Essay on Reasons to Completely Abandon the Current Model of MarriageFirst, what is marriage? Let’s go to the dictionary: (1): the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2): the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage (From Merriam-Webster online Dictionary).Of course the word consensual is dubious and debatable. How many choices and decisions in any person’s life are actually in truth consensual could be hotly debated. Yes, we seemingly consent to many things, but really, what other options do we have, and besides, our minds have been fiddled with and conditioned since birth to choose certain things, and value certain things. So in the above definition consensual is too open to interpretation to be accepted as part of a definition. So we take it that marriage is simply – a contractual relationship recognized by law.Secondly, it is accepted that among humans there has always been marriage. But obviously the marriage that existed before industrialization, state government, and the now emerging global government, had an entirely different context, and correspondingly an entirely different purpose, meaning, and implication. Indeed, we will be arguing that the central focus of industrialization (which naturally evolved into the mass consumerist capitalism of today), state control and global government, was and is the exponential generation of wealth for a few, through the direct and indirect control and management of people. And one of the key institutions employed by governments to control and manage people is the current model of marriage. It is a model of marriage that is devoid of any tribe or clan or broader family considerations or context. In fact it seems to the author that when couples submit themselves to the current model, it is recognized and accepted that they become a completely separate nucleus from any tribe or clan or broader family context or consideration that they were a part of before marriage. Perhaps that is why it is called nuclear marriage (The nuclear family or elementary family is a term used to define a family group consisting of a pair of adults and their children [Wikipedia]). The author acknowledges that “nuclear families” have been common in Europe and Britain for some time now, but after industrialization they changed in nature and became very much private and exclusive units of two, completely inwardly focused. The more accurate term for this, should you wish to research it, is The Isolated Family, or The Closed Nuclear Family, or The Private Nuclear family. There can be little doubt that whatever families were before industrialisation and the emergence of capitalism as the dominant ideology underlying social organisation and now globalisation, they became quite clearly, and are even more so now, closed exclusive units of two.But in this essay we are not merely looking at Britain and Europe, but family models around the globe, which may be termed complex family units, and which are common in tribes and clans, and which, wherever globalism and capitalism have become established, have all been vilified and made illegal.The chief assertion of this essay is basically that whatever “marriage” was and however it was practiced it derived all its significance and meaning and power from the context of the tribe/clan, and without the broader clan/tribe context it has no relevance, efficacy, or point. The idea that you can marry one person devoid of tribe or clan is as ludicrous as the idea of citizenship without a country. When couples submit themselves to a wedding that has as its marriage model the private nuclear marriage, they are merely going through the motions of a ghost ceremony that developed in and from a context that no longer exists. It can be argued that the modern mass consumerist capitalist nation state is not a culture. It is more of a business. When people marry in this context, they are joining themselves exclusively to one person, and not to anything more. The back drop of that one person, in fact both people, is utterly cultureless. There are no “ways”, or “traditions”, or “roles” or strata of relatives by which one may define the meaning and significance of the union of these two people. There are merely two abstract individuals, going through a ceremony that needs a cultural context to define it, but doesn’t have one. Once they are wedded, they are part of nothing, but their own little exclusive set of goals and concerns, and the only context that can be found to define the significance of their little mock marriage is the utterly impersonal, isolating, faceless, nameless, indistinct mass consumerist mega mall of global capitalism.Marriage is embedded in a social context. It can never be isolated from, assessed or commented upon outside of the social, cultural, political context within which it is embedded. So to view marriage clearly, we must consider also its corresponding antithesis, singleness. Included in singleness, are people who are now divorced. One can see that the current ideal of marriage as it is now accepted is inseparably linked with singleness. The author proposes that singleness would’ve been as bizarre and as alien a concept as the currently accepted model of marriage would’ve been to many generations of humans, who lived for thousands of years in tribes and clans. In a tribal model, there is no “singleness” before marriage, and no rift or separation from the tribe after marriage, because tribal models don’t force people into camps of one’s and two’s, but incorporate all people whatever their stage in life or relationship status. In fact many languages around the world do not even have a word that signifies parent-child domestic units known as families