I’m not sure it’s analogous. Most people (I assume) have already entertained the possibility of sleeping with someone before going on a first date. Hence, it is assumed both parties are sexually interested in each other. One person might express revulsion at the other party’s forwardness, or for some other reason, but they started with a mutual sexual interest. They both share a common goal, they just might differ on the best way to reach it.
On the other hand, consider a guy who is outright afraid of marriage. He goes on a date, fully uninterested in ever marrying the girl, and is scared by the girl’s forwardness about marriage. Really, he would be scared regardless of the point in the relationship marriage was brought up. There was never any mutual marital interest to start with. It isn’t a mismatch in how to proceed, it’s a fundamental mismatch in goals.
Considering that there are some asexuals who have romantic and potentially marital interests without sexual interests, and significant subcultures in which sex before marriage is considered completely inappropriate, I don’t think that’s a fully general disanalogy.
Edit: Or to put it differently, I think you’re presupposing that “the point” of dating is to have a relationship that involves sex. Perhaps conflicting presuppositions of this nature are part of the problem in the case of the story and the reverse case I suggested. Illustration: our heroine Darla arranges a date with some guy Bob. Darla thinks the point of dating is to find a spouse and Bob thinks the point of dating is to find someone with whom to have a sexual relationship. Darla starts talking about how to divvy up chores in a marriage and he freaks. Darla is confused, because isn’t “the point” of dating to find a compatible spouse? But she backs off because she doesn’t want to upset him. Then he starts insinuating that he’d like to have sex. She freaks. He’s confused, because isn’t “the point” of dating to find someone to have sex with? Now they’re both confused: Bob has no idea why Darla wouldn’t want to sleep with him when she just brought up marriage, for crying out loud—what, is she proposing that they could set up housekeeping and have separate beds and conceive the three children she wants via IVF? Darla has no idea why Bob would bring up sex on a first date—or at all, really, since obviously he has no interest in sticking around, doesn’t like her enough to find out if she’s a prospect for anything really long term, and why would he expect her to react well to the proposition when it’s plain from his behavior he only views her as a piece of meat?
Now, Darla never envisioned a sexless future and Bob doesn’t dislike Darla—perhaps he isn’t even fundamentally opposed to the idea of marriage. They just have very different ideas about what order to start planning for the two events.
There are cultures without marriage, but all cultures engage in sex. You can hardly compare our most basic biological imperative with a fairly recent cultural invention. In general, not everyone wants to get married, but in general, everyone wants to have sex, men and women both. These generalities hardly apply to LW, though, for reasons I believe are self-evident. Frankly, having a less than academic conversation about general human sexuality and dating in a forum like this seems misguided, especially considering the gender ratio.
Alicorn is right about the Na, but what I actually had in mind was modern Western culture, in which marriage is declining and trending toward obsolescence. There are other correlations that can be drawn—for example, atheists have much lower marriage rates than average. Speaking from personal experience, the majority of my personal acquaintances (a majority of which are female) are uninterested in marriage.
True, but it remains to be seen whether post-marriage Western culture will have enough longevity to be reasonably classified as a culture rather than a brief transition from one semi-stable state to another—of your female acquaintances who are uninterested in marriage, how many are interested in having children?
I wonder if it’s possible to explain low atheist marriage rates through contingent factors? e.g. the conjunction of a low female/male ratio and a desire to marry only other atheists; a disproportionate number of out gay people in conjunction with the widespread illegality of gay marriage, etc. As for general low interest in marriage, my suspicion is that it’s something like a snowball effect from the high divorce rate. People typically model their relationships after their parents’, and if their parents are divorced or never married or had an unsatisfactory marriage, there’s no good model there. It’s probably not a coincidence that I eventually want to get married and stay that way and have a couple of kids when that’s exactly what my parents did.
