marriage

Many humans have been told that What God Wants is for marriage to be an everlasting union between a man and a woman, for better or for worse, for the purpose of propagating the species and maintaining a civil society organized into family units, which supports God's agenda for humanity.

One result of this teaching: In most religious cultures ending a marriage for whatever reason, including mental or physical cruelty, is deeply discouraged, and one major religion tells its followers that they may never divorce, may never remarry in the church nor receive the church's sacraments if they do divorce, and may never marry another person who has been divorced.

In many places and cultures marriage rules are established by religion, then become civil law, limiting and constricting the behavior of marriage partners--and those limits remain in place for life. Chief among those limits is what humans call "fidelity." Human beings living in marriage must remain faithful to each other. That is, they may not have sexual experiences with anyone else for the rest of their lives--not as a matter of personal devotion or sacred agreement, but as a matter of civil law.

This should not be surprising, since, as has just been noted, prohibitions against many kinds of private sexual activity have been placed in the common culture by religions. According to their accounts of What God Wants, human beings may not have sex with anyone outside of marriage, with anyone prior to marriage, and, therefore, should they never marry, at no time during their entire lives.

This is the expectation, and humans are told that the breaking of this taboo can lead to severe punishments, from God and from the social environment.

As a result, marriage is entered into by many young people around the world who are neither ready for such a commitment nor sufficiently mature for the responsibilities attached to it, but who are unwilling to endure any longer the prohibition against sexual experience.

The idea of male supremacy, drawn from the concept of God as male, has a major effect in many marriage scenarios. In some cultures marriage is considered a form of ownership and servitude, with the woman being the owned object--actually paid for with a dowry--and the male being the person served. Even in cultures with less extreme views a wife is expected to be "obedient" to her husband, and to be subservient to him in every way. The man is "the head of the household."

This is, many people believe, What God Wants. is this really so?

from neale's blog