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what is significant about contemporary American families, compared with those of other nations, is their combination of "frequent marriage, frequent divorce" and the high number of "short-term co-habiting relationships." Taken together, these forces "create a great turbulence in American family life, a family flux, a coming and going of partners on a scale seen nowhere else. There are more partners in the personal lives of Americans than in the lives of people of any other Western country."
An increasingly fragile construct depending less and less on notions of sacrifice and obligation than on the ephemera of romance and happiness as defined by and for its adult principals, the intact, two-parent family remains our cultural ideal, but it exists under constant assault. It is buffeted by affairs and ennui, subject to the eternal American hope for greater happiness, for changing the hand you dealt yourself. Getting married for life, having children and raising them with your partner — this is still the way most Americans are conducting adult life, but the numbers who are moving in a different direction continue to rise. Most notably, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in May that births to unmarried women have reached an astonishing 39.7%.
As long as there are people who are willing to sacrifice and compromise to the utmost to stay married, the idea will continue to be viable for those who choose the path.
America has had more innovation in a few hundred years than many nations have had in a few thousand.
It is not a surprise that some people have veered away from the traditional ideal of marriage.
And women here have a more equal opportunity in all facets of life than in many other nations.
It's the same old story we've seen countless times in empires from the past. America is in rapid decline due to its lack or morality and the stability that creates. The more troubling thing for the world is that there are no moral nations to replace it, the entire planet is sliding into the abyss.
what is significant about contemporary American families, compared with those of other nations, is their combination of "frequent marriage, frequent divorce" and the high number of "short-term co-habiting relationships." Taken together, these forces "create a great turbulence in American family life, a family flux, a coming and going of partners on a scale seen nowhere else. There are more partners in the personal lives of Americans than in the lives of people of any other Western country."
An increasingly fragile construct depending less and less on notions of sacrifice and obligation than on the ephemera of romance and happiness as defined by and for its adult principals, the intact, two-parent family remains our cultural ideal, but it exists under constant assault. It is buffeted by affairs and ennui, subject to the eternal American hope for greater happiness, for changing the hand you dealt yourself. Getting married for life, having children and raising them with your partner — this is still the way most Americans are conducting adult life, but the numbers who are moving in a different direction continue to rise. Most notably, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in May that births to unmarried women have reached an astonishing 39.7%.
You know, marriage in America will stay up against the ropes until drastic changes are made; such as, but not limited to:
• Women (en masse) forgoing collage to stay at home so they can relearn values that kept civilizations alive for centuries, such as, cooking nutritious food, proper sanitation of living quarters, home education for the little ones, and networking with other moms/families to form communities and REAL political power.
• Men going back to being able to work one job to support his ENTIRE family.
• Men having to work only 40 hours (or less) every week (keep in mind, many people today work 70-80 hours a week, and they are not even self employed, they are working for a company!). Also 4 weeks vacation should be the minimum standard!
• Women and men (en masse) walk away from all the Hollywood garbage that promotes drug use, drinking, and sexual promiscuity (or at least boycott the industry until they improve their standards).
• Adults going back to having REALISTIC goals for each other, such as, men not being so critical of a woman looks, and women going back to being able to think highly of any man regardless of his income, particular trade, or employment so as long as he encompasses the archetype of a REAL man who is honest, dependable, protective and brave.
• Some type of matching up of potential consorts system that is directed by the elders/family/community to ensure that everybody got a mate, and that the mate entering the dating pool was pre screened by the community so they can't contaminate the dating pool or get over on others who are innocent and native.
• Couples learning how to build a quality life TOGETHER instead of building up a life separately, and independently, to only then try and meet at the top. Well it doesn't always work out so well because people who build a life on their own somehow feel that they are better then anybody who did not achieve as much as they did (sense of entitlement) so they sometimes blow off perfectly good mates in the process, or they hang it over their mates head that they achieved more, which in many cases is what causes divorce.
• People given more leisure time (which goes along with point no.3) to develop hobbies and cultivate oneself.
Marriage should be a means to an end, not an end in itself. I see no reason to save marriage, if it requires depriving women of choices and opportunities, stripping people of civil rights, suppressing the arts, censorship and cramming religious dogma down our throats. We are finally at a point in our civilization when we can stop dedicating our lives to barely surviving and to seek self-fulfillment, love and companionship, even if it involves doing things that gently horrify all these morality freaks who secretly troll for gay sex in public restrooms. And, Morphous, your claim that the homes of working women are "unsanitary" is hilarious; I'm sure it's not something you'd know, but one of the reasons to get an education and a high-paying job is so you can pay someone else to do filthy, repetitive, boring and intellectually unstimulating household chores.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Morphous01
• Couples learning how to build a quality life TOGETHER instead of building up a life separately, and independently, to only then try and meet at the top. Well it doesn't always work out so well because people who build a life on their own somehow feel that they are better then anybody who did not achieve as much as they did (sense of entitlement) so they sometimes blow off perfectly good mates in the process, or they hang it over their mates head that they achieved more, which in many cases is what causes divorce.
Study after study has shown that people who marry later in life, when they have established a career and developed independent professional and intellectual goals, have lower -- much lower -- divorce rates than people who marry young when their lives are in a flux. In fact, the most reliable statistical predictor of whether a particular marriage will last is the age of the parties; the later they marry, the less likely they are to divorce. Scientific studies also have established that marriages between people who are of the same social and economic class have considerably lower divorce rates than couples that come from disparate backgrounds. Therefore, while you may believe that a bus depot janitor with 2 grades' education is a "perfectly good mate" for a nuclear physicist because he is "honest, dependable, protective and brave" (although also dumb as a doorknob, intellectually incurious and has no interests in common with said nuclear physicist), practice shows otherwise.
I'm sure it's not something you'd know, but one of the reasons to get an education and a high-paying job is so you can pay someone else to do filthy, repetitive, boring and intellectually unstimulating household chores.
Marriage is GREAT, just ask a lot of our 1966 & 1968 high school graduation classmates who have been married to one person for 30 plus years! As for myself, and my wife, unfortunately we weren't able to go down that
1-person/1-marriage road (30 plus years), but next year will be 10 for us. Have had our disagreements/arguements, but say "I'm sorry" in the end, plus a kiss and a hug!
What does paying someone to do a job have to do with slavery? My world history is a bit rusty, I'll admit, but if I'm not mistaken, slavery is defined as involuntary, unpaid labor by people who are considered property of others, with no legal identity or rights of their own. I believe a housewife in a traditional society, such as the kind that Morphous is advocating, fits that description much better than a housekeeper or a maid.
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My world history is a bit rusty, I'll admit, but if I'm not mistaken, slavery is defined as involuntary, unpaid labor by people who are considered property of others, with no legal identity or rights of their own. I believe a housewife in a traditional society, such as the kind that Morphous is advocating, fits that description much better than a housekeeper or a maid.
