>>2621659>When marriage was reduced to just an aesthetic thing (ceremony, wedding dresses etc) that's when gay marriage became possible. It serves basically no purpose whatsoever but it continues to hollow out marriage as an institution. Capitalism freed people up to live more autonomous sexual lives, but same-sex marriage came around (as a result of a dialectical process) to stabilize people's lives under actually existing capitalist conditions in which security is not socially guaranteed, but privatized through intimate relationships. Bottom-line though is that marriage is an economic unit and marriage has certain benefits like joint property ownership, easier access to credit / mortgages, stuff like that. That's really what this was all about, and that's also
really why banks sponsor floats at Pride parades. It's not some grand conspiracy to "distract" people from the class struggle like some socialists have been fond of saying, it's economics at work. Like maybe expanding property ownership makes people more conservative by integrating them into a 30-year fixed mortgage, but what banks care about is producing more mortgageable "units" and expanding the market.
But that's what marriage already was for straight couples. The ceremonies which people spend a lot of money on are ways to kind of mystify it and make it feel dramatic and spiritual. Maybe in the Middle Ages the incense smelt better.
>>2621685>The need to care for someone whose body is being put under extreme pressure is what made marriage important. Central to that is sacrificing somethings for another person and I don't mean pitty patter responsibilities (who pays rent, who walks the dog) but more meaningful roles and commitments that have to be fulfilled. Okay but in reality, in the modern world, straight married couples don't necessarily have to have children either. Also in some cases they can't because the woman can't produce children for medical reasons. But that's not really the point. Also there are same-sex couples with children.
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