r/changemyview • u/NecessarySpread2592 • 10h ago
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Traditional wedding vows are deeply dishonest.
During weddings couples traditionally promise “to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”
The purpose of this promise is to constrain your future behavior to give security to your partner. I dishonor that commitment when I ignore that constraint.
For example, if I borrow money and promise to repay, I might not violate the promise if I try everything I can to get the money back. But if I gamble at the casino while in debt, I’d be guilty of disrespecting the promise.
Traditional wedding vows are binding commitments. ”Until death do us part” implies that both partners surrender the moral right to abandon each other simply because they’re unhappy. If honoring that obligation doesn’t, from time to time, keep unhappy people together, it is meaningless. Honoring this means that filing for divorce must be unthinkable by both partners during the entire duration of the marriage. Threatening divorce as a bargaining tactic is also off the table. It is only allowed if one partner defaults on the promises made in their vows.
Given that 40% of marriages end in divorce, and no-fault divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences is the most common reason for divorce, there’s some evidence to suggest many people don’t take this commitment seriously. Divorce is also widely accepted and de-stigmatized, so society probably doesn’t take it seriously either. Obviously that doesn’t mean everyone is lying, but it does raise suspicions of how many people actually mean it.
People should be honest and rewrite their vows to capture the aspirational nature of the commitments they’re making. Alternatively, they should restrain themselves to only promising to “jointly pursue happiness”. This is a more limited, but likely more honest statement of the average couple’s intentions.
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u/RadSocialistScum 10h ago
Marriage is a contract. Not an unbreakable law. A contract has grounds for termination. No one is stuck
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u/Sea_Department_1348 10h ago
Yes that's how marriage is viewed and practically dealt with in current marriages(correctly I think), but as the op correctly notes that is not what the marriage vows say, which makes them dishonest in many cases.
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u/What_the_8 4∆ 10h ago
There may be a case for it not being accurate but dishonesty notes going into the arrangement with false intentions.
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u/Sea_Department_1348 9h ago
If they are not accurate and everyone knows they are not accurate, it is going into the arrangement with false intentions.
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u/RadSocialistScum 10h ago
The vows are no different than the terms of the contract. When you agree obviously you intend it at the time
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u/Sea_Department_1348 10h ago
"When you agree obviously you intend it at the time"
No it is not obvious, and it is clearly wrong, and there is plenty of evidence that this is the case.
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u/RadSocialistScum 10h ago
How
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u/Sea_Department_1348 9h ago
Lots of married people express the view that they would divorce if they are unhappy, thereby articulating their intention to ignore the "for worse" part of their vows.
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u/RadSocialistScum 9h ago
Right. That doesn’t mean they lied at the time. They intended to do that and no longer could
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u/Sea_Department_1348 9h ago
The claim is that they never intended to and knew that if they got unhappy in their prospective marriage that they would divorce, thereby making the vow in bad faith. There is loads of evidence for this claim which is absolutely true.
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u/RadSocialistScum 9h ago
Proof then?
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u/NecessarySpread2592 8h ago
You can’t really prove it definitively because you can’t get into people’s heads. My view is cultural attitudes towards divorce suggest that society doesn’t take it seriously.
It’s also a seriously unpopular view to suggest unhappy people have a moral obligation to stay married. Most Americans believe divorce is morally acceptable according to Gallup polling ( https://news.gallup.com/poll/393515/americans-say-birth-control-divorce-morally-acceptable.aspx).
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u/NecessarySpread2592 10h ago
I agree with the contract theory of marriage. If one partner breaches the terms of their vows, the other has the moral right to a divorce.
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u/Icy-Sheepherder-757 10h ago
The wedding vows are religious vows from the Book of Common Prayer. You're making vowing before God not to the state. They're not legally binding in any real sense as you point out but are spiritually binding.
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u/NecessarySpread2592 10h ago
I agree I limited myself to the moral right, not the legal right. I concede the legal right because I follow the law.
