Quote:
Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague
I suppose it's somewhat tied to the RL in the sense that truths about the social importance of institutions like marriage and religion are the sort that will be resisted by the left as anti-dogmatic. But unless you can engineer a substitute for the very human needs that those sorts of institutions fill, it shouldn't really be surprising that the void left by their decline will cause some problems.
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While there is an element of truth in this, I would make a few comments.
First of all, there wide variety of marriages and equivalent arrangements in human history is huge, and some are fairly recent. Married couples living apart for years for example has been very common no more than a few generations ago, as has been couples living together without marrying. The social significance of marriage still varies hugely even within one country.
At one end, marriage is primarily a child-bearing and/or financial arrangement with little expectation of things such as romance or even sexual fidelity. To others it's a romantic bond, and increasingly commonly thought of as something that
should be broken if the romance dies out, to protect the children. (There are also usually vastly different assumptions related as to what happens in a divorce and afterwards.)
These two types of marriages fill very different needs. That's why I instinctively shy away from statements such as you made, that "marriage fills a human need". It's of course true, yet I feel that it doesn't actually say that much. If people have such different marriages for such vastly different needs, are we really even talking about any one thing when we're talking about marriage?
And if we're not, should we really be so focused on marriage as a concept? (It's tempting for scientists because it's easier to study, but that's not a great reason.)
That said, I do agree that some moralism is good for a society when it comes to human relations and especially child caring. I say this even though I'm a dirty polyamorist who has gotten judged a lot by other people who don't understand or accept what's going on with my relationships. I don't really mind since those concerns are almost always born from good intentions. Being forced to constantly check that I really believe I'm not doing anything wrong is not a bad thing.