Marriage and children
Overview
Most people wish to have children at some stage in their lives, as humans evolved the union of a couple to procreate and rear a child has been the most natural way to accomplish this.
Often child rearing has been supported by other family members and in modern times by socialized systems such as child-care facilities.
An Izara Community can approach marriage in any way the community chooses and while respecting the host society does not need to match existing cultural norms. Goals regarding child rearing and member happiness can be decided then the scientific method used to achieve those goals.
Stages of marriage
Initial stages of marriage are driven by the excitement of developing a relationship with a sexual partner and dreams of creating a future together. Once the child is born things are difficult but the satisfaction of overcoming challenges maintains a strong relationship.
As children grow of age things become less challenging, the excitement wanes but responsibilities remain, boredom and frustration creep in and the union becomes more difficult to maintain.
From an evolutionary standpoint these stages make sense, the most successful men should be mating with the strongest women, and their children need to be nurtured to maturity. The sexual excitement of the early stages is the mating process that makes men compete with other men to catch the most sexually attractive women, the joy both partners feel in successfully rearing children through early years ensures the offspring's chance of survival.
Once children mature the need for the parents to be together serves less purpose, if both man and woman return to the mating pool it creates greater competition and better evolutionary results.
Marriage to reduce conflict
The animal nature of humans drives both men and women to always compare their existing mate against others to see if better partners are available, after the competitive mating process that instinct is dampened until offspring require less care to survive.
The more men and women competing for sexual partners the more conflicts and frustration arise, men will fight harder to gain power over other men to improve their desirability to women which results in more evil behavior.
To counter this cultures and religions created marriage structures that attempt to permanently remove couples from the mating pool allowing less powerful men and less sexually attractive women more opportunity.
Marriage and procreation inequality
A primary goal of Izara Community is to remove power structures, marriage and children can be viewed as an extension of this, in existing societies the most powerful men normally mate with the most sexually attractive women, this creates a drive for men to create power structures and fight for them.
Women who have more children with more successful mates have a higher social status.
These natural results of the competitive nature of mate selection are manifestations of greed and materialism.
Declining birth rates
Birth rates have been steadily declining, people have more knowledge and are more focused on themselves than procreation, coupled with the perceived increasing costs of raising children couples more often put off having children, many foregoing marriage entirely.
Possible solutions
Allocated sexual activity could be used as a method to counter the human nature of members to compete fro sexual partners.
Allocated procreation could counter the competitiveness to compete for the most successful mate.
At the core of the competition for mates is the evolutionary drive for the species to produce the strongest and most successful offspring, in an altruistic community this is no longer a requirement, all offspring are considered valuable and given the chance to excel and survive.
Being in a marriage gives people a partner who will care for them in times of difficulty, this need can be mitigated by the community ensuring all people are taken care of.
A primary purpose people marry is to commit to raising children and pool resources so their children have greater opportunity to succeed, this is especially important for women where if the man leaves they are normally left to rear the child with few resources. The community could commit to ensuring all children have equal opportunity and are cared for.
Related concepts
Related reasonings
- The animal nature of humans
- Personal freedom
- Greed and materialism
- Sexual relationships
- What makes humans happy