Do men/women need marriage anymore like they were brought up to believe?
Thoughts? Opinions? Stories? Values? Backstories?





Do men/women need marriage anymore like they were brought up to believe?
Thoughts? Opinions? Stories? Values? Backstories?





This is my post from here:
If I ever get married, I will go into it knowing it won't last forever. Even if I wanted it to, its not practical in fast-paced societies. Technology changes things SO MUCH, and we are exposed to so many more people than say, in the 1950's. IMO, its almost a disservice to yourself to stay in a relationship for a really long period of time because you cease to grow. I've never met someone who divorced/broke up that said "Gee I wish I stayed with him/her for 10, 20, 30 more years before we broke up!" Its always the opposite. Someone ends up making sacrifices and passing up opportunities that they end up regretting. That usually leads to pent up resentment toward the other spouse. Then both are miserable, but they don't decide to break it off because of the life they've created together or the image they want to uphold. And one or both will probably still be miserable if each are living in poverty without a combined income household. You just have to pick your battles and take risks for better payoffs.
Once the relationship stops working, it should be left behind IMO. From a counseling or psychological standpoint, I should probably say that you should try to work things out, but honestly I don't see a point. You can't really work things out if one person is set in their ways or is unhappy. You can't change someone else, and you shouldn't try to. And chances are, that's what happens in most marriages. You find someone who has some qualities you like. You marry the person you want them to be. You wait for them to turn into that person. They never do. If anything, they become less & less like the person you want them to be because they actually start to be themselves. You both show your true colors. It causes conflict. One person wants to change the other. It really should just end. It doesn't mean you can't be friends, but you should stop depending on each other for things that the other will never provide for you even though the delusional mind thinks otherwise.
I don't know where my belief came from. Maybe its because I grew up in a single parent household til right before I graduated high school. Honestly, I definitely preferred that though. No drama, no hassles, no picking sides. All but one of my friends growing up came from a 2 parent married household and both parents were MISERABLE. They fought like crazy. The husband often dominated and controlled the wife. Some even ended up divorcing, which turned nasty and sad for the children because they went from a luxurious house to 2 small apartments with no extra money (which left the parents just as bitter as when they were still married). The only ones that seemed to get along were the ones where the husband made mid-6 figures and was gone for work a lot of the time, and the wife didn't work & basically had a lot of freedom to do whatever she wanted. To be honest though, I wouldn't be surprised if those couples had an open marriage. But those only worked because of the freedom... but its like, why even be married then? The wives obviously stayed married in those cases because they didn't have to work & had a lot of disposable income. Idk, I'm speaking from an outward perspective obviously, but I'm still going by what I saw/heard and what I was told by their children (my friends).
The later you marry, the more likely the marriage is to be long term. But the problem is, fertility for women peaks between age 20 to 25. So the odds are very, very, against you that a woman will still be with the man she had children with a decade or two later. Its not practical. We live much longer than we used to. Its not healthy at all for women (or men actually) to have children in their 40s. The risk of your child having autism or schizophrenia skyrockets. Many other disease too. And we wonder why these disease are heavily on the rise?
So no, I don't think marriage even works anymore (for long term), unless both have extreme amounts of freedom, and uhh, are basically not married lol. Or it also works if you're still stuck in the 1950s lifestyle and frame of mind... but even that's build on delusion because its basically don't-ask-don't-tell in order to uphold an image of "perfection" thats not realistic or attainable.
So that's why I think marriage is pointless. Maybe I'll get married one day, but I will definitely have my own money and job for when things end. However, I'd much rather just have my own things & my own home from the start, and solely depend on myself. I hate depending on others.
/rant





Actually, you are wrong about not healthy for women and men to have kids in their 40's. For some people this is true, but it's true for some people AT ANY AGE. The chances of a child born with a disability is higher to older parents but not as much as you think. In fact a 40 year old woman still only has something like a 3% chance of a disabled child or 97% chance of having a healthy baby. One of the reasons for the increase in higher disabilities is because doctors are automatically diagnosing kids autistic and what not just to get more money. I should mention that most of my ancestors had healthy babies in their 40's and those I knew with disabled kids had them in their 20's.
As for marriage I don't think it's a need but it has many advantages that living together or just dating does not. For example, if you are married and your spouse dies you will inherit everything. Living together without being marriage is a risk and for those people who become stay at home parents without being married this is probably the stupidest thing one could do. Plus if you have kids and married there are far more advantages, especially for the father. Unwed fathers often don't have the same rights as married dads. It's a huge gamble to have kids without marriage.
My grandparents are a perfect example of why marriage can work. When my grandma recently passed my grandfather was devastated. They were a matched set. My parents too actually. I want a marriage like they all had. These marriages are out there and yes they hit rough patches but they went on. That's the problem people don't want to endure the rough times.
I don't think marriage is for all, but I do think for many it's a good thing. Married people live longer and are healthier.





