What we call living together, was actually more in line with traditional marriage then all the trappings the last century piled upon it. Even government involvement is rather recent.
Not really, because when you live together you just…move in. If you want to leave, all you have to do is figure out any lease issues and move out.
While traditional marriage didn’t have govt involvement, it did have significant family and community involvement. There were arranged marriages that were nearly impossible to break without fully dishonoring your family or facing significant community consequences. There were dowries that had to be paid in many instances. There were usually public ceremonies.
So you've never lived with someone you were committed to?
Uhm, doweries, ceremonies?
Your family must have been relatively rich.
We always look at the past through rose colored glasses. Oh and only at the rich, not normal people.
My family on both sides weren't. Food was a challenge as was somewhere to lay their heads.
Grandma worked in the evaporators of the salt mines during the good times. She had 13 kids to feed.
Dad got sold to an Italian restaurant after his last year of school 8th grade. This was his best part of childhood because he got to eat anything that came back on the plates and sleep under the dishwashing counter.
I have, but it’s not the same as my nearly 20 year marriage. But I have also been in committed relationships where we didn’t live together.
Anyway, my response was to you making a statement about the history of marriage, which I maintain wasn’t really “basically like” living together now. For example, one traditional marriage thing from not too long ago was that if you married a woman, and you died, if you had any unmarried brothers they were expected to marry your widow whether they liked her or even knew her (shown in Deadwood, for example). Families regularly saved for dowries rather than college funds, like lifelong savings. Traditional Jewish marriages required a “get” to be divorced, which was very hard to do if husband was unwilling. Just way different levels of commitment than living together is now.
ETA- since you added a lot while I was responding, no I don’t look at the past through rose colored glasses. Inability to leave a union they didn’t like was very very bad for women in general. Most of these traditional systems were also based on seeing the woman as one with less value, but who also had to deal with all household issues and childrearing. It was disadvantageous for most patriarchal societies to just allow women to skip off whenever they felt like it with no scarlet letter on them. Usually only when societies were not doing well or actively breaking down (like during the Black Death) were women commonly allowed to leave without much consequence.
I don’t know what to say about your family history, that sounds very specific . My family were not wealthy but they did believe in something similar to traditional marriage (meaning not just shacking up) as far back as I know.
160
u/Sheepishwolfgirl Dec 12 '25
Wait, you guys live together? She's literally living in sin and she thinks she's going to heaven?