to the other. In the USA prostitution, before and after the sexual revolution, was illegal. Also brothels were often actual places. So you should be able to have some evidence to compare levels of prostitution before and after the sexual revolution. I was simply asking an honest question. I'm quite open to the idea that the answer is "yes prostitution was more common according to XYZ database." I very much reject the sexual revolution and if increased prostitution would be the price of undoing it I might grudgingly accept it. I'd just like to have something solid on the matter. Lastly even if I did mean that there have been sex studies and surveys since the 1890s. In Europe "sexology" as a study goes back to at least the 1920s. I could believe British gents were more into prostitution in 1935 than in 1975, but I'd just like more than a hunch. You know we conservatives are apparently duplicitous like that, we want actual facts to base opinions on rather than hunches.
"in the not too distant past (pre-1900) brothels were legal business and they generated the sorts of public records that businesses do. That gives us a baseline for assumptions about the number of prostitutes quite independent of any “sex surveys”. Of course one must allow for “freelance” prostitutes who would not have been captured in tax or real estate records." Jon F Thank you this is what I was meaning. You are right about the difficulties on doing this when it comes to freelancers.
"But the thing is, conservatives then use the lack of reliable data to infer that things were really great in the past." Dilan I got so hung up on your first sentence I missed this. This is so not me it's funny. In the 1950s I probably would've been placed in some institution or been unable to leave my home because of my genetic condition. In the 1800s I'd probably have died at birth or in infancy. I don't doubt there was much injustice in the past and that the living standard is better now than 50 years ago. However I'm tempted to say "so?" This has nothing to do with anything I think I've ever said. At the time I was talking about a specific crime, as prostitution was illegal. Do you think rates of crime are incapable of going up? That if we just look hard enough we'll find cocaine use was just as high in 1958 as today? That the murder rates massive increase in the 1960s was only because of increased reporting? That nothing ever gets worse and history is one long progressive march to utopia. I'm hoping not.
Re: I very much reject the sexual revolution and if increased prostitution would be the price of undoing it I might grudgingly accept it. I'd just like to have something solid on the matter. Thomas R., This is at the root of our disagreement. Really, I can't see how you could say this. Whatever your view of committed premarital relationships, isn't prostitution surely a much _more_ immoral thing? Isn't prostitution a _complete_ commodification and degradation of the sex act, devoid of even the degree of commitment and love that characterizes premarital relationships. Premarital relationships can at least share _some_ characteristics in common with the marital act, prostitution shares none. I support, _in essence_, the sexual revolution, although I disagree with some of its excesses (casual sex, 'swinging', homosexual marriage, abortion) as do most other sensible people. I support it because I think it was a good thing, but even if I didn't I might support it because it helped reduce prostitution. Look at the East and South Asian countries which are still today very patriarchal and conservative in sexual matters. They have a tradition of rampant prostitution (in Vietnam and China an authoritarian communist government is the only thing that keeps the incidence as low as it is) and modern Japan is proverbial for its bizarre sexual perversions. I don't think that the degree of sexual conservatism in those countries has been good for healthy relations between men and women.
Where'd Dilan go?
I suspect your challenge was too much for him to handle.
Pah. I'm a charitable man. He's probably been busy at flowers and candy for his sweetie. What I'd be doing if I wasn't giving a talk Tuesday that needs prepared.
Miss Gottlieb states that even her married friends who complain bitterly about their husbands would not trade places with her. That is, even the unhappily married is better than the happily single. May I remind Miss Gottlieb that 50% of those unhappily married eventually end up divorced and single again? If being married to a mate is the end all and be all, why do all these people get divorced?
Lori Gottlieb is wise. But she needs to sharpen her point. There are some attributes on which women should never "settle": honesty, industry, sobriety, kindness, respect, loyalty. The bourgeois virtues are indispensable -- their lack spells misery and marital failure. But perfect harmony, identity of taste and interests, burning passion -- these are not of the essence. Certainly, a spouse need not share all the other partner's interests -- as long as he respects his or her right to have them.
Hmmm, it seems that there is an emerging genre for lazy, thoughtless writers who seem to confuse offending people with writing "provocative" articles. Well, those two actions are not the same.
Despite the plethora of negative comments, this opinion piece hits the nail on the head. Most women have a much higher opinion of themselves than is warranted and as a result, hold out for superficial attributes that don't mean much in the long run. At a number of points before I was 35, I was in close association with a number of men who, like myself, had plenty of non-superficial positive attributes. We all had trouble dating and most just assumed that they would need to make more money to offset this liability. I was optimistic and assumewd that settling would occur. However, this didn't occur in a reasonable time frame and I eventually gave up waiting. However, once I was in my forties, women were ready to settle, but by that time, I wasn't interested in doing so.
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What a stupid article. She makes no argument with no evidence, other than mocking assertions.
Her only evidence comes from frickin' sitcoms, and she blatantly misreads them:
It’s equally questionable whether Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw, who cheated on her kindhearted and generous boyfriend, Aidan, only to end up with the more exciting but self-absorbed Mr. Big, will be better off in the framework of marriage and family.
Carrie did try to make a life with Aidan. She cheated on him, and could never fully commit after they got back together.
Now, this might be because Carrie is a horrible, unlikable person who never deserved Aidan in the first place - my position - but the show engaged precisely with this topic, and found that Carrie wasn't happy. That's why the relationship failed twice.
Now, Gottlieb could have argued that most women would have made better decisions, through her patented method of evidence-free assertions, but that's not what she did. She just utterly misinterpreted her only actual evidence.
Again, what a mind-blowingly stupid article.
Posted by DivGuy | February 8, 2008 1:07 PM