The Immorality of Marriage- an essay

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The Immorality of Marriage- an essay 11.08.03 (7:28 pm)   [edit] [u]The Immorality of Marriage[/u] If I mention to someone that I do not believe in marriage, they generally will assume that it is due to cynical reasons that I feel this way. However, it is more for romantic reasons that I do not agree with marriage. I do not believe in marriage, I believe in love. Marriage goes against true love in that it implies that it is necessary to commit to one another, under law, and thus undermines one of the most basic elements of a healthy relationship- trust. To me, the ultimate expression of love is not committing to love, honor, and obey a partner, but is found in the act of loving for love, and not out of duty. Committing to stay together causes a relationship to become an obligation. It is much more meaningful if love is maintained not because a couple has vowed to stay together, but because they truly love one another. Morality is distinguishing between right and wrong. On the issue of love, the right, and therefore moral, thing is love for love’s sake. Love for the sake of duty, which marriage embraces, is wrong, and consequently immoral. Marriage causes love to become an obligation, and thus negates the idea of true and absolute love. This is immoral because it goes against the nature of true love. Loving for the sake of love, and only for this reason, is the morally legitimate decision. There are three basic aspects of marriage that cause it to be immoral. First, there is the issue of trust. Marriage endangers trust by making a relationship a legally binding contract in which trust is immaterial. Next, marriage forces commitment, resulting in false love. True love cannot be something that is an obliged agreement; marriage, in forcing commitment, goes against love. Lastly, the legality of marriage lessens the possibility of love being true. Making love an issue of the state, and a contractual agreement is demeaning to the nature of love. Marriage detracts from the components that are essential to a relationship where love is true. Trust is the fundamental element of a good relationship, and is undermined by marriage. Without trust, love is uncertain and dubious. An integral part of trust is honesty. If a relationship embraces honesty and the couple remains honest and truthful to one another always, it will result in trust. This not only makes marriage unnecessary, it also follows that marriage can be detrimental to trust. Marriage forces a couple to commit to one another, regardless of whether there is trust. This causes the trust in a relationship to become questionable. If a couple must commit to one another, under law, in order to ensure that they will remain together, there may not be any actual trust. This results in the implicit possibility of love not being earnest. Marriage equates to a forced commitment. While it is plausible to commit to love someone, in the sense of caring for them, it is impossible to honestly make a commitment to be in love, or be intimately involved with and feel passionately about someone, forever. This suggests that making such a commitment is dishonest and unrealistic. Therefore, it is immoral to commit to be in love with someone forever. Love is an emotion, not a decision. Love, in the romantic sense, is unpredictable and therefore one cannot make the decision to commit to be in love with someone. Commitment, as marriage implies, results in false love, or love that is rooted in duty and obligation. While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with acting out of duty and obligation, if love is treated in this manner, it demeans true love and is immoral. Another issue with marriage involves the legal aspect of matrimony. The legality of marriage detracts from the possibility of true love. The fact that the union of two people becomes a legally binding arrangement demonstrates the lack of ethical principles regarding love. One complaint about the immorality of marriage as a legal practice is that the state has no business interfering in the very private matter of love. Love should involve only the couple, and not the government. It should not be a responsibility of the government to mediate in any matters involving love, so long as there is no unlawful act committed. Also, if people are supposed to get married because they love each other, it should not be necessary that they are legally committed to one another. Love implies that there is, at the very least, trust. When a relationship becomes a legal commitment, trust must not be present. While marriage may not necessarily dissipate trust, therefore negating love, if a couple truly is in love and trusts one another, marriage is not necessary. To defend marriage, I will say that it is beneficial in some situations to be committed to one another through marriage. In some instances, it is quite likely that a couple could separate only to regret it much later in life when, had they committed to stay together, they may have been absolutely happy and in love forever. Alternatively, there could be a couple that gets married and later realizes that decision was right in that they could have lost each other had they not gotten married. However, though marriage can potentially help a couple stay together, it is still unnecessary and disadvantageous in the pursuit of true love. There are also many ways in which marriage is misused and this misuse is especially harmful to the prospect of love. There are situations in which a couple perceives it as necessary to get married, such as pregnancy. While it is certainly a positive thing for a couple to stay together when they have a child, it should not be viewed as necessary. It is not advantageous to the child if the parents are not truly in love and remain together for the sake of the child; this can be harmful to the child. An alternative to marriage in situations