in English. For example the Zinacantecos of Southern Mexico identify the basic social unit as a “House”, which may include one to twenty people.The Lie:People marry because they’re in love. Or marriage is about love.The Truth:Love is an ambiguous word at best and a loaded word at worst. When it comes to marriage, it’s actually best kept out of the equation. If you love someone, why on earth would you need to marry them? One can live with the person they love if they want to quite happily without marriage, one can have children with them, and do everything with them without marriage. So marriage is not about love. It’s politics. The government is set up so that people in nuclear marriages (other models of marriage are illegal) receive concessions and benefits that single people, or unmarried people don’t.The Lie:People who are married are happier, live longer, and enjoy a greater quality of lifestyle than those who are single.The Truth:Those who are single is the key part of that lie. Of course they are happier. Being single sucks. Humans’ are social animals, and we need interaction and stimulation. Those who are married get a little of that, those who are single, get even less. The tribal models enjoyed by our ancestors have been destroyed, initially by wars, then by economics and politics. So there are only really two options, being alone, or being “married.” Of course those with the personalities suited to being married according to the current model, are going to be happier. It means nothing, when the only other option is being alone. I’m sure an average American Indian with his 4 wives, and his life roaming free on the plains was a million times happier than your average married couple, his wives’ would’ve been happier too. More help, less work, more resources, basically more of everything. So if it’s about happiness, why don’t we go back to a tribal model? Because you guessed it, it’s not about happiness. It’s about economics and politics. In other words, exponentially increasing wealth for a few, by controlling and managing people. And marriage as it is currently conceived and promoted by legislation, media, and marketing, is a pillar institution for controlling and managing people. It leaves us very vulnerable.The Anomalies:There are a number of anomalies (something peculiar) concerning marriage that make it hard to understand why people persist with the current model. I will attempt to highlight them.
The current model was initially enforced by the Christian church, as indeed the foundations of the current society were built upon the religious political mandates of the Christian church. But even though the current society has done away with Christianity, the media and the governments still promote the Christian model of marriage (albeit without the priest doing the ceremony) and hold it up as the ideal, and the people still desire it, and want to go along with it. There is still this belief in the sanctity of the Christian model and ideal, in spite of the fact we’ve done away with God and his book. This doesn’t make sense.
People who submit to the current model and believe in it, don’t seem to be aware of its absurdity. It basically goes like this – you have two people saying to each other, I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you, but if you ever indulge in physical pleasure with any other person, or if you ever love any other person but me, I won’t love you anymore and we’re through. Doesn’t that sound absurdly childish?I hear followers of the current model say – No, I didn’t ask that of my spouse, I offered that to my spouse. I gave up my right to love and enjoy other people, and that was an expression of the highest love for one person, my beloved, whom I married (equally childish, albeit in a cute kind of way).Well that’s very noble of you, and I’m sure anyone would be greatly indebted and humbled by such a profound and dramatic gesture of love. And this is how proponents of the current model think. Their minds are filled with thoughts about how noble and upright and pure and devoted and great their love is. But we all know the reality doesn’t hold up, and it’s plain to see that for most all those high ideals about love and lifelong exclusive devotion to one person are there by way of social conditioning, marketing, and the media.Once again we assert that real love for another person has nothing to do with marriage, whether this current model, or any other. You can really truly love another person without devoting yourself exclusively to them for the rest of your life, or requiring them to devote themselves to you for the rest of their life.So why do people insist on this model if it is not about love.We assert they are simply following and acting out social norms and living up to social ideals.And indeed this is one of core reasons for abandoning the current model of marriage. By abandoning this model, and embracing more progressive and open models, we will radicalize our whole society and progress and revolutionize our culture. And indeed this is why the current model is enforced by law (making all other models illegal) and promoted by media and marketing, because when it comes to structuring peoples relationships so the greatest level of control and management of the greatest number, for the exponential generation of wealth for a few may be solidly maintained, the current model is, as we have asserted, the most effective.Third, the current model seriously limits a person’s development and progression as a human, and seems to cultivate very negative and harmful states of mind such as jealousy, possessiveness, fear of change, insecurity, an unbalanced state of dependency on one person exclusively, and yes