RoR: Forum

Hi Bill, Luther, Joe, Elizabeth,

Well, there you go, downgrading the conversation again. At the risk of doing the same, I thought I would comment on this, you wrote to Elizabeth:

"If you do not find marriage to be of use to you, you have no obligation to bother with it. That's your business."

I thought the very same thing about the original article.

The original article does make one very important point with which I totally agree. Pesonal relationships are none of the government' business, and for the government to promote any kind of relationship over any other, with taxpayer money, is a gross violation of individual rights.

Otherwise, it seemed to me a complaint about a non-existent problem. No one is forcing anyone to get married, or in these days, even to stay married. Obviously some people do want to get married, and do, for the wrong reasons, and some people stay married for the wrong reasons, but that is hardly different from the way most people do most of the things in their life, from the way they use their leisure time to the way they pursue their careers.

I also thought it was interesting the very first comment on the article by Luther was, "This is another great article on love and marriage," but the word love only appears once in Joe's article, and then not in a very good light.

The fact they Mr. Stolyarov, you, and I pointed out that love does have something to do with the whole question seems to be the point of annoyance with the others. Here comes Elizabeth sounding for all the world like Tina Turner saying, "what's love got to do with it." And of course, that is the whole point. So long as you don't know what love has to do with it, the motivation for marriage will never be understood, because without it, there isn't any.

I guess I better turn the conversation back over to those who want to keep it at the higher level, promoting jungle love (or whatever they call it).

Regi

Post 41

Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - 12:55pm

Regi,

I thought I asked for something very simple. What can marriage give you that you couldn't do without the license on your own?

-Elizabeth

Post 42

Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - 12:59pm

Elizabeth,

I just don't think the license binding two people together is necessary to achieve that.

Me either, and if I could make things the way they ought to be, the government would have nothing to do with marriage. However, reality is reality, and the government does have something to do with it, and those who are married may choose, not so much for the advantages, as to avoid the government hassles, to get government recognition. It is not a moral decision, it is a practical one, and an individual one.

But in the end you don't have to go out and record your love and commitment to each other in front of a judge to make it stick. You just have to commit yourself to it.

Not in front of a judge, for sure; but, I would be surprised by anyone who would make less of a splash over what is very likely the most significant, joyful, and life enhancing change in their life than they do celebrating a new job. Not everyone is an Objectivist, and there is nothing wrong with people using and enjoying their own cultural and religious traditions in their celebration.

I have a strong aversion to all rituals and empty formality, and will not have any in my own life (to the annoyance many), but I have no objection to others using any of that claptrap they enjoy. I will even attend and politely keep my opinions to myself, and even be glad for those who enjoy what I never could, and I always enjoy seeing others happy.

Regi

Post 43

Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - 1:26pm

Regi,

I think you're all over the place! In your prior post, you make it seem that love is what marriage is all about, and that because I don't think that people need to get married to be in love, that I'll never understand what it's about.

Then in your last post, you say people just do it for practical reasons, so they can be recognized by the government:

those who are married may choose, not so much for the advantages, as to avoid the government hassles, to get government recognition

You still don't say what the "advantages" are (not including financial, which I already know of).

It's all a practical decision (no mention of love here, welcome, Tina2). You say:

I would be surprised by anyone who would make less of a splash over what is very likely the most significant, joyful, and life enhancing change in their life than they do celebrating a new job.

See, here is where you can answer my question. What is this life-changing experience? Am I now going to live with my boyfriend/husband? Oh, wait I already do. Will he now love me more than before? I don't think so. Will we be more committed now? I don't think so. What is the point A that you start at, and how does marriage take you to point B? How are you a different couple the morning after your wedding? As a matter of fact, when you say:

those who are married may choose, not so much for the advantages, as to avoid the government hassles, to get government recognition. It is not a moral decision, it is a practical one, and an individual one.

you admit people don't do it for love or for a better relationship. That it's just a label to get government recognition. That doesn't require any love or commitment. So people get married to avoid government hassles and because it's practical, and this is the

"most significant, joyful, and life enhancing change in their life"

?

As for the religious aspect, I totally understand that part. I don't personally agree, but if you believe marriage is the right thing in the eyes of your god(s), I understand why you do it. And actually, if I knew you were religious, I wouldn't respond further. Because you could just say "god wants it" and I wouldn't even try to argue with you.

