The purpose of discipline

The Utility of Marriage

Intrepidblackwoman and I host a Salon at our house once a month. The last topic was entitled, "The Utility of Marriage," and led to great discussion. We followed up the discussion with an email to the folks that were not able to participate, but wanted to know about the day.

Hello all:
Quite a few folks who did not make the utility of marriage salon have asked for details about the discussion, so we are going to try to oblige.

There were some broad themes that ran through the day:

For those gathered that day, the narrative of marriage - i.e. romantic, love-driven marriage - is not what is going on. There was a recognition that a large part of marriage is a business and its utility is as a vehicle for organizing property, managing children and ordering one's life. Inasmuch, exchanging credit reports and medical records before marriage makes sense.

A majority of us thought that nationally the part of the marriage narrative that assumes a man and a woman is coming to an end. As one of us put it, the actuarial tables will take care of the pitchfork wavers who oppose same sex marriages. This fight for equality and dignity is be no means over, but most of us felt that the ball is rolling down hill—same sex marriages are legal in 4 states!
The thing that sticks in our minds the most is a statistic that one of the participants shared, that marriage men are three times less likely to commit murder. This sobering statistic was followed this up by someone else sharing that championship basketball teams have more married men on them. I did a little research and found that married men live longer, are healthier, visit the doctor more, and make more money. So the utility of marriage for men is clear---CIVILIZATION.

After the Salon, I got an email of a terribly interesting website that goes into the various sort of marriages that are recognized by the Bible. There was also a Catholic marriage rite for two men

Lastly on this topic, there are studies that suggest that married people (at least loving couples/people) are connected on a subatomic level. The utility of this is that your partner can help heal you with their thoughts. This we believe to be true.