06-20-2003, 06:59 PM
The ones Pete and I were wrestling with. It had to do not with why you and your dearly beloved chose one another, but why that pairing is codified as a marriage.
We were addressing the marriage, the social convention that is codified by law in all 50 States, and in most of the world via a law, common law, or established social custom, and what its purpose as a social model is now. We were discussing its social root, as it were, and why it became what it is, and what it was, and what the rate of change in its baseline assumptions are or should be.
Why people get married is no more important than why two people go steady, or choose to live together as 'a couple' for 10 years without performing the social rite of 'matrimony.'
Except . . .
A critical element of a 'marriage' is that the personal decision is made before witnesses, and hence it takes on the character of a social contract. In most cases under the American model, the intention is to make the pairing permanent. (In some places, they still say "until death do us part.") We all know how the road to hell, and divorce, is paved with good intentions.
In some places, the arranged marriage is still very much a social norm: try some parts of India, and the dowry is still negotiated by families involved.
Why the discussion? Among other reasons, to explore the logic of a non-breeding pair adapting the social contract that is built for a breeding pair. Your wife and you may indeed have been destined to get married, my wife and I as well. Or, maybe my wife and I were bucking Destiny, and are fighting an uphill battle karmicly! :D
Who knows?
Maybe Nicholas Cage and L.M. Presley were destined to get married, and maybe they were fighting fate by trying to do so. (IIRC, it did not last. Ceste la Holywood Wedding. They need an express line out there at the marriage cafeteria!)
We were addressing the marriage, the social convention that is codified by law in all 50 States, and in most of the world via a law, common law, or established social custom, and what its purpose as a social model is now. We were discussing its social root, as it were, and why it became what it is, and what it was, and what the rate of change in its baseline assumptions are or should be.
Why people get married is no more important than why two people go steady, or choose to live together as 'a couple' for 10 years without performing the social rite of 'matrimony.'
Except . . .
A critical element of a 'marriage' is that the personal decision is made before witnesses, and hence it takes on the character of a social contract. In most cases under the American model, the intention is to make the pairing permanent. (In some places, they still say "until death do us part.") We all know how the road to hell, and divorce, is paved with good intentions.
In some places, the arranged marriage is still very much a social norm: try some parts of India, and the dowry is still negotiated by families involved.
Why the discussion? Among other reasons, to explore the logic of a non-breeding pair adapting the social contract that is built for a breeding pair. Your wife and you may indeed have been destined to get married, my wife and I as well. Or, maybe my wife and I were bucking Destiny, and are fighting an uphill battle karmicly! :D
Who knows?
Maybe Nicholas Cage and L.M. Presley were destined to get married, and maybe they were fighting fate by trying to do so. (IIRC, it did not last. Ceste la Holywood Wedding. They need an express line out there at the marriage cafeteria!)
Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the Men 'O War!
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete