MARRIAGE (or, in princess-bride-speak: mehwage)

here's my thought. marriage is completely unnecessary.

here are my two very simple points:

Q: what's the difference between a happy couple that have stayed together for ten years and a happy married couple that have stayed together for ten years?
A: two rings, a ceremony, a sheet of paper, a few legal rights, maybe some changed names

Q: what's the difference between a couple who wants to break up and a married couple who wants to break up?
A: a trip to a court and some lawyers and a bunch of papers to sign with the possibility of being legally seperated from your child(ren), oh, not to mention a nonsensical little thing called alimony


now let's break this apart a little. (am i going to be a lawyer? no) now usually the argument for marriage runs something like "it's a symbol this and it's a symbol that.. la dee dah, tra la la, blah blah blah, love, symbol, union, symbol..blaarghhh". right. well really it's just an excuse to exercise our repressed materialistic urges, see..
two rings mean NOTHING, but they're pretty and you get to wear them to show off to people and/or to ward off people and/or to attract people.
a ceremony is nice and all, but really it's pretty laughable and way way way too expensive and stressful and extranneous and really just a way for the bride to feel special and secure and show off to all of her friends how wonderful her little marriage is going to be. think about this.
a sheet of paper i think very obviously means NOTHING, and if i have to explain that, you should not be my friend.
legal rights are possibly the only reasons that seem fairly logical here, but as long as the gay community is restricted from marriage and therefore the legal rights that come with it, it's my belief that, in the spirit of fairness and equality, the straight community should take measures to reject those legal rights until EVERYONE has at least the opportunity to gain them.
changed names... well there's that lovely romeo and juliet line about a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet, or some such thing.. and, in all seriousness, it's just another way to place women below men and continue patriarchal society.

now i'm thinking a break-up, if it's after any significant amount of time, is in itself a hard enough situation to have to then deal with our asinine judicial system and all of the inequities that are found there and the pain that comes from ripping children away from "undeserving" parents. and alimony, my god, i swear, is the most insipid thing. i'm sorry, but in my opinion all ties should be severed when couples split up. legal ones, anyway. if you want to remain friends it's your own business, but for the law to place upon one the requirement of a monthly fee to support the other until they remarry or die is insane. my father has to do this for my mother, who actually makes more than him most months, and thus he will never save up any significant amount to better his own life; and she'll never remarry, i mean christ, she's crazy! and to have any circumstance where someone's death is in the least bit a relief is t e r r i b l e. which is why life insurance policies also need to change, but that's another topic for another day.

so. have i converted anyone yet?

i'm not saying marriage in essence is a horrible idea.. the good aspects are good, but the bad aspects are far worse than should be put up with in a civilized society and should be changed. there is nothing less pure about an unmarried couple in love who live together and raise a family. but again.. it's all about patriarchy. it's all about tradition. there's a lot of sexism in the world, and i've never been more aware of it than when i think about what marriage/divorce really is. against both men and women. for instance, women are seen as less able to earn an income (and in fact, statistically, they receive only about a third of men's salaries) so they are usually issued alimony.. there's a little patriarchal symbol present in how weddings include the bride walking to the groom instead of them walking together, or him to her or whatnot. but then in custody suits women are often thought of as having a more natural inclination to raise children well, so the children usually go with the mother, when science has only proven this fact with animals and men, contrary to popular belief, are a bit higher than animals in their fraternal levels... never doubt the existence of inequality.

well have i turned into a conflict theorist or what? i feel like i'm writing a persuasive essay for Dr. Warner.

dream conclusive summary: marriage is pointless and a bit moronic and chauvinistic and in need of some changes if it's ever going to hope to last a few more millenia. and until these changes occur, i for one am boycotting the institution. :)

lovemelo