I would look at the similar conversations from another point of view. Others coming into our life to give us a lesson, and it should be recognized and appreciated. Were we able to provide any help, nudge, or lesson to them? This is not up to us to see and judge. May be in many years later we would be able to become aware of who was a teacher, and who was a student, who knows?

Lena

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'Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance.' Confucius.

Yeah, I picked up a copy of Far Journeys in my late twenties, and it sat there on the bookshelf never read until one day in my late 40s, I pulled it from the shelf

I think the point of order and boredom in middle life, as an intention, in the things that don't actually matter, is so you can appreciate the subtlety of synchronicity and the zen of ordinary experience, and have the luxury of a philosophically guided life - your guides will Likely have a less comfortable intention for you

Marriage is hard enough when the obvious basics are compatible...even in the best of circumstances, you can't escape the daily grind of two imperfect people working through each day, feeding themselves and feeding their hungry egos

A parable!

a woman has three sons, each of which needs a house.

one son digs a cellar, finishes it with stone, and when he is finished, loving cellar digging, he fills in the cellar and begins digging it again...and he does this in an endless loop

Another son digs a cellar, completes it, and thinks, I will cover it and build a first story. He enjoyed building the first story so much, that he decides to tear it down and rebuild it again, but better. and he like his brother, gets stuck in a loop and never completes the house

The third son builds the cellar, not perfectly, but adequately, then builds the first story, then the second, not perfectly, but adequately, and he marries and fills his house with life, tears and love, adding turrets, porches, and follies, as time permits.

Education is your cellar, career or business is your first floor, and marriage is your second floor, the bricks and mortar of your life, and everything else flows through this fixed medium like a wave

Focus on the music recorded to the medium, rather than getting distracted by unreliable recording equipment or arguing about digital vs vinyl

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Does this PMR make my butt look big?

Nice parable, kroeran.

But I don't really find it fitting for me. Career and marriage has never seemed important to me.

Edit: How selfish of me, assuming you only wrote this for me.

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Traveling towards the home of high-distilled pure crystalized loosh, to become Love.

Lena, I really like the way you think.

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Mike

well, actually, we are talking about you

one way or the other, you are going to have to figure out how to pay the rent

maybe you will live in your mom's basement or spend your twenties navel gazing and let your girlfriend traipse off to work, or live on cheques from your dad, or try to get a band off the ground while on the dole

you can escape the corporate or government rat race by setting yourself up off grid (rare), or doing something along the lines of self employment (less rare)

who is paying for your lunch today and the roof over your head?

maybe the culture is different in Sweden...if you do it right, you are eventually going to meet a girl that you can't live without...and marriage (a life contract) will be important to her

marriage is grounded in the PMR reality that women have their power in youth, and men have their power in age, and marriage creates a life cycle unity of interest and order, to what becomes very disorderly without the life contract, and increasingly so according to your quality

women create this power asymettry by preferring men who are same age or older, which gives them a large pool to mate with when young, and an increasingly small pool to mate with when old - drilling down in this area of thought is awkward

without the contract, the male, who is relatively powerless when young, consumes the youth and power of a series of females, leaving a trail of heartbreak and or broken commitments. Many women are left in middle age as single mothers, wondering what they did wrong. Naivite of the young female you are shacked up with does not get you off the hook.

Even without higher ruleset considerations, serial monogamy or being a seducer, beyond a certain point, is a very superficial, empty way to live your life, and setting aside the heterosexual dynamic, even same sex couples generally move toward a life commitment.

there is no reasonable alternative to the marriage configuration intention, for a person of quality, for middle age, at least that I have come across.

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Does this PMR make my butt look big?

Randy,

I would not disagree with your model, in total, but it does need some additions and corrections.

If you are talking bearing and raising of children, then marriage with a contract is really the optimal pathway, so it seems to me. Someone must be prepared to care for children until they can make their own way and be responsible for maintaining their own free will (preferably not the state by default). It should not devolve on the woman because her being the mother is definitely known and the father is uncertain. If however you are talking about childless cohabitation, sexual activity undesignated, then there is nothing really wrong with consenting adults consenting according to their own free will. But that does not permit of an imbalance of consent and lying to obtain or coerce consent.

Probably not covering all the bases here but this is what strikes me as wrong about your model. There are always exceptions when you are dealing with exceptional adults. See the moral code that Tom posted for more details.

Ted

My book puts forth a different model of parenting not paternal but having equanimity and knowledge based. The woman having a bit more control in the model doesn't make it matriarchal though just more equal and actually quite effective. This new "way" starts at the beginning of civilization and the Reality that will fall out is still being created in my head and falling out into the notes for books 2 and on.
Love
Bette

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All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Haven't been following this too closely but really the most stable family models are complex and flexible.... with grandmas and grampas and aunts and uncles and cousins being part of the family whether they actually live in the same building or not as a permanent arrangement. This "everyone is supposed to live alone" arrangement got heavily promoted so that more stuff would have to be bought ... more houses, more refrigerators, more tea pots, more carpets more vaccuum cleaners. But having an extended family, like in the old ethnic neighborhoods of the old North east, or in the aboriginal tribes, was a much more stable arrangement for everyone.