-Elizabeth

(Edited by Elizabeth on 5/26, 1:29pm)

Post 44

Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - 1:38pm

Hi, Regi.

>>I thought the very same thing about the original article.<<

Same here, so this thread didn't capture my interest. With today's society tolerant of any arrangement the human menagerie can devise, what's the gripe? The hippies have won. Do you own thing. Nobody cares.

Then my interest was piqued when Stolyarov was denounced for having the temerity to suggest that traditional marriage had its merits. It seems that of all the romantic relationships we tolerate, traditional marriage -- i.e., a formalized publicly recognized lifelong commitment -- should NOT be one of them. Indeed, I believe Joe equated it to slavery.

This all seems a little silly. Marriage is an institution that has been universal in the human experience, throughout all time and place. That cannot be so unless it is a product of human nature. Its ubiquity and jealous protection by society must be because it satisfies important desires in individuals. It also makes possible conditions for a decent society. Think of the few times or places in which marriage was stripped of its traditional substance, you'll find some very unpleasant places -- e.g., ancient Sparta, the inner city or the trailer park, or polygamous Saudi Arabia.

So marriage is natural to the human condition. In modern times it has become possible to enhance marriage with romantic love. This is as wonderful a development as the Industrial Revolution, the rise of capitalism, and the Enlightenment. Yet, Western society has managed in the space of less than a few hundred years to denounce romantic marriage as little better than slavery. This is because the Left has hijacked the Enlightenment, perverted its celebration of liberty into an assault upon all the institutions of civil society, and seeks the atomization of society in which we exist as deracinated and disconnected individuals naked before the all-powerful state.

Why more Objectivists do not recognize this problem, I am not sure. Perhaps some misunderstand the primacy of self-interest as a radical individualism in which any serious association with another constitutes a compromise of the self. You have eloquently shown why this is not so for Objectivists, yet it appears to have fallen upon deaf ears. The Left's success in making all civil institutions suspect as bastions of oppression remains, I think, a siren song too alluring for our friends to turn from.

>>I guess I better turn the conversation back over to those who want to keep it at the higher level, promoting jungle love (or whatever they call it).<<

Now you did it! You made me almost choke on my lunch as I guffawed at this one.

Regards,
Bill

Post 45

Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - 2:21pm

Hi agian Elizabeth,

I thought I asked for something very simple. What can marriage give you that you couldn't do without the license on your own?

Well, the very simple answer is, nothing.

In a free society we would not have to get a license to do anything. I do not believe we should have to get a license from the government to drive a car. You can drive a car without a license, but it is a lot of trouble, especially if you get caught. I have a license, only as a means of avoiding the trouble.

For me, a marriage license does the same thing. I don't need a license to drive or to be married, but there are so many government, quasi-government, as well as private organizations that have so many requirements relating to, "legal marriage," I have a marriage license to avoid the trouble.

But, having the license is, with regard to my marriage, immaterial. It neither enhances or detracts from it in any way.

Regi

Post 46

Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - 2:46pm

Elizabeth,

I like you. You are very interesting, and usually very understanding, but in this case you seem determined to find something wrong with what I am saying, even when I am agreeing with you.

For example:

those who are married may choose, not so much for the advantages, as to avoid the government hassles, to get government recognition. It is not a moral decision, it is a practical one, and an individual one.

you admit people don't do it for love or for a better relationship.

Did you not notice the first four words of what you quoted? It is "those who are married," ALREADY, like you; they may choose to get the government recognition for many purposes, like hospital recognition, insurance, power of attorney, etc. Now some of these can be worked around, if you have the time and nothing better to do. That's all it meant. I didn't say the government recognition was the marriage, was necessary to it, or changed it in any way.

See, here is where you can answer my question. What is this life-changing experience? Am I now going to live with my boyfriend/husband? Oh, wait I already do.

Have you since you were born? There had to be sometime when you realized you loved your husband, that he is the one you want to share your life with and without whom life would have no meaning. There had to be sometime when you declared your love to him and he to you, and you agreed to share your lives. That was your marriage, that was the life changing experience. Do you think if that had never happened your life would be exactly the same as it is? If you do, I would doubt very much what you have is marriage or the kind of love that makes it possible.

