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I think the FLDS often have girls marry under the age of 18, which is definitely not ok, IMO (although I'm not absolutely sure if that's a fact).
I don't think relationships between consenting adults should be interfered with. My problems with the flds is that I think they do not prepare the children scholastically for continuing education and life in the outside world - at least some of them do that. So the kids are left sort of falling into the flds patterns. I think there are different fundie Mormon cults that have slightly different lifestyles.
I think fundamentalist proponents don't like to face uncertainties, which life is full of. They like very trusted and predictable patterns for living and have a more difficult time adjusting to modern times. There are good and bad aspects to both, but once the page is turned there is no going back.
How ya' gonna' keep em down on the farm, after they've seen Pariee?
I have made many mistakes, and still make them, and some of them do have lifelong consequences. Marriage is serious business. Treating it shabbily ought to have consequences.
Having said that, sometimes people suffer innocently. You might marry a woman who has an accident and is permanently disabled and brain-damaged. It's nobody's fault. But yes, you will suffer, and shouldn't you? "To love is to suffer." - Dostoyevsky
Really? You feel people should be punished for life for their foolish mistakes? We all make them. At what point are you willing to give a little wiggle room for human error?
I respect honest secularists like Judith Wallerstein, Nat Hentoff, and others. The problem with secularism, though, is that its view of marriage is purely uitilitarian. If some other means could be found to attain the desired ends, then marriage is dispensible for the secularist. Furthermore, secularists don't really have a commitment to those "desired ends" apart from their own likes and dislikes. So marriage doesn't have any foundational support from secularism.
Secularism can analyze a culture, but it can't build a culture. That takes religion.
There are cultures built around non-religious concepts. Not only that, but as someone who isn't really religious, I have to disagree with you that all secularists view marriage as purely utilitarian. There is at least one securalist who does not have that view of marriage (me) and I am willing to bet I'm not alone.
This is a good subject to explore. Does a secularist believe in metaphysical truth? Because that's what drives belief in marriage for the bulk of humanity: a belief in moral and spiritual realities. So I'm wondering what kind of non-religious truth would motivate a couple to persevere through a difficult marriage.
From what source does a secularist derive his morality? What makes it binding on his conscience?
I remember back when my parents were together, divorce just was not done and they used to discuss the death notices and which spouse may very well have murdered the husband/wife. THat happens when you have to put up with an abuser/addict for years and have no hope of escape.
I am GLAD we can divorce these days. It actually saves lives.
It saved mine. My ex almost killed me several times.
what i see in these many posts is its about entitlement its about personal power and freedom & $$$$, its not about kids. saying that women are all about family might have been true 50 years ago but not now.
men need to rethink marriage and family, asap. no one expresses this better than carmen jovet, who the other night encouraged mothers to coach their sons to get prenup so they wont get taken to the cleaners.
what i see in these many posts is its about entitlement its about personal power and freedom & $$$$, its not about kids. saying that women are all about family might have been true 50 years ago but not now.
men need to rethink marriage and family, asap. no one expresses this better than carmen jovet, who the other night encouraged mothers to coach their sons to get prenup so they wont get taken to the cleaners.
Well, in the case of prenups I can envision a gold digger having kids as another way of getting money from the old man upon disillusion.
What factors enter into the decision of couples when they decide to have kids? Do most sit down and consider their savings and working arrangements and extra time and emotional maturity and agree that it is or is not a good time to start a family? Or are most kids still accidents?
So many bumpy and sad marriages have children and I am wondering if there is a way to prevent that.
What factors enter into the decision of couples when they decide to have kids? Do most sit down and consider their savings and working arrangements and extra time and emotional maturity and agree that it is or is not a good time to start a family? Or are most kids still accidents?
What's odd to me, is that I was a planned baby! But family life still fell to pieces,and my dad eventually left my mom for another woman when I was about 9. This is when I started get F's in elementary school...
