I think the true issue here is that you may not have much of a trust in other people’s rationality. In this example you sound like you work from the assumption that they have no reasons at all, while in your marriage opinion it sounds like people of “previous eras” (too unspecific) had largely unethical reasons (marriage-as-slavery).
Well this sounds like me when I was 20 :) But what I have learned since is that it is better to assume people are not stupid and not evil unless evidenced otherwise. Now of course this sounds entirely trivial, but at 20 I did not realize the full extent of that principle of charitability. Namely that this also implies that may have entirely valid reasons of which I am entirely ignorant of, and that implies I am not as smart and knowledgeable as I like to think. I had to realize the whole chain of it. Starting from liking to think I am smart and knowledge, when I was younger I too easily went to thinking if I don’t understand the reasons for a thing then there aren’t any or no good ones just stupid or evil ones, and this led to me ignoring the principle of charity and implicitly thinking other people are stupid and / or evil.
Antoher thing I learned since that reasons are not always explicit. I learned to accept reasons like “because we tried stuff, and this one worked, we have no idea why but it did”.
I do not assume other people are stupid or evil. However, in this particular case my best current hypothesis is that the reasons are mostly historical. That said, I will gladly update on information to the contrary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton’s_fence
http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2012/08/proxy-measures-sunk-costs-and.html
I think the true issue here is that you may not have much of a trust in other people’s rationality. In this example you sound like you work from the assumption that they have no reasons at all, while in your marriage opinion it sounds like people of “previous eras” (too unspecific) had largely unethical reasons (marriage-as-slavery).
Well this sounds like me when I was 20 :) But what I have learned since is that it is better to assume people are not stupid and not evil unless evidenced otherwise. Now of course this sounds entirely trivial, but at 20 I did not realize the full extent of that principle of charitability. Namely that this also implies that may have entirely valid reasons of which I am entirely ignorant of, and that implies I am not as smart and knowledgeable as I like to think. I had to realize the whole chain of it. Starting from liking to think I am smart and knowledge, when I was younger I too easily went to thinking if I don’t understand the reasons for a thing then there aren’t any or no good ones just stupid or evil ones, and this led to me ignoring the principle of charity and implicitly thinking other people are stupid and / or evil.
Antoher thing I learned since that reasons are not always explicit. I learned to accept reasons like “because we tried stuff, and this one worked, we have no idea why but it did”.
I do not assume other people are stupid or evil. However, in this particular case my best current hypothesis is that the reasons are mostly historical. That said, I will gladly update on information to the contrary.