Scientific studies have proven otherwise. Its not just autism, its schizophrenia as well, which you cannot just randomly diagnose someone with due to the symptoms. Also, bipolar, pre-term birth, physical deformities, limb defects, genetic abnormalities (hence autism & schizophrenia which some have theorized as autoimmune problems), miscarriage, and others. I'm sure there's a million other articles if you google. While its true some of those may be due to overdiagnoses for profit, most of those are not because they are physical. You can't really misdiagnose something with physical manifestations. So in general, its true that anyone can have a baby with a disability, but rates are significantly higher if you are over 35, and even higher than than if you are over 40.





Yes, true, but if you set up a will via an attorney (which everyone should do), then you can have your spouse or whomever you'd like inherit whatever of yours you'd like.
Well the argument that many give is that, the more people you are exposed to in your life & the more opportunities you have, the more likely you are to cheat or divorce. In their day & age, there was not as much opportunity or technology. And once you hit a certain age (idk... 50+?) you tend to live a slower-paced lifestyle, meaning you would be more adept toward settling down. But for my generation & younger generations, the fact that we have this much opportunity and technology available to us at such young ages, causes relationship problems if we find a mate in our 20's or 30's because chances are it will not last. You either make huge sacrifices (career especially & life in general) and get married young and end up resenting life for all the opportunities you did not take, or you forego the long-term relationship and focus on your career. And somewhere in there, a woman needs to have children if she wants them because fertility doesn't last forever. I mean, you could try to find something in the middle, but either way you are making huge sacrifices in one area of you life. You just have to pick what you want to sacrifice. Idk, but I don't think its possible to have a strong career & take all the opportunities you want to take, have & raise children at the same time, and have a strong long-term marriage that you have for the rest of your life. And if you have all 3, one or more is going to seriously lack. You have to do everything in stages these days due to the fast-faced lifestyle now... technology. Our ancestors did not have these problems because (most) women didn't need to worry about money/career, and there was very little opportunities for them anyway. Life was extremely slow-paced compared to now. Technology changed all of that, which is the problem that current and future generations have/will have.
I believe that was also disproved due to the fact that single people tend to live riskier & take more risks since they are unattached. Married people tend to take into consideration the risks vs benefits (since the marriage creates codependency) before making any rash decisions or taking any major risks. In addition, single people tend to go out more often vs married couples.
Its like the whole education debate. "But if you get a bachelors degree, you make more overall compared to if you have just a high school education! And if you get a graduate degree, you make way more than if you had a bachelors degree!, etc." Its simply not true. It was disproven. The more education one goes after, the more motivated they are. And the more motivated they are, the more motivated they are to achieve more & more successes. I hate the manipulation of research facts. One of my biggest pet peeves.





You can't always believe what you read online, you need to talk to your doctor. Remember, anyone can create a website online. My doctor told me that in fact the stats can be lower for women more based on health than age and in fact a healthy 40 year old in shape woman is more likely to have a healthy baby than an obese drug addicted 25 year old. The stats are something like a 45 year old woman has a 10% chance of a child with issues but put another way a 90% chance of a healthy baby. There's always a risk of having a child with issues which is why it's important to talk to a doctor before becoming pregnant. Family history plays a lot of this. Also, one of the reasons why older women have more risks is that as you age you develop more problems. However, not all women do. Finally, many of these stats are from an era when women generally had babies younger and they have't been researched all that much lately. Technology is able to discover defects sooner.
i belive in old school marage but gay weddings can work too





That is published research though from medical journals. They give the links there to each published story, which has the APA credit at the bottom that contains all the information like the title of the article & where/when it was published. The results for older parents ranged from 6x - 100x higher for older parents, depending on the defect/problem. Medical research does not lie unless it is poorly designed or funded by a billion-dollar, which I do not believe those studies were as they were not trying to sell a drug or anything. There's nothing to sell for physical deformities except... surgery? All those studies were done in the past 10 years, and done by credible sources like major universities & research labs. There's hundreds more if you research medical journals.





Actually the studies were done 1964-1976. It mentions that later in the article. So now those are outdated studies. Like I said yes there is a higher risk as one ages, but MANY things add a risk, such as weight, general health, drugs, etc. My doctor (and I think she would know)said that one's risks go up or down depending on many factors. However, many of these "studies" are in fact ways to scare women out of careers and be moms.
Here's another article about this:
It specifically mentions that one needs to get in great health before trying for a baby. Yes there are risks, but not as much as the media would have one believe. It's a scare tactic, just like the myth that if a woman doesn't find a mate by 30 she never will.
Besides not everyone wants kids, and there are alternatives like egg donation or even adoption. I always said if I was unable to have kids I would adopt a child needing a home.
Last edited by Kellydancer; 01-30-2012 at 01:22 PM.





