Marriage WITHOUT Children

[ThomasGR]

Well, to clarify my position:
If there was an option saying that I would get married but children are out of any question, than... NO, I don't see any reason why on earth I should get married. Freedom and Marriage don't walk together. Let us be friends and live together happily as long as we can. Tomorrow is another day to capture the opportunity and say a loud "fair well"...

[Cédric]

U obviously know my answer to this, with all the specific issues of marriage in my case.
I talked about it enough on the other thread to come back to it here

Cédric.

[ThomasGR]

In such matters I have the tendency to be more pragmatic. The profits from the taxes one gets being married are not so important compared to the price I have to pay, and the price is my freedom. It’s looking selfish, but in reality it is not, since I have in mind also the price that I demand from my partner to pay for marrying me, and that’s also her freedom. I don’t think I’m allowed to demand from her something of that importance, which she might regret afterwards. Both we will have to pay something immense worthy, whereas the profits are not so great.

Love is such a strange concept one never knows if it’s there, and can never be sure for that. Those kinds of Feelings are really disturbing and often confusing. Anyway, romantic love always fades away. After many years of marriage, what remains left is solicitude for each other, a concern that isn’t different than between members of the same family, like brother and sister, or mother and son. And years later, even those feelings are absent. We see that in old couples, who after so many years have nothing important to share with each other. What they have to discuss has been discussed for so many times, nothing new to add. Romantic love has vanished; an imprisonment forced by marriage laws took its place. Daily quarrels became a routine.

Here’s the importance of having children in a family. The concern for a child’s progress can dilute the aggravation a couple would otherwise accumulate. Forgetting and forgiving happen anyway, even in child-less couples, but I don’t think these works always properly. Some scars always remain left and other wounds never heal, as they should. Here’s where a child in a family works as a catalyst that helps to overcome such straits. Both parent’s love and care for their child work as a glue that binds the couple together. The child’s progress will give enormous happiness to that couple. Daily life’s routine is rare.

[Bert]

I didn't vote.
If I found out that the girl I wanted to marry, would be unable to become pregnant due to some disease or accident, I would still want to marry her.
Not "Sure, give it a try". Marriage is not a 'give it a try' sort of thing. That is why I did not vote. If there was an option; "By all means", that would receive my vote.

Love is such a strange concept one never knows if it’s there, and can never be sure for that.

Sure you can.

Those kinds of Feelings are really disturbing and often confusing. Anyway, romantic love always fades away.

Romantic love does not fade away to nothing but becomes more stable. If by romantic love you mean the giddy,"she can't do any wrong" kind of love then you are right. But even seniors have romantic love for their marriage partner of 30 years, but this love has become more selfless and complete

After many years of marriage, what remains left is solicitude for each other, a concern that isn’t different than between members of the same family, like brother and sister, or mother and son. And years later, even those feelings are absent.

We see that in old couples, who after so many years have nothing important to share with each other. What they have to discuss has been discussed for so many times, nothing new to add. Romantic love has vanished; an imprisonment forced by marriage laws took its place. Daily quarrels became a routine.

You sure don't see the same couples I see.
Sure, there may be couples like that but don't use them as your standard.

Here’s the importance of having children in a family. The concern for a child’s progress can dilute the aggravation a couple would otherwise accumulate.

The purpose of children is to dilute the aggravation a couple feel?...Well I'll be...

Forgetting and forgiving happen anyway, even in child-less couples, but I don’t think these works always properly. Some scars always remain left and other wounds never heal, as they should. Here’s where a child in a family works as a catalyst that helps to overcome such straits. Both parent’s love and care for their child work as a glue that binds the couple together. The child’s progress will give enormous happiness to that couple. Daily life’s routine is rare.

[ThomasGR]

Well, I can tell you from my own experience that if it was not for the kids, in the past often I was on the verge to smash her stubborn head onto the wall with quite great delight, and than pack my suitcase. Well of course I regret now those culprit feelings and I ended to love her more than ever, but in those terrible days, only the kids saved my marriage. Of course it’s my oppressive character’s fault, or perhaps not?