I don't know what it takes to keep a couple and family intact. I'd imagine it's the kind of commitment not everyone is capable of making. Funny that people still take the risk to make it work...I guess the alternative, loneliness, can really motivate people in the quest for human contact.
Honestly I think people sometimes have children for selfish reasons: for themselves. Instead of realizing that the child is its own being, and that's a big deal! Some of us may have been happier floating as One in the Universe having never left the warm colorful comfort of our Creator...lol
Good point. The kids out of wedlock problem is the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about. You get crucified for daring to mention that it's detrimental to kids, their parents, and society at large.
It gets mentioned regularly. It also gets blamed on all of womankind ALL the time, followed by blaming ALL of womankind for abortion. There is only one person known to immaculately conceive and none of us are it. The rest of us pay with blood no matter the choice and the rest of those blaming have to get over themselves.
The reason why single motherhood went up is because abortion went down. More women said yes to life. Not the ideal situation, but, better than abortion? Time will tell. Use single mothers as target practice, put more thorns in their path struggling to earn a living, it betrays the rotten agenda of RTL every time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mysticaltyger
You'll have to find some other excuse to blame men. 2 times out of 3 it's women who file for divorce.
I didn't care for her comment much either but...
If a woman divorcing will realize a 27% loss in material quality of life as a result, why is she doing it?
If she fails to separate from a man who is getting violent or abusive with herself or her children, what are the legal consequences to herself? Why aren't those statistics relevant?
If she finds herself in a position where basic resources for her children are being deprived because daddy is using the kids lunch money for his meth habits, she's a criminal for filing divorce? She's a criminal for failure to cure someone else's addiction? Speaking of irrational expectations... When a wife commences to build a home and a husband commences to maintain his bachelor pad lifestyle, the best interest of the children trump both no matter how it's sliced or portrayed to be a battle of wills.
You'll have to find some other excuse to keep speaking about men as if they are irrelevant to all equations all the time. Feminists didn't do that, religions and social conservatives did. Rights for women are responsibilities, and when they make any misstep failing to live up to those (at times irrational) responsibilities they pay for it in spades. Even when they are not failing, the accusations and rebuke are regular fodder in politics and in forums just like these. Rights for men is making a career of the right to avoid responsibility. Women didn't make them irrelevant. They made themselves irrelevant. And so did the peanut gallery discussing her refusing to consider evidence & circumstance.
Children do need strong male role models. They absolutely do need fathers. Substituting a hoodlum for a father is junk food in lieu of a meal. Note a pattern here? You betcha!
Quote:
Originally Posted by mysticaltyger
The sexualized culture is a problem. We put too many unrealistic expectations on our partners, but both men & women do that.
100% agreed regarding unrealistic expectations on marriage, but censorship will only create a situation that allows weak minded people to carry on their habits of being led around by peer pressure. Similarly, we avoid looking at the pre existing conditions leading up to other sad things like addiction because not every person who drinks a glass of wine ought to be blamed for what addicts do. We don't understand addictive personalities enough to head them off at the pass before they manifest themselves negatively. We don't understand peer pressure prone individuals very well to head that off at the pass either.
The better remedy is to facilitate/ cultivate better values & conscientious choices. Turning off the TV would be a great start. I could listen to hundreds of men in this forum carry on accusations about the morality of all of womankind, but when porn and it's ancillary industries are multi billion industries from millions of customers, their values look crystal clear to me. The overwhelming majority of women who have nothing whatsoever to do with this industry are getting blamed for it's existence, blamed for seeking out honest employment, and blamed for whatever demented things going on in a mans mind.
When men make themselves unfit for civilization via alcohol or porn or whatever means they choose to render themselves in such a state... they are unfit husbands, unfit fathers, unfit employees, unfit tenants... down the line. It is they who need dealing with. Not the rest of the world socially/ legally/ religiously forced to carry their luggage around for them. Incredulously, the irrational expectation put upon womankind is that if only normal women intervened or got intimately involved with them to engage real life, it would cure them. It does not cure them. It smears the problem around and tests the sanity of everyone around them. Including the kids.
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