Thursday, July 16, 2015

Traditional Marriage and the Cycle of Religious Suppression of Women

Understanding the reason why our culture needs to move on from the idea of “Traditional” marriage :

What does “Traditional Marriage” mean to you? Does it evoke ideas of the supposed ideal family of Man+Woman and 1.5 children? Does it mean to you a heterosexual pairing tied together spiritually by God in front of a community of like minded individuals?
Regardless of whatever ideals you cling to, if you go far enough back in history you’ll find examples that defy your “Traditional” definitions. Marriage and family has ever been a changing thing with our species and it continues to grow and change. For instance, the idea of a “white wedding” is a rather novel part of our culture, dating back from early 20th century. Before then, a white dress was thought to be a stupid thing to have, and a symbol of wealth since it invariably would get dirty and look like crap faster than any other color.
There are those who claim Marriage is dead, or should die, or that it’s a bad deal for men, or women but yet people keep wanting it don’t they? Unfortunately there isn’t any one simple fix for any problems with marriage but one thing we can do is objectively look at where we came from with religion in the mix, since the idea of “Traditional Marriage” is tied up so intimately with religion.
Note however, religion is only part of the problem as I see it, much of the rest is the promotion of unhealthy masculine gender identity as emphasized by a heterosexual norm biased culture. Religion only reinforces these ideals but it doesn’t have to, and it’s time that it was changed, whether by individual choice or our society developing beyond these archaic beliefs.