[Loser]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
i put the commoness of sex as one of the major causes of relationship breakups, divorces and general unsatisfication with marraige. as well as unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted deseases and people who will do anything to get into someone's pants. all of which is reduced or eliminated if there's no sex outside marriage. oh, yeah, there's no good reason not to get marriad relitivily young. but statistics say aviod the spring, get married in the fall. people are more sensible then.

it's a simple principle. if you take something special and make it common, then it's no longer special.

It's a simple principle that may or may not apply to sex.

The fact is that there were plenty of divorces, unwanted pregnancies, STDs, and unscrupulous rakes back in more austere periods of history. It simply wasn't talked about back then. I know this for a fact because it happened quite a bit in my families history and, thinking this must be some terribly uncommon trend, I eventually looked deeper into the issue.

The problems were just covered up better back then. A good percentage of Charm Schools and Boarding Schools were actually Schools for Wayward Girls (institutions for hiding pregnancy). Lack of birth control just meant that most 'loose women' were professionals, and the natural increase in prostitution adds to organized crime, it does not add to general virtue.

There will be sex, always. If you make marriage such a binding thing you will only make sex out of marriage more common, as a couple will get married to have sex ("because they love each other") then look elsewhere for satisfaction when their juvenile relationship skills make them miserable in each other's company.

You cannot eliminate sex outside of marriage. It has never been done (though I have heard the native people of Tasmania were free of adultery, I do not know this to be a fact, and look what happened to them).

Before we talk this particular discussion any further (in a separate thread) I'd have to do the ageist thing and ask both how old you are and how many years you spent as a parent-freed adult before you got in a cohabitated relationship.