I’m not sure it’s analogous. Most people (I assume) have already entertained the possibility of sleeping with someone before going on a first date. Hence, it is assumed both parties are sexually interested in each other. One person might express revulsion at the other party’s forwardness, or for some other reason, but they started with a mutual sexual interest. They both share a common goal, they just might differ on the best way to reach it.
On the other hand, consider a guy who is outright afraid of marriage. He goes on a date, fully uninterested in ever marrying the girl, and is scared by the girl’s forwardness about marriage. Really, he would be scared regardless of the point in the relationship marriage was brought up. There was never any mutual marital interest to start with. It isn’t a mismatch in how to proceed, it’s a fundamental mismatch in goals.
Considering that there are some asexuals who have romantic and potentially marital interests without sexual interests, and significant subcultures in which sex before marriage is considered completely inappropriate, I don’t think that’s a fully general disanalogy.
Edit: Or to put it differently, I think you’re presupposing that “the point” of dating is to have a relationship that involves sex. Perhaps conflicting presuppositions of this nature are part of the problem in the case of the story and the reverse case I suggested. Illustration: our heroine Darla arranges a date with some guy Bob. Darla thinks the point of dating is to find a spouse and Bob thinks the point of dating is to find someone with whom to have a sexual relationship. Darla starts talking about how to divvy up chores in a marriage and he freaks. Darla is confused, because isn’t “the point” of dating to find a compatible spouse? But she backs off because she doesn’t want to upset him. Then he starts insinuating that he’d like to have sex. She freaks. He’s confused, because isn’t “the point” of dating to find someone to have sex with? Now they’re both confused: Bob has no idea why Darla wouldn’t want to sleep with him when she just brought up marriage, for crying out loud—what, is she proposing that they could set up housekeeping and have separate beds and conceive the three children she wants via IVF? Darla has no idea why Bob would bring up sex on a first date—or at all, really, since obviously he has no interest in sticking around, doesn’t like her enough to find out if she’s a prospect for anything really long term, and why would he expect her to react well to the proposition when it’s plain from his behavior he only views her as a piece of meat?
Now, Darla never envisioned a sexless future and Bob doesn’t dislike Darla—perhaps he isn’t even fundamentally opposed to the idea of marriage. They just have very different ideas about what order to start planning for the two events.
There are cultures without marriage, but all cultures engage in sex. You can hardly compare our most basic biological imperative with a fairly recent cultural invention. In general, not everyone wants to get married, but in general, everyone wants to have sex, men and women both. These generalities hardly apply to LW, though, for reasons I believe are self-evident. Frankly, having a less than academic conversation about general human sexuality and dating in a forum like this seems misguided, especially considering the gender ratio.
The Shakers?
Which cultures exist without marriage? I’m curious, because I hadn’t previously been aware of the existence of any such.
There’s the Na in China, but those are the only ones I’m aware of that have literally nothing recognizable as marriage.
Interesting, thanks! So there is an extant group that has adopted the alternative stable system.
Alicorn is right about the Na, but what I actually had in mind was modern Western culture, in which marriage is declining and trending toward obsolescence. There are other correlations that can be drawn—for example, atheists have much lower marriage rates than average. Speaking from personal experience, the majority of my personal acquaintances (a majority of which are female) are uninterested in marriage.
True, but it remains to be seen whether post-marriage Western culture will have enough longevity to be reasonably classified as a culture rather than a brief transition from one semi-stable state to another—of your female acquaintances who are uninterested in marriage, how many are interested in having children?
I wonder if it’s possible to explain low atheist marriage rates through contingent factors? e.g. the conjunction of a low female/male ratio and a desire to marry only other atheists; a disproportionate number of out gay people in conjunction with the widespread illegality of gay marriage, etc. As for general low interest in marriage, my suspicion is that it’s something like a snowball effect from the high divorce rate. People typically model their relationships after their parents’, and if their parents are divorced or never married or had an unsatisfactory marriage, there’s no good model there. It’s probably not a coincidence that I eventually want to get married and stay that way and have a couple of kids when that’s exactly what my parents did.