recently i've had a number of conversations with friends and family in which people have tried to persuade me away from my abhorrence for marriage. here, at least in part, is a rebuttal and an explanation of my thinking.

my first objection to marriage is the notion of asking permission. whether the marriage is secular or religious, 'state' 'run' or private, the involved parties ask permission of some imagined 'authority' to start or continue a sexual relationship. they attempt to get 'legitimacy' from a 'god', a government, or a group of friends, for what is no more simple negotiation between themselves.

i regard this as harmful for two reasons:

1. i regard it as decidedly unhealthy to consider anyone to be 'an authority' or to have the 'right' to decide what someone else can or can't do.
2. a private negotiation is just that: private. it's none of anyone's business what agreements individuals reach[1], any more than it is anyone's business what is your religion, hair colour, food preference, or annual income.

so why would anyone allow some group take such liberties? i am brought to the following unpleasant conclusions:

1. people want someone to take responsibility for their lives, and are willing to accept this loss of freedom in order to get that[2]. as extreme examples, people join armies and follow 'orders', from 'leaders', expecting that no-one will be allowed to subsequently question the 'ethics' of their actions while 'following orders'. still in the us, 'state governments' say that it's allowable for individuals to kill other individuals, as long as the killer gets labelled as a 'state executioner' and the victim as a 'death row criminal'. the first has no responsibility for the choice of person killed, at least according to the strange people who agree to the system. i find this whole idea unacceptable: for a free people, any actions are exclusively the responsibility of the person taking the action.
2. secondly people don't trust themselves to act in a way that they consider 'honourable' and so, they ask some outside body to create sanctions, in the hope that they will be less tempted to 'stray'.

to someone brought up to personal freedom, and the responsibility that goes with it, these conclusions are anathema.

i often hear marriage touted as a 'higher commitment', in contrast to 'just' 'going out' with someone. to this, there are two obvious responses:

1. from 'the' other direction, this suggests that the 'commitment' in non-marital relationships is less than the 'commitment' in marital relationships. this suggests that, in non-marital relationships, the parties involved are faking it - being dishonest. if this were the case, why would one party trust the/an other party enough to make the 'higher commitment' supposedly involved in marital relationships?
2. as indicated above, marriage can be seen as an attempt to give the responsibilities for the negotiation to another, or the force 'honourable' behaviour. presumably force is needed because 'honourable' behaviour would be against the wishes of the person agreeing to these sanctions. i have to wonder at the actual extent of this person's commitment.

i would go as far as to say that, if marriage was required to make the relationship survive, to build the trust, then that relationship is probably not a sound one. this attitude seems to be borne out by uk divorce rates. in 1998[3] in the uk, there were 267,303 marriages, 143,879 divorces, 474 annulments and 518 judicial separation. in other words around[4] 54% of marriages don't last, and this is without including 'separations'[5]. i have little doubt the rate would rise if the societal pressures against divorce were further removed.

i have been told that marriage is not, in fact, about permission or threats, but it is to show off the relationship to friends and family. to this i'd reply, how is it any of their business? is this really another attempt to create guilt mechanisms in order to guard against 'wrong' behaviour? what are the people getting married trying to show?

yet another defence of marriage goes thus... society cannot cope with large numbers of abandoned children; therefore pressure must be applied to make abandonment of children less likely.

i first consider whether this pressure actually make abandonment less likely – are people who are married less likely to abandon children than those that are not? according to recent research by professor john ermisch, only 36% of children born to unmarried couples will live with both parents until they are 16, as opposed to 70% for married couples[6]. this is certainly worrying, and could support the view that the force intrinsic to 'marriage' is at present necessary.

however, were the attitudes to personal responsibility, suggested by my views of marriage, widely held: i suspect producing and abandoning children willy-nilly would not be considered acceptable, let alone as normal, as the above research suggests such abandonment is at the present. with this in mind, i do not consider 'married' couples inevitably more 'stable' than unmarried. the fact that i hold these views despite 'the' norm suggests that it would be feasible to change the norm via top down education. to some extent this is already starting to happen in the uk, with parenting classes and the like.

parties involved would, as a matter of course, consider whether they are actually able to bring up the child 'satisfactorily'... whether they work sufficiently well as a group[7] to remain stable for the required twenty plus years it takes to bring up a child, whether they have sufficient support - whether from family, friends or some 'outside' other - to continue through inevitable disagreements or tribulations, whether they have sufficient exchange (money, skills, etc.) to provide for the child.[8]

i next consider whether having parents remaining in governance of their children, when the parents have no liking for each other, is in the interests of the child – i would say this is unlikely. violence and aggression are known, beyond reasonable doubt, to have a detrimental effect on children[9]. the extent of this effect makes it almost[10] certainly cheaper for the society to 'bring up' the child than to deal with the damaged child when it becomes an 'adult'.

this leads directly to consideration of ownership of the child - do the parents own the child? if so, what right has the society to take the child away from the parents when the society considers the parents to be doing damage? does the society own the child? if so, why are the parents allowed to choose how the child is 'educated', even when it against what that 'society' considers best? does the child own itself at age 3? in the womb? at age 14? 21? if so, what happens to its rights and responsibilities as a free entity, for example: voting, criminal responsibility, etc.? what about a newborn baby, which is less conscious than a dog? ...dogs are entities that most don't consider much more than chattels[11].

until these questions are answered, it seems to me any objections the 'society', whoever they may be, have to abandoned children cannot be dealt with in any satisfactory way, and certainly imposing marriage as a condition for having children would be highly presumptive[1].

