__________ is/are overrated.

[Scott5114]

Heh, since we're on the subject, sort of, I'll go ahead and say marriage is overrated. Or at least the legal concept of it. I'm content enough with my marriage that I'm not interested in ending it, but sometimes I miss not having our property and financial interests so intertwined. I was a lot happier when I could distance myself from my wife's financial affairs; getting to see all of the gory details has added a lot of stress to the relationship we didn't have when we were just living together. I sometimes wonder if it would have been better to remain in a state of having a committed, long-term, live-in relationship, or in other words, a marriage in all but name.

I'm not sure I'm with you about marriage itself, but I can see some logic in deeming weddings to be overrated. I agree with one of the up-thread posters that it's much quicker and simple to just sign papers in some government office with your spouse, rather than plan a huge and financially taxing ceremony. It's not like we, as 21st-century human beings, are obliged to bind to tradition to the maximum extent possible at all times.

"You can only have sex if you're willing to assume the other person's credit card debt" would be a really weird take it if it weren't rooted in religious tradition.

Honestly, it's not so much the precise formalities and legal fine print surrounding marriage as it is the commitment you and your partner have for each other. I (and my family members) actually used to believe that sexual intercourse must be preceded by formal marriage, however our views have since widened to include engagement.

I think this is one of those things where it's hard to understand the nuances between "committed long-term relationship" and "marriage" until you've experienced both firsthand for a while. Getting married certainly didn't change how much my wife and I care about each other, and it didn't make our relationship any more stable than it already was. But it did introduce more stress points into the relationship that, frankly, we could do without.

Yet there are a good number of benefits afforded by the legal system to married couples that aren't afforded to committed long-term partners of other types. If we weren't married, I couldn't be on her health insurance, for example, and we couldn't file our taxes jointly (which results in better tax rates).

As for the wedding itself, we weren't interested in having a big ceremony. In Oklahoma, we found out, you actually can't just go down to the county courthouse and sign papers. You must have the signature of a minister, duly registered in the county, for the marriage to be valid. As an end-run around this, we had a friend find some online ministry that would issue her a certificate that she then registered with the county courthouse.

[J N Winkler]

Heh, since we're on the subject, sort of, I'll go ahead and say marriage is overrated. Or at least the legal concept of it. I'm content enough with my marriage that I'm not interested in ending it, but sometimes I miss not having our property and financial interests so intertwined. I was a lot happier when I could distance myself from my wife's financial affairs; getting to see all of the gory details has added a lot of stress to the relationship we didn't have when we were just living together. I sometimes wonder if it would have been better to remain in a state of having a committed, long-term, live-in relationship, or in other words, a marriage in all but name.

I think there is a generational dimension to this--it is a lot rarer now for people to reach age 30 without significant non-mortgage debt than it was 30 or even 20 years ago.  Student loans and household debt (especially credit cards) have both exploded.

[Max Rockatansky]

Heh, since we're on the subject, sort of, I'll go ahead and say marriage is overrated. Or at least the legal concept of it. I'm content enough with my marriage that I'm not interested in ending it, but sometimes I miss not having our property and financial interests so intertwined. I was a lot happier when I could distance myself from my wife's financial affairs; getting to see all of the gory details has added a lot of stress to the relationship we didn't have when we were just living together. I sometimes wonder if it would have been better to remain in a state of having a committed, long-term, live-in relationship, or in other words, a marriage in all but name.

I think there is a generational dimension to this--it is a lot rarer now for people to reach age 30 without significant non-mortgage debt than it was 30 or even 20 years ago.  Student loans and household debt (especially credit cards) have both exploded.

My wife and I had an entire adult life of financial independence before we married.  We still don't share any financial accounts and file taxes separately. 

[JoePCool14]

Heh, since we're on the subject, sort of, I'll go ahead and say marriage is overrated. Or at least the legal concept of it. I'm content enough with my marriage that I'm not interested in ending it, but sometimes I miss not having our property and financial interests so intertwined. I was a lot happier when I could distance myself from my wife's financial affairs; getting to see all of the gory details has added a lot of stress to the relationship we didn't have when we were just living together. I sometimes wonder if it would have been better to remain in a state of having a committed, long-term, live-in relationship, or in other words, a marriage in all but name.

"You can only have sex if you're willing to assume the other person's credit card debt" would be a really weird take it if it weren't rooted in religious tradition.

I think the idea is that when you enter into a marriage, you and your spouse are becoming one entity until death. I know this gets into biblical tradition with the whole "two become one flesh" type of stuff, but it's the idea that your lives, families, interests, hopes, etc. come together. And yes, that unfortunately includes financial debts as well. But it also refers to the literal act of intercourse.

