Marriage

[Dani Phantom]

I understand that some people especially anarchists are against the idea of marriage.I'm just curious why they are exactly.Can someone help me with this?

P.S:If there already was a thread about this,I didn't know.My bad

[Yazman]

Just a note: Do not be afraid to make a new thread, my friend, if you have a question to ask. This IS the Learning forum, after all.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

I know some anarchists, and other leftists, view marriage as a symbol / symptom of bourgeous society (creating the model of a nuclear family with bourgeous desires and aspirations making them easier to manipulate and control, genders given strict conservative roles and purpose).

I myself am getting married next year because my gf wants to and I love her...so yeah, takes all sorts to make a world (not saying I disagree with some of the analysis, but that's not what my gf believes and I don't mind)

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Marriage is an outdated custom from a time when a woman could be considered property for a male. It remains only as a result of imbedded reactionary culture. I'm not against monogamous relationships but I don't see the necessity in appealing to an outside authority to justify feelings between two consenting adults.

I think it also brings up issues for homosexuality, where homosexuals are forced to conform to a heterosexual's view of how a relationship should work in order to be accepted by the broader society.

[NorwegianCommunist]

I have never look on it from that point of view before.
After what I read I almost agree, but people nowadays would not say that marriage is about making the wife the property of the husband, but more of showing your love for eachother on a special day that all your friends and family would remember.

[Yefim Zverev]

Marriage has only meaning in law dimension

[Manic Impressive]

Marriage is an outdated custom from a time when a woman could be considered property for a male.
Women are still considered property. In less of a way than they used to be, maybe just in a less obvious way.

[NorwegianCommunist]

It has a lot of meaning to the friends and family of those who get married.

[hatzel]

This is the kind of question which often draws out lots of amateur anthropologists, doing their best to assume that 19th century European Christian conceptions of 'marriage' are universally applicable, and reveal the inevitable nature of all marriage and (supposedly) marriage-like practices. This certainly doesn't lend the air of authority to their comments...

Voltairine de Cleyre's 'Those who marry do ill' (available online - I'm on my phone so can't be bothered to link, just Google it) does a decent enough job of trying to engage with a far broader range of possible types of marriage (eg polygamy, secular, non-public. Even female-dominant marriages would fall under her critique, which is more than can be said for the narrow criticism of marriage as 'women as male property,' obviously reliant on a historically particular form of marriage, along with the presumption of 'heterosexual' partnerships) for which she should be commended, even if I can't say I necessarily agree with all she has to say. Though I can perhaps identify with the spirit to some extent.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

A commitment between two people that love each other is very important to them and their families but I don't think an arbitrary title and piece of paper is necessary to achieve that. The ceremony is not necessarily the problem, it's the centuries of baggage and relations that come with the institution.

And I agree that most men still consider their wives to be property, it's just hidden under a thick layer of bullshit these days.

And I should clarify that I'm talking about the modern western interpretation of marriage.

[Manic Impressive]

This is the kind of question which often draws out lots of amateur anthropologists, doing their best to assume that 19th century European Christian conceptions of 'marriage' are universally applicable, and reveal the inevitable nature of all marriage and (supposedly) marriage-like practices. This certainly doesn't lend the air of authority to their comments...

Voltairine de Cleyre's 'Those who marry do ill' (available online - I'm on my phone so can't be bothered to link, just Google it) does a decent enough job of trying to engage with a far broader range of possible types of marriage (eg polygamy, secular, non-public. Even female-dominant marriages would fall under her critique, which is more than can be said for the narrow criticism of marriage as 'women as male property,' obviously reliant on a historically particular form of marriage, along with the presumption of 'heterosexual' partnerships) for which she should be commended, even if I can't say I necessarily agree with all she has to say. Though I can perhaps identify with the spirit to some extent.
Yes there are exceptions, but speaking in the sense of what is the prevalent dynamic between men and women across the world concerning marriage it would be that women are considered as property.

[NorwegianCommunist]

What I am familiar with is that if people don't get married after a while of being together, then people don't think they love eachother.
People say "They don't love eachother enough to get married"

I agree with some of you, but to NOT get married with the person you love is very taboo where I am from.

[Zulu]

Marriage is what perpetuates private property and creates inequality between the members of society before they learn how to talk.

[Railyon]

Marriage is what perpetuates private property

Oookay, I'd like some explanation on that because I don't think marriage is what perpetuates private property, as a part of the totality maybe but not as an isolated social relation.

[Prometeo liberado]

The sooner we destroy marriage the sooner we destroy the concept of Family as has has been shoved down our throats by those who benefit from it, The Church and Organized Capital. If we are a class then as a class, and not individual familial armies of 1-6 or whatever number, can we move forward to communism. Old habits or superstitions beget old results.

[Dani Phantom]

Well basically marriage is like putting a fence or putting a copyright stamp on women controlling their sexuality that only limits to their husband while he in the other hand hypocritically can sex with any woman he wants while he physically/mentally/etc abuses and even kills his wife if she does the same thing.

Marriage in short is another manifestation of property that will disappear when a post-revolutionary society comes.

Makes sense

[Hexen]

Marriage is what perpetuates private property and creates inequality between the members of society before they learn how to talk.

Actually Marriage is just a another manifestation of property.

[Arilou Lalee'lay]

Marriage is what perpetuates private property and creates inequality between the members of society before they learn how to talk.The family, as a strictly defined social structure, was largely the basis of feudal power, through primogeniture. It continues to perpetuate nepotism and inheritance. The church controls it because the church is what justified feudal power, through divine mandate.

