Have women... in the West at least... "Flipped the Script?"

[HudsonHawk]

If people make love outside of marriage, then they are immoral. So if there is at least one person left with morals, then the human race would possibly survive. Or you could make it two, so they could get married. The immoral would die off, because they wouldn't have children. Even if they did, they would be pretty messed up, and they would die off anyway.

1. Who would marry the only two moral people left?

2. Why couldn't immoral people have children?

 

[Retro Spectator]

I'm not saying they can't, I am saying that there will be less immoral people having children, because they would be more likely to be sex addicts. And since they are sex addicts, they wouldn't want children.

Another moral person would marry the last moral person. That is if there are two. But if there is one, who can convince others, then there would be two.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I'm not saying they can't, I am saying that there will be less immoral people having children, because they would be more likely to be sex addicts. And since they are sex addicts, they wouldn't want children.

I know you're young, but that is out there. I mean REALLY out there.

Another moral person would marry the last moral person. That is if there are two. But if there is one, who can convince others, then there would be two.

LOL. No...I mean who would perform the ceremony and recognize the marriage, if everyone else were immoral?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think the main flaw in the line of reasoning is that moral people will always have moral children. The record of human civilization suggests otherwise. After all, the generation of the Era raised the kids who grew up to be the hippies (as Bro. Powers might point out.)

Of course, the generation of the Era wasn't as "moral" as it liked to let on, as Dr. Kinsey pointed out in considerable detail. The Depression years, in particular, were sort of a Golden Age of Fornication.

 

[Edward]

Obviously, but I was speaking of human nature. It is impossible to stop human nature. I wasn't speaking of rape, but of the fact that men and women are naturally attracted to each over. People can't stop that. If people make love outside of marriage, then they are immoral. So if there is at least one person left with morals, then the human race would possibly survive. Or you could make it two, so they could get married. The immoral would die off, because they wouldn't have children. Even if they did, they would be pretty messed up, and they would die off anyway.

Oh, boy. I'm not sure you live on the same planet as I do.

Perhaps that's true BUT who's the breadwinner? Who makes the lion's share of the cabbage... who's subordinate in the relationship. That's where the bear chit in the buckwheat.

Worf

Any relationship I've ever been in, it simply hasn't occurred to me to even consider relative salary status. None of those have involved actual cohabitation, so the issue of contributing to household bills hasn't been an issue as such, but... Meh. Dominant schmomenant. Either a relationship works, or it doesn't. [huh]

It's a violation of Federal Law to pay a woman less than a man would receive for the same job, and has been since 1963. The current disparity between male pay and female pay is largely a function of women working fewer overtime hours than men because fewer women work in fields where more overtime is paid. That, however, is changing, and will continue to change.

Similar over here, though disparity here is also aided by there being large swathes of jobs that aren't paid as well as perhaps they should be, and which are dominated by women, typically from two-income households. Primary level education is one thing.

 

[Feraud]

Perhaps that's true BUT who's the breadwinner? Who makes the lion's share of the cabbage... who's subordinate in the relationship. That's where the bear chit in the buckwheat.

Worf

Perhaps your looking at the situation solely through a male perspective? It's understandable considering you're a man!

Consider the female point of view. Do many women walk around crowing about being the breadwinner? Or wanting the lion's share of everything and then some? Or who's on top and who is the subordinate(inferior) part of a relationship? How many women want their husbands unemployed and barefoot at home?

Not many women I know are as obsessed about establishing social status by the size of their..bank accounts or other body parts. Those who do tend to mimic the worst traits of men dressed up as "Empowered".

In the relationships I've observed and would consider healthy it appears both parties want the other to be as fulfilled as themselves in whatever position they take in a relationship.

