POLL: Premarital Sex

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You don't have to make her change her name. You can take her name yourself. Or you can come up with a new one. Or stay with each one's own. Or combine the two. There is a number of options. It's not like you have to wear wedding rings, either, before you ask.

The point with refusing to marry is that one 1) uses the "the difference is in paper only" argument to support his concept of relationship, 2) claims it wasn't marriage but just a boyfriend & girlfriend relationship when splitting up, which is just as easy.

Damn, that sucks. Really, 40% inheritance tax is robbery. Any tax that high is institutionalised robbery, let alone inheritance.

@Aldeth: You're only proving my point. A pre-marital relationship is not stable or fixed and therefore prone to disasters much more than marriage. Therefore, it shouldn't include sexual relations. If this effectively means not having sex until one is ready have a house and a family then be it. After all, one shouldn't have sex until one is ready to bring up children. Show me "protection" that never fails. Not like I'm endorsing contraception now.

 

I'd still like to see Chev's view on this at some point in the future when he has seven kids and no room in house to fit any more and no more money to feed them because his wife can't go back to work because she's always pregnant. There's just no logical reason why contraception should not be used by married couples who simply don't want any more children at that point time.

 

So, Chev, what does this mean about my sister in law's parents? They've been together for 30 years and have never married. They don't believe in government marriage. This somehow lessens their commitment and love to each other?

 

Sorry, my bad should have chosen the smilie. I am more than aware that people don't have to change their names, wear wedding rings or such like. Sheesh, you can pick that up from watching/reading 101 Dalmations. I didn't really expect you to have a rant on that bit of frivolity.

I'm sure some people might well have those reasons for not marrying, but as ever the world isn't as Black & White as you make out. There are plenty of people who don't fit into the sterotypes you try to force them in - Drew's example as another case in point.

As yet, you still haven't given me a reason why I should marry. (Alas, keeping you happy doesn't count, )

Actually I got the inheritence tax threshold wrong, it's actually at £275k, not £400k. I thought there was some talk of it being significantly raised, but I can't find any info on it.

 

@Carcaroth: Marrying someone to make me happy would make me unhappy. Also, it would likely invalidate the marriage in the absence of your internal consent.

@Drew: That example is an example of something that works on a day to day basis like a marriage but still isn't. Without vows, it's still free commitment. Of course, vows exchanged with each other without witnesses complicate the matter, but there's always the problem of taking consent back and caboom, the relationship ending the way a boyfriend and girlfriend relationship does. Actually, in Roman law, that kind of cohabitation would make marriage (usucaping your wife ) in the absence of impediment or contrary will. But the problem with Roman marriage is that it lasted so long as consent persisted... which is basically like it works with boyfriends and girlfriends nowadays.

Rest assured that I have much less of a problem with such relationships than with open marriages or some such, although I still can't say it's right. The absence of vows makes it differ from marriage in documents only but just so long as both partners haven't changed mind.

 

Where do you get the right to even HAVE a "problem" with any of these relationships, if you're not involved? How would you even know if a couple is married or not, or swinging? If those people are happy in the relationship they've defined for themselves and no one else - including you - is impacted by it, leave 'em alone.

 

Chev,

I think the main point of difference between our opinions is you are assuming that if no marriage exists, the relationship is doomed to failure. While I will admit that people who are not married can break up and not have to file any paper work, it seems that filing for the divorce is probably the least of the work you have to do in breaking up.

Many people in long term relationships who aren't married are living together. Even if they haven't purchased a home, at the very least they probably have both their names on the place they are renting. They might have a vehicle that is co-owned. And of course, if they break up, one person has to get all of his/her stuff out of the apartment and find somewhere else to live. So yes, while they don't have to do one step (filing for a divorce) all the other unpleasant stuff that goes along with breaking up with someone still has to be done whether your married or not. And all the emotional issues are there as well, married or not.

I don't have any plans to get divorced from my wife. However, if I did, filling out and signing some paper work seems to me to be the least stressful part of it. Assuming she would get the house, I'd have to find a new place to live, which likely would mean finding an apartment, and then actually moving all my stuff in the house now to a new place. I guess my main point is that there is minimal differences in what you go through when you have to break up with someone. Granted, there is one less step if you aren't married, but that certainly doesn't mean that it's "easy" to do. The only change is instead of it being an "extremely difficult situation", it becomes a "slightly less extremely difficult situation."