such as this could be an agreement of some sort involving a commitment of monetary aid and support as well as arrangements for custody or visitation, regardless of whether the couple stays together. Also, it is unfortunately a common practice to marry for money or social status rather than love. Many people take love for granted in regard to marriage and do not conceive of love being necessary for marriage. This corruption of marriage further demonstrates the immorality of marriage, as it is obvious that love is not of principal concern in marriage. In summary, there are three integral aspects of marriage that are immoral. Marriage jeopardizes trust, forces a commitment regardless of whether a couple remains in love, and allows the state to interfere in a private matter by making it a legally binding arrangement. Marriage is only necessary if a couple does not trust one another, wants to remain together forever regardless of whether they are in love, and needs this to be a legal agreement in order to stay together. However, this is not true love; it is quite contrary to love. The notion of committing to love someone, in the romantic sense, forever is contradictory to the nature of love. True love is fickle, unpredictable, and uncertain. Therefore, it goes against love to try and impose standards on love or attempt to force love to stay in a relationship when the couple may not truly love one another. These factors, in combination with the corrupt practices common in the realm of marriage, demonstrate the lack of morals concerning love that marriage espouses. It is in this manner that marriage is immoral. If a relationship embraces true love, marriage is unnecessary and harmful. There is no need to commit to stay in a relationship if the relationship is one of love. Marriage should not be the result of love, for love is an end in itself. Thus, loving for the sole sake of love is the morally acceptable action. Loving out of some instilled sense of duty or obligation, as marriage encourages, is wrong, and therefore immoral. To view in a slightly better format, [url=http://dragonbait22.crimsonzi...]click here[/url] For more of my thoughts on love, go here: http://www.tblog.com/template...   posted by: newbie (reply) post date: 02.18.04 (7:01 am) DragonBait22, I take it that you are not married yet :-) Marriage is not a forced commitment. Its like a sign to publicly tell everyone that you love and trust someone and is willing to spend your whole lifetime to your significant other. you don't expect to kneel down and present your partner with a bouquet of flowers each time you want to tell your friends that you love your partner. Instead, you just tell them that you are married and they automatically know the trust and love you have for your partner. Marriage has been tainted with divorce. If all marriages were happy ones, no one would come up with the idea that marriage is immoral. Therefore, open your eyes to see the bigger picture. Its not a forced commitment. But a statement to the public saying that you love your significant other, chesih them, trust them and wants to spend an eternity with them...(or whatever the vows say :-P) posted by: newbie (reply) post date: 02.18.04 (7:02 am) chesih = cherish* posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 02.18.04 (5:46 pm) Reply to: newbie Au contraire, my dear newbie. Marriage itself is not a forced commitment- presumably you choose to marry- but it does force the commitment of love. This is what I have a problem with. If you love and trust someone, you don't need a commitment to prove you love and trust them. Furthermore, by forcing this commitment, you jeapordize the love and trust in a relationship. Marriage puts trust in question because it allows for the distinct possiblity that love may not exist in the relationship, but you are only remaining together because of an agreement. Divorce isn't even a major concern of mine, and certainly isn't the reason I question the value of marriage. It isn't even a matter of unhappy marriages (acutally, that reminds me- my parents will be (happily) celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary this weekend). I just think that true love is endangered by marriage. A statement to the public? Why do you need that? That is, if love is all that matters... posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 04.02.04 (9:27 pm) Reply to: RJ Well, I say marriage jeopardizes true love because (1) if the love is true, there is no need for a commitment, particularly a legally binding agreement, and (2) making love into a contract detracts from the actual love. Marriage may not necessarily dissolve love, but it does make it questionable and places love as secondary to the union. Thanks for your comment and feel free to elaborate. :) posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 04.02.04 (10:54 pm) Reply to: RJ Huh, you can't move to another country unless you marry someone in that country? I thought there were other ways. And if it is just a simple piece of paper, what's the point of marriage? Instead of placing the focus on the love itself, marriage makes the arrangement most important, taking away the freedom that is integral for love to be true. posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 04.05.04 (8:45 am) Reply to: RJ If it is true love, neither marriage nor remaining unmarried should alter it. But marriage binds love by making the commitment to remain together forever, when that is not necessary if the love is true. Once the committment is made, it puts love in question. Marriage is at best unnecessary, and at worst detrimental to love. I'd choose to not let a piece of paper change my view of love also, but by not bothering with the paper in the first place. :) posted by: LoriAnn aka: Laz (reply) post date: 04.22.04 (8:29 pm) Talk about a small world!!! Hello Lucid :) I see your views on amrriage / LOVe have not changed at all and they still make sense to this