No, that's when they were born, it says. And that's only from the one on schizophrenia. "The study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, looked at records of almost 88,000 people born in Jerusalem between 1964 and 1976, and compared them to data from the Israel Psychiatric Register (part of the Israeli Ministry of Health)." Case studies usually take a decade or more, so they can fully see how things play out. In fact, the longer the case study is, the more accurate it would be since sometimes things don't manifest until decades later. I'm sure more case studies are going on right now that will be published in the future. These studies were all published in journals between 2000 and 2008, as the site indicates. All of these were done by doctors.
Yes, the rates of these birth defects are even higher when you are in poor health or have other risk factors. However, in order to be considered a participant in a research study, one must meet the requirements through a lengthy screening process where risk factors such as naturally poor health are eliminated. At least that's what I was told by the doctor I worked for & that's how we did it in the research lab I worked in.
Why would someone try to scare someone else out of having a career or being a mom? There's no profit in that. The media doesn't make a profit off that. Research labs don't make a profit off that. If anything, there's a loss of a profit from either tax wages witheld by the government from the woman working, or money made by pharmaceutical companies & hospitals off of overpriced birthing fees. Research doesn't like. They're facts resulting from a randomly-chosen, well-screened group of people by top doctors in these fields from around the world.





Why would they scare women? Because many of these studies are funded by right wing organizations wanting women home. Oh they may not state the organization but there are many things like this out there. Like I said yes there are risk by being older but being older doesn't guarantee an unhealthy child. In fact every single older mom I know (and I know many)all had healthy babies. The fact is I would rather an educated older woman has a baby than a younger poor mom has a baby she can't afford without a man in the picture. These people are older (being born 1976 would make them 35 and older), and yes that makes a difference. Technology has changed. But to say being older is too high risk is NOT telling the whole story. It adds risk but so does anything else, like being fat or on drugs. A 90% chance of having a healthy baby is still a good chance.





But even if they were funded by whatever organization, if the studies are not poorly designed, then the facts would still be accurate. Though I guess technically you can manipulate the facts on autism since the physical manifestations are questionable, you can't manipulate things like schizophrenia, aspert / fused bones, dwarfism / achondroplasia, other deformities, and preterm birth. And these studies are specific too. Down to the chromosome or HLA. Not only that, but they've given biological reasons behind why these things happen.
In addition, even if someone wanted to scare women out of having children at an older age, half of the studies on the site I posted are actually about men only. Men having children at an older age have just as much as a risk as women having children at an older age.





Then don't have kids at an older age but I'm still open to it and since my doctor says I am still fertile I will believe her, especially since she had her first baby at 43.
The topic was marriage I thought?.. But.. I have had some very good conversations about this topic of marriage with some women & the point of view that was raised was, how society programs little girls into a mind set of that being the Ultimate goal. Little girls dream of the wedding & all that comes with as little boys dream of the fast cars & careers? Now that women can have kids & careers without marriage why is there still pressure to tie the knot?
I think it just depends on who you are...marriage works for some, but may be hell for others.....I personally love being single over being in a relationship but being married to my husband is one of the greatest things I've ever experienced...I'm loving it, and considering my romantic history I think I might have just found my keeper LOL








For some yes...... These days more are saying no...... Life alone is not as lonely these days...... I think that is a factor that keeps many people single..... They don't "settle."
The country has been looted.





Really?
WOW.
That is going to come as a surprise to most lawyers and to our state legislature which thought otherwise when it enacted the probate code.
“§ 38. PERSONS WHO TAKE UPON INTESTACY
(b) Intestate Leaving Husband or Wife. Where any person having title to any estate, real, personal or mixed, other than a community estate, shall die intestate as to such estate, and shall leave a surviving husband or wife, such estate of such intestate shall descend and pass as follows:1. If the deceased have a child or children, or their descendants, the surviving husband or wife shall take one-third of the personal estate, and the balance of such personal estate shall go to the child or children of the deceased and their descendants. The surviving husband or wife shall also be entitled to an estate for life, in one-third of the land of the intestate, with remainder to the child or children of the intestate and their descendants.2. If the deceased have no child or children, or their descendants, then the surviving husband or wife shall be entitled to all the personal estate, and to one-half of the lands of the intestate, without remainder to any person, and the other half shall pass and be inherited according to the rules of descent and distribution; provided, however, that if the deceased has neither surviving father nor mother nor surviving brothers or sisters, or their descendants, then the surviving husband or wife shall be entitled to the whole of the estate of such intestate.