 

i've read this thread long enough as a lurker, now i HAVE to post something.

chevalier, you're going to die a virgin. i can't believe your view of the simple word marriage. one could think that in your world, all problems just cease to exist when you enter marriage, all issues go away, everything is perfect, just because of a ritual before god. have you ever had a relationship yourself? without sex, of course. i have had both. you'll always have problems and issues and fights from time to time, marriage or not. but you care, you work hard and you give your best to be with your partner, relationship and marriage alike. listen to people like aldeth, carcaroth and drew concerning their personal experience, if you ever want to marry instead of preaching virtue. heck, i felt unclean because i'm not a virgin anymore and i'm not married.

as a sidenote, i think marriage is NOT fulfillment of your personal destiny. reproduction is. humankind has imposed moral and ethical structures to the most natural thing in the world.

personally, i guess that everybody should do what they feel is right for them. if that includes pre-marital sex, fine with me. why should i care? it's their life, not mine. myself, i'd never dream to wait until after marriage to sleep with my girlfriend. (note, that i want to marry, altough i am an agnostic. i don't believe in god, i believe in a higher spirit.) as aldeth put it so beautifully, sex enhances the bond between man and woman even more than the one already existing in a relationship. casual sex is nothing i'd approve of, but if people want to, fine with me. i won't tell them what to do. that's one of the reasons why i'm not too comfortable with the church (be it christian, muslim or jew). although i appreciate the sense of community, i don't understand why so many churches try to tell you what to do. i know religion doesn't tell me anything. religion shows moral and ethics, it's up to you to understand and develop similar morals&ethics fitting to your environment.

p.s.: i'm 23, too

 

By that same logic, what gives you the right to have a problem wih my attitude, let alone to tell me to drop it?

Besides, it's not up to people involved to define such rules and swinging affects the whole community, as does adultery. And premarital sex.

 

Ah Chev my friend, as usual we disagree in the fundamental premises of the argument. Entirely aside from our height discrepancy, I fear that we will rarely, if ever, see eye-to-eye on anything.

 

Ok, everyone cool down. Here's some food for thought. Marriage was originally an entierly religious action. It had nothing to do with government (probably because there was no government at the time). Marriage as a state act came about in the officially religious governments of medeival europe, where the Pope was frequently the most powerful political figure. This is where we get it from. Nowadays, I think marriage should go back to a religious institution. What Chev and Aldeth seem to be missing is that Aldeth's group didn't get married because they aren't Christians. If they were, they would have been, even if they never filed with the state. I would clasify them as pseudo-married. They have a married relationship, they just aren't officially married because marriage isn't anything to them.
Think if gun regestration were optional and used so the government knew who to call to the millitia if we ever needed one. When is the last time we needed a millitia? People who registered because they thought the millitia was still importent would get on the backs of those who didn't for not registering, but the real issue is the need of the millitia (religion in this analogy). Aldeth doesn't (i think) believe in God, so God's institution is nothing but a meaningless tradition for him. Chev and I know God personally, so His commands mean a lot to us.
The real thing we need to get back to debating is sex outside of a marriage-type relationship. If you're sleeping with your girlfriend and you don't have any real plans to marry her, then do you have a problem? That's what this thread needs to get back on to.

 

Well neither my girlfriend (though "girl" is stretching it a bit as she is seven years my senior) or I have a problem with it.
As there is about 0% chance of the law changing to "insist" people get married, and because our society has moved past the stage where it feels the need to punish such misdemenors as "living in sin" (Although I've never tended to let other peoples opinions force me to do anything anyway) I doubt my status quo is likely to change.

If Chev or someone else has an issue with it, that's their own problem (but I somehow doubt it'll make anyone lose any sleep!)

 

Let me just say that I do not think that marriage is "God's institution" as marriage was around before Christianity. In fact, the practice of pair-bonding was probably around even in the time when all of humanity were hunter-gatherers. Regarding belief in God, I'm not sure what I believe, but it certainly isn't the Christian view of God. Of course, since I don't believe that marriage is God's institution, my belief (or lack thereof) is moot in that vein of the discussion.

Agreed. I think it got off track when people disagreed about a fundamental issue - if you're not one of the people involved in pre-marital sex, why do you care? I don't think they have a problem. He can screw her blue for all I care. And THAT'S where my view differs from Christian teaching. Somewhere along the line, the Christians (and they're not alone, the same goes for Muslims) made sex (and sexuality in general) into a bad thing, and I still don't understand why.

I just think it's a choice everyone has to make, and so long as it's all consensual, I don't have a problem with it. I didn't run around having sex with dozens of different women before getting married, but I don't begrudge the people who do. Of course, I'm also not on the complete opposite side of the fence either, as I did have sex with girlfriends I didn't end up marrying.

Ultimately, I think sex is something that shouldn't be taken lightly, or done just for fun. I think you should be in a monogamous relationship with someone that you can see yourself spending the rest of your life with. That's how it worked with me - even though it turned out I was wrong about the potential for spending the rest of my life with (all but one of) them. I guess I'm saying I had reasons for having sex beyond mere sexual attraction.

 

Where did that 'fact' come from? I bet that there was marriage before there was organised religion. Probably some sort of custom in a tribe that had a really practical purpose (maybe something to do with making sure a man looked after his kids something).

 

Ok, one, tribal cultures generally see children as the children of the whole tribe, not one pair. They (usually) view sex as an act between two paired people (essentially married even if they don't use the word) for social reasons (that we may want to pay attention to).

