Is the institution of marriage unnatural?

Wouldnt be for me anyway. Every relationship has a time limit.

You could argue that STIs are a proving point that we shouldn't be sleeping around..

You Could argue... I'm not gonna though.

In the millions of species on earth the human practice of marriage is uncommon, unusual and probably unique but that does not make it unnatural.

We are reputedly the only animal with intelligence, as distinct from animal instinct or cleverness, and we are the ones who invented the institution so maybe it is not only natural but an intelligent way of life.

I am not into anthropology so I may be wrong in some of my thoughts above but it seems to me that marriage has lasted the test of time. Yes there is an increase in the number of separations and divorces but I think that is mainly as a result of the lack of the perceived shame and the acceptance as normal of marriage breakdown.

There were probably as many unhappy couples in the past but peer, family and cultural pressure meant that many stayed together rather than risk scandal or, at best, gossip. Nowadays most people are accepting of marital breakdown so there is not the same pressure on married couples to stay together when things go wrong.

No I don't think the Institution of Marriage is unnatural. Its not for every one but brings out more commitment and make a relationship more grounded I suppose and its the ideal environment to bring up a family in.

Though the marriage cert is only a piece of paper a contact as you will but some people think its just that and nothing else that commitment is enough whether having children outside of marriage seems to be the norm there isn't as much pressure to get married.

It might be the case back centuries ago and before and during evolution we didn't stay with just one partner but I think as evolution continued after evolution something kicked in our brains to develop a sense of unity of just being with one partner. Christian faith might have made it more official but human nature and animal nature is slightly different similar species but we aren't the same. Like a swan and penguins only have one life long partner what ever happens.

dilbert2 wrote: »

Marriage as an institution has been pushed for nearly 2000 years, particularly by Christianity. However, given that our species evolved gradually over hundreds of thousands of years, and from other orders of humanoids going back possibly a few million, and that it is unlikely that most of these humans remained with one partner their whole life – then is it not unnatural for us, given that we have much of our DNA still intact from our stone age ancestors?

The context of the question is not clear to me: what do you mean by "natural"?

Our society is filled with rituals and technology that are patently unnatural, from wrist watches to mobile phones, and including activities such as queueing, wearing wigs, dieting, voting, investing money, and so forth. Marriage is unnatural in the same way: it is a ritual that was consciously introduced as a mechanism for achieving an end.

It's hard to say exactly why some of these rituals were introduced. There is no doubt that our ape-like ancestors discovered early on that the species would not survive nor prosper without some level of collaboration between beings in order to most effectively acquire food and clothing, and later to build suitable dwellings beyond the caves. For collaboration to work it was necessary to have various forms of understanding between the more aggressive males and in time this would require some sort of rule which ensured that battles over females did not tear communities apart. Hence was introduced the idea of denoting a special relationship between a man and a woman, which gave rise to further conventions:

• The children born into communities would belong to established parents and be raised by them.
• The woman in such a partnership was not to be preyed upon by other males looking to mate.
• Bed linen and coffee mornings

I expect that the initial partnerships were polygamous in nature, that is to say the male may have had many female partners whereas the women would each only have one (shared) male. This arrangement was very suitable for the women (home duties shared, less cleaning up after "him", and plenty of other interesting company to talk with) but was less suited to unlucky non-alpha males. Eventually the alpha males would come to fear packs of roaming nerd males who were bitter at having no partners, and after many frenzied pencil-attacks on the alpha males a new societal norm began to emerge in which the alpha male only claimed one female partner (the best looking one), leaving the nerds to sort themselves out with the left-overs.

As pagan religions increased their influence on societies, some of the most bitter nerd-male priests decreed that the God entities (there were more than one, before the Gods were amalgamated by later religions) favoured monogamy, leaving more women available for the priests (pre-Christianity male priests could have female partners). Hence many (but not all) religions imposed monogamy as a norm.

Centuries later, after the Christian church became established following the revelations of Moses, the matrimonial vow was made to have some sort of legal status. This had the advantage that the most nerdy of males who could not otherwise find females would prosper as lawyers, which in turn provided them with money with which they could afford to buy the cheapest of females.

Why did marriage catch on? Probably because societies which did not kill each other over potential mates bred more and so prospered. The very existence of the matrimonial tradition reduced in-fighting and so societies found other ways to focus their energies.... like sports. Sports gave rise to healthier populations which in turn boosted the population growth. The rapid growth of societies which practised marriage led to the idea of marriage becoming increasingly popular. It is an example of a natural evolution of an unnatural act.

You can fill in the obvious blanks and simplifications yourself by consulting Wikipedia.

So Op, why did you ask?


Z

sensibleken wrote: »

Ireland used to have polygammy until only a few centuries ago.

A parrot with a bad leg?:(

I'll tell you what's unnatural.....the feckin price of ice sculptures :eek:

There is no such thing as a 'natural' choice with regard to marriage. Biologically, males are wired to spread the seed and to pass their DNA as much as possible. Some men do that, others don't.

What about open marriages? Are they natural or unnatural?

If people want to marry, then let them off. If you don't believe in marriage as an institution then don't get married.

If you look at the role parents play in marriage, and have played over the centuries, it makes more sense. Young people don't need any ceremony before they get down the business of making babies, do they? But parents want to control the mating habits of their offspring, and courtship and marriage has long been the means by which they do so.

For example: when two warring primitive tribes needed to seal a peace deal, one of the "sweeteners" was to make kids in the tribes intermarry and thus link their tribes together. Don't get me started on Dowries ... :mad: ... point is: it's the parents who want the big wedding first, though sometimes the kids catch the disease too.

If there was no marraige
You'd be like Osama Bin Laden With about 20 kids

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

Marriage was invented as a result of the agricultural revolution. People then settled down in locations and the concept of property was born. Women then became treated as property. I'd say religion was largely invented or hijacke by these men who wanted a system in place where a man could work hard and fairly earn property. Many rules in religion were designed to enforce this system and to ensure women's value to men was maximised by ensuring you knew your children would be your own. So rules were invented to make sure a woman was a virgin when she was married ( purchased) by a man. So it was very important that women were made feel guilty for being slutty as that would make a woman a bad investment and a man's hard work would go to waste. A wealthy man would get a hot woman and if that hot woman turned out be slutty and promiscuous his wealth would have been wasted on a bad investment.

That seems to have been the purpose of the major religions.

For anyone that's interested in this post, The Serpent and the Goddess is a great read about the changes in Irish society throughout the course of our history. It's told from a feminist perspective though, so if that's gonna bug you, it ain't for you!