Feminism and Divorce

[edwest2]

But was it really? I mean, people are free to marry whomever they want (except siblings and members of the same gender in some states), so I guess I don’t see how feminism per se upset any marriages, other than those in the 60’s and 70’s.

People divorce more today, but I doubt they would have been in happy marriages back before easier access to divorce was available. Today, with both partners having incomes, they are more capable of living on their own so have more options, including that of divorce.
That is really the only connection to feminism is that because the woman has a career, she has more of an option of divorce.

Successful couples marry later in life, on average, which in many cases probably indicates some pre-marital sex. In a free society, there is no way to regulate extra-marital sex, other than in gross cases (e.g. child abuse). If that free sex prior to marriage leads to a higher age at first marriage and if a higher age at first marriage means a longer duration of marriage, then if divorce is harmful to society, isn’t it in society’s interest to benignly tolerate that reality?

By having both of us working in my family, we have been able to amass a warchest of savings for when the economy downturns (like now). Right now we are still both working, but we take solace in these uncertain times in knowing that our savings will float us for a few years of either or both of us not working (fortunately we kept our in case of bad economy break here savings in cash and not the market). Additionally, retirement savings are fairly decent. Those kinds of savings would not be possible without both of us working and there would be much more risk of instability in such a configuration.

Honestly, even in the case of FLDS and their strange families, the government has determined that as long as no underage women are being married, the government doesn’t care. People are free to configure their relationships as they see fit. If you want a 1950’s white middle-classed (the conceit of the woman being a housewife is a conceit of the middle and upper classes, poorer women have always worked for wages either inside or outside the home) American marriage, all you have to do is find a likeminded person of the other gender and there you are. True, that person may change, but I suspect that was always a risk.

After those two excellent responses above, I’ll only be dealing with society benignly tolerating that reality.

Human societies create realities.

In the 1950s and 1960s, there was dating. Let’s talk about that for a minute.

Rules were established by responsible adults who knew all about raging hormones because they had been teenagers themselves. Only a fringe group was agitating against these rules. The rules included chaperones at parties and on dates. No sex. If the relationship grew more committed, the couple could go steady. Eventually, the guy and gal would meet each other’s parents. Usually, the parents would know about and meet all of your friends.

Then, there was courtship, where the couple got to know each other a little better, followed by engagement, or not. And then, if things were still OK, and matters of finance, housing and children were settled, a date would be set. Finally, up to and including the wedding, the woman and man had the option to opt out. It was a long process for a reason. The man, usually taken by the woman’s beauty, sat down with her father to talk about his plans and practical things. The father knew all about being in love and physical attraction. He would discourage his daughter from marrying a lazy or irresponsible or substance abusing man unless he showed he could change his behavior and did so.

But a crossroads was reached in 1968. The Birth Control Pill had been widely available. People were thinking they could have sex and get away with it, including outside of their own marriage. The Pope knew this and issued Humani Generis, which told people that The Pill and other forms of contraception would tempt people and devalue the love of your life.

Send in the Hippies. Free love! Sex with anyone. As a Hippie friend of mine said, “I don’t need no piece of paper to live with my old lady.” Marriage. Who needs it?

1970s Graphic porn is legalized and so-called Adult Bookstortes appear everywhere. Topless go-go bars appear everywhere, pushed through by high priced lawyers arguing for ‘freedom of expression.’ Movies become more sexual. Adultery and fornication are relabeled S W I N G I N G, currently being promoted, again, by Newsweek magazine. Hollywood produced a movie about this called Bob and Carol, Ted and Alice in 1969.

Dissenters within the Church leave.

1973 It’s OK to kill your baby in the womb. This was marketed as a “use in case of emergencies only” measure.

The Catholic Legion of Decency closes its doors.

1978 The National Organization of Women scares women to death. You know where the word Ms. came from? Gloria Steinem starts Ms. magazine and yells, “Sisters! Throw off the chains of your oppression!” Who was oppressing women? Men. Women were now a victim class, at constant risk of abuse from men. No wonder the suspicion, mistrust and fear created by that marketing campaign led to

1980s No-Fault Divorce completes its sweep of the country. I open the paper and there are lots of classifieds: “No kids? $75 and you’re out. Call 800-DIVORCE.”

Inconvenient baby? Out. Inconvenient husband? Out.

Porn on cable and in Motels. Sexual content goes up on TV and in the Movies.

1990s Into the abyss. Sex is no longer about love, it becomes ‘just sex,’ like going to the bathroom. Families are torn apart. Church attendance falls while mall parking lots fill up. So-called Shock Jocks appear on the radio spouting nasty things and profanity. So-called “rap” music is spewing profanity, violence against women, and anybody else for that matter. Profanity and Partial Nudity on NYPD Blue.

Then the internet and global porn.

Enough is enough. There will be lines drawn. Already, many Catholic and Christian parents are home schooling their children. Why? Because the so-called mainstream presents the profoundly dysfunctional as entertainment and as a lifestyle. Comedians say f*** every five seconds and movie relationships consist of boy meets girl, hop into the sack and declare themselves a couple.

There is nothing benign about that. There is nothing healthy about that. There is nothing stable about that.

Peace,
Ed

 

[a_cermak]

That would be a utilitarian way of thinking about sexuality, but the Catholic and Jewish way is somewhat different.

