Marriage as slavery.

In my “Dionysa” thread, I presented my conclusion from a little study I made a year or two ago:

“The hallmark of the slave in BDSM is that (s)he chooses ‘once and for all’ to submit unconditionally; whereas the hallmark of the sub is that (s)he chooses at every moment whether to submit or not.”

If this is correct, then a married couple may be said to be each other’s slaves, whereas an unmarried couple may be said to be each other’s subs. Or, inasmuch as being one another’s slaves or subs is absurd, a married couple may be said to be slaves to their relationship, whereas an unmarried couple may be said to be subs to their relationship.

Isn’t this rather an issue of monogamy?
Within a marriage, all sorts of things are possible.
Is Zeus a slave to his marriage?

Maybe the love-marriage that modern man has come to worship is a form of slavery, or at least official submission to a greater authority on value than the self.

The difference is perhaps in whether the marriage is interpreted as sanctioned by God or the state. I would think that virtually no one feels emotionally or sexually bound to his partner on account of the state, but God is a different story.

Slaves to guilt vs beneficiaries of sanction.
Marriage can be a means to certain rights, and it can be a pledge of allegiance to a certain moral framework. But it has doubtlessly survived by being an advantage security to the married couple’s offspring.

A couple with a child is definitely enslaved.

Marriage is slavery if it is slavery. And freedom if it is freedom. Every marriage is unique, most do indeed seem toxic, but there are no concrete or immutable rules. A universal definition of marriage as some proportion of slavery to freedom or whatever is not possible.

It’s not necessarily an issue at all. But yes, I was thinking of monogamy (“couple”). However, it could just as well be an issue in any other type of relationship in which all the partners are married to each other.

But are they legitimate?

A rebellious slave, yes.

Well, I meant “slavery” in the sense of a “slave” from BDSM. Slaves in other senses have in principle not volunteered to become slaves, of course.

Even though some mammals are monogamous, I consider marriage as a false construct. A popular traditional falsehood.

That makes sense, and I think it’s ironic, as it should rather be the other way round: for one thing, the state actually exists…

Parbleu?

So can the relationship of an unmarried couple. The difference is that in the case of marriage, the pledge is made once and is supposed to be binding “till death do you part”; whereas in the other case, it’s continuous.

If such a couple is already enslaved, whence the advantage of marriage? Having to stay together long enough to get each other pregnant?

What then is the difference between marriage and the relationship of an unmarried couple?

You mean essentially, non-legally? Not much really. But of course it depends. There is a greater incentive/inertia that develops with marriage compared to non-marriage relationships, simply because it is harder/more work to get out of it. This can alter the dynamics of the relationship, especially over time, and particularly if the individuals themselves are less self-aware. I.e. they may tend to “take for granted” the relationship or the other person’s goodwill, or their own goodwill, or they may grow bored or change or the other person may grow bored or change, but be less able to act on this due to that increased inertia/pain of change.

This does seem to contribute to a kind of “slide” effect I have witnessed in almost every (with one exception) long-term marriage I have known. The slide is where less and less effort and conscious intention/goodwill is being put into and gotten out of the relationship, and it tends over time to becomes just a kind of crutch or “given” element that causes at least as much pain/chaos as pleasure/order. But of course that can also happen in non-marriage longer-term relationships, too. Really it comes down to the quality of the individuals themselves.

In other words, marriage is a secondary issue only. The primary issue is always the individuals themselves.

Actually, I did not necessarily mean non-legally, and in fact your answer confirms my suspicion that the essential difference be the legal difference. So then there are “concrete or immutable rules”: namely, laws.

Fair enough.

Better taxes, and the latter becomes a defacto marriage in many states if you cohabitate but with less benefits. Another difference is to dissolve the marriage you have to convince someone this is the right move. This is getting easier. The marriage also has a formal ritualized aspect, generally in front of family and friends.

I would go further and say that the slide effect is endemic to Everything. People fade, lose passion, get into ruts, stop challenging themselves, avoid challenges, stop growing, try to make Another one of their greatest hits which were years ago. The last example is there as a metaphor, but also literally in relation to famous people who are creative in some way. Some do manage to grow and create, but many fade or become parodies of themselves. Various kinds of self-abuse including overuse of drugs play a role in this and then the destructive being in the public Eye type stuff also. But there seems to be this lunge for the Life raft never make Another decision if possible pattern with homo sapiens. That this plays out in marriage need not be a criticism of marriage.

Slavery, slaves, slaved brings about thoughts of evil and wrong. Is being enslaved by some ideas, ideals or thoughts always bad ? No. In certain cases such as marriage it can be beneficial to those involved just as it can be harmful.

One might say that the employer is slave to the worker, and vice versa. After all, the employer needs work done and the worker needs a paycheck… so they’re tied inescapably to one another.
Or that the listener is slave to the speaker, and vice versa. It’s rude to walk away when someone is speaking, or to ignore someone who asks you a question.

In these sorts or “non-literal” senses we are all slaves to one another. The unmarried couple as much as anyone else.

In terms or real slavery, however, I don’t see the analogous parallels. In today’s world, divorce is far too common; and even when marriage was forever, there was still plenty of room for compromise. As part of this, the woman was typically the ‘master’ inside the house. Within limits (such as what could be afforded) she chose what happened in the house… and even today we still see the remnant of this (although it’s not nearly as obvious as it once was) for when a man and a woman get married (or even move in together) it is more typical (I suspect) for the woman to chose which things stay and which things go. Hollywood doesn’t always reflect reality very well, be we see it in movies all the time where the man wants to keep his lamp or his chair, and the woman says NO! It’s ugly. All the man wants to keep is one lousy remnant from his former life and she feels it’s her right to trump him. Conversely, the man was the master outside of the actual house. He worked the fields and voted in politics and so forth.

So even then, while one might suggest there was a slave-master relationship, it was typically reciprocal in nature, with each side having mastery in only a limited area of daily living. Today, those limited areas of mastery have been greatly blurred, and (in many cases) the marriage union is no more permanent than the unmarried union. The unmarried couple are more likely to live separately. But other than that, I don’t see any particular increase in the [slavery] analogy for a married couple. Each is free, at any point, to make decisions–although there can be repercussions for those decisions. But that’s equally true for any 'cooperative union". The worker or the employer can do lots of things, but some of those things will get you fired or sued. And others will just make the working environment less enjoyable or productive, etc. Which will encourage one party or the other to explore other union options. Marriage is essentially the same. It’s no more slavery than any number of other human interactions.

So yeah. I have a better idea of what you mean now.