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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyandry
On Fri, 9 Mar 2007, Eva Revesz wrote:
> Dad,
> I enjoyed rereading your marriage talk, and I think you are right on the mark
> with your notion that a sense of humor is vital in a long-lasting
> relationship. But I would like to quibble with a point or two:
>
> 1) What past civilization(s) do you know of in which the women were
> polygamous? Give concrete examples.
> 2) The notion that you could be in love with more than one woman at a time
> is, I think, a contradiction of terms. One can certainly "love" more than
one
> person at a time (both emotionally and sexually), but the pysiological
> condition of being "in love" is only possible with one person at a time. If
> you can't relate to what I'm talking about, then you've never really been in
> love. In any case, it's a lot more than a sexual attraction, to which you
> seem to be reducing the phenomenon of love in your talk. That's what I have
a
> problem with, and I believe Shirley didn't like the talk for the same
> reason.
>
> Love,
> Trixie
>
>
>> From: Daniel Reeves
>> To: improvetheworld Æ umich.edu, reeves-hayos Æ umich.edu,
>> reeves-kalkman Æ umich.edu
>> Subject: Grandpa Andrew's Reflections on Marriage
>> Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2007 00:24:34 -0500 (EST)
>>
>> By popular demand:
>>
>> REFLECTIONS ON MARRIAGE
>>
>> Dear Bethany, Dear Danny,
>> Ladies and Gentlemen:
>>
>> My assignment for today is to give you some reflections on the marriage
>> institution and to tell you what makes successful ones. The task is both
>> ridiculously easy and impossibly difficult. I suppose I was chosen for this
>> honor because, at least on the bridegroom's side, I seem to be the most
>> experienced person on the subject -- having had in my life two marriages ,
>> and I certainly learned a lot along the way. To the question there is the
>> conventional answer, the sanctimonious answer, the frivolous answer, the
>> long answer and the short answer. I shall not bore you with the first four
>> because you can read plenty of that kind of advice in marriage manuals,
>> homily collections, and even on the Internet. Before I proceed to the last
>> option, namely the short answer, let me give you some personal
>> reminiscences.
>>
>> Between my ages of 13 and 14, puberty crashed down on me like a ton of
>> bricks. Ever since that age (with "time out" during life crises with the
>> Nazis, Communists, and so forth) I was constantly in love, frequently with
>> more than one girl at a time, and in a highly theoretical sense
>> (recognizing the practical difficulties) I really wanted them all. I almost
>> felt personally insulted when they started marrying others. What a waste of
>> natural resources to let my virility go unused! Or even only to be
>> restricted to just one partner! As I started to reflect on marriage I was
>> astounded that Humankind should choose for itself such an imperfect
>> institution. The limitations it imposed were counter-instinctive, and in
>> conflict with the lifestyle of our own ancestors as attested in the Bible .
>> What's more, some modern religions have continued to endorse several wives
>> for one man.
>>
>> Before I could run too far with these sentiments, my sense of fairness
>> kicked in. What's fair for the gander is fair for the goose, and if several
>> wives are OK for one man, why not several husbands for one woman? Indeed ,
>> that too had been tried by Humankind and became the dominant paradigm in
>> certain civilizations. The combination of the two ideas finally suggested
>> extended free-sex communities with carefully matched membership, and
>> child-rearing chores delegated to trained specialists. In my young years I
>> was dreaming of Utopian systems of that sort and actually witnessed the
>> formation of one, in post-war Hungary, on an informal and free mutual
>> consent basis. The experiment survived not even one year. The interpersonal
>> difficulties multiplied exponentially with the size of the group, and the
>> community broke up just about at the time when the first children were
>> born, amongst mutual recriminations, furious hostilities, and yearning for
>> the warmth of the intimate family. I suppose, going back all the way to the
>> beginnings of our species in the Ice Ages and before, all Humankind was
>> once a global free-sex community and it broke up into individual family
>> units because that suited the genuine requirements of human life, and
>> specifically the emotional well-being of the offspring, better. It is an
>> accommodation that we must make for the sake of the next generation. I hope
>> that we are not on the threshold of reinventing the wheel by going through
>> the whole cycle once more.
>>
>> So, the "nucular family", if I may be permitted to use the expression of
>> our beloved President, is the societal form we are stuck with, and I do not
>> pretend that it is an institution free from problems. But the problems are
>> manageable and smart people find out early what kind of management suits
>> their temperaments best. Now I come to the short answer to the question
>> asked in the preamble and tell you what has worked with Shirley and me,
>> during all these thirty years: it was, and still is, A SENSE OF HUMOR. We
>> can laugh at each others' faults; occasionally, when we are really mad at
>> each other, we impersonate two stags locking horns (I hope mine are only
>> imaginary) and push each other a few steps back and forth,
>> forehead-to-forehead. This way the anger subsides faster and we NEVER
>> (well, hardly ever) carry any ill feelings to the dinner table or to bed =2E
>> In the early days, when I was trying to characterize Shirley to my friends ,
>> I would say, in her presence, "The trouble with Shirley is that she has her
>> own opinion on everything." When she reminisces about our first year
>> together, she relates an occasion when we talked about a common
>> acquaintance whom she characterized as a "dingbat". I was unfamiliar with
>> the expression and asked her to explain it. "Well, it's kind of like a
>> blind-flying bat, bumping into everything, or making a mess of everything ."
>> Later she asked me: "What did you call that kind of a person before you
>> learned the word Dingbat?" and I said: "I never needed that word until I
>> met you."
>>
>> I guess some people would regard that kind of joking offensive but we
>> learned to enjoy, and even mutually develop, each other's humor. That is
>> what I recommend to you, Bethany and Danny, and your marriage will be
>> long-lasting and happy.
>>
>> * * * * * *
>>
>> Andrew L. Reeves
>> 17 February 2007
>>
>> --
>> http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves - - search://"Daniel Reeves"
>
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