Financial debt is really its own can of worms. Universities shouldn't be so expensive where such a significant percentage of college graduates can't get out without incurring student loan debt. And no, the answer isn't 100% free tuition.



P.S., I'm shocked this thread hasn't been locked yet. This discussion has been quite civil.

[skluth]

Heh, since we're on the subject, sort of, I'll go ahead and say marriage is overrated. Or at least the legal concept of it. I'm content enough with my marriage that I'm not interested in ending it, but sometimes I miss not having our property and financial interests so intertwined. I was a lot happier when I could distance myself from my wife's financial affairs; getting to see all of the gory details has added a lot of stress to the relationship we didn't have when we were just living together. I sometimes wonder if it would have been better to remain in a state of having a committed, long-term, live-in relationship, or in other words, a marriage in all but name.

"You can only have sex if you're willing to assume the other person's credit card debt" would be a really weird take it if it weren't rooted in religious tradition.

I think the idea is that when you enter into a marriage, you and your spouse are becoming one entity until death. I know this gets into biblical tradition with the whole "two become one flesh" type of stuff, but it's the idea that your lives, families, interests, hopes, etc. come together. And yes, that unfortunately includes financial debts as well. But it also refers to the literal act of intercourse.

Financial debt is really its own can of worms. Universities shouldn't be so expensive where such a significant percentage of college graduates can't get out without incurring student loan debt. And no, the answer isn't 100% free tuition.



P.S., I'm shocked this thread hasn't been locked yet. This discussion has been quite civil.

For all its romanticism and religious background, marriage is mostly a legally binding contract between two people.

I agree the answer isn't 100% free tuition, but public college education should be affordable for the lower middle class. I'm also against the blanket forgiveness of student debt, especially when accumulated at a private or out-of-state public institution.

[kphoger]

Anyways, can we all agree about some basic standards or "house rules" about the right way for raising children in a family? A lot of these are essentially common sense, such as prohibitions against drug, alcohol, nicotine/tobacco/vape use. Not talking to strangers. Reading the ratings for movies and video games until your children demonstrate adequate maturity. Restricting internet usage to make sure your kids get enough outdoor and face-to-face time. Feeding your children a healthy, nutritious, and balanced diet. Taking away their privileges whenever they get bad grades, steal, tell lies, cheat, or use inappropriate language. Signing them up for extracurricular activities (while maintaining a balance between "forcing them against their will" and "letting them be quitters"). Being "assertive" parents rather than "autocratic" or "permissive" parents. And last but not least, teaching them about the wide range of dangers of abusing the gift of procreation before lifelong commitment to one partner (who may or may not be of the opposite sex).

I don't agree with all those, no.

– I encourage my children to talk with strangers.  I want them to be sociable, make friends, and be outgoing.  I don't want them to distrust everybody they run across.

– I don't prohibit alcohol.  I want them to have a level-headed view of it before they go off on their own (cf JayhawkCO's rumspringa comparison).  Our eldest son has zero interest in even tasting anything alcoholic.  Our youngest is too young still.  But our middle son, who is currently eleven years old, has tried wine at the dinner table a few times.  I give him a wine glass with a few sips' worth in it, and he usually doesn't even take more than one sip, but I consider that part of responsible parenting.

– My wife and I have changed tack when it comes to internet usage.  Almost all of our eldest son's friends live on the other side of the city or in a neighboring suburb.  We send them off to the neighborhood playground every so often, but they don't have friends in the neighborhood the way I did when I was their age.  So we realize that the internet is actually the best way, in our situation at least, for our son to foster his relationships with his friends.  They chat about Minecraft servers and stuff–things my wife and I don't get–and we're happy with that.

– We've never taken away privileges for bad grades.  My wife home-schools them, so they do have the freedom and opportunity to go back over material they didn't learn very well, until it sinks in better.  But we understand that, frankly, not everyone is equally bright, and also that some people just don't do as well at certain subjects.    We're more willing to accept poor grades in a subject that's a real struggle than in a subject that's right up their alley.  As long as they're getting their work done on time, applying themselves to the tasks, and–heck, trying–then we're happy.  However, when our eldest son was spending 80% of his computer work time chatting online instead of doing schoolwork, we brought the privilege hammer down a couple of times.  And even then, the temptation was too much, and he knew it, and he couldn't seem to overcome it, and so eventually he asked us to block the internet on the computer until school hours were over.  Now that the school year is out, he's back online in the afternoons, interacting with his friends.

I have a 5-month-old and when it's time to talk to him about sex, the conversation will be "do what makes you feel good" provided a) you're very aware of consent and what the other person wants and b) you use protection.

Forgive me, but "what makes you feel good" is not how I teach my children to navigate life.

