Harbringer
Your A One Flower Garden
Ive been in two one year long relationships, and honestly never felt I knew the person well enough to marry either of them. So I really couldn't say. But I would think two years is ample time.
How long should you date before you get married?
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Even if that is true, marriage is still a bigger committment than cohabitation, as marriage is all that stuff plus the "I do".
Mise
isle of lucy
What does the "I do" show that all that other stuff fails to show?
That's not the point - the point is, cohabitation is all that stuff, marriage is all that stuff plus "I do". As marriage usually implies cohabitation.
Mise
isle of lucy
Okay, well, what if I did all that stuff, but said, "Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious!" instead? It's co-habitation plus "Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious!" -- but what exactly does it add? What is it actually plussing?
Marriage is more than just saying "I do" - it is announcing in front of your friends, family, the state, and (if you are into that) God, that you intend to be with the person the rest of your life. Even if that doesn't happen, the intent is there.
RedRalph
Deity
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Well, for one thing, yiou are by default leaving them all your posessions. And like it or not, to religious people its making the whole thing sound with god. I dont believe it, but if I did it would be a huge deal
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
Only so if you're not living together already. And only if you consider that a part of marriage, which technically isn't the case.
Sure I put it a bit bluntly and over the top, but consider the post I was replying to.
Cohabitation is commitment without commitment.
Which is still smelly bullcrap.
Consider what a part of marriage?
And by "committment" I don't necessarily mean compared to what you had previously. It may be a bigger leap to go from dating to cohabiting than it is from cohabiting to marriage, but overall marriage is a bigger committment than cohabiting, as it is cohabitation with an explicit or implicit committment to make it permanent.
but cohabitation can (and often does) include that commitment as well.
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
Cohabitation.
1 a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage <same-sex marriage>
In practise the two go together, that's why I said: "technically".
And buying a house together is not an explicit commitment to make it permanent? The only difference is legal. Differs per case, culture and timeperiod of course.
Maybe it's the difference between commitment to stay together for the rest of your life and commitment to stay even more together for the rest of your life.
classical_hero
In whom I trust
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
Your comment was a bunch of greasy puppiewaxYou do all that once you are marriedhence my comment.
your comment was (third time): Cohabitation is commitment without commitment. Which is clearly ludicrous.
LucyDuke
staring at the clock
You do all that once you are married
My cousin and his girl did that before they even got engaged (including the puppies.) Sure, lots of people do those things when they get married. Plenty of people do them without even planning marriage.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Humans are inherently psychologically affected by ceremony. A whole ton of people unveil a whole 'nother level of their personality after marriage. Your argument starts a slippery slope of arguments that perfomatives (speech acts) are completely irrelevant to the human experience, which simply is not the case.
Mise
isle of lucy
Well, is the psychological effect a manifestation of pre-existing feelings of commitment, or does that commitment result from the psychological effect of the wedding ceremony? IMO, it's the former -- in which case, marriage doesn't add anything, it simply brings the deep-seated, intense commitment to the fore, to the public and to God. If it's the latter, then the marriage is simply a psychological manipulation designed to engender feelings of commitment that otherwise would not have been there. That sounds like the kind of puppy love rush into marriage at 16 scenario that co-habitation is designed to weed out.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Well I would believe it's both the former and the latter, thereby I disagree with your conclusion about both. People of all ages are affected by ceremony, ceremonies of all kinds. This is fundamental to human nature, for good or ill. Regardless of ceremony, we can absolutely have pre-existing, organic feelings of commitment, which is cool. Marriage, though, is about making a commitment to commit, it's about making official and full what could otherwise be de facto feelings of commitment that could dissipate rather than break. And as social animals, it does a lot to the minds of those around us, helping build a community of commitment to one relationship. The point being that regardless of whether it's good or it's bad, marriage is more than just an irrelevant piece of paper that people get foolishly worked up about.
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