So what could we do to restore the dignity of marriage?
First, honor the commitment to fidelity and permanence. Make divorce difficult. Require grounds for divorce. Eliminate no-fault divorce. The very fact that it exists vitiates the marriage vows even as they are spoken. Assign and enforce alimony as liquidated damages when one abandons a lifetime commitment.
Make adultery a civil offense with civil penalties, as well as a ground for divorce and alimony.
Limit the availability of contraception. It is contraception, after all, that first broke the link between marriage and children, and ultimately led to children being treated as commodities.
That's a start.
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"Limit the availability of contraception. It is contraception, after all, that first broke the link between marriage and children"
Classic church doctrine; fuck you, your happiness and the happiness of your children; church power is more important. More sheep, more power.
Until recently, children were nothing but commodities. One in four children could be expected to die before the age of 5, and the rest were needed to help either on the farm or in the family business. The more babies, the more likelihood enough would reach the age where they would become worth the money it cost to raise them.
Make divorce difficult. Require grounds for divorce. Eliminate no-fault divorce.
Good luck with that, because Republicans love divorce, and conservative Christians have a higher divorce rate than anyone else. It's a bit unlikely they'd get on board with that.
Make adultery a civil offense with civil penalties, as well as a ground for divorce
Wait, I thought you wanted to make divorce more difficult?
Limit the availability of contraception.
What's that got to do with divorce? You do know that marriages with more children are more likely to result in divorce, don't you?
So, after a big step forward, you want us to take a flying leap backward?
You lost the only marriage debate that was going on. Are you ... are you addicted to arguing about marriage? Might I recommend getting one? That way, you can complain about yours like so many others do and leave everyone else's alone.
So what could we do to restore the dignity of marriage?
For starters, stop pretending that it's only given by God and will always last forever.
Make divorce difficult. Require grounds for divorce. Eliminate no-fault divorce.
All you're going to do here is create more situations where couples live together without being married. There's already a high percentage of couples who live together without being legally married. If divorce is so difficult, more couples will just avoid legal marriage and split the sheets on their own.
a "commodity" is something commonplace, something easily got and easily replaced, something that can be traded in bulk because there's seldom if ever any shortage of it and for which competition is mainly on price. commodities are things you might need, but seldom want to particularly think about; you don't brag about that wonderful new commodity you just bought three 24-packs of at such a big discount, buy two and get one free. you don't spend time and effort and thought planning out your next commodity and what all you'll do with and for it.
there have been times when children were a commodity, but now that contraception is making it less and less likely for children to be conceived unintentionally those days are thankfully fading. contraception, after all, makes children less common and more likely to be deliberately wanted, therefore less likely to be in any sense of the word traded --- or discarded.
universal, reliable contraception helps ensure children are wanted, planned for, invested in, and treated as the special, unique, irreplaceable individuals they should be. contraception de commodifies kids.
@Zemyla: something you can get what you want of, when you want it, seems more like the definition of a convenience good to me. (exercise for new fathers: put the baby on your wife's chest, smile at her, and say "now wasn't that convenient?")
It is contraception, after all, that first broke the link between marriage and children
You do realize that people have been using contraception since, at least, the Roman age, right?
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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