single never marreid yet 42 year old who has only lived with the kids father for nine years ...but never "married" him :) I agree 100% that the peice of paper does not cement "TRUST" in each other.. That should be there long before the peice of paper. Heck I've currently been dating someone for obver six years now and he always aks if I am ready to marry him and thee answer is still "No" as I feel we do not need that peice of paper to show our love for one another... Great to see You once more and defintely glad to see this blog... I shall be returning lots and have added your link to my Blog which I just started 4 days ago... http://www.geocities.com/laz614 by the way... Miss you on Pal Talk altho I really haven't even had it or any other messengers open too much :) Huggles posted by: limesnkoolaid (reply) post date: 06.29.04 (7:32 pm) have you ever wondered if perhaps all of this stuff that you write in your blogs is because you're scared to feel? atleast, that's what im getting from this stuff. i could be wrong though. so i apologize if i offend you. posted by: revdradam (reply) post date: 06.30.04 (8:18 pm) Reply to: limesnkoolaid I'll let Terra defend herself, but believe me, she is not 'scared to feel.' On the contrary, she is willing to take that risk, and have the feeling without the false security of marriage. posted by: KVKID (reply) post date: 07.29.04 (3:29 pm) I think too many people don't take marriage serously enough when they get into it. Marrage is not all love and roses. Marriage is the result of love but only when you are truely in love. Feeling in love and actually loving each other are two different things. The feeling of love is usually that happy ,fuzzy feeling that people feel and it's almost like a drug. Loving someone is loving them even when you've seen their worst. Again, I beleive marriage and it's commitment is a result of love however I don't believe everyone is meant to be married. I'm a Christian and by looking at your blogs speaking about it from a Christian view would be a waist of my time but I will say my marriage is also tied to my wife and mine faith. posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 07.31.04 (6:33 pm) Reply to: KVKID Sure, there is the aspect of marriage purely devoted to a supportive family structure, and that is commendable. However, there are other ways of creating this that do not involve disregarding love, and you cannot honestly promise to always be in love with another person- marriage is dishonest in this respect. "I'm a Christian and by looking at your blogs speaking about it from a Christian view would be a waist of my time" Then I doubt that you have spent much time looking at my blogs, otherwise you would have seen that I welcome differing views and take all opinions seriously. Just because I tend to disagree with Christian views does not mean I do not give them consideration. Thanks for your comment. :) posted by: KVKID (reply) post date: 08.01.04 (2:56 pm) Reply to: DragonBait22 I agree that you can not always be in love. I know a lot of married couples that at times don't love each other and if they weren't married they may give up on the relationship but they stick together because they are married and work through and grow from it. I didn't mean to imply that you don't consider other points of view, I just didn't feel like spending the time to type a lengthy (sp?) explaination of how my faith is tied into my marriage when I was pretty sure it wasn't going to make a difference. I guess it was my way of agreeing to disagree, sorry if I offended you. posted by: angiekruger (reply) post date: 10.22.04 (10:10 am) i can really see both sides of the fence here. i do agree that some people just arent meant to be married and some are. the biggest difference in just "staying together" and actually getting married are all the (for lack of a better word) benifits that come with making it legal. but then again if you dont make it legal, its much easier to go your seperate ways if thats what you decide to do. this is really a hot button issue right now with the "defense of marriage" act trying to go through. which in mu opinon is total bs. i think if gay people decide to get married they should get all the benifits and recognitions that go along with that just like straight people do. it doesnt harm my marriage if my boss and his husband get married. they are using the claim that marriage is defined as being "between a man and a woman" but where does it say that? in the bible. so its really a church/state issue and our constitution specifically calls for a seperation of church and state. its a civil rights issue. it wasnt long ago that people felt blacks should be allowed to vote because they were black, and women shouldnt be allowed to vote because they didnt have a penis. its the same thing. if you want to defend marriage, update the institution of marriage. my personal feelings on marriage are that it should ne more of a contract. simply because, as you pointed out, people rush into marriage now without thinking of the full responsibility of it and everything that goes with it. make it a five year contract, renewable every couple of years, with specific clauses that protect the individual assests along with those aquired together. sorry if i rambled (sp) on. :-) posted by: midsummerdawn (reply) post date: 10.23.04 (10:48 pm) I enjoyed this essay, and I agree on many points. To me legal marriage is nothing more than, well, a legal arrangement that allows you to have certain rights. I believe it is wrong for the government to deny these same rights to people who choose not to get their piece of paper. Therefore, it is my opinion that the very institution of marriage, that it is forced upon people so that they can be 'next of kin', even when they already are in their hearts, is immoral and wrong. The government does not belong in my house. Your Name: Your Comment:

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