along with the 'ethical' objections to marriage, there are also logical objections.

enshrined in the wordings and popular understanding of marriage is the concept of 'forever': 'i will love you forever' and similar forms. forever is a nonsense, it has no meaning of any kind in the 'real' world. such words also suggest a belief in clairvoyant powers, which i've yet to be convinced exist! it seems strange to me that when in many ways much simpler, and so more 'predictable', entities like businesses or countries decide to form an alliance, there is no suggestion that the alliance must last 'forever'. yet when far more complicated objects like humans decide to ally themselves, people introduce this ridiculous concept. even stranger: when people choose to ally themselves platonically ('friendship'), rather than sexually, there is again no mention that 'the' agreement must go on forever. this does not prevent friends, companies or countries having relationships that last a considerable time... in fact my experience suggests that the latter relationships tend to last longer![12]

given such problems, to 'promise' 'forever' smacks of hubris, whether the hubris comes from some deep ignorance of reality or through perfidy. i regard neither ignorance nor perfidy as healthy. moreover, for me, knowing of the above problems with marriage, to make such an agreement could only be dishonest.

marriage also comes loaded with ideas of 'exclusivity': 'i will only have sex with/be friends with you'. i cannot see how this can be the business of anyone but the people involved in the negotiation.

not only that, evidence suggests that exclusivity is not what most are 'programmed' to seek. with that in mind, it seems very likely that trying to force people to act exclusively will cause pointless stress. that so much effort is spent making sure people aren't 'unfaithful', or worrying about how 'faithful' x person is or isn't, further suggests there is a problem with forced exclusivity. such worrying could possibly be justified in the past, as an attempt to avoid contracting sexually transmitted diseases, but not now that anyone with sense makes sure a condom is used.

from the above, it is clear to me that agreeing to marriage is not compatible with taking personal freedom seriously, or with taking responsibility for one's actions. such an agreement suggests either lack of awareness of the problems with marriage, or a form of dishonesty in going along with marriage despite knowing marriage has these problems.

in the current society, there are groups of people who feel it their 'right', or even 'duty', to pry into other peoples' business. some of these groups wield considerable power to annoy you if you try to stop them prying. while such groups, now called 'governments', 'mafia', 'churches', etc., continue to exist, and individuals continue to have little power to resist their intrusion, there may be times when 'marriage' is a necessary evil. examples include trying to gain entrance to a bit of land one these groups has annexed ('country'), the avoidance of (added) punitive thefts ('taxation') by these groups, and no doubt there are many more examples.

many thanks to abelard and xavier for the many helpful suggestions, corrections and avenues of research. and also thanks to my parents and family for the immense effort they put into turning me into the screwball i am today :)... without which i would never have thought of this document.

2289 words.

© 17/11/2000 the auroran sunset
last modified: thursday 31st august 2006 11:25:10. (gmt -0400)

footnotes

1. this is obviously only true for agreements that don't impinge on those others. for example, i'd imagine most people rather objecting to an agreement, by others, to kill them. when one decides an agreement is not 'reasonable' is a matter of choice for the individual deciding; moreover it is a matter of choice for the individual whether to then take action on their objections... as should be obvious from this document, when in doubt i will err to calling an agreement 'reasonable'. consequently i object to having outside individuals attempt to impose their decision on an other. this of course includes trying to impose that decision on me.
2. i entirely agree with benjamin franklin when he says 'those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.'
3. information from the uk department of national statistics web site at: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/datasets.asp.
4. this percentage is only approximate as the divorces don't necessarily match up with the marriages in that year! the marriage and divorce figures are at least partially offset, making it rather difficult to make a more certain guess as to the likelihood of a marriage 'failing'. perhaps one place to look is the average duration of  a marriage: http://www.divorcemagazine.com/statistics/statsUS.shtml ... stated as 7.2 years for the usa in 1997.
5. judicial separation and separation are not the same thing... the former involves seeing a 'judge', the latter involves not living in the same place :).
6. data from article by elizabeth judge in the times, 22-11-2000.
7. i use the term 'group' rather than 'couple' to avoid ruling out non-binary relationships... non-binary relationships are ruled out by most current marriage 'laws'... [1].
8. it should be noted that this attitude to parental responsibility is already in practice, particularly amongst the rich and ex-aristocracy.
9. see http://www.abelard.org/tv/tv.htm and the articles referenced in that document, particularly articles on the links between spousal violence seen as a child and later violent acts.
10. when making this assessment one should keep in mind that stepparents are up to forty times as likely to kill their children than 'real' parents... likelihood is a ratio of the number of killings to the number of children under the control of each group. it is not the same as the number of killings... according to the us department of justice, http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/SDA/shr7697.html , step parents killed 706 under 16s between 1976 and 1997, 'real' parents killed 8347... it's not clear from any studies i've found on the subject whether this difference in likelihood applies between 'state vetted' stepparents and 'real' parents, or whether new partners for one of the 'real' parents are responsible. obviously this makes a significant difference when considering whether it is a good idea to keep a relationship 'going' 'for the children's sake'... for additional comment see martin daly & margo wilson's facinating insights in 'homicide' (isbn:0-202-01178) - particularly pp.83-5.
11. believing dogs to be little more than chattels is possibly unsane.
12. this is hardly good evidence, especially given my youth and given that people tend to only see a small cross-section of behaviour types during upbringing, as in effect people seem to ghettoise themselves into groups of people similar to themselves... i'd be interested to see what a more 'scientific' sampling suggests.