“Coontz’s basic thesis is that what we think of as the traditional marriage — marriage based on love — was not the purpose of marriage for thousands of years. Instead, marriage was about acquiring in-laws, jockeying for political and economic advantage, and building the family labor force. If you were a farmer, you had children in order to increase the workforce, for example. Admittedly not very romantic, but very pragmatic. It was only 200 years ago that people began to believe that young people could choose their own mates, and should choose their own mates on the basis of something like love, which had formerly been considered a threat to marriage. As soon as people began to do that, all of the demands that we now think of as radical new demands — from the demand for divorce, to the right to refuse a shotgun marriage, to even recognition of same-sex relations — were immediately raised. But it was not until the last 30 years that people began to actually act on the new ideals for beloved marriage. Social conservatives say that there has been a marriage crisis for the last 30 years, and I agree with them that marriage has been tremendously weakened as an institution. Where I disagree with them is whether this is such a bad thing. What is clear is that marriage has lost its monopoly over organizing sexuality, male-female relations, political, social, and economic rights. I agree that this shift poses tremendous challenges to us, but I disagree with the idea that one could make marriage better by trying to shoehorn everyone back into the gender roles that have been rendered obsolete. We need newer, more relevant metaphors to live by because the main things that have weakened marriage as an institution are the same things that have strengthened marriage as a relationship.”
The Marriage Myth (via azspot)
(via azspot)
