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From: regard@ttidcc.UUCP (Adrienne Regard)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: marriage |= (necessarily) commitment
Message-ID: <687@ttidcc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Aug-85 16:53:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: ttidcc.687
Posted: Fri Aug 16 16:53:09 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 21:14:14 EDT
Organization: TTI, Santa Monica, CA.
Lines: 83


>>>>>(re having kids)
>>>>ADRIENNE REGARD
>>>>Just why is this a situation that confronts married couples more often
>>>>than "live ins"?
>>>CHUCK FERRARA
>>>Wouldn't it be safe to assume that most people who have children do so
>>>after they're married (barring accidents)? It would then follow that a
>>>lot of (but not all) decisions on how they are to be raised would be
>>>discussed after marriage, because it is impossible to consider everything
>>>beforehand.
>>ADRIENNE AGAIN
>>Chuck, I wouldn't have brought it up if I thought is was "safe to assume".
>>I also personally believe that that is a stupid assumption for people to
>>make when choosing to live together and/or marry, but that's another issue.
>CHUCK AGAIN
>OK, in your case that assumption does not apply, but in most cases it does.
>The original arguement was about differences between marriage and SOship.
>I brought up the issue of children, because (at the risk of repeating
>myself) in many, but not all, relationships it is a major difference
>between SOships and marriage.

ADRIENNE AGAIN

Well, Chuck, this is where I think assumption may be leading us astray.
Perhaps it is a major PLANNED difference, but I don't think it stays that
way.  There are LARGE PERCENTAGES of people now who are single heads-of-
household, and not all of them got that way by divorce.  Why "bar"
accidents?

Used to be, we figured people walked on two legs, so if their knuckles
dragged along the curb, too bad.  Then some people got together and
insisted we take wheelchairs into account.  The assumptions didn't match
the reality.

Used to be, employers assumed women left the workplace when they got
married.  No longer is this a foregone conclusion.  Used to be, employers
assumed women left the workplace when they had kids.  Now a days, this
assumption can get you sued but good.

Probably we still assume that people who don't respond to postings are
in agreement with us -- yet a little thought shows us that isn't true.

AND -- this is the crux -- simply making assumptions about a large group of
people is not necessarily _benign_.  You mean no harm by leaving singles out
of the conversation on children, perhaps, but:

	What about the children who are being raised with the expectation
	that "married people" have kids and "single people" don't?  Isn't
	this unrealistic, and perhaps damaging to the kids from divorced
	or single-parent households?  Why perpetuate an assumption that
	clearly lacks reality for larger numbers in the population?

	What about the unmarried SO's who live together who one day find
	themselves pregnant (accidentally, just say) who have never dis-
	cussed the issue, and now discuss it perforce and find out that
	their stance on (abortion, single parents, financial responsibility,
	parents who work, you name it) is diametrically opposed?

	(As Bob Bruck points out) what about the men who dearly desire
	custody of their children who are denied that BY THE COURT, be-
	cause the courts continue to ASSUME that single father's don't
	have the same rights as married ones?

	What about the people who get married assuming that married people
	get married because they are gonna have kids (a major difference,
	you point out) and then discover that their spouse didn't have
	the same set of assumptions AT ALL?

Seems to me the question isn't whether or not SOs are married.  Seems to me
SOs _who have sex_ are already begging the question on children, _whether
they are married or not_.  This is why I'm going off the deep end to
suggest that it is NOT "safe to assume. . ." -- particularly when it is so
easy to find out.

I'm real big on communication, and I don't much think it should wait for
after the wedding bells.  We used to save sex for after, now we don't always.
But the question of kids is linked to the question of sex, not the question
of marriage, so it seems more sensible to consider the effect related to
the real cause, not the spun-sugar assumption.  Mostly, I've seen lots of
people get burned, and it is almost always unnecessary.  That's all

Adrienne Regard