Marriage

[botias]

I read Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray lately.

1. People like to get married. Humans are monogamous by nature. Even the best-intentioned and most dedicated inhabitants of free love communes found themselves pairing up. So don't expect marriage to go away any time soon.


2. People like to have affairs. (Monogamy and sexual fidelity are not the same thing technically speaking.) Men and women do so in roughly equal numbers (obviously since it takes two to tango) even in cultures where such behavior is harshly punished. In many cultures affairs are accepted, but not openly spoken of because people tend to be sexually possessive.


3. Most people get divorced. A few times. This whole 'til death do you part thing' is a relatively new phenom in human history, coinciding with agriculture. Used to be, and in many parts of the world still today, divorce is accomplished by moving the freshly minted ex's belongings to another campfire. Land ownership and large scale agriculture ties couples together. So does inequality among the sexes. The more women are equal to men in their ability to support themselves the more divorce there is.


4. Divorce peaks in year 4. Yes, 4 not 7 or 20. Just long enough to raise a child out of infancy.


5. The pregnant teen is somewhat an artifact of industrialized life. In pre-industrial cultures, girls don't begin to menstruate until their late teens and are often allowed to freely exercise their sexuality until that time.


6. Broadly, there are two types of romantic love: attraction and attachment, each with distinctive brain chemistry associated. Attraction bears marked resemblance to some kinds of mental illness, and for this reason it might be just as well that it generally passes somewhere between 2 minutes and 18 months, never lasting longer than 3 years. Attachment can last a lot longer.


7. Anthropological definition of marriage: A relationship within which sex and the bearing of children is sanctioned and encouraged by the society.

I thought the book was fascinating. I quite recommend it. I especially found the discussion of divorce interesting. I'm a romantic, but I have been uncomfortable with the notion of 'til death do you part' for quite some time. In most cases it is dishonest in modern society. Few people would stay with someone with whom they were absolutely miserable merely to keep such a vow, and know as much even as they make it. So what then? As long as our love shall last? Until you become born again and announce your intention to pursue missionary work in central Africa? We refer guests to section II paragraph g of our prenup? Leave out discussion of duration entirely? I think I like that last option.

Comments

[diachrony.livejournal.com]

Land ownership and large scale agriculture ties couples together. So does inequality among the sexes. The more women are equal to men in their ability to support themselves the more divorce there is.

Growing up in a fundamentalist Xtian church, this was used as one of the "proofs" that God intended for women to always be inequal and subordinate to their husbands (and why ERA and "women's rights" were Satan-inspired), because divorce was evil and against God's wishes, and the more freedom and human rights women were "allowed," the more likely they would go the path of Satan and want to "disobey" and commit the sin of leaving their husbands.

For a long time this church held that it was against God for women to work, and then even if they did work, they had to give all the money to their husbands ~ it was committing a sin if they had control of any money.

It seems like a tacit acknowledgement on their part, doesn't it, that marriage (at least as practiced by religious fundamentalists) is unpleasant bordering on miserable for women, and therefore all sorts of restrictions and borders and laws and rules and punishments must be set up to prevent their repudiating the concept?

Society for a long time was set up to pretty much *force* women to marry if they wanted to have any amount of standing and respect ~ there was no alternative allowed. It's disingenuous for the conservative dittoheads to claim that marriage always worked to women's benefit ~ that's like saying slavery worked to benefit the slaves ~ of course when the alternatives are carefully constructed to be worse, if they even exist, then it can be misleadingly termed a "benefit."

Bah.

(Of course nowadays one hopes that marriage is more of a mutually beneficial thing, defined by those actually involved in the union, but the fundies are still fighting against that ... )

[botias.livejournal.com]

For a long time this church held that it was against God for women to work, and then even if they did work, they had to give all the money to their husbands ~ it was committing a sin if they had control of any money.

OMG, it's hard to imagine. Glad I was born in a different culture. I had no idea they were so pragmatic about it. They've given marriage a bad name really.

Marriage is still useful for child-rearing. There's no way I could care for my children the way I think best and support myself and them. Even if women's wages were equitable with men, most all women would find this very difficult. Some people say quality daycare is the answer, but it really isn't for children under 4 or 5 IMHO. Some things money just can't hire. It's a natural inequity that I don't know of any solution to.

[diachrony.livejournal.com]

Different culture, yes, but not different *time*, sadly enough! As I said, this is the culture I grew up in, although luckily my father wasn't as brainwashed or anti-woman as most of the males in the church; my mom always wanted to work and *did* work, but felt a lot of guilt about it for a long time. Thankfully, it's been years since she angsted about working, and for as long as I remember, she's had her own bank account & has been the one keeping track of the joint finances.

I agree marriage is useful for child-rearing. And women tend to be the ones who do this, even though *in theory* men could take over once the babies were weaned!

[elynne.livejournal.com]

4. Divorce peaks in year 4. Yes, 4 not 7 or 20. Just long enough to raise a child out of infancy.
6. ... Attraction... generally passes somewhere between 2 minutes and 18 months, never lasting longer than 3 years.

I think that nowdays, the four-year peak of divorce has a lot more to do with #6 than with child-rearing. But I'd love to see a seriously huge study of marriage, childbirth, and divorce across the country - oh, and add in the amount of time a couple has lived together beforehand. I'd bet money that couples who have lived together for at least a couple of years before getting married have a much better chance of staying married - and that having kids right off the marriage mark doesn't increase a couple's chances of staying married at all.

re: #1... um. I'll just stand over here and, um, yeah.

[botias.livejournal.com]

the four-year peak of divorce has a lot more to do with #6 than with child-rearing

Well, yes, and the connection there was made in the book as well. I was trying very hard to summarize rather than write a book report. Attraction probably lasts as long as it does to facilitate child-rearing. Sadly human primates are not immune from infanticide; infants are at much higher risk from step-parents and lovers than from their biological fathers, and the risk declines after, well, infancy.

I'd bet money that couples who have lived together for at least a couple of years before getting married have a much better chance of staying married

I believe studies have shown that not to be particularly true. I expect that the reasons people do or don't stay married aren't affected by whether they lived together first or not, or it may be skewed by the fact that folks who are very opposed to divorce are likely just the sorts not to live together first. The kid thing... I honestly don't know. Childrearing changes the rules of the game, but whether or not a person is the sort to play nicely may also not be affected by how long they have lived together as a couple. I mean, for example, if a guy is the dish washing, diaper changing, grown-up type, his marriage is probably going to survive early childhood well regardless of when the kids came along, but if he expects his wife to work, do all the housework and child care and service him in various ways as well (and there are lots of those if 'Dear Abby' is any indication) his marriage is probably not going to do well no matter how long the couple waits.

Actually monogamy doesn't preclude poly. Poly is just dispensing with the 'don't ask don't tell' approach that most cultures take to the practice of taking lovers. Monogamy just means people don't, by nature, form harems like say, gorillas or lions or horses. Even in cultures where polygamy is sanctioned, it is still very rare, and quite often there is dissension in the ranks.

After reading this book, I'm honestly not certain if honesty is always the best policy in that arena, which is very strange for me. Perhaps telling one's spouse that one has a lover is not much more useful than telling one's spouse you think their ass is fat and unattractive. (If you are reading this A, I think your ass is lovely.)