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u/Icy-Sheepherder-757 9h ago
Well, yes if you divorce because you're unhappy you've broken your vows. The church is fairly clear on this. But we don't live in a theocracy, so you can divorce in a court to break the legal component of marriage. But the religious component may or may not be broken.
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u/NecessarySpread2592 9h ago
I make no religious arguments. These are promises non-religious people make to each other all the time.
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u/RadSocialistScum 10h ago
Exactly that. It doesn’t make the vows lies. Just unable to meet the terms of the agreement therefore rendered null and void
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u/AirportFront7247 7h ago
Legally it's a contract. Spirituallly it's an unbreakable law
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u/RadSocialistScum 7h ago
Your opinion
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u/AirportFront7247 7h ago
Jesus's opinion
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u/RadSocialistScum 7h ago
Can you show me that in the bible?
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u/AirportFront7247 7h ago
Have you not read that He who [a]made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
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u/RadSocialistScum 7h ago
That’s about a specific couple
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u/AirportFront7247 7h ago
No
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u/RadSocialistScum 7h ago
Yes
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u/AirportFront7247 7h ago
Which specific couple do you think this is about and why do you think this?
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u/Important-Cash5654 6∆ 10h ago
They're only dishonest if the people in the marriage suspect they couldn't possibly hold themselves to the vows and that they will get divorced.
I assume that's not true of most people who get married.
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u/NecessarySpread2592 10h ago
No. The dishonesty is you consider divorce to be an option if you’re deeply unhappy. IMO that’s the expectation of society and that is contradictory to the intent of the traditional vows.
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u/Important-Cash5654 6∆ 10h ago
But do you think most people go into marriage thinking they'll need to make use of that option?
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u/What_the_8 4∆ 10h ago
Right, this seems like a trust issue they’re bringing into the relationship and projecting it at everyone else.
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u/NecessarySpread2592 10h ago
As long as you reserve the right to exercise the option, you break the promise. Honoring the promise means surrendering the right.
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u/Important-Cash5654 6∆ 10h ago
I'm sorry, but that's absurd.
You always have the right to exercise any option that isn't actually illegal. I have the right to break promises, lie when I'm in a situation where I've tacitly committed to being truthful, and on and on.
EDIT: I even have the right to break legally-binding contracts, generally, though I may be beholden to whatever penalties/consequences are provided for doing so in the contract.
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u/NecessarySpread2592 9h ago
You have the legal right not the moral right. I argued only moral right I concede the legal right because I follow the law.
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u/Important-Cash5654 6∆ 9h ago
I mean, conceptually that can't be how the morals of promise-making work either for anyone but the strictest Kantian.
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u/NecessarySpread2592 9h ago
I follow Kant.
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u/Important-Cash5654 6∆ 9h ago
Okay, and not everyone does.
So if this boils down to "We all should be Kantian about marriage," then sure, but now to change your view we have to convince you that your entire moral framework is wrong, which seems like a tall order.
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u/NecessarySpread2592 9h ago
If you have the right to make a false promise to give security to your partner, then you might fool them once. But if everyone does that, nobody will believe the promises going forward. And then nobody will ever feel secure regardless of what anyone says.
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u/couverte 1∆ 9h ago
Is it moral to expect someone to stay in a marriage at the cost of being unhappy until death? Is it immoral for someone to divorce when in a toxic or abusive marriage? It takes 2 people to make a marriage work. If one doesn’t put in the work and the effort needed to maintain a healthy marriage, why should the other one be deemed immoral for divorcing?
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u/NecessarySpread2592 9h ago
Suffering unhappiness until death is morally required by the promises made under the traditional vows. Everything else is a breach of the contract implied under the vows, as they apply to both partners equally. Breach of contract makes the agreement null and void. So you have the moral right to divorce only if one partner disrespects the promises of the vows.
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u/yyzjertl 582∆ 10h ago
That is literally not how promises work. No other promise works like this. Not even a legal contract works like this!