Regi

Post 47

Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - 3:31pm

I think a point of confusion some of us had was how everyone else posting on this thread was defining "marriage". I defined it (incorrectly, in hindsight) as the license or certificate that the government bestows, which I take it is the context Elizabeth is defining it in her posts (the "static definition", to borrow Joe's words). I can see Regi's point on how it should properly defined as the relationship itself, which is not only consistent with the spirit of Joe's article (the "dynamic definition", again borrowing Joe's words) but with what Ayn Rand wrote. I remember reading in "Atlas Shrugged" how Dagny thought of her lover as her husband, perhaps not in name (by the standards of the state), but in fact. Regi's comparison of the marriage license to a driver's license is appropriate, at least in today's context (and perhaps for even much of history).

Looking back, I think that some of us are trying so hard to disagree with each other that we miss how we do agree in principle. I suppose we differ in terms of how relevant this issue is to us. By the way, I came from tropical country, so I resent the remark about jungle love . . .

Post 48

Wednesday, May 26, 2004 - 5:45pm

Byron,

I don't understand.

I came from tropical country, so I resent the remark about jungle love . . .

They don't have love in the Philippines?

(I spent some time in the Philippines in the 60s. They used to have lots of "love" there. What happened?)

Thanks for the comments. I think your evaluation of what appear to be differences are "spot on."

Regi

Post 49

Thursday, May 27, 2004 - 6:17am

Hey Regi!

I was thinking about the posts this morning, and I don't think we disagree really! At least not of late. I agreed with your recent posts, I just thought they contradicted what you were leaning towards originally. I could have said it better, but I just couldn't quite figure out where you disagreed with me and was trying to get at it. I think this is where I disagreed with you:

All that I've read about marriage on this thread tells me most Objectivists do not understand what true romantic love is, that integration of value and emotion embodied in the existence of another that makes that one both the fulfillment and purpose of one's own existence.

Now without going back and rereading everything, (and maybe I didn't pick the best quote but there are time limits for looking) :) I got the impression that because you thought that many of us don't hold "marriage" (the license/official government sanction of a relationship) as an accomplishment in and of itself, that we automatically are against commitment, love, and could never achieve true happiness. I think you went on to talk about promiscuous people, people in unconventional relationships, etc. You assumed (or so it seemed, correct me if I'm wrong) that those against "marriage" must be into all sort of alternate relationships that you don't sanction for happiness.

Byron is right, in that we are defining marriage as the moment you get the license and are now legally married and recognized as such by the government. I think that's how most people define it that I meet day to day. One day you're not married, the next day you are. I thought that you were looking at it the same way, and was wondering why you were so defensive of it when you did in fact say that it's not really the government's place to recognize it, and that the license/contract/etc is the only change from the day before to the day after.

And actually, I'm not legally married. Sorry if that was confusing. When you later defined marriage as two people together, committed, etc., I said that would mean I'm "married" (even though I've never gotten the license or had a wedding). So I don't have any problem with that relationship! It just, to me, has nothing to do with the word marriage. And I don't have a problem with the wedding, devotion ceremony, commitment ceremony, call it what you will. I think they're very fun and exciting to go to. And even though that's not the moment you first declare your love for each other, it's a great thing to celebrate and have a party for.

Does that make more sense?

Back to the article, I think that to many people "marriage" is still that moment that they say "I do", the moment the government recognizes them legally, and they really think that things in the relationship will change from the day before to the day after that ceremony. And that is when you'll be let down.

Regarding the legal benefits, I definitely agree you get them! Whether or not we agree you should from marriage. I don't agree that I'd get married just to avoid the hassle of setting up the contracts independently. That website that I mentioned and Byron pointed out again mentions what contracts you'd need to protect yourselves and get most of the rights that married couples do. Even with that, you still won't enjoy say your sig other's health benefits, though more & more places are recognizing any sig other. After a while it becomes a financial decision. Do I continue to pay more for things and not be married, or do I just give in and take the government license to reap the financial benefits? Or say if I wanted to adopt and couldn't unless I was married, that would be a no brainer.

-Elizabeth

Post 50

Thursday, May 27, 2004 - 7:25am

Regi,

It was an attempt at a joke, poking a little fun at how "offended" everyone these days are by the "culturally insensitive". Point in fact, there was a lot of "loving" in the Philippines, both the romantic kind and the hedonistic kind!