 

[rjb1]

Another factor in the seeming disparity in male/female pay is the lower proportion of females in the so-called "STEM" fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics).
These are the fields that have significantly higher starting salaries and tend to have higher salaries over time.
Our engineering school has rarely over ~25% female enrollment. At an individual level, the starting salaries for male and female engineers are effectively the same.
However, on a statistical basis, if only about one-fourth of the higher-paid positions in the workforce are held by women, it will appear that women are paid less as a group if the overall average of all people is calculated.

(The 25% level is by self-selection, no one keeps the potential female engineers out.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's another thing that's changing. Give us another twenty or thirty years, and I bet you'll see something pretty close to parity in all of those fields.

Keep in mind too that it's really only in the last thirty years or so that college has been seen as the default course for young women. Even when I was getting out of school it was still common for girls to marry at 21 or 22 and settle down to family life right away. I work with a lot of girls that age, and only one of them had a kid right after high school -- and that was an accident. Most of them don't have any intention of getting married before their late twenties or early thirties, and a couple of them have no interest in getting married at all: not because they want to "play the field," but because they're convinced that romantic relationships in general are the bunk.

There have always been women who felt that way -- the stereotype of the "spinster librarian" didn't just spring up from nowhere -- but now women don't feel they have to apologize for it. I think that's healthy -- the biggest mistake my mother ever made in her life was getting married when she was 20, and she's regretted it every day of her life since. If women aren't feeling pressured to live a life they have no interest in living for the sake of appearances, I say it's about damn time.

 

[ChiTownScion]

.Even when I was getting out of school it was still common for girls to marry at 21 or 22 and settle down to family life right away.

I used to refer to them as the "work young// marry young// die young" type. The ones I knew who got married at that age or even earlier generally came from a pretty awful home situation, and saw marrying Mr. Wonderful as their ticket out. And if I had a dollar for everyone of those who came to me ten years and a couple of kids later asking about divorce...well, I might not be wealthy as a result but I might be able to purchase a decent new fedora.

I got married at 30 and even that was too damn young. The downside was that first time parenthood in the mid-30's is extremely exhausting.

 

[Fastuni]

@ Retro Specator

It is impossible to stop human nature.

If people make love outside of marriage, then they are immoral. So if there is at least one person left with morals, then the human race would possibly survive.

Uhmm.... trying to follow your reasoning here.

"Marriage" and "morals" do not occur in human nature. They are social/cultural constructs.
If you say that it is human nature to seek sexual partners, why is biological human survival dependant on "marriage of moral persons"?
You are mixing "nature" with religious/cultural constructs... the result of course is entirely faulty.

As marriage becomes increasingly socially/economically difficult and postponed (there are many reasons), "immoral sex" outside of marriage will ensure off-spring much more likely.
Anyway, this planet has over 7 billion people... don't worry about the biological existance of homo sapiens.

 

[Retro Spectator]

Because they would, in theory, be more likely to have children than those whom aren't married. It is impossible to stop human nature, but it is possible to ignore it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One of the most interesting windows into how American families actually lived in the Era -- as opposed to how nostalgists since the '80s have assumed they lived -- is the "How America Lives" series which began in the Ladies Home Journal in 1940. These monthly articles took a close, hard look at the reality of American family life, in nearly all strata of society -- working class, middle class, upper class, immigrant or native-born, white or black. In a great many of these articles, the families which were having the most difficult time of it were those in which the couples had married in their late teens -- a time when human beings are still, functionally, intellectually, and emotionally, still adolescents. By the time these couples were in their mid twenties, with kids to support, most of them seemed to be having problems, and this was true regardless of their economic status. Small wonder that the next big feature the LHJ started -- and one which still runs in that publication today -- was "Can This Marriage Be Saved."

A lot of families, maybe even most families, went out of their way to paper over these problems when they were happening, to keep them from the kids or the neighbors for the sake of appearances. But I'm willing to bet if you went back and buttonholed a typical young wife of the Era and asked her if she was honestly, truly happy, if she was honestly and truly satisfied with her life, she'd roll her eyes and give you an evasive answer like "I've got my kids," and refuse to elaborate any further about what was really going on in her household. In the LHJ profiles, the most common fear expressed by these women revolved around money -- and many of them expressed an interest either in working to supplement the family income or were already doing so, although the higher you went past the working class and into the middle class, the more guilty they felt about expressing these views.