that soul killer, guilt. Many American Indian tribes, before they were forced to live as white men, and forced to marry according to this current model, established models that directly countered these very negative human states of mind. They considered these states of mind dangerous, and signs of weakness, and sickness, and states of mind that do no one any good, and prevent us from reaching our potential both individually and collectively. But the American Indians were spiritual people, and within their models of marriage and coupling there was room for each individual’s personal vision and spiritual quest in attaining their highest personal potential and spiritual power. To make a model that potentially hinders one’s personal spiritual journey and limits one’s development and progress, is obviously going to limit the whole group collectively. Which again we assert, is the reason why the current model is written in stone, and all other models have been outlawed. The current model actually prevents a collective group developing.The current model stunts and retards a person’s potential (speaking generally) and has all their time and energy taken up generally between three priorities – domestic chores, earning income, and raising kids. Because there are only two people, these necessary and unending tasks, require all their time and energy. Time and time again I hear – I used to play guitar, I used to paint, I wanted to make my own jewellery, I wanted to make furniture, I used to spend a lot of time writing, etc etc – BUT THEN I GOT MARRIED. In the current model we have millions of people divided up into ones and twos, all living 10 feet away from each other, all running ragged between domestic chores, earning income, and maybe raising kids. No one helps each other, no one has time to be concerned about anyone else outside of their two or one person unit, it’s simply impossible; everyone is too busy playing the game. Everyone is separated up, into exclusive units of two people, with their own private agendas and own exclusive concerns. It doesn’t take a great intelligence to see that organising people in this way is -a) Not accidental, intelligent, or natural, and it has been determined that people should live like this by someone other than themselves.b) Highly inefficient and highly wasteful of human energy and time.c) Highly detrimental to the progress and advancement of humans as a collective group.d) Highly effective for controlling people and ensuring they are kept at their most vulnerable.e) Highly effective for ensuring the continued sale of the greatest number of products.Touching again on some things already mentioned:Guilt:One way we can see the true nature of this current model is by looking at divorce. Divorce is a necessary reality in marriage, and all cultures that have models of marriage, have a corresponding model of divorce (And by “Divorce” I do not mean the paper processing of the Government Registrar where a couple becomes legally divorced. I mean the personal and social experience of changing or ending the relationship and separating).Where more open and progressive models of marriage are concerned, divorce is easy, and does not require months or even years of soul wrenching guilt. It is not necessary for the two people involved to hate each other, and spend months or even years locked into extremely harmful and childish squabbles.The current model of marriage carries with it such a soul crushing seriousness and mind burdening weight, and this weight and seriousness can be easily seen when couples can no longer sustain the energy or maintain the delusions needed to continue an adherence to the model. The guilt and sense of failure, and the pain, are all part of the act and game that this model is about.With other models, all that negative emotion is simply not necessary.Why should it be so difficult for two people to go their separate ways?I’ll tell you why, because the status of failure and the guilt of having “given” up on what is supposed to be a holy sanctified vow is actually built into the concept, into the model, and has been established and is continually reinforced by way of social conditioning, marketing, and the media. If you Google – I don’t love my spouse anymore, and I want to end our marriage. You will see firstly, the pain and anguish the person who asked the web community this question is going through. Then you will see how alone they are, and how they have not been able to even talk to their own partner about these feelings, or anyone else. Then you will read in the responses from the web community, a range of about three basic responses -
Get out now before you waste your life (the fewest number of responses)
This happened to me and I divorced (an equally few number of responses)
Work at your marriage, it’s for life, though it’s hard it beats being alone, have you tried counselling, marriage is for life, beware divorce is for life, protect your kids see a counsellor, stop being selfish marriage is about compromise, divorce harms children, divorce should be the last option, keep trying, don’t give up, etc etc (the majority of responses)The people who work away at marriage and believe in the model and have given their lives and souls to following the model NEED you to do the same for them to comfortably continue believing in its absurdity, and to continue to be able to justify and idealize the sacrifices they’ve made and the restrictions upon their souls, minds and bodies they’ve submitted to. They need to believe that they are working away at something high and noble, and precious and pure and sanctified, and that it matters and the future of their children and their society depends on them to stick