I thought about it last night, and I think the main problem with divorse is that it shows a more general lack of personal honor and responsibility in our society. There was a time when men and women married one and other and knew that they were really going to have to stick it out. There was also a time when gangsters knew that if they got busted, they'd have to serve their time.

Now marriage is seen as temporary, unless it happens to become permanent, and when gangsters get busted the first thing they do is flip on their partners in crime for a reduced sentence. I'm sure there's some connection there.

Damn it, if you get married then stay that way. If you join the Mafia, then honor the code of silence. What's the deal with everybody wanting to join in, but nobody wanting to follow the rules?

"There was a time when men and women married one and other and knew that they were really going to have to stick it out."

There was also a time when it was A-OK for the hubby to continually beat his wife with a stick as long as it was smaller around than his thumb.

Those days are over. Thank god for divorce.

apropos1:

There was also a time when it was A-OK for the hubby to continually beat his wife with a stick as long as it was smaller around than his thumb.

Those days are over. Thank god for divorce.

Definitely no difference between beating your wife and trying to hold your marriage together through hard times....

But, it's not like someone else came and said, "you must get married and take these vows and commit to this person...", you did. That's where honor comes in. If a person isn't willing to man/woman up to the commitments that they made themselves, quite freely, then their word isn't worth much at all, is it?

Would you go into a business partnership with someone who "outgrew" their family? I mean, perhaps you would, but I wouldn't.

If I ever start a gang, I'm only using married guys. And not guys who just got married, but guys who have been in for 15 years. That guy knows about personal relationships, honor and loyalty. If Gambino had this requirement, he would have avoided prison.

We were watching this show on VH1 last night about the 1960s. It was the typically boomer/liberal masturbation over how much they changed the world and all of that. This installment was specifically about how the 1960s generation fought against and changed the puritanical sexual society of the 1950s into something of free love and mutual respect and all that.

My question was: where were these puritanical wife beaters in the 1950s? Where were these men routinely beating their women and the women baking cakes, black eyes and all? Certainly, my grandfather was no puritan, and my grandmother wasn't going to let anybody knock her around. Perhaps for the upper middle class white families that we are expected to take as the "typical 1950s" family -- you're right. Perhaps! But for normal, workaday people, life has always been the same. No woman who respects herself has ever just let her man beat her. No man who loved his wife ever beat her to teach her a lesson. Poor kids have never been puritanical. Poor kids have always done drugs, smoked, drank and fought. And they've always had lots of sex.

I decided this: people who want to pull society further and further left have created a mythical 40s-50s era in which nobody had any fun or freedom, so that anytime there's resistance to going any further left, Liberals can say "what do you want? You want to live like your grandparents? Beating your wife, kicking your kids, not being allowed to read books except the bible, being forced to buy new-fangled gadgets?" It's the liberal's version of Conservatives warning against the U. S. turning in to the Soviet Union if we get one more new program.

So, you don't give your word lightly, but people should be able to change their commitments with new circumstances or information?

Seems weak. If that new circumstance is that your husband tries to kill you, then I'm with you. If the new circumstance is that you met a neat guy at work who you're 'really, really in love with', then I'm not. If it's that your husband is having an affair with your sister, alright. If it's that you want to move to L. A. because you just realized your calling to be an actress, that's alright too, but don't act like you have honor or integrity.

I agree that a lot of people give up on relationships too easily, but to not have the option to dissolve the marriage would be foolish. People make dumb choices, that's a given, but you learn from them and you shouldn't be held to the fire and left in misery for the rest of your life.

Divorce is not the problem, people marrying the wrong person is.

FaxMeBeer:

I decided this: people who want to pull society further and further left have created a mythical 40s-50s era in which nobody had any fun or freedom, so that anytime there's resistance to going any further left, Liberals can say "what do you want? You want to live like your grandparents? Beating your wife, kicking your kids, not being allowed to read books except the bible, being forced to buy new-fangled gadgets?" It's the liberal's version of Conservatives warning against the U. S. turning in to the Soviet Union if we get one more new program.

Maybe. But the 50s were pretty un-airconditioned, red-baiting and racist. You had "Help Wanted - Male" and "Help Wanted - Female" and there were no laws against sexual discrimination or sexual harassment. Poor women were at the mercy of "handsy" bosses. There was tremendous pressure on men to be good providers and on women to be worthy of all that work. Prosecutions of domestic assaults are rare; it's not until the late 70s and 80s that these become commonplace.

As far as overt sexual expression went, it was against the law in many states to sell married people contraceptives. Nice girls wore girdles under slacks that zip on the side to be sure their derrierres didn't jiggle too much. People actually wore virginity pins for all the world to see.

I'm thinkin', unless you were Ike and Mamie, and maybe even if you were Ike, the fifties kinda sucked.

Well, I wasn't born until the 1970s, so I don't really know what was up in the 1950s. But, you know, people still take virginity vows today. Instead of not prosecuting domestic crimes, now States have laws that require someone to go to jail if the police have to answer a domestic dispute call, regardless of if anyone is being beaten or not.

Obviously there's been progress made, and contraception is an example. I guess. I'm a Catholic and so I don't use contraception for religious reasons, but it's very good that those without my beliefs can do as they please.

My point isn't that progress wasn't made in the last 50-60 years. It's that we get a phony idea of what life in the 1950s was. The secondary point is that we don't get that phony idea by accident. The point in creating the mythical 1950s is to 1) show how far the left has brought us, and 2) show how far we could slide. For a vast majority of people, they do as they please regardless of what the few people who have to behave in a particular way because of their position in life do.

I live in Kansas City. It's pretty well known that the 1930s-1950s era was "wide open" in KC. 24-hour bars, prostitution, gay clubs, drugs, organized crime, gambling. Now, it's a damn cookie-cutter city with the same restaurants and bars that you find in any other city. Everything shuts down at 3:AM and you can't even smoke a cigarette in the bars. In a city of 1.5 million people, there are only like three gay clubs. And KC is relatively typical of other cities I've been to.

Oh, and instead of wearing girdles to stop from jiggling, women just starve themselves to weight 102 lbs. Which sucks. Mostly because I like women who don't look like 8-year-old boys. These days everyone is either starving or like 405 lbs. Is that really an improvement over side zipping pants?

Awww. That's nice! It is, in fact, the nicest thing I've read in a very, very long time. You're cool!

FaxMeBeer:

There was a time when men and women married one and other and knew that they were really going to have to stick it out.

Things were different than. Marriage has changed. It used to be more of a business proposition. A man married his wife to get heirs, have a person to raise said heirs, do the "womanly" chores, etc. A woman married her husband because that is what he and her parents wanted, to have children and to avoid living on the street. There really weren't many other options. If you fell in love, that was great but really not necessary.

Now, we view love as an important part of marriage. So people who fall out of love feel that their marriage is already over in spirit. Also, women have many more options now so there is no reason for them to stay in an abusive marriage.

FaxMeBeer:

Damn it, if you get married then stay that way. If you join the Mafia, then honor the code of silence. What's the deal with everybody wanting to join in, but nobody wanting to follow the rules?

The rules have changed. That's what happens..... Nothing is static.