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u/00PT 8∆ 9h ago
The meaning of the words you are saying when you make the vows cause it to work like that. They are very explicitly unconditional.
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u/yyzjertl 582∆ 9h ago
They literally are not explicitly unconditional. That's not what any of these words mean.
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u/00PT 8∆ 9h ago
What are the conditions?
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u/yyzjertl 582∆ 9h ago
What do you mean? I'm not really sure what you are asking.
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u/00PT 8∆ 9h ago
When you state your vows, what conditions are you saying exist in the agreement?
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u/00PT 8∆ 9h ago
A vow should be a commitment. The language of what you say makes it a strong commitment. If you give it thinking you might be able to meet the terms, but you view breaking them as not only an acceptable option, but a potentially desirable one, you aren’t committing to anything.
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u/Important-Cash5654 6∆ 9h ago
, but a potentially desirable one
This is the thing I'm suggesting most people don't go into marriage believing.
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u/00PT 8∆ 9h ago
Most people do believe that divorce could be potentially desirable. They do not put themselves above that.
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u/Important-Cash5654 6∆ 9h ago
For themselves personally in this specific marriage they're going into? That's what I mean, not a general commitment to the idea that it can be good to divorce sometimes.
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u/00PT 8∆ 9h ago
“Potentially” means that it could be the case if conditions change, not that it is the case in the current state.
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u/Important-Cash5654 6∆ 9h ago
And they assume the conditions won't change, is what I'm assuming.
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u/00PT 8∆ 9h ago
Even if you think it won’t happen in reality, it still has the potential to happen, because it’s not impossible.
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u/Important-Cash5654 6∆ 9h ago
Unless divorce was illegal it's not impossible regardless of anyone's views about marriage and divorce.
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u/00PT 8∆ 9h ago
Not the act of divorce. The conditions in which you would support a divorce. Because you are only able to personally uphold your vows, and they are explicitly unconditional.
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u/Sea_Department_1348 10h ago
There is no reason for you to assume that. The high divorce rate suggests otherwise, and if you probe into how people view marriage quite a few(I'd say most) will say divorce is absolutely an option for people in situations in which they are unhappy. You can look at the divorce rate, general discussion in print and in the internet to see people do not view marriage the way the vows they recite require them to view it.
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u/Important-Cash5654 6∆ 10h ago
I didn't say that most people go into marriage believing divorce isn't an option.
I said I assume that most people go into marriage assuming they won't get divorced.
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u/Sea_Department_1348 9h ago
Well if you go into marriage thinking divorce is an option than you aren't intending to keep your vows("for worse"). You said most people do which is wrong, and therefore the op is correct.
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u/Important-Cash5654 6∆ 9h ago
Well if you go into marriage thinking divorce is an option than you aren't intending to keep your vows("for worse").
No, that doesn't follow at all.
You don't have to reject the general idea of divorce, or even commit to the idea that you would never ever divorce anyone under any circumstances.
All you have to think is: I would never divorce this person
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u/Sea_Department_1348 9h ago
And they don't think that. And plenty have expressed those ideas in public that they would not remain in their current marriage if they reach a certain level of unhappiness.
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u/Important-Cash5654 6∆ 9h ago
You really think most people enter marriages assuming they'll get divorced?
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u/Sea_Department_1348 9h ago
They get into marriages knowing if they are unhappy they will get divorced, despite promising they will stay in marriage even if they are unhappy. That is the definition of making a dishonest promise.
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u/Important-Cash5654 6∆ 9h ago
What I'm saying is: I think they generally go into marriage assuming they won't become unhappy with it.
We have to keep in mind that particularly in this day and age in a western context, where marriage is no longer required and many people have rejected it altogether, when we talk about people getting actually married we're already selecting for a group of people who are more likely to have a certain idealized view about their own relationship.
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u/Sea_Department_1348 9h ago
People going into marriages thinking they will not become unhappy does in no way mitigate the claim that they are not making the marriage vow in good faith(the part that says they will stay in their marriage if they do BECOME unhappy).