There may well have been young marrieds who were living an idyllic picture-book life as the sitcoms and the Wasn't Life Swell In Suburbia romanticists want us to believe. But given how deeply flawed human beings tend to be in any era, and given the constant economic tensions that most young married couples faced, I doubt they were anywhere near close to a majority.

 

[Fastuni]

Because they would, in theory, be more likely to have children than those whom aren't married.

And since they are sex addicts, they wouldn't want children.

Isn't a "sex addict" more likely to have children (even if unwanted)?
Any you do know that many a marriage is the result of an unwanted pregnancy?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Any you do know that many a marriage is the result of an unwanted pregnancy?

The "shotgun wedding" is an old, old phenomenon in American cultural life, and no doubt in the rest of the world as well. I suspect that just about every one of us here, if we go poking in our family history, will find at least one within the past two or three generations. I can still remember the look on my grandmother's face when I noted that she was married in December and her first child was born in June. "Was he premature?" I asked, in an innocence which was shattered almost immediately.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Because they would, in theory, be more likely to have children than those whom aren't married. It is impossible to stop human nature, but it is possible to ignore it.

On a biological level this simply defies not only logic, but observed behavior, and ultimately, "human nature" itself. Marriage and monogamy violate human nature. Multiple mating partners and year-round female receptivity have evolved into our DNA for the express purpose of procreation, not so that we can engage in a social ritual.

 

[HudsonHawk]

The "shotgun wedding" is an old, old phenomenon in American cultural life, and no doubt in the rest of the world as well. I suspect that just about every one of us here, if we go poking in our family history, will find at least one within the past two or three generations. I can still remember the look on my grandmother's face when I noted that she was married in December and her first child was born in June. "Was he premature?" I asked, in an innocence which was shattered almost immediately.

Despite what many would like to think, sex wasn't invented in the 1960's. The world figured that out long before Elvis, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

 

[Retro Spectator]

Isn't a "sex addict" more likely to have children (even if unwanted)?
Any you do know that many a marriage is the result of an unwanted pregnancy?

True, but if they use contraceptives, then there would be no more mankind if that was the case with everyone.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's not to say these things don't have an important role in civilization. Monogamy, marriage, wage and hour laws, constitutional government, and all the rest of such things were put into place over the years because most people agreed that they were the most reasonable way to govern a civilization -- the freedom of the individual to do whatever he or she pleased to whomever he or she pleased however he or she pleased to do it was forfeited for the sake of the common good.

It doesn't benefit society for a man to scatter his seed wherever he wants to scatter it with no further responsibility for the consequences, so social sanctions were imposed upon such behavior to force a man to support his offspring. It doesn't benefit society for a woman to have to bear the entire burden of raising a child so social sanctions created the institution of marraige to ensure that the man lived up to his share of the responsibility -- either thru physical presence or, at the very least, financial support. And if it doesn't benefit society for women to be kept in a "subservient" role as the price they pay for men living up to their responsibilities, then women will not be kept in a subservient role. Simple as that.

 

[HudsonHawk]

That's not to say these things don't have an important role in civilization. Monogamy, marriage, wage and hour laws, constitutional government, and all the rest of such things were put into place over the years because most people agreed that they were the most reasonable way to govern a civilization -- the freedom of the individual to do whatever he or she pleased to whomever he or she pleased however he or she pleased to do it was forfeited for the sake of the common good.

Of course. Social constructs have all sorts of benefits, both sociological and biological. But it's not general "human nature" to not want to have children. Quite the opposite.

 

[Retro Spectator]

Unless of course, the individual was asexual, which I believe is less than 1% of the population.