Dignity and sanctity of marriage - a modest proposal

Re: Dignity and sanctity of marriage - a modest proposal

DrewDad wrote:

So I've heard a lot recently about how allowing gay marriage will destroy the dignity and/or sanctity of marriage, but I just don't get it. How does a marriage by Bob and Bill affect my marriage in any way? And don't people like Donald Trump, Pamela Anderson, Dennis Rodman, and Jennifer Lopez do more to damage the sanctity, and especially the dignity, of marriage?

If we want to "protect" marriage, then let's do this: everyone gets one, and only one, bite at the apple. If you decide to get married, and screw it up by choosing the wrong partner or having an affair, then that's it. No one who has a divorce allowed to get married again. Wouldn't that protect the dignity of marriage?

Heehee....I don't think a lot of folk here know about the former "modest proposal" or realise this is satire, DD!!!!!!!

0 Replies

I was wondering who was going to eat whom when i read the title . . .

0 Replies

It seems sensible to me.What's the sense in changing horses in midstream.

No divorce and everybody might take it a bit more seriously.I'll go with virgin brides as well.I like the idea of the priest,a rep on earth of our Heavenly Father,saying-"take her away boyo-she's all yours" with that envious look in his eyes.

Have you never noticed how beautiful virgin brides are even when they are ugly and stupid which most of them are.That's dignity.

0 Replies

Set wrote:

Quote:

Try to keep up, will ya? State statutory control of marriage is a recent phenomenon.

<in my best Monty Pythonish voice> "What about the Romans then?"

0 Replies

Consent is essential to form a legal marriage. But do people really know what they're consenting to? Are they giving INFORMED consent? Is merely saying "I do" good enough given the fact that so many say "I don't" as soon as the road gets a little rocky?

Given that one out of two marriages end in divorce and given the high social costs of acrimonious divorces, broken homes, etc., the state might be able to justify waiting periods and the completion of a designated premarital informational program before a license is granted.

The state would not be prohibiting entry into marriage, but merely ensuring that the decision is informed and well-considered. I suggest a six month waiting period that commences when the couple enters the marriage clerk's office and jointly files a notice of intent to marry.

During the six month waiting period, the couple will be required to attend premarital informational sessions wherein the attending couples are informed about rights and responsibilities imposed upon spouses by law and provided with helpful information with respect to effective communication skills. The premarital program might require the couple to attend a one-hour information session, once a week, for 6 to 8 weeks. Upon attending and completing the premarital informational program, the instructor will issue a certificate of attendance and completion.

At the end of the six month waiting period, the couple may again appear at the marriage clerk's office (if they still want to get married after being informed of the rights and duties of married persons), present the certificate of attendance and completion of the informational program, submit their application for a license and certify that they are giving their informed consent to enter into a legally recognized marriage with each other, and obtain a marriage license.

Perhaps, with a waiting period and informed consent requirements, there will still be plenty of first marriages--but fewer second and third marriages. The decisions to enter those first marriages will be better informed and well-considered and the couples who are truly committed to each other will be the ones getting married and hopefully staying together. The less sincere couples will bail out during the waiting period.

0 Replies

joefromchicago wrote:

woiyo wrote:
Sure, and we can have the same rules about abortion. After the fist, no more chances!

Hmmm, woiyo is pro-abortion. Who knew?

Woiyo is pro-fist.

0 Replies

Steppenwolf wrote:

Phoenix32890 wrote:
DrewDad wrote:
If you decide to get married, and screw it up by choosing the wrong partner or having an affair, then that's it. No one who has a divorce allowed to get married again. Wouldn't that protect the dignity of marriage?

...And it is really none of the government's business...

'Tis an overstatement. Marriage, as we know it, is defined not only as a relationship between two people but a relationship between people and the government.

What definition are you quoting? Check your state marriage laws. Marriage is NOT a relationship with the government. The government REGULATES the entry, maintenance, and dissolution of marriages, but the government is in no manner whatsover a party to the relationship.