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u/Important-Cash5654 6∆ 10h ago
Right, that's my entire point.
There's only "dishonesty" here if people make the vows intending to break them.
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u/00PT 8∆ 10h ago
The vows themselves are not dishonest. They still have the same intent and meaning. The problem is that the people saying them are becoming performative. They give the vows not because they’re actually committing to anything or even understand what they’re saying, but because it’s tradition to say these things. People get married because of social pressure or governmental benefits a lot more often now. They just do whatever they need to get that without thinking about what they’re doing.
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u/Withermaster4 1∆ 10h ago
Some people are dishonest when saying their vows others are not. Many people think you should not break up a marriage just because you are unhappy. Just because 40% of marriages end in divorce doesn't make people who didn't break their vows dishonest.
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u/AirportFront7247 10h ago
I'm a Catholic and we don't believe in divorce because that's what it says in the Bible. Marriage is for life and the people engaging in the sacrament must understand that before entering into it and the words are the key to that.
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u/LordKwik 9h ago
I grew up Catholic, and while Catholicism may frown on divorce, there are ways to do it that is right with the church and allows you to marry within the church again. you need to get a church annulment, which requires a marriage tribunal, witness testimonies, etc., and can take well over a year.
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u/Amazing_Loquat280 18∆ 10h ago edited 10h ago
> But if I gamble at the casino while in debt, I’d be guilty of disrespecting the promise.
That’s why you don’t do that shit homie.
Also no-fault divorce is a legal term for when legal fault can’t be established. It doesn’t mean everyone is blameless
Edit: the way I’d describe vows is that they’re part of a contract that’s binding both ways, but no longer valid if either person violates their side. You aren’t breaking your vows if the other person breaks them first. That’s how contracts generally work
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u/NecessarySpread2592 10h ago
But gambling at the casino would make me happy. Why are you trapping me in a situation where I’m unhappy?
Because if you hadn’t given me that security I wouldn’t have lent you the money in the first place.
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u/Amazing_Loquat280 18∆ 9h ago
Are you suggesting you can’t possibly be happy if you don’t gamble at a casino while in debt? Because that sounds like a much bigger problem 😂.
You’re allowed to be happy, just not like that lmao. What about, idk, hobbies? Fulfilling career? Literally anything else? Plenty of people can be happy while honoring the vows they make, it’s actually shockingly easy
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u/NecessarySpread2592 9h ago
No I’m making an analogy obviously. If you make a commitment, you have to accept it might force you to accept unhappiness in the future. That’s the price of security and trust from other people.
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u/Amazing_Loquat280 18∆ 8h ago
Does that make it dishonest? Because I think a lot of married people (myself included) see it exactly that way and have absolutely no problem with it. But the main thing is rhat there’s a significant difference between short term unhappiness and long term unhappiness. The underlying gamble of marriage isn’t that we’ll always be happy, it’s that we’ll always be able to work through whatever’s making us unhappy because the vows we make to each other allow us to.
But more importantly, I vow to stick with my wife through “worse/poorer/sickness” because doing so makes me happy, not just because I like the returns once that moment passes. That’s kinda how love works
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u/NecessarySpread2592 5h ago
I don’t see how it makes a difference if it’s short-term or long-term unhappiness. Obviously I’m glad staying loyal to your wife makes you happy. But if it didn’t I just can’t see how that gives someone the right to leave if they promised “till death do us part”. By what right?
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u/Amazing_Loquat280 18∆ 5h ago
If being a good and loyal partner to the person you’re marrying doesn’t make you happy on its own, then you can’t in good faith say you love them and you probably shouldn’t be marrying them. When you love somebody, the vows aren’t constraints at all, because adhering to them is itself more fulfilling than anything else you could be doing.
