Originally posted by: ja1484
Originally posted by: ruu
Well, I think I worded it a bit too hastily---I should have put more emphasis on the word "primarily." Humans are PRIMARILY monogamous, but we've actually evolved tendencies to cheat. So what I meant was that we've evolved to live in pairs but to cheat as often as we can get away with it.
What the fuck are you talking about? Marriage didn't even exist as an institution until monotheistic religions rolled in around 2000 years back.
Until then, we were EXCEPTIONALLY polygamous.
Our chemistry wants us to still be. That's why men get tired of the same set of holes after about 6 months and start looking for some variety.
The 1) concept of marriage and what we as a social species have construed as our 2) biological tendency to mate and mate-select are two different things.
My bad for bringing in a biological tangent when the original discussion was purely about the social tangent.
Though I do believe that polygamy is primarily a social construct, seen as a way to display status and power. Polyandry is rarer, but it also has to do with a display of status and power. Monogamy or primarily-monogamous pair-bonding is less a social construct and more biologically imprinted, hence my opinion of why marriage or a concept akin to marriage is so firmly entrenched in almost every culture around the world.
Anyway, to directly address the OP topic---the "point" of getting married is just like the point of being alive---what you make of it. Different societies have different financial rewards/benefits re marriage, cohabitation, parenting, singledom, and whatever, so the point of getting married is really between you and whomever you're looking at to marry.
In the U.S., the legal/socioeconomic status/benefits of "marriage" could use some updating and tweaking, that's for sure.
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