Mojo on Marriage

The institution of marriage existed long before the formation of the state or civil authority. From its very founding, the state had to recognize the institution of the marriage tradition in order to cement its legitimacy. The civic establishment's primary purpose should be to recognize and protect Individual Liberty and contract law. Instead, the secular state has encroached upon what was traditionally a sacred institution between God and Man(meaning man and woman). This corruption might be partly responsible for the crackup and disintegration of the Marriage Institution today, as one or both parties entering into a civil marriage may come to view the distorted enforcement of civil contract law(which is another topic altogether) as a means of obtaining advantage over the other spouse, i.e.: a spouse who though once attractive, becomes either fat, lazy and gluttonous, yet wanting to keep their health conscious spouse who remains attractive bonded to them by refusing to grant a divorce thus in essence preventing the fit spouse from legally finding another more suitable mate(FatSpouse therefore has no incentive to modify their behavior), or the obese spouse who uses the threat of the civic Tort Law to seize their spouses' property or future earnings should the other attempt divorce(again there is no incentive for the neglectful spouse to change either). Anciently there were many societies and cultures in existence that recognized the Rights of both men and women to marry or divorce whom ever and whenever they wanted, while protecting the property rights of both. Probably far from ideal by todays standards, Spartian women endured a tough life but also enjoyed many more rights and freedoms unheard of by most Greeks at the time, or even by modern women today. For instance, they could take a new husband if the old husband was gone away too long, and some even practiced polyandry (having more than one husband), they owned their own property and generally had a great deal of influence in the ruling of the then city-state of Sparta.

It was in these cultures, like ancient Sparta, that both men and women competed for mates, and after marriage continued to compete for those same affections. Maybe that's what is lacking today. I'm not saying, physically competing, but being able to have greater freedom to choose a mate, or not choose, and to be able to dissolve the covenant or take another spouse if need be should the former not fulfill their portion of the marriage contract. Perhaps then there would be a greater sense of accountably on account of each spouse, and therefor as a result, much less marital strife, discord and divorce. We claim to have so much more Freedom today, than our ancestors did, but do we really? Obviously this is true for much of the Western world, but I wonder if many of the problems that exist today like obesity and the failure of the Marriage Institution could have existed in ancient Sparta? I doubt it. I'm not advocating a conversion to a Spartan type culture, it was after all very brutal life in many ways, but in some ways the Spartans were way ahead of their time concerning certain aspects of Individual Liberty, especially for women. We could probably learn a thing or two by studying the lessons that history would like to teach us. Maybe we would be a lot happier in our marriages-we would certainly be a lot healthier.

Posted by Mojo on My Fat Spouse