0 Replies

goodfielder wrote:

"What about the Romans then?"

Although Roman code was a basis for some law in pre-Napoleonic Europe, the full legal panoply was not in place. Even among the Romans, marriage was concerned with securing rights in property. In the atmosphere of Europe before the rise of modern representative democracy, with customary laws concerned with rights in property and marriage controlled by established churches, the civic regulation of such an institution was unnecessary. As late as the beginning of the 20th century, English demographers found that the majority of reproductive couples were not married. There was insufficient property to be considered in most cases. America was different, because for the first time in the history of European people, the majority of the adult population became land owners. Rights in property were more crucial than was the case with the factory workers of Salford or Lille.

During the Protestant Reformation, the catalogue of sacraments was severely curtailed. Martin Luther not only recognized only two sacraments--baptism and the Lord's supper--he spoke against marriage as a sacrament. The Calvinists and the Church of England adopted a similar attitude. So, when the churches of colonial America were disestablished after the Revolution, and with so much of the population concerned with rights in property, a civil remedy for the contractual arrangement became an important concern. During the French Revolution, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy became the undoing of the left--it fostered continual strife and counter-revolution. Napoleon's 1802 Concordat with the Pope ended much of that strife, and therefore, with the promulgation of the Civil and Criminal Codes after 1804, statutory establishment of marriage (along the lines of Napoleon's socially conservative values) was necessary in France as well. It was only gradually that the necessity for such an institution spread to the rest of Europe, and it was many years before the necessity to secure rights in property were of any importance to the majority of the population.

0 Replies

I thought it was a satire, dlowan. Am now confused on that.

I have a friend who is the fifth wife. She's been the fifth wife for twenty plus year now. I'm not so sure divorce is too easy, it might be marriage that is. But, in either case, I don't think tricking marriage up for some to do or get out of is any of our business. Buyer beware.

0 Replies

spendius wrote:

It seems sensible to me.What's the sense in changing horses in midstream.

No divorce and everybody might take it a bit more seriously.I'll go with virgin brides as well.I like the idea of the priest,a rep on earth of our Heavenly Father,saying-"take her away boyo-she's all yours" with that envious look in his eyes.

Have you never noticed how beautiful virgin brides are even when they are ugly and stupid which most of them are.That's dignity.

I never said no divorce. I think one would end up with an unacceptably high number of widows/widowers. I do think one would have to prevent re-marriage of everyone, including widow(er)s.

0 Replies

If we're going to implement mandatory classes and waiting periods, I feel we should do it for reproduction first, then worry about marriage... but that's for another thread.

0 Replies

Re: Dignity and sanctity of marriage - a modest proposal

dlowan wrote:

Heehee....I don't think a lot of folk here know about the former "modest proposal" or realise this is satire, DD!!!!!!!

There were/are a not-insignificant number of folks who "just don't get" the original.

0 Replies

Yes, that is so true.

Here is Jonathan Swift's original, satirical, "modest proposal":

A Modest Proposal

For Preventing The Children of Poor People in Ireland
From Being Aburden to Their Parents or Country, and
For Making Them Beneficial to The Public

By Jonathan Swift (1729)

About this text.

It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.
I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance; and, therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.

But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars; it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them as those who demand our charity in the streets.

____________________________________________________________
"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled ..."

____________________________________________________________

As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in the computation. It is true, a child just dropped from its dam may be supported by her milk for a solar year, with little other nourishment; at most not above the value of 2s., which the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her lawful occupation of begging; and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for them in such a manner as instead of being a charge upon their parents or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall on the contrary contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing, of many thousands..................

Continues here: http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

0 Replies

Re: Dignity and sanctity of marriage - a modest proposal
[quote="dlowanHeehee....I don't think a lot of folk here know about the former "modest proposal" or realise this is satire, DD!!!!!!![/quote]

I was initially going to tell drewdad I didn't think this was such a "swift" Rolling Eyes

idea, but got sidetracked.

0 Replies

Don't be such a baby.

