Oh boy
I guess my irl opinion when it comes to marriage is controversial (I believe it hasn’t really been deconstructed since it’s inception and is problematic for a number of reasons), but I’m curious whether anyone shares the same thoughts. Like finding your forever person? 100%
Everything else associated with it like the status symbol, doing it just to do it, inconsistent sharing of responsibilities? No good imo
Could be my autistic brain taking over, but I truly cannot comprehend why something like this needs to be in writing to be “official”
Idk I’m opinionated and sometimes my opinions suck and I need someone to bring me back to reality
I’m married, and actively polyamorous, as is my partner. So you can totally be married and do all of the things that marriage means to you and whoever you’re married to, while also bucking all of the historically problematic things that marriage used to mean.
To us marriage doesn’t mean that I own my partner, or that I prioritize my partner over other people or myself, or anything like that. It’s a personal commitment we have made to each other to work together on life and to solve life’s problems together, and that’s basically what it means for us. It’s helpful from a legal perspective to be married to the person I’ve committed to doing those things with, but we both agree that it’s not required for us. We don’t necessarily think we’re each other’s forever person. We have committed to trying to be though; to growing together when we can, to challenging each other when we can’t, and to creating and executing on long term plans as partners as long as those plans help enrich both of our lives. We also have other people we do some of those things with too despite being married.
So basically like most things, if you remove all of the historically problematic things behind them, and make it what you need to make it, then I think it’s fine on a personal level.
Maybe, or maybe you have a problem with toxic institutions on the whole (I also think monogamy can be considered a toxic institution). Which…you definitely should hah. I think marriage is often a highly toxic institution, so I think your gut instinct here is sound.
I’m experienced with both marriage (xx years) and polyamory (x years) though so I’m happy to let you bounce ideas off me if that’ll help :)
I appreciate that! I think what sort of prompted this thought was deconstructing my patriarchal upbringing. And I don’t fault my parents for the way they raised me, but I view it as something to learn from if I ever decide to have kids of my own, and I guess marriage crossed my mind in this context