[Cédric]

I fully understand ur point of view Thomas, but do u imagine the burden u put on ur children's shoulder. It seems, reading u, that ur kids are in charge of the stability of ur couple. That's scary. I remember my mum telling my sister and I once (i was already quite old, in my early 20s - but my sister is 3 and a half year younger than me) that if we werent there my dad and her would have split to for ages. It didnt have much effect on me coz i'm quite detached and i could rationalize this, but it had a terrible effect on my sister, she started going on depressions (and still does now that she's 24!). Why because, after this had been said, she felt responsible everytime our parents had a row, because she understood in all of my father's and mother's words, words telling her that she hadnt been able to manage with their difficulties or that she was the cause of the fights. Of course they were never saying this kind of things, but this was the effect of knowing that they were together "because" of us, to raise us as a traditional family.
Now my sister and i are both away from home (me quite far my sister just got herself a job and she moved to a flat not var at all from my parents but off the house). And i'll tell u that they never got along better than now that we are no longer a burden to them. Because we both have a job, have a life and they know we're quite well balanced and if we've got a pb of any kind we'll go to them to speak it out. I moved out 3 years ago now and since then they didnt have one of those huge rows they were used to before (i know cos my sister would tell me otherwise and so would my mum).
Al this to say that i personnaly think it's a wrong answer to say a couple can live only thanks to children. Children are the avatar of a couple's love, they are not a cement to the couple's love. How can anyone put on so fragile being, not fully grown neither physically nor mentally, such a burden as being responsible for the family's cohesion. Adults issues are and must remain adults issues. The same way u dont want them involved in ur sexual life (i mean not willing them to see u have sex with ur wife, not taking a shower with them...), because it's adult stuff and there's a time, psychologicaly, for them too to discover those things on their own (of course u must help if questions are asked) ; the same way then u must keep them out of the issues ur wife and u face(d).

This is only my opinion coming from my experience and from the way we think of children education here (i dont pretend it's perfect nor even good, it also has its limits, but it worked for most of the ppl i see).

Take care,

Cédric.

[Emma_85]

Well, marriage may not work for you without children, but it does for many people. My aunt and uncle for example. Marriage is not all about having kids, it's about two people who love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together. And there are some who want to spend the rest of their lives together and cannot or do not want kids.

[ThomasGR]

All of you who voted the first option, are either too young and do trust what they told you about love and romance, or too idealistic and live in a fancy world full with flowers and happy ends. I hope no one comes across your ways to disappoint you. Love is not walking hand by hand in a beach watching the sunset... It has it's up and down and for most people, that’s the striking majority of the people and this includes me of course, it demands great amount of energy to deal with, and without any good catalyst (be it the kids or the surrounded society (friends etc.)) it's impossible to handle and keep sustained. Otherwise we wouldn't be humans but angels.

Anyway, this topic was not about the values of kids in a family but about marriage without children, and the real question was taken from another thread and it was: why should we get married and not just live together and enjoy our love to eternity? Or something near that.

[Bert]

All of you who voted the first option, are either too young and do trust what they told you about love and romance, or too idealistic and live in a fancy world full with flowers and happy ends. I hope no one comes across your ways to disappoint you. Love is not walking hand by hand in a beach watching the sunset... It has it's up and down and for most people, that’s the striking majority of the people and this includes me of course, it demands great amount of energy to deal with, and without any good catalyst (be it the kids or the surrounded society (friends etc.)) it's impossible to handle and keep sustained. Otherwise we wouldn't be humans but angels.

The authority on 'love and marriage' hath spoken.

[Emma_85]

It's sad that you are so bitter about love... you say only the kids made you stay with her, so that means all you know is about relationships with kids. You are not an expert on what it is like to be married and not have kids. There are people out there who are happily married and have been for quite some time who have no kids and don't break up. You just haven't experience such a relationship and so you seem to think it's like impossible?