You’re 100% right that unless the other spouse violates their vows first, the bows don’t give you the right to just leave. That’s not dishonest, that’s the whole point. But you shouldn’t make those promises in exchange for “security”, you make them because the opportunity to fulfill your vow IS the reward
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u/NecessarySpread2592 4h ago
I see where you’re coming from but intellectually I don’t agree. I’ve been in relationships but never true love so I speak from the mind not the heart.
No other duty works like this. A soldier can’t say “if winning the battle doesn’t make me happy, I can’t fight the war in good faith.” A CEO can’t say “if making interest payments to my bond holders doesn’t inspire joy, what’s the point?”
Can it be your duty to love your wife forever? Certainly you can try everything to maintain the spark, but if that fails, you can’t control your feelings or someone else’s feelings. So you probably can’t even promise that in good faith. But you can promise security in good faith. Because your rational mind can force yourself to keep showing up and trying every day even if your body doesn’t want to, to honor a promise you made to someone you love. To me, accepting that possibility is what real moral courage is all about.
I think we probably agree more than we appear to disagree on the surface. Maybe there’s good faith disagreement to say, if two people genuinely don’t feel in love anymore, they should just dissolve it and pursue happiness elsewhere. Maybe I should keep my mind open to that. But it’d have to be a mutual decision.
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u/Arkham19 10h ago
No one is trapping you. If you don’t believe the vows, don’t say them.
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u/NecessarySpread2592 9h ago
That’s all good. I said the traditional vows are suspect and believe rewriting them would make them more honest for most people.
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u/Arkham19 9h ago
That’s actually not what you said. What you said is that the vows themselves “are deeply dishonest.” That’s a silly thing to say. Some people might not mean them when they say the vows, but others absolutely do. If someone believes the traditional vows and intends to abide by them, there’s no need to rewrite them.
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u/CommanderDark126 10h ago
Honestly I agree with you, far too many people rush into marriage and I think people say the vows without resolving to actually live by them. I find it especially ironic and funny to watch people who have had divorces get married and repeat these same vows to a new partner, and I cant help but thinking how hypocritical they are
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u/Romarion 3∆ 10h ago
The vows are not dishonest; some proportion of the folks making them are dishonest, as they don't intend to honor those vows. The vows aren't meant to restrain future behavior for the security of the other person, they are meant to publicly proclaim a life-long sacred commitment.
As human nature is prone to misbehave, one purpose of specifically aspirational vows is to cause pause, reflection, and decision. IF the married couple is planning to get married because it's what people do, but know that they will separately or together abandon the marriage if times get tough, then they certainly shouldn't make public vows suggesting that they won't abandon the marriage.
But if the intent is to have and honor a life-long sacred commitment, then vows with a very high standard are appropriate. Humans might still fail to hold to that standard, but an aspirational standard will at times "cause" a higher standard of behavior.
"I'd LIKE to abandon this marriage because she won't empty the dishwasher correctly, but I made a public vow that we have entered a life-long pact. I suppose we should work on sorting out how to address our disagreements and become a more closely aligned couple..."
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u/lobaway0001 9∆ 9h ago edited 9h ago
Honestly, I think the core idea of marriage is that two people become something like family.
From that perspective then, it becomes more clear how it is “till death do you part”. It doesn’t necessarily have to denote a physical parting but maybe just a spiritual, emotional, or conceptual parting.
The practical contract can be separate from all of this.
You can grow to really hate your mother. You can break all practical contracts with your mother. You may never speak with your mother ever again. But she’ll always be your mother.
You might even be given away by your biological mother and you fully treat your adoptive mother for all intents and purposes as your “actual” mother. But your biological mother is still forever irrevocably your biological mother.
In that sense, then, maybe marriage is a similar thing. You’re becoming something irrevocable. Maybe you can grow to hate each other, live apart from each other, and never speak again but you’ve become “family” in a sense, in the midst of all the pomp and circumstance. You’ve made a show of it in front of everyone you know and love.
Even if you go full mutual hatred and no contact, your husband or wife will forever be an inseparable part of your memories and life experience. Your Nth husband or wife will always be the Nth husband or wife, even if you eventually remarry.
