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.
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.