Obviously we're all welcome to raise our kids differently, but I will raise my child to do what interests them and what gives them a feeling of contentment. Whether that's dancing, studying dinosaurs, being interested in the opposite/same sex, etc. I think as long as you have honest conversations with children (and eventually teenagers) about the things that are in the world and how to enjoy them while still being safe and respectful to other people, it's a better style of parenting than complete prohibition on anything "fun" and then when the kid goes to college, they go crazy because there's so much they haven't been exposed to. Think of it like rumspringa without the religion beforehand. Again, your thoughts may differ.

I may have read too much into your comments.  Or I may not have.  But, at any rate:

It's my belief that a sizeable part of maturity and leading a good life is (a) not doing things you want to and (b) doing things you don't want to.  I certainly believe that pleasure is a gift from heaven and that feeling guilty about pleasure betrays a misguided view of life.  I also believe that a miserable life is not synonymous with a virtuous life.  But far be it from me! to tell my children to do whatever makes them happy, or whatever feels good, or whatever they want to.  I believe that, as humans, our desires and wishes are flawed and skewed and not the best guide to living a good life.  And I also believe that fleeting pleasure and happiness can often lead to longer-lasting pain and regret.

I think this is one of those things where it's hard to understand the nuances between "committed long-term relationship" and "marriage" until you've experienced both firsthand for a while. Getting married certainly didn't change how much my wife and I care about each other, and it didn't make our relationship any more stable than it already was. But it did introduce more stress points into the relationship that, frankly, we could do without.

Yet there are a good number of benefits afforded by the legal system to married couples that aren't afforded to committed long-term partners of other types. If we weren't married, I couldn't be on her health insurance, for example, and we couldn't file our taxes jointly (which results in better tax rates).

I've spent a lot of time wondering to myself what the purpose of civil marriage even is anymore.  Historically, I suppose, it was an institution whose purpose was to maintain the social structure by means of maintaining family structure.  Its purpose was to ensure that children had two parents, that one spouse wouldn't be abandoned by the other, that children and widows wouldn't be left destitute, etc, etc.  But, in our modern society, a lot of those goals have been undercut from several different directions–by which I mean to say that our society is no longer committed to maintaining those social structures, at least in the same way or to the same extent as in the past.  From the American government's perspective, what is the real difference between a married couple, a civil union, or a cohabiting couple?  Honestly, I have a hard time providing a satisfactory answer to that question.  It's almost as if, once you've jettisoned certain fundamental assumptions about marriage, there's little reason to keep marriage around as a civil institution at all.

Of course, as a religious person, there's a whole dimension to marriage that I haven't spoken of in the above paragraph.  I was speaking merely in terms of civil society.

You must have the signature of a minister, duly registered in the county, for the marriage to be valid. As an end-run around this, we had a friend find some online ministry that would issue her a certificate that she then registered with the county courthouse.

Seriously?  How is that a thing?  That's nutso.  I have a strong distaste in my mouth for religious ministers signing off on strangers' marriages. 

P.S., I'm shocked this thread hasn't been locked yet. This discussion has been quite civil.

We've come a long way in civility (myself included) on this form, just in the last two years.  It's a good thing.

[Max Rockatansky]

I don't think anything in this thread has even broached the level of where it would even be considered for locking?  This pretty tame general conversation regarding things we all subjectively find overrated.

[Scott5114]

Heh, since we're on the subject, sort of, I'll go ahead and say marriage is overrated. Or at least the legal concept of it. I'm content enough with my marriage that I'm not interested in ending it, but sometimes I miss not having our property and financial interests so intertwined. I was a lot happier when I could distance myself from my wife's financial affairs; getting to see all of the gory details has added a lot of stress to the relationship we didn't have when we were just living together. I sometimes wonder if it would have been better to remain in a state of having a committed, long-term, live-in relationship, or in other words, a marriage in all but name.

"You can only have sex if you're willing to assume the other person's credit card debt" would be a really weird take it if it weren't rooted in religious tradition.

I think the idea is that when you enter into a marriage, you and your spouse are becoming one entity until death. I know this gets into biblical tradition with the whole "two become one flesh" type of stuff, but it's the idea that your lives, families, interests, hopes, etc. come together. And yes, that unfortunately includes financial debts as well. But it also refers to the literal act of intercourse.

Financial debt is really its own can of worms. Universities shouldn't be so expensive where such a significant percentage of college graduates can't get out without incurring student loan debt. And no, the answer isn't 100% free tuition.

