Posted on 07/31/2005 3:19:52 PM PDT by mlmr
So I have been trying to rent an apartment in my home...and all I have answering the ads are boyfriends and girlfriends. No matter what social status, no matter what income level, I am seeing unmarried twenty, thirty and forty year old couples who want to live together. If I question them, they don't even understand why I am asking.
These are Christians and Jews. I was so surprised to find that it would be so difficult to find a young married couple.
Tell me Dear Freeper...am I totally out of the ballgame to expect to find a young married couple? Am I expecting something that just isn't in our culture anymore?
Semantics. The end result is still two people condemned to unhappiness because it's "wrong" and "evil" to get divorced.
And then teaching a child, "Yea, it's okay if I end up marrying someone I don't actually like, I'll just put up with them so I can breed in the way society wants me to."
If this is what you believe is right, I respect that. But I'm not going to be told that that's what *I* should do, or my child should do.
Seems to me he was asked the question and replied with an explanation of what he believes are the consequences of sin. If you do not believe as he does, why would you care about his judgment?
When someone describes sin as defined by a different religion than mine, my reaction is "oh, whatever." I don't believe or practice that religion, so I don't care if I've sinned against their beliefs.
Wow. There goes your claim to "civilized debate."
if the premises are that marriage is sacred and that people can learn to work together, then it's only a question of the willingness to do so (or the refusal to do so). yeah, sure, there are some impossible cases, but they used to be the exception and not the rule. but now they're the rule precisely because of what you espouse.
surely even you can see that any society is better off, and raises better future generations that are better able to cope with life's demands, if the family honors those premises.
surely even you can see that the fruit of the mentality that it's degrading or dumb to stay together when we don't get along is exaclty the miserable society we all live in.
Cheers.
I'm not going to be civilized when someone tells me they can look at any unhappy couple and say "Oh, they should just stay that way, it's better for *society*."
What happened to the individual we supposedly champion on other parts of this site?
I'm not going to dispute the fact that many couples break up not because it's an impossible situation, but because they don't put enough effort into it. Yet the fact remains that what I see in this topic is generalization after generalization.
I lived with my wife before marriage. We're happy and committed today. But no matter how successful our marriage is, according to this thread we are sinners doomed to failure.
Quite frankly, I think narrowmindedness is just as big a harm to Society.
as what, divorce? that's a statement that's fit for debate. let's start by defining narrow-mindedness....
For all intents and purposes yes you are. Living together is about as durable as marriage is nowadays.
Actually living together is MUCH LESS durable than marriage. I think I read stats that people playing house break up in the 80% range.
I don't quite get your point. Are you trying to shield your children from the fact that people who aren't married do live together? Wouldn't it be better, rather than trying to give them such a sheltered life, to discuss living arrangements, or whatever, with your children and tell them why you disagree, or agree, with those actions? I've raised my son to be aware of as much out there as possible
We talk a lot. I raise my children to be aware also. But I have also found that by placing clear boundaries on what I permit in our lives, the children learn for words only have a small effect. Action has more effect. Lead the life you want your children to lead.
I know a number of Good Christian Women who let their preteen and teenaged daughters watch the Titanic continously and raved over the film, and exposed their children, and preteens to immoral lives, then have beat their chests when the children chose immoral paths.
Yes, I know that my children have free will but I also have a responsiblility to provide the boundaries until they leave home.
Hmmm...truthfully, if you don't know there's hardly a point in explaining it. But the implication is that women are only valuable as child-bearers...which in turn eliminates quite a few women, including older women, as having value.
Geez I can't believe I had to explain that!
I dont think that they were saying that all woman have value, but that their marital marketibility value erodes over time as their physical charms erode and childbearing ability fades, for although in our culture marital status is not totally corrolated with childrearing, it is significant.
see post 270, as poorly crafted as it may be.
Children learn from example, if you accept garbage in the living room, most of your children will have garbage in their livingrooms.
well, this is, I'm sorry to say, a very narrow summation of the position opposite you.
I noticed that everyone here who was of the opinion that living together before marriage can have it's acceptable purposes and situations said just that. The traditionalists are always the ones passing judgement, and outright insulting people who think differently.
