Quote:
Originally Posted by Makarov
Good post but I think this part is quite sad. I can honestly say that my wife is my best friend. Obviously that doesn't mean that I want to spend every waking moment with her, but there are plenty of times where I prefer her company to the company of my mostly idiotic friends. I can't be the only man who feels like this, can I?
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Yeah, I worded that part poorly. There are plenty of times when I feel like staying in and just hanging out with my girlfriend, but I much prefer the activities that my buddies and I do when we go out than the stuff my girlfriend wants to do. I mostly meant that a girlfriend/wife isn't going to replace a dude's friend when it comes to fraternal bonding, etc., so it's not something they bring to the table that would convince me to commit longterm.
The main point I was getting at is that many of us are no longer getting married because it provides no tangible biological benefits, and emotional or social benefits usually have limited upside and shelf-life. The theories on human relationships are that most are born out of kin selection and reciprocal altruism. When you combine that with every person's biological instincts towards gene survival/advancement, it makes sense why men are less inclined to tie themselves down in a more promiscuous society.
That being said, most of this relates to the traditional reasons for marriage and monogamy. The optimist would claim that modern marriage values put more emphasis on interpersonal relationships, but this is fairly tenuous when you examine modern marital patterns (and ironically wedding vows themselves) which are still based on reciprocal altruism at the most basic level.
I'm not making any claims on how I think things should be, and our attitudes will likely continue to evolve. I actually think society is better off not limiting masculine and feminine virtue to the atomic family model, and that our hardwired attitudes towards female promiscuity will eventually fade away or be dispersed by reason. However, I do think that the sexual revolution and women's rights movement overlooked the fact that by redefining female roles they were also redefining traditional male roles, as well as the exchange of needs.