Right. I'm not entirely sure that the concept of a marriage merging two people's lives that deeply is necessarily relevant or even desirable in modern society. Taking my own marriage as an example, I love traveling but it stresses my wife out, and she loves concerts and I despise them, so we are always going to have certain activities we undertake without the other (solution: bring a friend that likes that instead). We've kept our families mostly cordoned off from each other, at first out of sheer practicality (most of my family lives in Kansas, and as mentioned, my wife hates traveling) but as time has gone on her family has gotten more and more intolerant to the point that she's mostly removed them from her life because she doesn't need or want to hear from them how much of a disappointment she is every time they talk.

And I'm certainly not the sort of person who dictates to my partner what they're supposed to do, who they're allowed to see, what life choices they must make, etc. I would hope that that sort of mindset is trending toward extinction in this country, but I'm sure it's more prevalent than I'd like. But it's really hard for me to reconcile the ideas of "two become one flesh" and "two equal partners maintaining their own free will and opinions".

Of course, the more that gets bound up together in the marriage, the harder it is to dissolve should the need arise. Obviously, some will see staying being easier than walking away as a feature, rather than a bug. But that barrier of having to go to court to end the relationship does make it far more difficult to terminate an abusive marriage, since the process of resolving the divorce will necessarily involve working with the other party, great financial expense, or both.

[Scott5114]

I think this is one of those things where it's hard to understand the nuances between "committed long-term relationship" and "marriage" until you've experienced both firsthand for a while. Getting married certainly didn't change how much my wife and I care about each other, and it didn't make our relationship any more stable than it already was. But it did introduce more stress points into the relationship that, frankly, we could do without.

Yet there are a good number of benefits afforded by the legal system to married couples that aren't afforded to committed long-term partners of other types. If we weren't married, I couldn't be on her health insurance, for example, and we couldn't file our taxes jointly (which results in better tax rates).

I've spent a lot of time wondering to myself what the purpose of civil marriage even is anymore.  Historically, I suppose, it was an institution whose purpose was to maintain the social structure by means of maintaining family structure.  Its purpose was to ensure that children had two parents, that one spouse wouldn't be abandoned by the other, that children and widows wouldn't be left destitute, etc, etc.  But, in our modern society, a lot of those goals have been undercut from several different directions–by which I mean to say that our society is no longer committed to maintaining those social structures, at least in the same way or to the same extent as in the past.  From the American government's perspective, what is the real difference between a married couple, a civil union, or a cohabiting couple?  Honestly, I have a hard time providing a satisfactory answer to that question.  It's almost as if, once you've jettisoned certain fundamental assumptions about marriage, there's little reason to keep marriage around as a civil institution at all.

Of course, as a religious person, there's a whole dimension to marriage that I haven't spoken of in the above paragraph.  I was speaking merely in terms of civil society.

Yeah, you hit on a lot of the same points as me as I was typing up my post. And I understand that marriage may have some traditional and spiritual significance to members of certain religions that just aren't there in my non-religious household.

Back before Obergefell v. Hodges I used to wonder if the simplest solution to the controversy that existed at the time would be to simply call all legal marriages, regardless of the genders of those involved, "civil unions", and confine the term "marriage" to the corresponding religious traditions.

You must have the signature of a minister, duly registered in the county, for the marriage to be valid. As an end-run around this, we had a friend find some online ministry that would issue her a certificate that she then registered with the county courthouse.

Seriously?  How is that a thing?  That's nutso.  I have a strong distaste in my mouth for religious ministers signing off on strangers' marriages. 

Maybe Oklahoma should drop "Labor omnia vincit" as the state motto, in favor of "Seriously? How is that a thing?"

In our case, the friend that was the minister of record wasn't religious at all. The ministry she registered through was a simple web form she filled out, and I think she had to pay some nominal fee to the ministry.  They then listed her as a "minister" in their rolls. As I said, we did an end-run around it. The most difficult part of the process was Cleveland County deciding the day of the ceremony that her certificate wasn't printed on fancy enough paper (we had to rush to an office-supply store to get some suitable certificate paper, rush back home to re-print the certificate, then back to the courthouse to resubmit it).

But I imagine that practice made it a lot harder for non-religious folks to get married in Oklahoma before the Internet existed.

[JoePCool14]

Maybe Oklahoma should drop "Labor omnia vincit" as the state motto, in favor of "Seriously? How is that a thing?"

Oklahoma's motto should be: "Home of the Original, All-American CrAig CoUNtY™"

[JayhawkCO]

I have a 5-month-old and when it's time to talk to him about sex, the conversation will be "do what makes you feel good" provided a) you're very aware of consent and what the other person wants and b) you use protection.

Forgive me, but "what makes you feel good" is not how I teach my children to navigate life.

