If I were seeking marriage advice, the last persons I would listen to would be a divorce lawyer or a celebrity mega church pastor. The twisted history of civil marriages has inevitably led to legal (money driven) divorces. Laws are written by and for lawyers, who took on the role hard-hearted husbands who demanded of their religious leaders the right to divorce for financial and hedonistic reasons. Number one, they wanted to have sex elsewhere, and number two, they wanted to protect their wealth from their current wife and her relatives. Little has changed in the thousands of years since divorce was invented.
In like manner, little has changed in the thousands of years since marriage was invented. Both men and women want sex, and children. Neither welcome the idea of raising others' children. So they accumulated ways to 1. protect the exclusive access to sex, and 2. to ensure that they don't get tricked into raising others' children.
Likewise, men and women are dogs; they naturally are attracted to the genitals of everyone they come in contact with. They say that they will voluntarily abstain from indiscriminate sex for the reasons above, but they easily succumb to temptation. Some religions encourage chastity, some don't. The ones that don't are far more popular, so the ones that do tend to go easy on restraint, for financial reasons.
The only other restraint on licentiousness is by divorce lawyers who like their religious rivals more pretend than restrain, for financial reasons. So we have competing industries feeding at the marriage trough. In public, the religious urge restraint, but in private encourage marriage when advising couples, but quietly advise each person to look out for themselves. In public lawyers encourage everyone to mind their legal rights to protect themselves, but in private, urge them to get all they are entitled to. Thus, they enrich themselves by selling contracts before marriage, and by breaking contracts in the dissolution process.
What's the answer? The very human resistant honesty. Marriage is good. Chastity is good. Divorce is bad for people, but terrible for children. Government involvement in marriage invites lawyers to pursue their scams and protects no one. Commitment to each other and to their children enhances pleasure and happiness. So does taking responsibility. Long- and short-term.
If I were seeking marriage advice, the last persons I would listen to would be a divorce lawyer or a celebrity mega church pastor. The twisted history of civil marriages has inevitably led to legal (money driven) divorces. Laws are written by and for lawyers, who took on the role hard-hearted husbands who demanded of their religious leaders the right to divorce for financial and hedonistic reasons. Number one, they wanted to have sex elsewhere, and number two, they wanted to protect their wealth from their current wife and her relatives. Little has changed in the thousands of years since divorce was invented.
In like manner, little has changed in the thousands of years since marriage was invented. Both men and women want sex, and children. Neither welcome the idea of raising others' children. So they accumulated ways to 1. protect the exclusive access to sex, and 2. to ensure that they don't get tricked into raising others' children.
Likewise, men and women are dogs; they naturally are attracted to the genitals of everyone they come in contact with. They say that they will voluntarily abstain from indiscriminate sex for the reasons above, but they easily succumb to temptation. Some religions encourage chastity, some don't. The ones that don't are far more popular, so the ones that do tend to go easy on restraint, for financial reasons.
The only other restraint on licentiousness is by divorce lawyers who like their religious rivals more pretend than restrain, for financial reasons. So we have competing industries feeding at the marriage trough. In public, the religious urge restraint, but in private encourage marriage when advising couples, but quietly advise each person to look out for themselves. In public lawyers encourage everyone to mind their legal rights to protect themselves, but in private, urge them to get all they are entitled to. Thus, they enrich themselves by selling contracts before marriage, and by breaking contracts in the dissolution process.
What's the answer? The very human resistant honesty. Marriage is good. Chastity is good. Divorce is bad for people, but terrible for children. Government involvement in marriage invites lawyers to pursue their scams and protects no one. Commitment to each other and to their children enhances pleasure and happiness. So does taking responsibility. Long- and short-term.