it out. Societies like this one are all about believing in the Emperor’s Clothes.We assert that the negative emotions surrounding divorce are manufactured, just as the high and holy belief in your great and noble and undying love has been, and just like when you got married and submitted your soul to this model you were merely following and acting out social norms and living up to social ideals, so you are also doing when the delusion can no longer be sustained and you must separate.Believe me, just as marriage is NOT about love, neither is all the pain and anguish of divorce. They are both merely programmed responses and emotions, established, maintained and reinforced by social conditioning, marketing, and the media.In other words, once again you are conforming to established social expectations, and following established social patterns and ascribing to your act of divorce already established meanings. To put it simply, it’s all part of the same game of status quo you’ve been playing.But there is an important question here. Why would the designers of this model (the same people who’ve made all other models illegal, and have also used media and educational institutions, and social conditioning to establish a sheep mentality in the masses, and have formulated negative feelings and opinions about other models in the majority of the masses) build into it such pain for those who can no longer justify it or satisfy its limiting requirements.I can only guess at an answer. Obviously they want divorce to be extremely unpleasant, so that people will continue to respect and idealize the established model of marriage, and hold it in the highest esteem, and believe in its power, and accord it a high place in the culture and society they have established.For, once again we assert, if we abandon the current model and embrace more progressive and open models that encompass more people and are more able to satisfy real human needs among greater numbers of people, our culture and society will be radically altered and changed. And obviously, the rulers of the current society have worked long and hard to get it to where it is now, and to ensure that people are at their most vulnerable.Social Conditioning:Governments are always going on about marriage. And the maintenance of the exclusive private two person unit building block of society is always a fundamental tenet of any political party that runs for government. Any election campaign has among other core and fundamental concerns to the maintenance of our current way of life, marriage and “the family” at the top of the list. All other models of marriage and family are vilified and outlawed. I think this more than enough proves my point that the current model of marriage is a major key in structuring peoples relationships so the greatest level of control and management of the greatest number, for the exponential generation of wealth for a few may be solidly maintained. The current model is, as we have asserted, the most effective.Sheep minds are the strongest adherents of the model. I currently live in Japan. Japanese society is fundamentally a sheep mind society. Don’t question, don’t deviate, don’t think for yourself, don’t act independently, and don’t break the pattern and norm, for to do so is UNJAPANESE. That’s right – to do so is to actually put yourself outside of the label “Japanese”, and all the meanings attached to it. You are not merely doing something differently, you are being un-Japanese. Boy has it taken a carefully planned and well organized social control programme, from birth to the grave, to establish that deep a level of social control. But they’ve done it. And the Japanese LOVE the current model of marriage. It clearly occupies the minds and emotions of so many at such a deep level, without it one might think they have nothing else in the world to aspire to. I mention this because it illustrates the true nature of the model under discussion. It’s not just about people getting together, shagging, having kids and raising them. We’re dealing with ideology, Ideology that is core to the whole structure and organisation of capitalist culture.People believe that the divorce rate somehow indicates our society is falling apart. Once again a belief established, promoted, and maintained by media, and governments. I’ve already asserted why governments want the masses to believe such rubbish.It’s hard to fathom how people can believe that this great advanced and noble and just and equal and fair, and democratic, and educated society (I say all that with unshakable cynicism) stands or falls on something as tenuous as an exclusive, private, two person model of “family.” It’s laughable. But they do.Social control is all about conditioning. I mean how does a law enforcement of say 2 police per every 1000 people maintain law and order? Social conditioning. That’s how. This current society, along with its model of marriage, is founded upon social conditioning achieved via media, and education systems. The model of marriage under discussion here is how people are organized, and the current model is absolutely essential in maintaining social control over the masses.Sex:Now everyone knows that an active sexual life is good for every aspect of a person’s health. Yet, for most sustaining that within the current model of marriage is a at best a chore, and at worst impossible. Many people who submit themselves to the current model of marriage compensate for this by burying themselves in other activities, or work. Of course not everyone wants an active and stimulating and erotic sex life, but for those that do and who also want to submit to the current model of marriage, it’s almost a guarantee that they will