Obviously we're all welcome to raise our kids differently, but I will raise my child to do what interests them and what gives them a feeling of contentment. Whether that's dancing, studying dinosaurs, being interested in the opposite/same sex, etc. I think as long as you have honest conversations with children (and eventually teenagers) about the things that are in the world and how to enjoy them while still being safe and respectful to other people, it's a better style of parenting than complete prohibition on anything "fun" and then when the kid goes to college, they go crazy because there's so much they haven't been exposed to. Think of it like rumspringa without the religion beforehand. Again, your thoughts may differ.

I may have read too much into your comments.  Or I may not have.  But, at any rate:

It's my belief that a sizeable part of maturity and leading a good life is (a) not doing things you want to and (b) doing things you don't want to.  I certainly believe that pleasure is a gift from heaven and that feeling guilty about pleasure betrays a misguided view of life.  I also believe that a miserable life is not synonymous with a virtuous life.  But far be it from me! to tell my children to do whatever makes them happy, or whatever feels good, or whatever they want to.  I believe that, as humans, our desires and wishes are flawed and skewed and not the best guide to living a good life.  And I also believe that fleeting pleasure and happiness can often lead to longer-lasting pain and regret.

I don't disagree that "restraint" is a wise thing to teach kids, and you need to learn about hard work and sacrifice. That we're 100% in agreement with. My goal with my son is to remove certain stigmas (I'm sure there's a better way to pluralize that) about things deemed "naughty" -- the human body, sex, alcohol, drugs, etc. I'm not saying I want my kid taking an 8-ball of coke on his 15th birthday. I will say if you make certain subject not taboo that the need to experiment just out of PURE curiosity goes down. My parents raised me where I could have a quarter of a glass of wine when they were having one once I turned 13. I know when I got to college, some of my rural Kansan dormmates who were raised in pretty puritanical households were the ones that went out every single night. I got drunk on the weekends like a normal college kid. I grew up with parents who told me I shouldn't do drugs, but mentioned that they had smoked weed in the past and done coke once. I never had an extreme desire to experiment with that stuff and didn't touch a drug other than alcohol and caffeine until I was 30, and it still remains that I've only used cannabis. No gateway there.

Re: sex which is where this whole conversation started. I was kind of a goody-two-shoes in high school to a degree. 4th in my class, never got in trouble. Didn't really drink at all in high school. Did have some "extracurriculars" with some ladies, but didn't lose my virginity until college, despite having three different girlfriends willing to have sex. I look back now and I don't really know why I said "no". I liked them; they liked me. I owned condoms just in case I ever found myself in that situation, but I had something in my mind about virginity that it was this thing I needed to hold onto, despite me not being religious. So I basically waited three years from when I was first "offered" sex until I actually did it. And guess what, from the time I broke up with my girlfriend that I had lost my virginity to? I waited a whopping two weeks to have sex with someone else, and probably a month for my third. So what was so special that I had to wait for one person, but then once I was a "seasoned pro", then it didn't matter anymore? Almost all of my friends who went to college as virgins followed the same path. Once you did it, okay, that was fun. Why don't I do that again? So, tl;dr, I don't want to put a stigma on sex with my son where he will feel awkward or embarrassed or hesitant to enjoy one of life's pleasures.

[kphoger]

I'm not entirely sure that the concept of a marriage merging two people's lives that deeply is necessarily relevant or even desirable in modern society. Taking my own marriage as an example, I love traveling but it stresses my wife out, and she loves concerts and I despise them, so we are always going to have certain activities we undertake without the other (solution: bring a friend that likes that instead).

But, more to the sub-topic at hand, a married couple does make financial decisions together.  It's rather unsettling to me when an unmarried couple buys a house together or buys a car together.  That's a huge financial commitment, when one of them could just up and leave.  For example, a friend of mine had been paying for the insurance on his girlfriend's car, and then they split up.  Then, before that, I had a co-worker who lived with her boyfriend for years until she left him–except that the one with car wasn't the one whose name was on the title.

Do you not agree that, if people are in a life position to be making financial decisions together, they ought to also incur one another's financial burdens?

And I'm certainly not the sort of person who dictates to my partner what they're supposed to do, who they're allowed to see, what life choices they must make, etc. I would hope that that sort of mindset is trending toward extinction in this country, but I'm sure it's more prevalent than I'd like.

My "circle" is made up mainly of conservative, right-wing, Evangelical, Trump-voting, church-going, mask-hating, creationist, ummmm, you get the idea.  And yet, even in that context, a man who manages his wife's life in the way you describe is upsetting.  Allow me to give you a very personal example:

Our best friends, who are currently Christian missionaries in Mexico, are like that.  He is strongly opinionated, always needs to be right, and has high bars that he expects his wife and children to meet.  He micromanages his wife's affairs and criticizes her when she doesn't live up to his standards.  She, on the other hand, is by nature timid and subservient and capitulating.  She rarely speaks up for herself, always gives in, doesn't put up a fight.  They're perfect for each other, and at the same time they're terrible for each other.  My wife and I aren't ones to meddle in someone else's business, so for the most part we've simply gritted out teeth and accepted that that's the way our friends' marriage "works".  But, over the years, it has become apparent that we're not the only ones who see.  My father at one point expressed deep concern to my wife and me about our friend's unhealthy relationship dynamic, for example.

