Quote Originally Posted by denuseri View Post
Actually we do have an excellent idea of how our early beginings were where as marriage is conserned.
Ideas, yes, scientific proof, none.

Odd factoid for you: Marriage customs involving monogamy developed in groups of humans that had little to no contact with each other for thousands of years independently and "predeominated", sugesting that as with many other human behaviors a certian level of hard wireing is involved into our sexual and yes our marriage prefrences.
Back to religious pop 'science': all the hard wireing ideas are simply that, ideas.
Example: Wilson. His biggest ideas came as revelations, he said his "biggest ideas happened within minutes". His theories, he writes, are supported by "a scarcity of information" and "the epigenetics rules that guide behavioural development are largely unexplored." He admits that these shortcomings are conceptual, technical and deep, "but they are ultimately solvable."

In short, we are talking ideas close to faith. We could discuss much more on this in an entirely new thread, if you feel like it.

And perhaps you need to be more specific in your query where as the institution of marriage is conserned if your trying to equate the modern urban westernized version of marrige as stereotypical for marriage in general as nessesarally as a bad thing with all those pendulating children... you may need to re-think your approach.
Do you mean that marriages in urban areas and marriages in the country are very different? This sounds interesting, I hadn't seen it in that light. Could you say more on this?

Divorce rates have always went up in societies that afford personal freedom a higher status over the good of the group as they become more decadent and succesfully urbanized, Rome being one of many excellent examples.
You mean there is more personal freedom in cities than in rural areas? Still? I wonder. Maybe. I have a feeling that things are evening out, some, but I do not know.

Did you mean divorces are decadent, though? Is it harder for children with parents that do not get along, than with divorces? I think that is tough to answer, but I lean toward better divorce than constant and bitter quarrels. However, divorces do not always end the quarrels.

I think our Western societies are becoming much too individualistic, and I agree that in many ways working in groups would be better. I think it would be great to have a number of legal ways of organising yourselves apart from that of marriage.