[ThomasGR]

Yeah, of course they are happy families, at daylight. In the nights, ask them about having knots in their throat… And then will go from one doctor to the other and spend thousands of dollars...

No, I am not an expert about love; I want only to point the hypocrisy. Emma, do you think those families on TV series, with all those bride Colgate smiles, are taken directly from real life? Does real life always have happy ends like that pastor family on TV? (I don’t remember the name of that serial, but I guess there plenty of such on TV!)

[Democritus]

Here’s the importance of having children in a family. The concern for a child’s progress can dilute the aggravation a couple would otherwise accumulate. Forgetting and forgiving happen anyway, even in child-less couples, but I don’t think these works always properly. Some scars always remain left and other wounds never heal, as they should. Here’s where a child in a family works as a catalyst that helps to overcome such straits. Both parent’s love and care for their child work as a glue that binds the couple together. The child’s progress will give enormous happiness to that couple. Daily life’s routine is rare.

Well, this is a nice idea, and it's often true, but not always true. In general, children cannot be expected to be a cure for marital problems, even inadvertantly.

Plenty of couples with kids have trouble getting along, and in fact end up divorced, or if not actually divorced, then deeply unhappy.

[benissimus]

Obviously some marriages without children do last. I can't say that "love" is the driving force behind those relationships, but certainly there are many couples that love each other for a very long time without kids. No one can credibly make such a generalization that all loves deteriorate into bitterness and obligation based on his/her own experiences and observations. Maybe that is just the way that people respond to your personality, or maybe you are drawn to a certain sort of people. Aside from that, I think people who use kids as a band-aid for their marriage are selfish and reckless.

Are your points about marriage really about marriage or about long-term cohabitational relationships in general?

[Emma_85]

So you think all marriages are unhappy? Then what you are actually saying is that marriage is not worth it at all... love sucks and that's that?

There are many marriages with kids where the parents split up, I fail to see your point - and that's really all you can ask me to do, to see your point in making this thread. By making this a poll you already admit that this is just about individual opinion and has nothing to do with philosophy.

[ThomasGR]

Please, for God’s sake. Why cannot I make generalizations?

There people who never marry and live at the top of mountains, without any intercourse with other people, and there are people who can be happy living only among people and have all kinds of relations. Am I so wrong saying that the second case represent the majority? That a human never is really happy, even if he’s swearing he is, if he does not speak with other people other than “Good morning”? (Whatever, who’s understanding, has understood )

[Bert]

Why cannot I make generalizations?

Sure you can. As long as they are generally accurate

[bellum paxque]

The television serial you mentioned is, I believe, "Seventh Heaven." I know that not because I watch television often but because the tv in the break room at work is always, without fail, without exception, (thus making it an accurate generalization) on. Sometimes one just can't avoid the flickering light patterns without appearing rabidly antisocial.

As for my opinion on this topic, it seems rather bold to state definitively whether marriage (or, as benissimus pointed out, cohabitation more generally speaking) will endure or will fail. So many different variables are involved, including, to name a few, children, personalities, social expectations, finances, that marriage is a virtually unsolvable equation. The only way to know for sure is to risk love.

David

[Emma_85]

Please, for God’s sake. Why cannot I make generalizations?

There people who never marry and live at the top of mountains, without any intercourse with other people, and there are people who can be happy living only among people and have all kinds of relations. Am I so wrong saying that the second case represent the majority? That a human never is really happy, even if he’s swearing he is, if he does not speak with other people other than “Good morning”? (Whatever, who’s understanding, has understood )