either have to die a slow and frustrated and unsatisfied sexless death, or have affairs with people, or get divorced at some point, or, as I am trying to do, get the woman I’m with to slowly accept a more progressive and open model of marriage.On this point there are women everywhere bitching and complaining that their husbands look at porn. We know why he is looking at porn, because he wants a greater degree of sex and erotica and stimulation than the current model of marriage can provide. It is simply a bad idea if you like sex and erotica to submit yourself to private nuclear monogamy. It’s an absolute mistake.And given that globally, the sex industry makes more money than the top five computer companies put together, it seems the current model of marriage plays right into its hand; another, perhaps accidental, connection between social organisation policy, the current model of marriage, and the exponential generation of wealth for a few.Alternative Models:Anyone who has read this should be able to see that it is not strictly about “marriage” per se, but more about how we are organized socially in the current system, and how the current model of marriage has been designed by the designers and rulers of the current system, both past and present, to function pivotally as a mechanism for social control, and the exponential generation of wealth for a few.One cannot help notice the endemic loneliness in modern society (by modern society I refer to the current dominant system of social organization). The current model of marriage contributes greatly to this loneliness. The model of two living in their private and exclusive domain goes hand in hand with the only other option left available to us, singleness. Depending on how you look at it, when people submit their souls to private nuclear marriage, they actually create loneliness for other people. How? Well, it’s obvious. Due the exclusive/private nature of the model, and the fact that the married couple now expect each other (an expectation instilled by the promoters and designers of the model) to focus the greater/best part of their affections, emotions, attentions, and energies exclusively on each other, there are now any number of people left without the friend, or brother or sister etc, they once had. Some of the loneliest people in the world are people whose friends have all married. One might think that if there were six friends, and five of them got married, adding another five people, making eleven (and then more people come along with children being born), that the fun and good times, support, and resources would only increase. Well the only reason it doesn’t happen that way is entirely due to nature of the exclusive nuclear marriage model. The friend is now “out of the game” so to speak, they must now devote the lion’s share of their soul to the person they married. I must say women are especially particular about enforcing this aspect the exclusive nuclear marriage model, but a great deal of men also fall prey to the narrow mindedness of this absurd and completely unnecessary (with more progressive models) exclusivity.I think it’s obvious that there are several predetermined social expectations that are packaged up within the current model of marriage. The most significant in regards to this essay are – 1. The couple will get a mortgage and buy a house. 2. That house will be the private exclusive domain of the couple (everyone outside of the private nuclear unit, must now fend for themselves, otherwise all sorts of denigrating social stigmas will be cast upon them), and they will furnish it year by year with all the products and machines and modern conveniences available. All the millions living in their private exclusive domains, ten feet away from each other, must all have their own products and machines and modern conveniences. 3. The couple will produce offspring, and teach that offspring by their words and example, to repeat the pattern, and idealize and value the same things and the same model as they have submitted themselves to, on and on ad infinitum.One must always remember that other forms of family and marriage have been systematically vilified, denigrated, and made illegal by the current ruling system. And not only family structures and marriage, but other once legitimate extramarital relationships such as concubinage have also been excluded from our list of socially acceptable and legalized options. Yes, in Japan, should you kiss a married woman, and the marriage subsequently ends, you’ll be facing the courts, and writing out checks of compensation to aggrieved parties. Of course in the past, they justified this by saying other models were unchristian. But now, even though we’ve done away with God and his book, we still adhere morally, socially, intellectually, emotionally, to the Christian model. One would surely have to be forgiven for asking why?To conduct research on the some other models of marriage we suggest you start here – http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/family.aspxThe author hopes this has given someone food for thought. And that now anyone who reads this will at least see, that all talk of progression for the human race as a group, is nothing but shallow rhetoric, until we deconstruct, that most basic of all human units, and open it up, in such a way that our very cultures and societies are radically transformed into thriving and caring and loving tribes and clans, where no one dies alone in an apartment and is undiscovered for days or weeks, where no one sleeps alone night after empty unloved night, and where no one goes without that sense of support and togetherness that is indeed the birthright of every human under the sun.