[flamesabers]

Bryony,

I have a very mixed opinion towards your stance. I suspect my personal behavioral code agrees with yours more than differs. However, I also very much believe in people's freedom to do whatever they want with their life so long as they're not infringing on the freedoms of others.

Do you not also believe in taking responsibility for the consequences of your actions?

Action 1: deliberately withholding your sexuality from someone you desire in order to get them to fall in love with you marry you.

Consequence 1: the loving wife feels betrayed when she finds out that she married "someone else" and her marriage has been a lie.

Action 2: producing children with said wife. The natural instinct of a parent is to protect, nurture and defend to the death a child - particularly someone with the instincts of a women. Leaving the mother and child to fend for themselves even if guilt money is paid still leaves them far short of their natural expectation.

Consequence 2: the child has no father role model, and is less likely to develop a stable relationship in later life, more likely to become involved in drugs, underachieve etc. (More likely, not definitely)

Action 3: indulging in extra-marital relationships with men.
Consequence 3: a definite possibility of passing on STDs, perhaps AIDs.

Do you think these counts as "not infringing on the freedoms of others" and is therefore perfectly OK? If so it's Venus and Mars folks.

I feel I'm a bit biased with answering your questions considering I'm personally opposed to the notion of contractual relationships or having offspring. With that said, I think the husband (or wife if applicable) has a greater obligation to his children than to his spouse. The reason I say this is children have no say in what family they are born into, and children lack the independence and experience adults have. Excluding extreme or unusual circumstances, adults choose whether to reproduce. Parents should be held responsible to raising their children to the age of 18, or at the very least, ensuring their children are cared for via child support or foster home.

As far as the husband's obligation to honor his marriage, that's a bit of a loaded question for me. Frankly, the concept of a contractual relationship strikes me as bizarre. I attached a Calvin & Hobbes comic strip that I think illustrates as much. Nobody has contractual relationships with their friends or biological family members, so why are romantic relationships different in this regard? I see contracts as a tool of business, or in some cases, such as the military, a means to ensure soldiers report for duty when a war is raging. Marriages though aren't about earning profits or fighting wars. Outside of tradition, the only reason I see for keeping marriage around is to enforce/encourage couples to stay together for the sake of an individual of the couple or for the children. Being forced to stay in a personal relationship with another adult you no longer want to be involved with sounds like a violation of freedom to me. In my opinion, a couple that cohabitates and willingly stays together is far more commendable than a relationship that relies on a contract to persist. If a contract was never necessary for a relationship to prosper, why get married in the first place?

If an individual breaks a contract, typically the person must compensate the party accordingly. This makes sense because the other party entered into the contract to make a profit. This is practical I think when contracts deals with currencies such as money or material resources. However, in a marriage the currency I think is love. Unlike money, genuine love and devotion cannot be coerced from someone. As soon as one person is deeply unsatisfied with the marriage or some other major problem comes up, the contract is voided to an extent. The question that remains is whether the couple will officially dissolve the contract or not.

On a positive ending note, congratulations on hitting the 1,000 posts mark.