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What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

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Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#81

Post by XorNot »

scarmig wrote: post #36
XorNot wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly is "marriage" failing? This notion that two people being in a long term relationship can somehow suffer systemic failure or attack is bizzare. No objection re: children though. We've done an absolute number there via cost of living.

How is it bizarre? It seems the same category as saying friendship is failing, which also is a reasonable claim; see the entire bowling alone thesis. I'd probably group them all under the umbrella of social connections failing, which I'd consider one of the biggest issues of US society today.

It's bizarre because it's distinctly not happening. The number of married couples in the US has been trending up since the 1960s [1] and only very recently has shown a plateau.

Which is to say their doesn't seem to be any indication that "marriage is failing" i.e. there are less people in marriages. It's also notable that the rate of cohabitation has tripled over the last 20 years[2] (included because it's a worthwhile proxy for things which are long term relationships but might not be recognized as marriages).

Where I can point to fertility rates across the Western world falling to below replacement and say "yeah we've got a problem", the notable thing is that it seems thoroughly uncorrelated with people being in long term relationships. People might not have time for friends, but there are more committed relationships around then at any time in history - by the numbers.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/183663/number-of-married...

[2] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/09/unmarried-par...

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#82

Post by thomastjeffery »

I prefer the Bazaar to the Cathedral: a distributed architecture for relationships.

I'm not interested in focusing all of my energy on one person. I have several friends who each provide deep connection in my life; and not always at the same time.

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#83

Post by nkjnlknlk »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #17

As June rolled around today, I was just reflecting on the history of sexuality, and the philosophical shift that has occurred relatively recently, from "lifestyle" to "orientation" to "identity" and all that comes with it. People in the past did not consider themselves to have sexual orientations, to be gay or straight or something else. Even someone who was committed to a same-sex romantic relationship wouldn't have…

It's interesting that you put the people with those "behaviors" or "passions" as the agents who have switched to "identity". In reality, it's the oppressors who "identified" them.

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#84

Post by artificialLimbs »

nightowl_games wrote: post #56
Dalewyn wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>social connections failing I have to wonder if people, and newer generations in particular, just fucking suck at socializing. Humanity has very literally never had it easier to communicate and socialize, and yet somehow the vast majority consider themselves isolated.

Communicate? Yes. Socialize? No. It's easier to socialize when you are physically beside someone. There are less kids playing in the street. They are no arcades. As a parent you must bring your child to other children. You must encourage or mandate extracurricular activities. We are not a society where children are naturally surrounded by other children in their 0-4 years. We are not a society where adults are natura…

>> We are not a society where children are naturally surrounded by other children in their 0-4 years.

That's shocking to hear. We live out in the sticks, about 25 minutes from the nearest town (of ~10k people) and we make sure our kids get some social time a couple of times every week. From homeschool coop groups to random meet ups/activities planned by parents via Facebook to farmer's markets, library/museum trips, churches, parks, visiting neighbors... seems like my kids are always doing something which seems to help them socialize. I think it would be sad if they just stayed home all the time. I suppose being in a traditional marriage where I work and the wife raises the kids helps contribute to this being able to happen.

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#85

Post by nathan_compton »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #32
abosherid wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask what religion?

Traditional Catholicism. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it.” Doesn’t take more than a minute of reflection to figure out why we interpret it this way. Edit @avar to your question ("posting too fast"): https://gist.github.com/gjsman/d928b0db53cc2a4bacf37d4e45543...

Uh. Catholicism calls for you to love everyone to the point of torture and death. It is weird that you missed this message.

The Catholic line would be something like "God created marriage as a kind of metaphor for your relationship with all people, as a kind of easy arena where you can play out the kind of love that you should extend to the entire world."

Jesus, after all, did not die for a wife except in this very metaphorical sense. He died for sinners, lazy shits, prostitutes, tax collectors, etc, etc, etc. That is what the calling in Catholicism is.

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#86

Post by nkjnlknlk »

ddj231 wrote: post #67
ctvo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like we've failed a whole generation of adults with good examples of what a relationship should be like. ... the good examples are like your relationship I assume? In some cultures parents are number 1, and the expectation is your elderly parents outrank your wife in terms of the devotion and love you should show them. Is that disrespectful too, or does it only apply to close friends? Who are you to judge…

well the parent to child relationship is not a procreative one. New family units have to form that are procreative or that society will eventually crumble. So it’s not simply subjective. The marriage relationship is procreative and a bedrock for society. I don’t think a society having greater / lesser deference to parents as authority figures takes away from that reality. The parents themselves are in a procreative r…

Why would monogamous relationships be better for society from your perspective? Shouldn't you be arguing that marriage is holding our "new family unit" generation back?

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#87

Post by kgwxd »

ragnot wrote: post #6

Honestly, if my wife said I wasn't the number one person in her life then I would find that pretty disrespectful. She is my number one after all. It seems like we've failed a whole generation of adults with good examples of what a relationship should be like.

If she told you that, and it was true, how is it disrespectful? What would would do in that situation? Demand "respect" and decree you must be her number one?

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#88

Post by parpfish »

barelyauser wrote: post #70
qwerty456127 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you have time for friends besides your spouse after you do jour job, chores, fitness, sleping, education, side projects and random tasks which emerge every now and then? I do have some great friends but only meet them a couple of times a week even though they live very close to me.

Why you place your side projects above your friends?

i always get a kick out of how HN people talk about their "side projects" rather than their "hobbies". just let your hobby be a hobby instead of turning it into a pseudojob.

Re: What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?

#90

Post by pokepim »

XorNot wrote: post #81
scarmig wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it bizarre? It seems the same category as saying friendship is failing, which also is a reasonable claim; see the entire bowling alone thesis. I'd probably group them all under the umbrella of social connections failing, which I'd consider one of the biggest issues of US society today.

It's bizarre because it's distinctly not happening. The number of married couples in the US has been trending up since the 1960s [1] and only very recently has shown a plateau. Which is to say their doesn't seem to be any indication that "marriage is failing" i.e. there are less people in marriages. It's also notable that the rate of cohabitation has tripled over the last 20 years[2] (included because it's a worthwhi…

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