Byron

Post 51

Thursday, May 27, 2004 - 2:13pm

Elizabeth,

I was thinking about the posts this morning, and I don't think we disagree really!

You know, I don't either.

I do think a lot of people "settle" and a lot of people to get into relationships which will turn out badly the often used as an excuse for these wrong choices that they don't believe in marriage anyway. I don't believe any definition of marriage that involves the state or any other form of external influence is the solution to people's bad decisions.

You already know what I believe marriage is, and why I think those who find that kind of love and relationship will be happiest, and why I am sorry that not all seek this highest and most rewarding of human experiences.

I'm sorry if I confused you about what I really meant. I'm old and probably say some things in a way which is a bit old fashioned today, but I think some of the, "old fashioned," was better than what we have today too.

You seem very happy and seem to have a very good handle on the principles of life. Don't let an old curmudgeon like me cause you to question or doubt your own choices. I was neither as wise or as sophisticated as you when I was your age, and you have all your future ahead of you. I wish you the best of everything.

(I am sorry if this is too personal. I have a daughter near your age, I would guess just a little older.)

Regi

Post 52

Thursday, May 27, 2004 - 2:19pm

Bryon,

It was an attempt at a joke, poking a little fun at how "offended" everyone these days are by the "culturally insensitive".

Yes I know. (Give me some credit, will you!) I was just answering you the way you would deserve to be answered if you were serious.

I can joke too, you know!

[Thank goodness some people on these Sense Of Lust Objectivists threads have a sense of humor.]

Thanks Byron!

Regi

Post 53

Friday, May 28, 2004 - 6:14am

Greetings.

I have been following this discussion in past days, and, alas, have not had time to contribute due to an intense campaign that I am currently waging against the re-institution of the draft (see a new Activism report that I will post in a few minutes). Nevertheless, I commend Citizen Rat and Mr. Firehammer for some excellent argumentation, perhaps among the best posts I have seen from them yet (and they are usually quite articulate, too). I do not think this discussion has gone downhill at all, and I am eager to see how it unfolds. In the meantime, I do still plan to produce my promised treatise on marriage, but it may take more time than I originally expected.

I am
G. Stolyarov II

Post 54

Friday, May 28, 2004 - 6:57am

Mr. Stolyarov,

Thanks G. for the nice comments.

I look forward to your treatise. I think this is one area on which we are very much in agreement, if not for exactly the same reasons.

Regi

Post 55

Friday, May 28, 2004 - 10:12am

Mr. Stolyarov:

Thank you for the kind words. I am always happy to enlist in a defense of the truth.

As for how this will play out, I suspect that it already has until you complete your essay on marriage. The silence of your opponents suggests that they have yielded the field to us.

Regards,
Bill

Post 56

Friday, May 28, 2004 - 12:09pm

Or that they're too busy to post. I am also anticipating Mr. Stolyarov's essay, in particular in what context he chooses to define the concept of marriage. Until then, I will retrograde from the field of battle.

Post 57

Friday, May 28, 2004 - 7:17pm

Joe,

I very much liked this article... I agree completely. Marriage has become like paper money no longer backed by the gold standard: overinflated in value, and increasingly worthless.

But digging down to a more causative, deeper level, I also think that postmodernism is what has turned the vast majority of people into "humanoids"who are unable to embody any real value, much less to other humanoids. These are just people programmed with a poisonous philosophy of life, whose attempt to durably and endearingly connect with other people, cannot possibly work, and of course, doesn't last, ultimately.

Hence, divorce.

Post 58

Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - 5:05am

My argument was that a successful relationship depends on the people involved, their commitment, their love. Not a government recognized, legal relationship status issued through a marriage license. GS argues quite the opposite. You can't in any form agree with both of us.

If you try to sell me the idea that marriage will make things better for my relationship (again, other than financially), I tune it out like the latest diet infomercial. As for any sort of treatise on marriage, to me it's like a treatise on why men who drive BMW's are better than men who drive Mercedes.

I'm not posting this last post to try to make anyone new agree with me. It's that when Regi (not to single you out, just not many people posting!) says he thinks we agree, and then agrees with GS's ideas (which are fundamentally and in all aspects opposite to mine) I think I may not have been clear enough. But I also won't spend more time trying after this.

-Elizabeth

Post 59

Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - 2:10am