Decide to be married ...

[nacktman]

Gentlemen please don't forget today is " Decide to be married Day".

So be prepared for that significant other to lay out some hints both broad and subtle.

[xgsft]

Thanks for the warning. My fiancee is pretty direct on it, so no hinting.

[MJ_KC]

No thanks.

[MoonShadow]

Lol....good response MJ.

No need for marriage here. My companion in life and I have been together 30 years and never needed marriage. He and I are on the same page that no piece of paper is or was needed.

[MJ_KC]

quote:

Originally posted by MoonShadow:
Lol....good response MJ.

No need for marriage here. My companion in life and I have been together 30 years and never needed marriage. He and I are on the same page that no piece of paper is or was needed.

I have seen people change from nice and easy to get along with before a marriage, to something resembling the spawn of Satan. People can all the sudden want to be control freaks when there was no indication of this at all prior to the wedding.

I had a friend whose wife just all the sudden decided that she wanted to be single again so she could get out and go to parties and date whoever she wanted to. He told me that there hadn't even been any arguments prior to her telling him that she wanted a divorce. Kind of hard to try to fix problems when there aren't any.

She even told him that there weren't any problems. Hard to understand why someone would get married in the first place if it means so little to them.

[nudenwv]

been there done that!

[Cigol Edun]

It would be interesting to study the history of how the "Piece of paper" and the associated rituals that exist in our culture have come to be the norm.

[Guest]

Now that we have legalised gay marriage in Canada, and gay friends of mine have "tied the knot" - I wonder, be careful what you wish for..divorces (bitter or not)...custody cases....etc etc...

[OZJames]

Whilst I understand that it is every persons right to live their lives however they want - married or unmarried, defacto or whatever, I feel that actually committing to the marriage ceremony makes for a stronger and more lasting bond -in most cases. I know someone will say that the piece of paper, in their case, cannot add to the strong bond that they have. I admire those people but there are many people who just slip into the practice of living together, not wanting to "tie the knot" just in case they want to back out. They think it will be easy to back out - they are wrong.

It is relatively easy to get divorced these days. In Australia males/females cohabitating for any length of time will be deemed to be in a "marriage" anyway so the legal ramifications of separating assets etc after a legal marriage or a defacto marriage are the same.

JAMES

[Bobx23456]

quote:

Originally posted by Cigol Edun:
It would be interesting to study the history of how the "Piece of paper" and the associated rituals that exist in our culture have come to be the norm.

The oldest surviving written laws, the Code of Hamarabi, have many sections codifying marriage laws and customs that apparently were old when King Hamarabi wrote them down.

Virtually every pre-literate tribal society has some form of marriage customs. The institution of marriage is apparently much older than written records. The common denominator of marriage across every society is a social structure designed to encourage child bearing and to provide support for raising the children produced.

Blessings

Bob

[Cigol Edun]

I tend to think you are on the right track Bobx23456.

I would expect the concept has fleshed out over time. Though I've not read the Code of Hammurabi, I have read the Old Testament, and it is full of clues suggesting that the concept of "marriage" was different in ancient Hebrew culture, than it is generally understood to be today in western culture (at least in terms of its traditions, and monogamous expectations).

Of course if you define marriage as broadly as "any social structure designed to encourage child bearing and to provide support for raising the children produced", then many forms of marriage could be conceived of that would not conform to our own cultures expectations.