That's the orthodox Marxist view of it. Monogamy is fine, but marriage is Sartrean bad faith.

[Psy]

What I am familiar with is that if people don't get married after a while of being together, then people don't think they love eachother.
People say "They don't love eachother enough to get married"

I agree with some of you, but to NOT get married with the person you love is very taboo where I am from.

But why is this such a great show of affection? "I love you so much I will register our love with a bureaucracy that doesn't give a crap about us", When you view the state and church as bureaucracies that only care about their self-interest then marriage at best looks pointless. I mean even in the possibility of a God why would that God care that a human bureaucracy validated a sexual relationship, or demonize those that didn't register their sexual relationship with said bureaucracy?

[NorwegianCommunist]

Don't ask me that. What I said is just the general thought about marriage here in Norway.

[Goblin]

Like NorwegianCommunist said, not getting married is pretty taboo here in Norway. My parents think im a weirdo for not wanting to get married. Im not against marriage or anything, its just not something for me.

[Per Levy]

Im not against marriage or anything, its just not something for me.

ha i was the same until i fell in love with my girl and she wants to get married so we will, it will make her happy so its good that way. just saying views like that can change quite a lot if you fall in love with someone who wants to get married.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I know some anarchists, and other leftists, view marriage as a symbol / symptom of bourgeous society (creating the model of a nuclear family with bourgeous desires and aspirations making them easier to manipulate and control, genders given strict conservative roles and purpose).

I myself am getting married next year because my gf wants to and I love her...so yeah, takes all sorts to make a world (not saying I disagree with some of the analysis, but that's not what my gf believes and I don't mind)

Congratulations bud.

OT: yeah, I am sympathetic to a lot of the criticisms of marriage. As an institution, it is certainly beholden to a patriarchal symbolism; the wife being property of the husband and so on. As noted above, it also does present a problem for those in the gay community, who live in a world where gay marriage is generally illegal or watered down to civil unions or whatever. Having said that, i'm not against marriage as a symbol of love either. I guess each to their own, but I want to get married (probably) one day, and it'll be as a commitment to love and the symbolism attached, rather than to endorse or entrench patriarchy, homo-hegemony or anything like that.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

What I meant by the homosexual comment was that in many cases in order to have their sexual preference accepted by the broader society, they are forced into the traditional form of romantic relationship used by heterosexuals. Which is bullshit. But yes obviously the institution also prevents those who do want to marry from doing so in most places as well.

I can certainly understand people getting married to make their partner happy but it's still an anachronism.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

The only reason why I want to get married (which makes my boyfriend sweat and panic anytime it's brought up) is due to practical reasons, like, things related to medical issues and our life together like a house and children and so on. Past that, I merely see what we would call 'marriage' now as being a manifestation of this and whether you call it 'marriage' (which has a a lot of historically negative connotations), civil union, or whatever it still describes the same sort of relationship between two persons. I feel there are practical reasons as to why we have this.

All this talk of it being of a manifestation of property and all that seems like intellectual tomfoolery.

[Psy]

The only reason why I want to get married (which makes my boyfriend sweat and panic anytime it's brought up) is due to practical reasons, like, things related to medical issues and our life together like a house and children and so on. Past that, I merely see what we would call 'marriage' now as being a manifestation of this and whether you call it 'marriage' (which has a a lot of historically negative connotations), civil union, or whatever it still describes the same sort of relationship between two persons. I feel there are practical reasons as to why we have this.

All this talk of it being of a manifestation of property and all that seems like intellectual tomfoolery.

The only reason why bourgeoisie states allows anyone to get married is due to property rights, this is because bourgeois law only cares about property, i.e a partner cheating in the eyes of the law only means the cheater broke a legal binding contract that entitled the party to share in property of the family unit.

Basically by getting married you are getting into a contract with the bourgeois state that they will come in as an arbitrator regarding property rights if the contract between you and your partner has to be broken.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

The only reason why bourgeoisie states allows anyone to get married is due to property rights, this is because bourgeois law only cares about property, i.e a partner cheating in the eyes of the law only means the cheater broke a legal binding contract that entitled the party to share in property of the family unit.

Basically by getting married you are getting into a contract with the bourgeois state that they will come in as an arbitrator regarding property rights if the contract between you and your partner has to be broken.

That's a valid point, I will admit, I'm woefully ignorant on the matter so just excuse my ignorance.

[Valdyr]

Marriage as an institution represents, to some extent, the bourgeoisification of the proletariat. While marriage has taken many forms over the years in different cultures, it is effectively always a way of sublimating people's personal relationships to the mode of production, and making some types of relationships more valid than others.

That being said, I'm not saying you shouldn't get married, that would be liberal lifestylism. As long as we live in this society, there are many pragmatic benefits to getting married. I'm against it at a structural level, but don't think some kind of what we might call "marriage" can be fully abolished until class society is abolished. In the mean time, I would like to see the scope of what sorts of relationships are officially recognized expand, as the restriction to recognized relationships to a narrow range of configurations tends to do some ugly reproduction of social power.

[Zulu]

Actually Marriage is just a another manifestation of property.
There is a lot more to it, than just the "down with the kitchen slavery" propaganda theme. Unless you educate yourself about such details as how the females benefit from the monogamous family and how the exploitative classes benefit from it, you'll be stuck in the bourgeois feminism.



Oookay, I'd like some explanation on that because I don't think marriage is what perpetuates private property, as a part of the totality maybe but not as an isolated social relation.
Inheritance. Even if there is no private property to inherit (say, in a socialist society), there is always some social status of the parents, you know, "connections" and stuff. That's unfair. Tilting the scales in favor of morons sometimes.