(sarcasm/on) that is true, there have been no references to Saudi Arabia, judgementalism, or small-mindedness on this thread by people who are proponents of living toghether before marriage against people who dont.(sarcasm/off)
People who say that living together is sinful are not passing judgement, they are stating their opinion. It is their reality.
I'm not going to debate on which provides durability that is immaterial to the question at hand which is "Is living together totally acceptable?" Today's society for the most part accepts it, marriage is cheap divorce expensive, and marriage is the biggest predictor of divorce now you do the math on why people don't get married. I think you answered your own question when you said that the couples were perplexed as to why you were even asking if they were married. If you just wanted to brow beat people with your own opinion then by all means continue to do so if you want an answer to your question I have given you mine.
marriage is the biggest predictor of divorce
UHHHH. This doesnt make sense....one cannot have divorce without marriage.
On the other hand...one can have "Moving out" when one is playing house...and there are a lot more move-outs than divorces.
This is a much-researched question and the statistics are out there, maybe I can track down some of them via Google. In the meantime, this, from David Popenoe:
"Many studies have found that those who live together before marriage have less satisfying marriages and a considerably higher chance of eventually breaking up. One reason is that people who cohabit may be more skittish of commitment and more likely to call it quits when problems arise. But in addition, the very act of living together may lead to attitudes that make happy marriages more difficult. The findings of one recent study, for example, suggest "there may be less motivation for cohabiting partners to develop their conflict resolution and support skills." (One important exception: Cohabiting couples who are already planning to marry each other in the near future have just as good a chance at staying together as couples who don't live together before marriage).
...
David Popenoe is professor of sociology at Rutgers University, where he is also co-director of the National Marriage Project and former social and behavioral sciences dean. He specializes in the study of family and community life in modern societies and is the author or editor of nine books. His most recent books are Life Without Father: Compelling New Evidence That Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable for the Good of Children and Society and Promises to Keep: Decline and Renewal of Marriage in America.
This is one guy who has the statistics (in his books). I'm still trying to locate them on the Web. Just something for you to look into.
Saying that women have "a shorter shelf-life" (observing this in practice) is quite different from saying that women "ought" to be less desirable as marriage partners as they grow older. The first is just noticing something that happens; the second, would be a sexist (or age-ist) value judgment.
Yes, it's a fact of fertility, sometimes. Amongst those that value childbearing, what sort of marriages are more likely to occur: 40 y-o man + 20 y-o woman, or 40 y-o woman and 20 y-o man?. Sometimes it's just a matter of attraction: it's hard for a 35 y-o woman to have all the visual appeal of a fresh, sleek, bouncy 20 y-o. And men --- can't help it --- are hard-wired by nature to be far more visually-oriented than women.
That's not sexism, either. I'm not saying that males "ought" to be that way. That's just the way it is, when the guy has a typical male-configured brain and blood-hormone status. An older, dumpier woman (like myself) can have a husband who loves her from the heart; a blind man can have rich sexual responses; but it's stark obvious that most men are instinctively drawn to the visual attraction of younger gals.
Good men -- good husbands --- learn to resist that, in order to avoid temptation. God's honest truth.
Thank you for including the part of the excerpt with the exception to marriage-planning couples. This is the point I've been trying to get across in this topic. You can't lump couples who are about to marry and intend to do so with couples who just want to "shack up"
However there is some evidence that the experience of cohabitation itself tend to "train" the partners in the practice of shielding themselves from real open-hearted emotional intimacy and making only provisional commitment.
Which is, come to think of it, an oxymoron.
I myself would argue that living-together involves a kind of falsehood. The experience of intercourse speaks a language in the flesh which says "Now I belong to you." Even women who think of themselves as somewhat un-tender, emotionally, can be quite surprised to find themselves reacting to sexual union this way.(And yes, guys, too: but I suspect that women are quicker and more sensitive this way.)
So your actions say "we mate; we're mated; we belong to each other" in the deep language of the body; but the terms of your cohabitation give the lie to that.
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