Then, in March this year, our pastor and I traveled down to Mexico to visit with them and their ministry partners there.  Ahead of our trip, their strategic coordinator (a longtime friend of my wife's, who is now a Baptist pastor in the RGV of Texas) expressed to me via Zoom call that he had serious concerns about how their marriage dynamic might be negatively affecting their Christian witness.  While we were in Mexico, out in one of the villages they minister in, our pastor and I went off into an arroyo with their Mexican pastor.  He's an amazing man.  His deep dark skin betrays both his indigenous blood (he's originally from Chiapas) and also his love of doing manual labor outside.  He's the kind of pastor who always wears a collared shirt, who outright calls smoking a sin, whose wife never wears trousers, and who takes the Bible very literally.  He's also very respectful and never wishes to speak ill of anyone else–lest his speech border on gossip.  He's the kind of man you can trust with your life.  Anyway, we went off with him alone into an arroyo, and I asked him about our friends.  And he gave us his straight and honest opinion, and told us of the conversations he'd had with him about it.  And then, after that, our pastor and I sat down at our friends' dinner table in the evening and confronted them frankly about it.  It was his responsibility as a pastor and my responsibility as a friend to say that his behavior toward his wife is unacceptable.  (That was a hard conversation for me to have, as his best friend, and it's hard for me to write about it now.)

Here's my point in all of this:  All of us involved in that situation are pretty traditional when it comes to marriage.  We aren't on the Left.  We're pretty solidly on the Right.  And "that sort of mindset" that you mentioned is unacceptable to us.  You have to go pretty far to the fringes to find people who accept it as normal.  Traditionalist Muslims, I suppose, or white-supremacist rednecks.  (I have cousins who, I recently found out, refer to their families' land in Kentucky as "the compound".  Yeah, probably them.)

But it's really hard for me to reconcile the ideas of "two become one flesh" and "two equal partners maintaining their own free will and opinions".

To me, those two things go together–they don't stand in opposition to one another.  Part of the "becoming one flesh" process is learning to harmonize your wills and opinions.  Compromise assumes different wills and opinions, yet it's part of becoming one flesh.  Learning to try things the other likes assumes different wills and opinions, yet it's part of becoming one flesh.  Learning to resolve a disagreement and find unity therein assumes different wills and opinions, yet it's part of becoming one flesh.

The ministry she registered through was a simple web form she filled out, and I think she had to pay some nominal fee to the ministry.  They then listed her as a "minister" in their rolls. As I said, we did an end-run around it. The most difficult part of the process was Cleveland County deciding the day of the ceremony that her certificate wasn't printed on fancy enough paper (we had to rush to an office-supply store to get some suitable certificate paper, rush back home to re-print the certificate, then back to the courthouse to resubmit it).

But I imagine that practice made it a lot harder for non-religious folks to get married in Oklahoma before the Internet existed.

Yeah, you're not making it sound any better, there.  It's ridiculous.

[webny99]

I'll throw out one that might be tangentially related in some ways (OK, not really, but still...)

Hair is overrated, and particularly the idea amongst men that natural hair loss must be avoided, mitigated, and postponed at all costs.  I don't keep facial hair myself and never will, but I prefer to keep my hair quite short (it's already thinning a bit, thanks to genetics), and I always like how it looks best in the first 1-2 weeks after a haircut, since the thinning isn't as noticeable. And I actually think very short/shaved head and facial hair looks good on many people, even if they're bald. So don't expect me to be shopping for hair loss prevention products, even though I'm in the supposed target market for said products. 

[kphoger]

I'll throw out one that might be tangentially related in some ways (OK, not really, but still...)

Hair is overrated, and particularly the idea amongst men that natural hair loss must be avoided, mitigated, and postponed at all costs.  I don't keep facial hair myself and never will, but I prefer to keep my hair quite short (it's already thinning a bit, thanks to genetics), and I always like how it looks best in the first 1-2 weeks after a haircut, since the thinning isn't as noticeable. And I actually think very short/shaved head and facial hair looks good on many people, even if they're bald. So don't expect me to be shopping for hair loss prevention products, even though I'm in the supposed target market for said products. 

I've never worried about going bald or going grey.  My wife has always said she thinks that would look good on my anyway.  I'm already thinning out on top.