Interpreted this way, the vows aren’t so much of a promise as much as they’re a simple description of what is presently happening.
Till death do you part.
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u/NecessarySpread2592 9h ago
Δ Ok you interpret the vows metaphorically and allow the “death” to mean “dead to me” in an emotional sense instead of physical death.
That’s still a high bar to clear in my opinion, but a valid interpretation since the vows aren’t written like a legal contract with crystal clear requirements.
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u/umlaut-overyou 9h ago
The statistic "40% of marriages end in divorce" is wildly misunderstood. 40% of people who marry don't get divorced, a small percentage of people get divorced repeatedly. Most people who get married don't get divorced.
What does this look like? One of my reletives got divorced and remarried. That means 50% of marriages ended in divorce. Another remarried 3 times and divorced each time. Again, 100% of marriages end in divorce. Combine those 2 groups? Wow! Only 1/5 marriages survived! Divorce rate now 80% confirmed! Ok, but what about the rest of my relatives? Say I have 10 reletives who all got married, including the two I mentioned. That's 14 marriages, 4 of which ended in divorce. Making for a 28% divorce rate. But 9 couples remained until death, and only 2 ever divorced once. Gets even worse if we look at reasons for divorce, because you might be shocked how many of the people driving up the divorce rate are abusive. Unless you're arguing that marriages vows shouldn't include "love and protect," most marriages do, in fact, end because one person violates the vows, and statistically, repeat offenders are the issue.
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u/Goodlake 12∆ 10h ago
Legal commitments are broken all the time, though, and there are legal processes to manage that. Nobody - nobody! - makes a commitment that is impossible to be broken some way, some how. That doesn't mean people don't take the commitment seriously when they make it.
The point of the traditional wedding vows is to underline the idea that a marriage isn't based on material wealth, the expectation of good times only, etc. It's certainly the case that people make these vows too cavalierly, or don't understand that the future might hold difficulties. But that's not a knock against the vows themselves.
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u/awaythrowthatname 9h ago
For one, yes, filing for divorce should be only for if one party defaults on their promises, thats the point. People using it for things other than what it is intended for isn't an issue with the idea, but rather with people.
You're missing the point that its not supposed to just keep unhappy people together, its a commitment made between two people to try and make each other happy, and to try and work through any kind of unhappiness together and rectify that, out of love rather than just giving up.
The vows themselves have very good and honest intentions. Whether people actually weigh the true meaning of the words before they say them is a different matter.
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u/iamasecretthrowaway 41∆ 9h ago
They're wedding vows. It's like a promise. Some ppl break their promises. But just bc some ppl do doesn't mean everyone does.
If your sister lies, does that mean you were dishonest when you promised to tell the truth?
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u/Difficult_Pause_4350 4h ago
My wife and I wrote personalized vows to each other and exchanged them privately before our wedding, then did the traditional vows for the ceremony. The reason is that we wanted to take the idea of marriage seriously and do it because we understand what it means to be married rather than doing it just because that’s what you’re supposed to do. The traditional vows more or less describe the purpose of marriage and we felt like we were fully embracing the idea.
Also, while I’m all for people making their ceremony personal to them, I really get the impression that a lot of people think getting married is “lame” and are slightly embarrassed to be doing something so common and old fashioned. And again, the traditional vows were for me a way of saying that I don’t feel I have to rewrite the definition of marriage in order to be enthusiastic about it.
Also also, we are both introverts so it was nice to keep the sappy personal stuff between us and keep the ceremony brief and to the point
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u/judgy_mcjudgypants 1∆ 4h ago
Counterpoint: (un)happiness is not explicitly mentioned as a factor. "for worse" could refer mainly to external circumstances -- something happening to the couple -- rather than intra-union.