Of course you can make generalisations, you can even 'over do' them to get your point accross. I'm sorry if I attacked you before, I guess I just didn't like what you had to say much.
I can agree with you that we are not always happy, very few can claim to be happy most of the time. I don't think that children will always contribute to happiness though. I don't think the thing is that we don't understand what you are saying, but we are just do not agree that it is generally applicable. Every human is different and every deep relationship is different too because of that. To say that it is not worth it to 'invest' in a long term relationship if children are out of the question, it quite a thing to say! A lot of people probably want a marriage to last a life time and so anything that will help keep the marriage (or long term relationship) intact is of course a big plus. For some this may be children - but I don't believe that this is the case with so many couples as to be able to make a wide sweeping generalisation. There are so many couples that break up with kids. Children obviously play a role, but what role exactly they play is different from marriage to marriage. It's also questionable if in all cases it really is a good idea to stick together 'just for the kids' as Cédric pointed out. I'm not disputing the fact that some partners may only stay of because of the children, but I don't think that if they had never had children the situation would be the same. Maybe they would have had more time for each other, less stress and would not have got into the rut of taking their spouses for granted, but let them know how much they appreciated them? I just don't think that any serious relation ship is doomed because kids are out of the question. It is a different question entirely if one of the partners really wants children, but that is of course not the question here.
Again, sorry if I was too brisk in my other replies.

[Geoff]

Often marriages end "for the sake of the children" - In otherwords the couple concludes that their irreconcilable (allegedly) relationship is a harmful enviroment in which to raise children. They therefore seek personal happinness concluding that their children will be healthier and happier if the they (the parents) can be happy.

The point is that if children "keep the marriage together" its because of the way the couple thinks about children to begin with. Why not place that value on the marriage itself rather than the children? This commitment to another can lead to the happiest marriages, and a better environment for children since then children aren't drug into the discussion of whether or not the marriage will remain.

BTW- Why is Everyone Always making generalizations, don't they know that All generalizations are Always Wrong? lol

[Cédric]

BTW- Why is Everyone Always making generalizations, don't they know that All generalizations are Always Wrong? lol

Most of the ppl will do generalisations because they are unwillingly trapped into the Aristotle's Thrid excluded system
Usually they will think basically true/false ; right/wrong. This is the way science have been thinking for the last 23 centuries unfortunately...
Yet there are some "new" thinkers who accept this third and it makes things much more easy to handle with and to accept. Those ppl are into "No-Philosophy" as Bachelard called it (Gaston Bachelard, La Philosophie du Non, Paris, PUF, ISBN 2130525784) or General Semantics, Korzibsky followers (Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. 1933, 5th Ed., 1994. Preface by Robert P. Pula. (1994). ISBN 0-937298-01-8 and see their web site http://www.general-semantics.org/).
The link between all this and generalisation is pretty obvious... if u reject the principle of third excluded and then open up ur judging to other levels than the simple YES/NO alternance, then there's no way u categorize as much as Aristotle did. I dont reject Aristotle's philosophy, it's just that it is, in some cases, esp. when dealing with human, very limited and not suitable at all... because human cannot simply be summed up as a list of yes or no items.
The development of this philosphy happened alongside with other Non scientific fields... non-newtonian in physics for instance which led to the expansion of Quantic physics.

[Geoff]

I'm actually for generalizations and believe that every precisely stated proposition is either true or false. There are two problems with regard to discussion. First most statements are not precise, and second many people lack the common sense to realize what the speaker was not referring to in making the generalization.

Generalizations are "big news bad" when they embrace undesireable elements by lobbing platitudes. silly example: If you love your wife then throw your arms wide open and embrace her. Your wife may not feel so loved when your arms are flung open so wide you grasp two other women with her

Interesting book references cedric: I'll need to check those out.

Marriage WILL always work when a husband and wife make a commitment to remain together and seek each others best interest then keep that commitment (That's a tautology - ha ha). If you have something else like cohabitation, short term emotion driven relationship, etc. then recognize it for what it is, and don't delude yourself into believing it is a marriage. Only this mutual honesty will make marriage work regardless of whether or not there are children and with that kind of honesty marriage becomes desireable for marriage sake.

[ThomasGR]

Life consists of two major things: First it's a big generalisation, and second most, it's the biggest compromise. Since Love and Life are part of each other, so does these principles apply here too. That’s the way world spins around and human brains work.