The funny thing is, though, she's freaking out that her own hair is starting to turn white.  And I think it looks hot.

[kkt]

1. Dating, especially before college.

High school dating is a complete waste of time, money, and effort that could be better directed towards academics, extracurriculars, or community service.

I mean, I feel like dating in high school is specifically for some of those extracurriculars...

Are we on the same page here? By "extracurriculars," I'm referring to stuff like sports and clubs in school.

He's talking about fucking.

9. Premarital sex.

Or, at least, pre-engagement sex. Again, sorry if I'm sounding like your parents, but... fuck fucking. Hard to pass the opportunity to say that. I'd rather sit out on a fleeting sense of temporary superficial primordial pleasure than to risk exposure to STDs like syphilis and AIDS, causing unplanned pregnancies, and ruining other people's lives. It's so upsetting how the age at which people have been getting into intimate relationships has been getting lower and lower over the years.

10. The 1980s.

80's culture isn't as "groovy" as a lot of people make it out to be, especially people who were born after the 80's.

If it's fleeting and superficial, you might be doing something wrong.

[JayhawkCO]

I'll throw out one that might be tangentially related in some ways (OK, not really, but still...)

Hair is overrated, and particularly the idea amongst men that natural hair loss must be avoided, mitigated, and postponed at all costs.  I don't keep facial hair myself and never will, but I prefer to keep my hair quite short (it's already thinning a bit, thanks to genetics), and I always like how it looks best in the first 1-2 weeks after a haircut, since the thinning isn't as noticeable. And I actually think very short/shaved head and facial hair looks good on many people, even if they're bald. So don't expect me to be shopping for hair loss prevention products, even though I'm in the supposed target market for said products. 

I've never worried about going bald or going grey.  My wife has always said she thinks that would look good on my anyway.  I'm already thinning out on top.

The funny thing is, though, she's freaking out that her own hair is starting to turn white.  And I think it looks hot.

I'm similar. I don't want to lose my hair, but if I do, oh well. Genetics says that I might since my maternal grandfather was pretty thin. That said, when I do, I'll just bic it and rock the bald head and beard. I don't care one bit about going grey. When it happens, it happens.

[JayhawkCO]

Re: the topic of marriage, prior to gay marriage being legalized, I had a shirt that said "I don't believe in straight marriage." I think civil unions as far as the government and insurance companies are concerned should be equal no matter what the genders/sexes/etc. I don't think the government should get involved with what a church does (other than obvious things like murder, etc.) anymore than the church should get involved with what government does.

[Scott5114]

I'm not entirely sure that the concept of a marriage merging two people's lives that deeply is necessarily relevant or even desirable in modern society. Taking my own marriage as an example, I love traveling but it stresses my wife out, and she loves concerts and I despise them, so we are always going to have certain activities we undertake without the other (solution: bring a friend that likes that instead).

But, more to the sub-topic at hand, a married couple does make financial decisions together.  It's rather unsettling to me when an unmarried couple buys a house together or buys a car together.  That's a huge financial commitment, when one of them could just up and leave.  For example, a friend of mine had been paying for the insurance on his girlfriend's car, and then they split up.  Then, before that, I had a co-worker who lived with her boyfriend for years until she left him–except that the one with car wasn't the one whose name was on the title.

Do you not agree that, if people are in a life position to be making financial decisions together, they ought to also incur one another's financial burdens?

Oh, you're not wrong. And that was one of the reasons I married my wife before we bought a house together. But there's a lot of different ways that sort of thing could be managed, they're just more legally cumbersome than a marriage. Two people could own equal shares in a corporation that owns the house and charges both of them rent, for instance, and it would accomplish mostly the same goals.

Before my wife and I got married, we ran a ledger that we kept track of all of the bills (other than rent) on. Any bill that I paid was entered as a positive number on there, and any bill my wife paid was entered as a negative number. Whichever side of zero the balance was on determined whose turn it was to pay. Sometimes my wife would be short on funds and the balance ran positive for longer than it was "supposed to", and that was okay. The system worked well, but we retired it whenever we got married and merged our funds.

And I'm certainly not the sort of person who dictates to my partner what they're supposed to do, who they're allowed to see, what life choices they must make, etc. I would hope that that sort of mindset is trending toward extinction in this country, but I'm sure it's more prevalent than I'd like.

My "circle" is made up mainly of conservative, right-wing, Evangelical, Trump-voting, church-going, mask-hating, creationist, ummmm, you get the idea.  And yet, even in that context, a man who manages his wife's life in the way you describe is upsetting.

Hearing that makes me feel better. My circle doesn't include a lot of people of the sort you describe, especially in my age group, so I'm somewhat out of touch with what the prevailing norms are in those circles. And I'm glad that people are willing to speak up when they see that happening, even though it's a difficult conversation to have.