I agree. Technology has changed EVERYTHING. And with technology comes opportunity for those who are willing to open themselves up to it & go after exactly what they want. "Settling" back in like the 1950s was a really good thing because you weren't exposed to very many people during your life. "Settling" these days is a bad idea for most people considering you constantly meet new people unless you go out of your way not to. Odds are that 1.) you will change significantly as time goes on and 2.) you will come across someone more compatible.
Also, another good point is that apparently, now living in a technological age, our brains have been reprogrammed to think differently. People are more ADD. People get bored really quickly. People are striving for new things more often. "Study finds internet addiction causes changes in brain development" Although further research is still needed because they did not adjusted the study for outside variables. But things like that. Technology apparently mentally, emotionally, and now physically (biologically) changes people to respond to things much differently than in previous times.





I wouldn't even say marketing or the media, since they both go crazy over divorce coverage. The media & the advertising world (they're like affiliate marketers for each other lol) just take advantage of unrealistic cultural expectations that originally stem from religion. (I'm not saying religion is necessarily bad, just connecting the dots here.) So I think the real issue is the unrealistic value/morality system that's instilled in all (well, like 99%) of children by their parents. Go to school, get a job, get married, have children, and retire... and in that exact order or parents throw a fit. Oh and you can't forget about the adult industry being disgusting and evil! lol.
Parents obviously have their children's best interests at heart, but they really have no idea what they're talking about. Its like the education thing going on right now. For my everyone in my generation's whole lives, we were all told that we needed to "go to school, get an education, get a degree!" and that all our problems would be solved... that we would amount to nothing if we didn't have a degree. Obviously, if anyone just sat for a few minutes and thought about this, they'd realize its really a dumb statement to say. But no, even the education system bought into that belief. "Go to school! Your goal is to get into a great college and get a degree so you can have that guaranteed good, secure job!" Even now, most people are still buying into this, and the media is going crazy spamming those GetYourDegreeOnline.com ads every 5 seconds. In reality, a degree will get you no where unless its 100% required... which is what? like 10% of all jobs out there? Its all about motivation, creativity, networking, and internships. You don't *need* a degree, most people are better off with a trade and will make more money with a trade, and even start earning much faster without being 50k - 100k+ in debt. Yet still, to this day, everyone *expects* a job because thats what their parents told them. And then they blame it on the recession when it doesn't happen. Yes, the recession plays a part, but the reality of it all is that we are all being taught inaccurate information.
And that inaccurate information goes for all sectors of life. But then its a war with your parents & family if you try to go against the grain. So most people just go with the grain to avoid the headache, and because its an easier life. I believe that same reasoning is why families get stuck in poverty or cycles of violence and generations go by where they keep repeating the same mistakes. Its cultural, its tradition. They don't want to go against the grain of they'll lose the respect of their family & (some) friends.
The world these days is really warped place.
I like the symbolism. I think people should keep doing it and saying all those lovely flowery optimistic promises at the altar. Even if half the friends and family are rolling their eyes it's still a nice gesture. It says: hey everybody! If we start having problems you're gonna remind us about this day right? Don't let us off the hook too easy! Or at least, that's the purpose I see behind it. Depends on the crowd you run with too, like I see whole bunches of sorority girls getting wed within a couple years of eachother sometimes...then in my dancer friends I see everyone bashing it and swearing allegiance to the singles club for life.
I like the idea, and I'd love to be one of those stay at homes to the 6 figure daddy...but I'm still living large and enjoying my youth so it's all bets off as to whether I can find that with someone in my early thirties. Every boyfriend I've ever had I push the idea on them and it backfires (bcuz I date graffiti writers, musicians, gamblers, grocery clerks) so now? Yeah the pressure is off, I'm not baby crazy. I have the desire to be married but it doesn't color everything I do. Actually if anything it is helping me to NOT get into another dead end exsclusive relationship!
"You wonder why the fuck I rap?
It's deez SeXaY BiAtCHeZ on mah lap!"
-peachplumpear





Actually, marriage is very similar, in a way, to stripping/camming. Stripping & camming is fantasy, but often times the customer (male) does not realize it. Some do, some don't. Marriage- especially the vows, are kind of... in a way, roleplaying. You say something to the other person that you know isn't realistic, but you want it to be. Just like how the male strip club / cam customer often asks to date you or have sex with you or whatever he's looking for, and the stripper pretends like she'll give it to him even though she won't. Its fantasy. Some men know its not real, but they ask anyway. The stripper knows its not real, but she pretends anyway. Just like in marriage. The vows are just so unrealistic IMO. Promising to always give 110%, to never fight, to be the happiest ever, to only care about each other, to never divorce, etc.
What's funny about this is that I feel like men are more realistic about marriage (its emotional) which is why many delay it or stay bachelors forever... yet in strip clubs, men are very unrealistic about want to date/hook up with a stripper (its sexual)... So almost, in a way, there could be a biological component to women wanting to marry (or have a partner at least).





Yeah all those industries are affiliate marketers for each other. The best affiliate marketers in the world. They created that whole industry. So smart. I wish I had their business sense back before the public even realized (well most still don't) what was going on. $$$$$
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