Somewhere Kurt Vonnegut mentions that there should be seven people in a marriage .... essentially two to reproduce and the reset a sort of support system, if I remember (it's been like 25 years).

-Montana

It's an exciting time to be having a life experience packet here. ;)
Love
Bette

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All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

firstly, smart nice girls marry, so this indefinite shacking up option is unlikely to be part of the intelligent low entropy male's decision space - this varies by country and culture

secondly, you may indeed talk a naive girl out of the necessity for marriage, or an equivalent pledge of intent, but when you dump her for your yoga instruction after 15 years of shacking up, you are going to have a problem on several levels, starting with having an FWAU existing on the planet who hates you in a particularly intense way

the bottom line is that it is a very dangerous thing karmawise to permit a bond to develop (beyond certain tipping point) with someone you don't intend to follow through with, warts and all, in sickness and in health - so you might as well make it official.

as always, there are exceptional circumstances - in the end, you are alone with your feedback to deal with

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Does this PMR make my butt look big?

You should really learn to read things completely and note the details. You missed:And:Not to mention:This covers all of your objections. You may not be familiar with women who are fully adult and competent to make their own decisions but I assure you that they are out there in numbers. And they do not accept paternalism from men. Remember that famous rejoinder: 'male chauvinist piglet'? I remember a friend from college who became a relatively prominent participant in the women's movement when it first started who became a published author with a book on that subject although not as well known as Steinem for instance. She did not believe or accept 'in loco parentis' from the university or crap from men and became prominent in the university's administration during her career. And I knew her before she was of legal age and fully fledged. Not to mention our own Bette. You have had contact with Bette, have you not? Does she not meet the criteria for exceptional adult making up her own mind and not taking directions or patronization from a mere man? And there are other female board members who would take great exception to any patronizing from a man.

Ted

The root of your bias.
Love
Bette

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All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Oh, D'ee say that...? Woo, he did, didn't he. Ouch. It directly implies that unmarried girls are dumb broads.

Of course, he probably wouldn't care to directly own that statement. Girls, both married and otherwise, can throw quite a punch!

My generation looked at a single unmarried woman as an unfortunate one. Divorce was a relative novelty, when I was young. A generation of my parents in this country looked at a single woman as a failure, and it was her falt, that she could not get a husband. I am glad, that a new generation has broken this pattern. I hope to see time, when girls would realize, that following the old tradition, when during a wedding ceremony her father is walking her through the aisle to bring her to a husband to be is disrespectful to them. It reflects how dependent and disrespected were women in a society. Before marriage her father was making decisions for her, and after marriage this would be her husband's responsibility.

We live with people. We depend on each other. A smart woman does not have to be married, if this is not what she wishes for. Marriage is not the way to raise female status. While men and women are two different spices, differences should be accepted and respected, but these differences are not the sings of superiority for either party.

Lena

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'Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance.' Confucius.

I have been working at various warehouses (driving forklifts and so on) for the past 5 years. The longest was 3,5 years at the same place. I quit that job and moved to a city far away because of the girl. I lost the job in that city, and have now been traveling across the country, searching for jobs, going on interviews and so on.
I have no money left, I can't pay my bills (phonebill, car-loan, laptop-loan). My police record makes it almost impossible to get a new job, the system has changed massively here in sweden the past 5 years. I was yesterday in stockholm on a two-hour interview for a wellpayed forklift job. It went really well, except in the end where I had to sign these papers of not having any crime-records and so on. So I lost that one. My mother has always tried to steer my life, and I have learned that asking for money from her would be kind of what some people call selling the soul. My father is an an alcoholic, lives in the states, and I have no contact with him.
My economic situation is worse than ever. I am at the point where I am trying to evaluate what I really want in life.
I would rather go "Into the wild" than living at my mothers house. At the moment, I am at my sisters, and she and her boyfriend are paying for the food. I told her yesterday, that I am not planning on staying anymore.


I have visited the states several times and I would say that the culture is totally different. Not as many religious people here, so people don't care about not having sex before marriage and stuff like that. And in my opinion, if the love is strong enough, why would you need papers saying stuff that should be obvious.


The power asymetry theory is interesting. That would explain a lot. But it doesn't cover it all...
Still, you shouldn't have to use a contract so ensure safety. Then the marriage is based on fear, and doomed in my opinion.

Edit: Do you not see that you are culturally affected with your picture of marriage?
Edit again: Asking for marriage is only a symbolic gesture of "I would like to spend my remaining days with you, because I love you. Lets show our social surroundings this, and let's fit in to society"
And edit again: I wonder where this comes from, that if I do it "right" (define this please :P) I will meet a girl that I can not live without (assuming that you mean that I can not be without her because I love her so, and not because of fear of being alone or other fears), and marriage will be important to her. My counter answer is, if I do it right, I will find a girl that I can not live without, and she will not care about signing a life contract because her love is equal to mine.
Do you see what I mean? Don't get me wrong. Maybe because of pure amusement, I would like to ask the girl I love for marriage. But then the symbolic gesture would be different.

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Traveling towards the home of high-distilled pure crystalized loosh, to become Love.