But it's really hard for me to reconcile the ideas of "two become one flesh" and "two equal partners maintaining their own free will and opinions".

To me, those two things go together–they don't stand in opposition to one another.  Part of the "becoming one flesh" process is learning to harmonize your wills and opinions.  Compromise assumes different wills and opinions, yet it's part of becoming one flesh.  Learning to try things the other likes assumes different wills and opinions, yet it's part of becoming one flesh.  Learning to resolve a disagreement and find unity therein assumes different wills and opinions, yet it's part of becoming one flesh.

This makes a lot of sense. I definitely think that compromise, harmony, and coming to an agreement is important. It's just that the phrase "becoming one flesh" doesn't really read that way if you're not familiar with the nuance of the term.

Yeah, you're not making it sound any better, there.  It's ridiculous.

This has me wondering how many aspects of what I'd consider normal, day-to-day life in Oklahoma would be hair-raising to anyone from any other state. It's possible that, even with Oklahoma's low standing in most people's eyes, that it is somehow still overrated and thus a candidate for this thread.

[Max Rockatansky]

I'll throw out one that might be tangentially related in some ways (OK, not really, but still...)

Hair is overrated, and particularly the idea amongst men that natural hair loss must be avoided, mitigated, and postponed at all costs.  I don't keep facial hair myself and never will, but I prefer to keep my hair quite short (it's already thinning a bit, thanks to genetics), and I always like how it looks best in the first 1-2 weeks after a haircut, since the thinning isn't as noticeable. And I actually think very short/shaved head and facial hair looks good on many people, even if they're bald. So don't expect me to be shopping for hair loss prevention products, even though I'm in the supposed target market for said products. 

I've never worried about going bald or going grey.  My wife has always said she thinks that would look good on my anyway.  I'm already thinning out on top.

The funny thing is, though, she's freaking out that her own hair is starting to turn white.  And I think it looks hot.

I'm similar. I don't want to lose my hair, but if I do, oh well. Genetics says that I might since my maternal grandfather was pretty thin. That said, when I do, I'll just bic it and rock the bald head and beard. I don't care one bit about going grey. When it happens, it happens.

I've had grey hair in my beard since my early 20s.  I tend to look far younger than I actually when I shave which is why my wife insists I keep facial hair.  My Dad was completely grey by his early 30s but never had his hair thin.  My brother appears to be going bald but I haven't seen evidence with me.  If I started going bald I would just shave my head, it helps keep my scalp clean when I run anyways. 

[Takumi]

My hairline's receded a bit since my 20s, and I have some grey hairs mixed in, but I actually have fewer greys than I did 3-4 years ago. My girlfriend, who just turned 30, freaked out when she got her first grey.

[Rothman]

Thread's overrated now.

[kphoger]

This makes a lot of sense. I definitely think that compromise, harmony, and coming to an agreement is important. It's just that the phrase "becoming one flesh" doesn't really read that way if you're not familiar with the nuance of the term.

That part of the Hebrew scriptures were written in ... oh, probably by the seventh Century BC or so.  The stories contained therein surely have an oral tradition that extends back well beyond that date, but the written form is from somewhere around then.  And ancient Hebrew is a very concrete language.  It had nowhere near the amount of vocabulary that modern English does (nor that the Koine Greek of the New Testament had), and non-physical realities were most naturally described in physical terms.  Thus, the union of husband and wife was naturally described in terms of flesh.  It surely does involve the physical act of sexual intercourse, but the idea extends well beyond that.

I don't want to lose my hair, but if I do, oh well. Genetics says that I might since my maternal grandfather was pretty thin. That said, when I do, I'll just bic it and rock the bald head and beard.

If I started going bald I would just shave my head,

Am I the only who wouldn't shave his head if he started going bald?

[Max Rockatansky]

Why hang onto scraps?  I've shaved my head before, I like the clean feel.  My wife is the one who stops me from doing it now. 

[bulldog1979]

Glenwood Canyon. It's pretty and all, but is it really this sort of mandated pilgrimage every roadgeek needs to drive, film, and promote their visit to?

Not a matter of scenery, but the engineering feat of it.

If you want to appreciate the road engineering though, take the train. You'll see it much better from the tracks on the other side of the river.

[bulldog1979]

Now I have an interesting perspective on a few topics to toss out after catching up a couple pages of comments. In high school, I was also a "goodie two shoes" type, busy with academics and extracurriculars. My parents let me drink a half glass of wine with them from time to time as a teenager. It removed some of the mystery, and all these years later, I've still never been drunk. I do enjoy a beverage from time to time though. So I tend to agree that removing some of the taboo, when done responsibly, is a good thing