Traditional Family Values

[BillyShakes]

I never really gave the term "traditional family values" much thought before the 2004 election. At that time it was in the news repeated because "Teh Gayz" Threaten it.

But think about about that phrase for more than just one second. It sounds nice but doesn't hold water. Families, throughout history have taken many, many, many different shapes and sizes. Ranging from One man for one woman, One man for many women (my favorite), one woman for many men, one man for one woman with many men on the side.

Love and Sex traditionally also have a much different role than historically speaking. In the past a man married for power and had mistresses for love. Swinging and orgies are not a new phenomenon that sprung out of the 60's.

Psychologist Micheal Foucault wrote in his 1978 report The history of sexuality that monogamy in a nuclear patriarchal structure serves more to repress sexual desire and control the individual by going against the nature of human sexuality, than it does for anything else (Uber paraphrase).

So where does this "Traditional Family" of one man one woman and 2.5 kids come from? Why do people cling to it?

[Funzo123]

*giggles* 2.5 kids?! What is this tomfoolery!

[psicodemon]

I don't really know where you get the 2.5 kids from as traditional, because that's just a trend of the last 20 / 30 years or so. Ask your mother or father how many brothers and sisters they got and they probably have like 10 or a crazy ass story about the neighbour next door living with 20 under a roof. But em... I guess it's more civilized and fair to have like one man with one woman than one guy and twenty wifes. I guess the romans pretty much set trends for Europe, they did like whores etc but they never had more then one wife, dunno how much children the average roman family had though.

[Fluffington]

Heh, the whole thing just sounds nice for the conservative families.

If anything I am against family values, but yeah, try getting elected for anything saying that out loud.

[TheThinWhale]

I'm 0.5 of a person

[BillyShakes]

At 7/30/09 10:54 AM, psicodemon wrote: I guess the romans pretty much set trends for Europe, they did like whores etc but they never had more then one wife, dunno how much children the average roman family had though.

But the Romans were the example of " one man for one woman w/many men on the side". Roman men loved fucking younger men/boys.

[Jeanioz]

The 2.5 thing is a defense strategy to Free Ocident not be outnumbered by communists and muslims.

[InsertFunnyUserName]

I agree. The idea that there's this "traditional family" with a husband, a wife, two kids, a dog, and a white picket fence is not true for a lot of people and cultures. That's not traditional, that new. That's only a new thing that sprung up in the last 200 or so years and even still, it's not as common as it's portrayed to be.

We have divorces, we have unhappy marriages, we have kids being raised by other family members because their parents have died or have taken off, etc.

In fact, if we were to get technical, the "traditional" family is a polygamist one.

Wait.. oh god, this is going to turn into a gay rights thread, isn't it? Ew.

[Eoewe]

At 7/30/09 11:04 AM, BillyShakes wrote:

But the Romans were the example of " one man for one woman w/many men on the side". Roman men loved fucking younger men/boys.

The Greeks did it first. As did many cultures before them. Spartans were notorious on that aspect.

[WilhelmTheVampire]

At 7/30/09 10:23 AM, Funzo123 wrote: *giggles* 2.5 kids?! What is this tomfoolery!

Well how many granchildren does the average senior have? Oh horror!

[BillyShakes]

At 7/30/09 11:53 AM, WilhelmTheVampire wrote:

At 7/30/09 10:23 AM, Funzo123 wrote: *giggles* 2.5 kids?! What is this tomfoolery!

Well how many granchildren does the average senior have? Oh horror!

I think I read from 9-10, but I could be making that up