Rite of Passage.

[cruelbitch]

Let's talk shit about marriage.

In advance: Appy-polly-logies to those of y'all who have been there, done that, while I armchair critique sans experience. I sympathize that it must be heavily obnoxious to read my disjointed musings about a general Fact of Life(TM), but this will only take a moment

Comments

[greatest_twitch]

Marriage. More questions than answers here, I think

[cruelbitch]

I never understood this pressing, ubiquitous need to "pass on genes" (which sounds, as I probably mentioned upthread, akin to spreading a virus -- and I don't honestly believe everyone's genes are so massively important to maintain). Perhaps my hardwiring is decrepit: I haven't been programmed with this burning need that is evidentially integral (otherwise known as, I just don't "get it"). Nevertheless, it taints my viewpoints with lack of objectivity. Which also applies to everyone else, but alas

[greatest_twitch]

A simple remedy would be, I suppose, to have two or more children. The first takes my name, the second takes hers. The third is a coin flip

[cruelbitch]

"So, being an enlightened 21st century male fully capable of wiping yellow shit from a baby's buttocks, is not my 'claim' on my unconceived child's name - nay, identity - as valid as his/her mother's?"
It's as valid, yes -- particularly if your assertion of a 50/50 divide (of both nurturing and providing) is a genuine one. In addition, I wasn't meaning to assign birth with the conclusion of parenting, quite obviously, but that a mere acknowledgment of it's physical and intimate taxation on the mother isn't quite enough, at least not for me. Of course, hand-waving nay-saying on this issue from the general populace is of the "well, being rooted in misogyny isn't indicative of it's contemporary practice" variety. Yet once again my questioning is "then why perpetuate this?" Wouldn't the mere notion of the historical affiliation with women being both property values (exchanged from father to husband) and an Incubating Host disgust the considerate person to the core, even if your present intentions are in good faith? Again, the caveat is

[greatest_twitch]

I may get married one day. If/when I do, I have no quarrel with my future spouse (whether present girlfriend or other) keeping her birth name. I have a couple of friends who've done this, and the apocalypse has yet to arrive.

True, I'm thinking more about this idea of 'identity-stamping'. Another solution: children with penises take my surname, children without take their mother's. Fair, no?

The matter isn't so important just now anyway. I have a year to think about it yet. Two, maxi.