0 Replies

Debra_Law wrote:

Steppenwolf wrote:
Phoenix32890 wrote:
DrewDad wrote:
If you decide to get married, and screw it up by choosing the wrong partner or having an affair, then that's it. No one who has a divorce allowed to get married again. Wouldn't that protect the dignity of marriage?

...And it is really none of the government's business...

'Tis an overstatement. Marriage, as we know it, is defined not only as a relationship between two people but a relationship between people and the government.

What definition are you quoting? Check your state marriage laws. Marriage is NOT a relationship with the government. The government REGULATES the entry, maintenance, and dissolution of marriages, but the government is in no manner whatsover a party to the relationship.

You've neatly outlined that relationship yourself, even if you take a cramped view of the word "relationship." This is such a minor and plainly obvious point that I'm having difficulty understanding the shock, surprise, and denial that it has elicited in this thread. Marriage is a public affair; It's an announcement of your relationship with your spouse to the public, and it comes with a neat little seal of approval (a license from the government). It's not sex in the bedroom. It's not purely a matter of private consent -- you're not "married" in any meaningful sense until the government consents to uphold and interfere in your now legal relationship. And once you have that govnerment consent -- once the government says "OK, I'll uphold this" -- your relationship is regulated and validated by the government from day 1, through subsidies (tax & welfare subsidies), changes in your legal status, changes in your citizenship status (if you're an alien), changes in government recognition of your property, etc. You can make whatever artificial public/private distinctions you want, or whatever arguments about semantics or history, but as a de facto matter, marriage is public.

0 Replies

Marriage is a public expression of devotion. It is not a relationship with the government.

Half of all marriages end in divorce, yeah? But not half of all people who get married. Those boneheads getting married multiple times bring down the average, and dilute the meaning of being married.

0 Replies

Er, especially those in the throes of real life sexual expression.

Don't get me started, the merest exhilarating touch doesn't mean you need to devote your next 58 years.

0 Replies

Steppenwolf wrote:

Debra_Law wrote:
Steppenwolf wrote:
Phoenix32890 wrote:
DrewDad wrote:
If you decide to get married, and screw it up by choosing the wrong partner or having an affair, then that's it. No one who has a divorce allowed to get married again. Wouldn't that protect the dignity of marriage?

...And it is really none of the government's business...

'Tis an overstatement. Marriage, as we know it, is defined not only as a relationship between two people but a relationship between people and the government.

What definition are you quoting? Check your state marriage laws. Marriage is NOT a relationship with the government. The government REGULATES the entry, maintenance, and dissolution of marriages, but the government is in no manner whatsover a party to the relationship.

You've neatly outlined that relationship yourself, even if you take a cramped view of the word "relationship." This is such a minor and plainly obvious point that I'm having difficulty understanding the shock, surprise, and denial that it has elicited in this thread. Marriage is a public affair; It's an announcement of your relationship with your spouse to the public, and it comes with a neat little seal of approval (a license from the government). It's not sex in the bedroom. It's not purely a matter of private consent -- you're not "married" in any meaningful sense until the government consents to uphold and interfere in your now legal relationship. And once you have that govnerment consent -- once the government says "OK, I'll uphold this" -- your relationship is regulated and validated by the government from day 1, through subsidies (tax & welfare subsidies), changes in your legal status, changes in your citizenship status (if you're an alien), changes in government recognition of your property, etc. You can make whatever artificial public/private distinctions you want, or whatever arguments about semantics or history, but as a de facto matter, marriage is public.

We are a nation of laws and the government is our servant. The government serves the people by making laws, enforcing laws, and adjudicating cases and controversies based on the law. Married or single, our laws affect almost every aspect of your life. That doesn't make your life a public affair nor does it make marriage a public affair. Marriage is NOT defined as a relationship between the people and the government.

0 Replies

I think it should be illegal for anyone working in Hollywood to get married. It never works out, and afterward it's the only thing to read at the supermarket check out.

0 Replies

Dignity and sanctity of marriage - a modest proposal

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know