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On 2002-12-19 04:03, sco08y wrote:
I'm not against it per se, but it leads to a dilema:
If you recognize random unions between two people, what's to stop random unions between three, four, etc?
I see nothing wrong with letting 3 people marry each other. Or 4 people, for that matter. However the line would eventualy have to be drawn somewhere, because having 50 or so people marry each other would create tremendous amounts of paperwork, especially if they divorced into several groups.
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There's a *reason* we have marriage, and that is to raise children to adulthood. (Another reason was that before the female of the species became "wife of man," she was subject to being raped and brutalized at any time. This necessity is, thankfully, obsolete in first-world countries.) Sure, we tolerate childless couples, but they are by nature quite few compared to potential random unions.
Women in first world countries still get raped. I don't see how marriage protects them from that. Perhaps in a close-knit society it would be a deterrant, but I don't think most modern rapists stop to check if a woman is married before attacking them.
Women who are brutalized are most often abused by those they are in a close relationship with (their husbands or boyfriends).
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So we have, in place, an imperfect but workable criteria that helps sustain the family as a basic social unit.
If we remove that legal recognition of union between 1 mand and 1 woman as the official social standard (and people do tend to recognize the law as a rough benchmark of what society expects) we could very well throw a spanner in the works.
I've read a fair amount on this matter, including <a href="http://www.andrewsullivan.com/">the only conservative supporter of gay marriage</a> I know of, and I'm not convinced. I think gay marriage supporters don't want to address the possible consequences.
The Arawak indians (native to the Bahama islands) had no insitiution of marriage. Mating between any two consenting parties was perfectly admissable, and children were raised communally. They were actually an excellent example of a functioning communist society, until the Spaniards wiped them out.
I've never understood the assertion that gay marriage will somehow undermine the institution of heterosexal marriage. Would someone mind exlaining this rationale to me?
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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: tychoseven on 2002-12-20 01:58 ]</font>