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Author Topic: Can Marriage Be Saved?
robbie_dee
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posted 21 June 2004 07:33 PM      Profile for robbie_dee     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I thought this was really interesting.

quote:
If you believe social conservatives, marriage in America has been under dire assault for more than a century--from adultery, divorce, feminism, birth control and now, apparently, gays and lesbians, who on May 17, the day Massachusetts began recognizing same-sex marriages, joined this at once venerable and fraught institution. Conservatives have a point; the percentage of married Americans has been in steady decline for decades. And yet, as the annual June hordes at the altar and the dramatic struggle for gay marriage attest, marriage continues to occupy a dominant position in American society. How does one make sense of this confusing marital landscape? We asked a range of writers and scholars to offer their thoughts. Should marriage be abolished? Reformed? How is it that marriage--despite its routine and oft-documented failures--persists as the focus of both our personal aspirations and political struggles?

Responses from Ellen Willis, Randall Kennedy, Edmund White, Martha Fineman, Laura Kipnis, Nora Ephron, Patricia Hill Collins, Judith Butler, Susan Brownmiller, Michael Bronski, E.J. Graff, Michael Eric Dyson, Judith Stacey, Jo Ann Wypijewski, Hilton Als.

The Nation: Can Marriage Be Saved? A Forum


From: Iron City | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 21 June 2004 08:04 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
No.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
vaudree
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posted 21 June 2004 08:08 PM      Profile for vaudree     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Maybe if the couple gets relationship counciling.

Is marriage about love, commitment, responsibility and wanting to spend the rest of your life together or is it a reward for comformity. If it is a reward for conformity, it is not marriage. Marriage is not a reward for good behaviour, but I will accept chocolate.


From: Just outside St. Boniface | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
paxamillion
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posted 21 June 2004 09:03 PM      Profile for paxamillion   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I didn't know chocolate was an option!
From: the process of recovery | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 21 June 2004 09:04 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Maybe chocolate is what you get as a reward for behaving well during your marriage?
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
paxamillion
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posted 21 June 2004 09:07 PM      Profile for paxamillion   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well, then, I must be a bad boy.
From: the process of recovery | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 21 June 2004 09:15 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hmm. Well that's not always a bad thing either.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
josh
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posted 21 June 2004 09:26 PM      Profile for josh     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
All things considered, you can keep the chocolate.
From: the twilight zone between the U.S. and Canada | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
Sharon
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posted 21 June 2004 09:37 PM      Profile for Sharon     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Is marriage about love, commitment, responsibility and wanting to spend the rest of your life together...

Or is it about dresses and caterers and florists and "trends." I still remember the first wedding I was invited to when the colour of the print on the invitations matched the colour of the bridesmaids' dresses. I couldn't even imagine a time when the invitations and the bridesmaids (in costume) would be in the same room at the same time.


From: Halifax, Nova Scotia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
paxamillion
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posted 21 June 2004 10:16 PM      Profile for paxamillion   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:
Hmm. Well that's not always a bad thing either.

Michelle, you're a piece of all right, you are.


From: the process of recovery | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 21 June 2004 10:28 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Does this mean I get chocolate?
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
paxamillion
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posted 21 June 2004 10:31 PM      Profile for paxamillion   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Wouldn't that involve getting married and surrendering your BWAGA membership?
From: the process of recovery | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 21 June 2004 10:32 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hey, I don't have to get married to surrender my BWAGA membership. But I guess chocolate is only for people who are good while married then, huh?

Oh well.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
paxamillion
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posted 21 June 2004 10:34 PM      Profile for paxamillion   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:
Hey, I don't have to get married to surrender my BWAGA membership. But I guess chocolate is only for people who are good while married then, huh?

I wonder if having chocolate outside of marriage would be a sin or something. Hmmmm.


From: the process of recovery | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
Timebandit
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posted 21 June 2004 11:32 PM      Profile for Timebandit     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Does that mean I'm licensed for chocolate consumption? If so, good thing there's a Bernard Callebaut store around the corner...
From: Urban prairie. | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
robbie_dee
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posted 22 June 2004 01:25 AM      Profile for robbie_dee     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Sorry if this spoils the levity, but in the interest of enticing folks into the content of the link, I thought I would snip a part of Laura Kipnis's entry:

quote:
If modern marriage has transpired into a social institution devoted to maximizing obedience and the work ethic while minimizing freedom and mobility, to renouncing excess desires (and whatever quantities of imagination and independence they come partnered with) in exchange for love and companionship, clearly there are social advantages here: The psychology of marital stasis is remarkably convergent with that of a cowed work force and a docile electorate. Who needs a policeman on every corner with such emotional conditions in effect?

Given that "wanting more freedom" is the contemporary euphemism for leaving such marriages, the ascendancy of gay marriage as a political demand has a depressing side to it. Resource distribution issues aside (which could be the case, were this the political fight being fought instead), the mainstreaming of homosexuality aside (with the kissing up to mainstream values it necessarily entails), of all possible social claims to advance, why this one now? If "wanting more freedom" were treated as a serious political question rather than a euphemism, no doubt different social claims would be forefronted. (Working less instead of more?) And should such claims be advanced, what other social contracts and vows might be up for re-examination, what other unrewarding social institutions would have to start watching their step?



From: Iron City | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
Mandos
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posted 22 June 2004 01:39 AM      Profile for Mandos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So I wonder that the question is that as a society we see duty/obligation/self-sacrifice as oppression rather than a necessity in the maintenance of a Well-Ordered Society. That's one of the things that social conservative critics mean when they decry the decline of marriage. The implication is that if one values a Well-Ordered Society, then some sacrifices by nature have to be unequal.
From: There, there. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
vaudree
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posted 22 June 2004 01:53 AM      Profile for vaudree     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I like the independance of getting my own chocolate - and deciding when I deserve it.

I wonder what Olivia Chow and Michael Stark think of those theories that equate marriage with Slavery.


From: Just outside St. Boniface | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 22 June 2004 11:25 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Forget the chocolate - it has nothing to do with marriage, except maybe on the anniversary and Valentine's Day.

Think: broccoli, breaded fried tofu (or lamb-chops) and mashed potatoes, on the table, on time, every time. A spare tube of toothpaste in the bathroom cabinet. Someone to back you up in a dispute with the neighbours. Another adult on your side when the kids gang up. Contribution to the household budget. Theater tickets for two. Strange noises in the night. Bouncing an idea off a similar mind. Getting older; knees giving out; someone at the bottom of the ladder. Reminescing. Scary medical tests; someone in the waiting-room. Sharing a grandchild. Warm feet in bed.

Marriage doesn't have to be saved. It's not in any danger. We need it more than it needs us.


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged

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