Two, who the hell ever said that religion only means modern organized relgion? Abraham was surely a religious man, but there were no tabernacles, no priests of God, nothing but God Himself staring at the man and saying, "Do this."

Three, as a Christian (or Jew or Muslim), the first marriage was between Adam and Eve, initiated by God, therefore pretty religious.

Four, Aldeth, you do realize that Jews worship the same God Christians do and that Judaism goes back (recorded) a lot farther than any other modern religion, don't you? And if you aren't working from the Biblical account, then worship of idols and thunderstorms and the sun sure as hell count as religions and were pretty much the entire basis of most early cultures as far as we can tell.

So will everyone get off my back about me calling marriage a religious institution, because it was.

 

Wow, there was a lot of invoking of the word "hell" in that last post. That doesn't sound very holy.

I think it's probably a bit tough to make any generalisations about what tribal cultures may or may not have done, given that a) there are zillions of different tribal cultures who all probably have different customs and b) none of us were there and they didn't leave us any written records (being pre-historic, after all).

Of course, if you're going to wheel out the Adam and Eve argument, then you clearly don't believe in the word "pre-historic".

 

being the human species is primarily pack oriented and patriarch ALMOST without exception, pairings of some sort (be it a man and woman or man and multiple women) is a pyschological must. A a group oriented species relies heavily on exclusion and alliances to build it's frame work, while a patriarchical group, because men are more anarchic and individualistic biologically, those with power make things (or women) exclusively theirs.

Primative human society would have been similar to standard chimpanzees (Bonobos are too culturally isolated, their matriarchal society never made it out of their isolated place), or gorillas, if you desire to see early human pairings. However to call this marriage is really a stretch, it was merely a bond of, in theory, "exclusivity", they needed to be cohesive to make sure their children survived, they pooled their energy into their children their genes where more likely to survive.

 

Of course I do. But you are obviously Christian, so when you said you thought that marriage was a religous institution, I assumed that you were talking about a Christian view of marriage. If it makes you feel any better, feel free to substitute "Judeo-Christian" everywhere I used "Christian" in my last post, as everything I said about Christians applies pretty much equally to Judeo-Christian belief.

Furthermore, I fail entirely to see how this strengthens your arguement, as I have said the custom of marriage isn't all that different from pair bonding, which has probably been practiced since we were hunter-gatherers, which pre-dates any known religion in the world today. THAT was my point - that the concept of marriage pre-dates all religions - I used Christianity as an example because I assumed you were speaking from a Christian perspective. So you don't even have to substitute Judeo-Christian. Substitute Hinduism. Or Islam. Or Taoism. Or Scientology for all I care. If you think I was referring only to Christianity, you missed the point completely.

Now I get to use "hell" as in "What the hell are you talking about?" First of all, if you are talking about human societies, I can only assume you're talking about things that happened in the last 150,000 years or so. Gorilla, chimps, or any other existing primate are very poor indicators of modern humans. They don't even compare all that well to things like neandertals, Homo habilis, or even a far earlier hominid like Homo erectus. It's a very poor comparison IMHO.

 

For once I agree with Aldeth. :gasp:
Looking at apes to see what 'early man' was like is clearly flawed. If you're talking anatomically modern man, we've been around for between 150,000 and 250,000 years, and there's a lot of change between then and the apes. The best indicator of what early human societies were like are modern day, 'primitive' tribal and nomadic cultures that have not been seriously influenced by outsiders. They exist primarily in dense jungle areas like the deep Amazon and certain parts of Asia and Africa. These cultures usually have 'primitive' beliefs that center around natural forces, like the sun, moon, rain, and lighting, and these are the centerpoints of their culture.

As for my use of 'hell', the Bible never says not to use the word 'hell', only not to use the name of God in vain, and not to swear falsly on anything God has made, but that's something else entirely. I was a little mad at all the people who didn't seem to read or think much before posting.

 

Genetic selection doesn't remove successful behavioral traits that evolve within a species. Since 40-50% of human behavior is created by our genetic background, our primitive behaviors (such as largescale group interaction) are relatively genetically hardwired, true, our "superior" cerebrum always to reflect on our own actions, but the "time" for philosophy and what not is a byproduct of a excess in at least somepart of the society.

Human group interaction moved very slowly, by 10,000 B.C. man differed little Neanderthals, sure he was scientifically more evolved (somewhat), but just like Neanderthals we consisted of small tribes or family groups. Social advancements don't really come to play until 5000 B.C. in China with the development of permanant residence for agrian life or 4000 B.C. for the Near East with the beginings of the Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations (Comeon Theory of Force and Theory of Divine Right). Even then the social interactions don't truly change, but only become more heightened as we approach the 1st millenia B.C. Marriage is formed during this time, sure, but it hardly more then a method for the patriach to identify which women are his.