my personal view as Setian:
I do not care about how others choose to live. Let it be asexual, monogamy, polygamy, hetero, homo or whatever - it is everyone's choice. Since I myself am a hetero man, my obvious choice is a woman.
I do not see a need for a dowry; not nowadays. Once, it was OK for the man to pay because he took the labour force of the woman away from her parent's farm when she moved to his farm. But since the economic circumstances have changed, no dowry is necessary anymore.
Marriage between faiths.. well, I would not want this because I have wanted a partner to share a common way. If "faith" is not just something you practice on sundays, but you put your life's meaning into, then how could someone thinking totally differently really understand you? Understanding, and trust coming from understanding, is the foundation of love. You can have sex without understanding, but I failed to find love without a deep understanding, without sharing so much more than just the bed.
I have been engaged before marriage mainly because this offers small, but nice legal advantages where I live. E.g. that if one of is gets accused, the partner cannot be forced to witness against the other one, and this holds also for the rest of both families.
This holds even more for marriage - it comprises not only the right to refuse to witness mentioned above. The employment centre cannot force one of the partners to move to another city for getting employed as long as the partner still has work because in Germany, marriage is under the explicit protection of the constitution. And if one of us has an accident and is in intensive care, the doctors cannot refuse access to the other one. If then, in coma state, it gets so ill that healing is improbable, the healthy partner can assume full responsibility, including the right to have the machines switched off. Since trust is our basis, this feature is something we desire. Not because we entrust each one's life to each other - but each one's death. And finally, we pay less income tax. Of course, each of us has the duty to take care of the other in case of necessity, and the state even can oblige us to do so. But we would do that anyway, so that is no drawback.
Pre-marital sex is ok. Pre-martial sex is something I have not yet encountered (-;
Marriage is not required, but it can make sense. This is up to the individual to decide.
Concerning divorce.. it has become so easy nowadays that people do not really reflect whether they really want to share their whole life with the partner. And is has become a very easy "solution". Fleeing instead of solving problems. You see, being enamoured will pass by rather quickly. But this is not love. Nor is sexual attraction love. Basing a relationship on being enamoured or keen on each other almost certainly will have the relationship fail simply because it is not enough for a whole life.
Divorcing, for me, would feel like a major part of me would die. All the memories I only can share with my wife.. because we are the only ones to have lived them. Every object I see around here has memories attached to it, to things we have done. Divorcing is just impossible because she will always be in my mind anyway, and no other could measure up. It has just been the one chance life will offer - if it does so at all. And the main reason I got this chance was that I decided not to be content with anything less than the optimum. If you are content with little, little is all you will get.
Very well said!
