three4jump

This discussion on marriage got me thinking about what some alternatives to marriage might be. The main reason we have marriage is because it was required by religion for so many centuries. What should be the atheist way of managing a relationship?

The most obvious choice is that there should be no traditional or preferred style of relationship; everyone should just do what is right for them. It is helpful sometimes to have a model of what has worked in the past. Does anyone have, or know of, a non-traditional relationship or arrangement that could take the place of marriage?

The traditional marriage tries to do too many things at once:
1. Create a legal entity for tax purposes.
2. Create a legal entity for laws concerning health and welfare.
3. Define a family unit, for the sake of offspring.
4. Force compliance with church dogma.
5. Regulate sex.
6. Make two people happy.

Forgetting the first five objectives, how do you get two people to be happy together, and for how long? I don't know what would work better, but traditional marriage seems like a recipe for disaster.

BadBadBad

I don't think there's anything wrong with the traditional marriage. What's missing is a strong influence from family and community to stick with it. It used to not be respectable to leave your family and or divorce your spouse. There's nothing wrong with the traditional marrige, we just don't have society sticking behind it.

I'll probably get in trouble for this, but one thing we could do to prop up the institution of marriage is to change the bias on child custody in the courts to be more balanced between men and women. We have a percentage of women that choose to cut and run from marriage without the fear of risking losing custody over their children and the child support that goes with it. We have a percentage of men that cut and run knowing they aren't going to be held accountable for their responsibilities towards the children either financially or as a father. I don't see any purpose in a marriage outside of children, and all of society has made it too easy to dissolve a marriage and for both parties to alleviate their responsibilities to the children.

Graeme

I don't think a renewed or greater committment to the institution by society would stop young people from making bad decisions and marrying unwisely.

I'd much rather see a child raised by a happy (or at least content) divorced family than an unhappy intact one.

three4jump

This is not to say you're wrong, because how the hell would I know, but even if society and communities and child custody laws compelled couples to stay together at a higher rate, how would that help make the couples happy?

The Other Michael

Robert Heinlein is one SF author who has had non-traditional "marriages" in a number of his books. Melissa Scott had a series ("Five-twelfths of Heaven") that had the female protaganist married to two men. Nothing else is coming to mind at the moment, but I'd expect that there are quite a few other novels in which the subject has played a part.

cheers,
Michael

cheetah

I have a non-traditional relationship, I guess. My partner and I have been unmarried to each other for 7 years, and we actively plan not to get married. We are taking most of the components of traditional marriage on, though only after careful thought and one at a time (a quote from a link I am about to give is that marriage is the only contract very few people read and the contractors don't have a right to modify before it is entered into---paraphrasing). I guess another reason is to be non-traditional, because marriage is so loaded, that we aren't sure we want to acquiesce to all those trappings.

My partner and I own assets together (houses), have lived together for a long time, have asymbolic gesture of our commitment (a ring) and name each other as our benficiaries. Still working on wills, trusts, health and financial decision-making proxies.


We certainly aren't as non-traditional as some. Here is a website that talks about all kinds of alternatives to marriage:


The Alternatives to Marriage Project

The Other Michael

cheetah,

Duh. I didn't even think to mention that my sweetheart and I will have been together 25 years next month, and we don't consider ourselves married. We are doing our best to be mated for life (so to speak), own our house and furnishings together (but basically separate finances otherwise, but we do make similar money), medical durable powers of attorney and all that stuff, but certainly not married.

It can work without the piece of paper.

cheers,
Michael

cheetah

I remember us discussing this before. When I saw your post, I was kinda surprised you didn't bring it up, but I thought maybe it was me that was confused!

seebs

Marriage predates religion and exists in societies without religion.

Secular Elation

Marriage is a joke.