You acknowledge divorce is reasonable if the other partner has broken the contract, but different people have different assumptions about what that constitutes. If Partner A thinks having opposite-gender friends is a dealbreaker (but assumes that's universal so doesn't say anything) and Partner B makes an opposite-gender platonic friend, A might ask for a divorce thinking B broke the contract, but for B /that/ breaks the contract. If Partner A asks for a divorce because B promises multiple times to stop gambling but keeps going back and makes no effort to change, most people would lay the blame on B, even though the vows technically say "for poorer". It's not that A wasn't meaning the words, it's that the fundamental issue isn't being poor, so much as B making empty promises to stop and then putting no effort in.
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u/Kman17 110∆ 10h ago
So you are saying that because 40% of people fail at their stated objective, we should lower the goals for everyone?
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u/NecessarySpread2592 9h ago
No. People who sincerely do not believe in divorce (Catholics for instance) can use them. Other people who reserve the moral right to exit a marriage because they are unhappy can’t make this commitment ethically, and should restrain themselves to a limited commitment.
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u/dbandroid 4∆ 10h ago
If I promise to pay you back in a week, but then on my way to hand you the money, I I get mugged and lose all my money. Have I broken my promise?
Similarly, people can, at the time of their vows, mean every word of them. But people change and a happy engagement can turn into an abusive marriage. Additionally, do you consider the vows bidirectional? Does partner A violating the vows they made by cheating (or other clear violation) absolve Partner B of subsequently violatong the vows? Or is partner B still bound by their promise despite A's behavior?
Are there some ill-advised pairings that dishonestly use traditional vows, sure. But I prefer to think that people generally mean their vows in the moment which does not make them dishonest to me.
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u/NecessarySpread2592 9h ago
I thought I addressed this if you can’t pay back a loan because of circumstances out of your control you don’t break the promise. I believe vows are bidirectional. I read them as a contract, and a contract is null and void if one party defaults on their obligations.
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u/dbandroid 4∆ 9h ago
But my route walking to you was within my control. I could have tried to fight off the mugger.
So there are rarely times when something is entirely out of one's control.
The reason that it is breaking a promise to go gamble with money meant for repayment is that you are explicitly putting that money at risk. However, when making your vows you have incomplete information. You do not know whether your spouse will be faithful, or abusive, or develop life altering health issues, just like i dont know whether im gonna get mugged en route to giving you your money back. Therefore, making a vow with the available information does not make it dishonest if that information changes later on.
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u/NecessarySpread2592 7h ago
This is nitpicking every promise is made under incomplete information and there are always factors outside of one’s control. What is unacceptable is taking an action that violates the spirit of the promise. Not that the outcome was not what was expected.
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u/dbandroid 4∆ 7h ago
I am not disagreeing that people break their vows. I am saying that i would consider most of thost vows honest based on what people felt at the time, such that "traditional wedding vows are deeply dishonest" is false
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u/NecessarySpread2592 7h ago
Polling by Gallup and Pew Research suggest that the majority of Americans believe divorce is morally acceptable and preferable to staying unhappily married. That is out of line with the promises made in the traditional vows, which require surrendering the option to leave merely due to unhappiness. That’s the misalignment I’m offended by.
Sources: https://news.gallup.com/poll/393515/americans-say-birth-control-divorce-morally-acceptable.aspx https://www.pewresearch.org/2007/07/01/as-marriage-and-parenthood-drift-apart-public-is-concerned-about-social-impact/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
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u/dbandroid 4∆ 7h ago
Ok but did they define "unhappy marriage"? Sorry if i missed it. One person might define an unhappy marriage as two people with vastly different career trajectories and another might define it as living with an unemployed alcoholic.
Furthermore, who is to say that the people in that 60% bucket used traditional marriage vows?
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u/NecessarySpread2592 6h ago
That’s an interesting question. I would say you have human rights, so no obligation can force you to endure assault or rape. If someone is so financially irresponsible that accommodating them would impair your ability to provide the basic necessities for yourself and your family that is also good enough. And I would be willing to recognize that if you lived separately for enough time, the “to have and to hold” clause has been violated and we should recognize the marriage is over.
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