But, in the US, utilitarianism is the only way to deal with questions of legislations because of the secular nature of the US. The rules we kept from the Judeo-Christian tradition were kept for utilitarian reasons–don’t murder and don’t steal because they upset order, not because the Almighty says so.

*Sex is permissible only within the context of a marriage. In Judaism, sex is not merely a way of experiencing physical pleasure. It is an act of immense significance, which requires commitment and responsibility. The requirement of marriage before sex ensures that sense of commitment and responsibility. Jewish law also forbids sexual contact short of intercourse outside of the context of marriage, recognizing that such contact will inevitably lead to intercourse.

In the Torah, the word used for sex between husband and wife comes from the root Yod-Dalet-Ayin, meaning “to know,” which vividly illustrates that proper Jewish sexuality involves both the heart and mind, not merely the body. *

jewfaq.org/sex.htm

But that isn’t the tradition I’m part of. For my branch, we believe that sex outside of marriage can be unethical–for instance if you are treating the other person as an object–but it needn’t be. Adultery, on the other hand (which includes the engaged) is a sin, goes against the Torah and is not tolerated. The penalties in the Torah would seem to indicate the same values–death to those who committed adultery (including the engaged) but only marriage or a fee for pre-marital sex.

Precisely. And society has no place discouraging a one-income household any more than it has discouraging a two-income household.

There I agree. How people live out their lives is their business.

 

[a_cermak]

So, you deem a “successful” marriage, one that is made up of older people (possibly infertile from age or STD’s) who have enjoyed their share of “free” pre-marital relations, who both work and save a heap of money for their resilience in their retirement years before they die, after living a life of wanton self-absorption? And you take solace in these uncertain times? Perhaps your* solace will be challenged in the hereafter.*

Meh, I don’t believe in a hereafter so your scary italicized future punishment doesn’t impress me.

Forgive my presumption that you are not concerned for your neighbor’s plight-you may be very charitable in your giving to those in need and I just missed that in your post.
I’m willing to bet that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has greater designs for marriage than amassing wealth. Maybe it has more to do with sacrificial love and life-long commitment,not to mention the* blessed gift* of children-but that’s just my hunch.

Actually from at least the middle ages, marriage has had everything to do with amassing wealth. In fact, some of the pro-marriage forces today are preaching the message that marriage is a wealth-creating institution.

I’m not suggesting people wait until their 40 to marry! Most couples these days wait till their at least in their mid twenties, and that’s probably not unreasonable given our longer lives.

I have one blessed daughter. She was a miracle child conceived naturally long after we had given up hope of having a child. Had she been a boy, I would’ve called him Isaac, though I was, of course, much younger than Sarah.

 

[a_cermak]

Enough is enough. There will be lines drawn. Already, many Catholic and Christian parents are home schooling their children.

Exactly! And that was the point I was trying to make, that in our supposedly sinful society, you (edwest2) are free to configure your life the way you want. You want your children to date only within a closed set of people of whom you’ve pre-approved? You can do that. The FLDS does it, for instance. You want to arrange your daughter’s marriage? If she agrees, you can do that, the Hindus and Orthodox Jews do it all the time. You want to only watch good, clean, entertainment? You can do that, your TV has an off switch, a channel changer, and you can buy your choice of DVDs (or use Netflix and stream). You want to have a large family with the mother staying home to care for them? You can do that, you just need to find a woman who agrees (shouldn’t be hard, there appear to be a number of them on CAF).

Post-modernism I think is helpful here because it leapfrogs over questions of should a woman stay home or whatever. In post-modernism, you are allowed to live your life as you wish without condemnation (unless you’re abusing your children or something) as long as you allow others to live their lives without condemnation.

 

[edwest2]

Everybody was always free to do what they wanted. Right now, around the world, people are doing what they want in the privacy of their homes. Now, intimate and private things are being published. Not a good trend.

If you believe in God at all, then you know there are rules. Rules meaning what God has ordained for man.

Right now, there’s a global marketing campaign going on. All of the crosses at Normandy and the U.S. The statue of Moses on the Supreme Court building. There’s this fiction that the U.S. is a secular nation. That “In God We Trust” on our money is some sort of aberration. It’s not.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Gabriella_San_S]

I don’t believe in a hereafter so your scary italicized future punishment doesn’t impress me.

It wasn’t meant to scare you, friend. But a prick of the 'ol conscience-whether we believe in the hereafter or not-couldn’t hoit**.

I have one blessed daughter. She was a miracle child conceived naturally long after we had given up hope of having a child. Had she been a boy, I would’ve called him Isaac, though I was, of course, much younger than Sarah.

How blessed you are! And how blessed she is to be your miracle!
May God grant you long life and may you live to see your children’s children.

 

[johngh]

Feminism, at least in the modern sense of the movement, has had disastrous effects on our society. From abortion to the disintegration of the family, a lot of very dangerous trends can be directly linked the the feminist movement.

That being said, the ironic thing is the original feminists were almost polar opposites of modern feminists. The original feminists were for example STRONGLY against abortion, thinking it was an attack on women.

But like people tend to do, feminists went to the extreme. They claim all they want is equality, but honestly i think they have an Amazon Woman Complex and think they should get everything they want and rule the world.