Is It Really Sacred?

Since I listen to every (new) minute of the Dr. Laura Program, I heard her give this monologue recently. It has been posted on her website as a blog post. I still don't see an ongoing blog tab anywhere on the site, but this was tweeted out (by her staff, since she doesn't touch Twitter). It is titled "Respect Your Marriage Vows by Not Shacking Up First".

As regular readers of this blog know, I think shacking up is a generally bad idea; it's almost as bad as legally marrying.

But Dr. Laura promotes marriage and is against shacking up. Dr. Laura maintains that her program is a secular, non-religious program. But if you pay attention, she invokes religious concepts sometimes.

If someone isn't planning to marry, shacking up can't possibly disrespect their marriage vows. And now, many, perhaps most people, who do want to marry will refuse to do so without first living with the person they are considering as a possible spouse. The secular world has made it clear that they see shacking up as a normal part of relationship cycles. Without invoking religion, it is extremely difficult to explain how this would disrespect their future marriage vows. Dr. Laura has tried to teach that it is objectively detrimental to shack up, which I address here. In this blog posting of hers, she tries to explain why shacking up is bad a different way.

If you call anything a ‘piece of artwork’ or if you call something sacred, don't you immediately look at it differently from everyday objects or experiences? It doesn't matter if you're religious or not, I think when we say something is sacred, everybody lowers their voice and shows more respect. It's not accidental.

So, playing a mind game with oneself? Then someone could call shacking up "sacred" and this is all over.

Shacking up is mundane. Making vows is sacred.

...to you. Except that making vows isn't sacred for "second" marriages, or childless first marriages, as you have indicated over and over again on your program.

I think divorce is a mistake. We shouldn't be that flippant that somebody can just say, “You know what? I'm out of here.”

If I recall the spoken monologue correctly, Dr. Laura specified "no-fault" divorce. That's important.

It's the opposite of what a lot of you think, that you're experimenting and test- driving each other's genitals and just seeing if it works out.

People have sex without shacking up, too.

But a commitment means there are going to be ruffles and we have to iron them out together. Not ‘there are ruffles, I'm out of here.’ It's a whole different notion.

Except that people are allowed to do exactly that, and many do. And when a woman has married a man who earns more than her, which is the case with a vast majority of marriages, she gets financially rewarded for pulling that, so how much of a commitment is that? Can we agree commitment to the marriage is in how the people behave, not in the paperwork or even the vows? Anyone can make "vows" and then ignore them, as we've seen every day.

Stanford University published a study that indicated risk is especially high for women who cohabitated, who shacked up with somebody besides their future husband. They were more than twice as likely to end up in divorce court.

Because they don't have a religious aversion to divorcing. Women initiate 70-80 percent of divorces. 

When you have previous shack ups, it gives men and women the notion that they can head to the exit when the going gets tough.

They can! People think that with or without shacking up, unless they believe, because of their religion, that they must endure the marriage. Without a religious principle that says they must stay together, there isn't any reason to do so other than inertia or convenience, and when it isn't convenient to stay anymore, they might not.

They also indicated that spouses tend to get very critical by comparing their current spouse to all the previous shack-ups.

So no dating at all then. I mean, that's the only way to avoid comparisons. And even then, you can still do comparisons about appearances. But let's think about what is being said here. It's basically, "If you don't ever shack up before marrying someone, you'll just accept things you don't like about your marriage, because you won't realize things can be better." To quote a very wise woman, "Haven't you ever seen a movie?"

Your husband may be responsible and reliable, but not as sexy and tall and humorous as the two other guys you shacked up with.

Most wives do think they settled and could have gotten better.

If you are a woman thinking about getting married but worried about divorce, in general, the research suggests...

Again, I explain about that here.

Don't marry somebody who has shacked up. Be concerned about your potential partner’s mom and dad and divorces.

Oh, for sure ladies. DO NOT MARRY ANY MAN whose background, family, and actions show any indication he's not marriage material. Be firm, ladies! No red flags!

There are always exceptions– always, but not a lot. And don't count on being one of the exceptions.

Yeah, about that.

Sorry, marriage just doesn't hold together as "sacred" without involving religion. And the secular culture has made it clear that it considers shacking up the norm. Also, today's legal marriage has little connection to Biblical marriage.

Stay free, men!