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Birth out of wedlock

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Zoso

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I just had a false pregnancy scare with my girlfriend. We would have been alright if she had actually been pregnant, but we were worried because of the social stigma placed on children conceived out of wedlock. We are planning to be married, though we aren't officially engaged, and this would have caused us to get married considerably earlier than we had planned. What are your views on the social stigma placed on unmarried parents?

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For the most part those stigmas are based off of religious doctrine. Most people that believe in that as a stigma these days are the type of people you shouldn't care what their option is on anything.

If you can pay for the child and care for the child and educate the child then go for it. Ignore what the brain-dead masses think about such things.

I cannot speak and will not speak for anybody else on this board but I say you should not concern yourself with this at all. If the hag that lives on the corner gives you a dirty look when you walk by the deficiency is hers, not yours.

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I don't agree that all stigmas are based off of religious doctrine. There is a stigma against having sex with your sister, and though it may be religious it's also just plain common sense, if one doesn't want to live in a society with dim-witted inbred individuals.

I think that stigmas are useful for society, if unpleasant for the one incurring the stigma. Having large numbers of children born out of wedlock is a serious problem for a society (just look at stats), and society (and the individuals who comprise it), has a vested interest in its own stability.

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I don't agree that all stigmas are based off of religious doctrine. There is a stigma against having sex with your sister, and though it may be religious it's also just plain common sense, if one doesn't want to live in a society with dim-witted inbred individuals.

I think that stigmas are useful for society, if unpleasant for the one incurring the stigma. Having large numbers of children born out of wedlock is a serious problem for a society (just look at stats), and society (and the individuals who comprise it), has a vested interest in its own stability.

Stigmas seem, for the most part, to be arbitrary ethical assertions. If the action is concretized and then a reason for it to be wrong can be found ethically, then you perform the action. Otherwise, the stigma is irrational and you don't have to follow it.

As for birth out of wedlock, I can see no ethical reason why it would be wrong. If some of society places a stigma on this, then to hell with them. Independence is an Objectivist virtue and that point would be a good time to practice it (Fantine from Les Miserables comes to mind).

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I don't have an ethical objection to it. I would just, personally, be uncomfortable with it due to the backlash, mainly from our families. We were thinking we would get married before the actual baby was born, but that doesn't change the pre-marital conception. And, since her family is Catholic, that would be a bad thing.

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I don't agree that all stigmas are based off of religious doctrine. There is a stigma against having sex with your sister...

You misunderstand what i wrote, maybe it was poorly worded, but what i said was:

For the most part those stigmas are based off of religious doctrine
Those, meaning the stigmas attached to children out of wedlock. The stigmas about your sister are unrelated, and are good ideas although the messenger is bad.

Having large numbers of children born out of wedlock is a serious problem for a society (just look at stats)

Again, i said:

If you can pay for the child and care for the child and educate the child then go for it.
If these conditions are met then society should have no problem. I would also point out that your stats are based mostly off of lazy welfare recipients and not real working people.

Zoso:

I don't have an ethical objection to it. I would just, personally, be uncomfortable with it due to the backlash, mainly from our families. We were thinking we would get married before the actual baby was born, but that doesn't change the pre-marital conception. And, since her family is Catholic, that would be a bad thing.

I understand your concerns, but at some point you have to stop caring about what the irrational people in society say about things and do what is right for you. Even if those people are your own parents. Personally i don't listen to anything (philosophically speaking) that my parents say anymore. They are both irrational monsters who's own contradictions will destroy them one day. But i still love them as my parents.

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I don't have an ethical objection to it.  I would just, personally, be uncomfortable with it due to the backlash, mainly from our families.  We were thinking we would get married before the actual baby was born, but that doesn't change the pre-marital conception.  And, since her family is Catholic, that would be a bad thing.

Be uncomfortable about it because of what you think about it, not because of what you think someone else will think about it. If that is the way you two are going to approach things, I would simply ask the family for formal rules to follow.

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What are your views on the social stigma placed on unmarried parents?

:santa:

On this side of the Atlantic, this questioning seems silly. Outside traditional catholic circles, living together without being married is viewed as quite normal. In fact most unmarried couples would say something like " we don't need a piece of paper to be certain of our love".

With babies, there's just the extra some extra hassle at the town hall. First the mother has to go to population and declare she has given birth to an infant named XYZ and then the father has to go to say he considers the baby as his son.

I think if you do the necessary stuff so you are legally considered the baby's father it's OK. It means you will help your girl friend with your child, even if you brake up later.

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Sorry, I was semi doing it on purpose (to illustrate the point).  I hope I didn't hurt anybody who read my post.  :santa:

It stung a bit, but I'll be fine. :D

Zoso, you can worry about it on the level that your families will be a hassle. But remember that they are Catholic and quite irrational so don't worry about it on any deeper of a level. So long as you both love each other and have let each other know, then I don't see an ethical issue in not having a formal legal document to that effect.

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Well, first of all, she isn't really my fiancee yet...probably will be sometime this summer. Technically, yes, she is a Catholic...but she admits that she doesn't really know what she believes, but she still believes in God and believes that abortion is immoral. However, I wouldn't want an abortion. When she told me that she wasn't pregnant, I was actually kind of disappointed. Regardless of the morality of abortion, I knew I would regret it when I looked back a year from now and realized that I could have had a child.

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I don't have an ethical objection to it.  I would just, personally, be uncomfortable with it due to the backlash, mainly from our families.

Never alter your course of action because of what other people might think of you.

Personally, this means for me that I will never become intimate with any girl until we are engaged to marry, no matter how "old-fashioned" or "un-European" or whatever else some people think this is. If she ain't good enough to be married, she ain't good enough to be kissed.

So, if I were to become the father of an out-of-wedlock child, I wouldn't feel uncomfortable of it due to the backlash, but I would definitely have an ethical objection to my preceding actions! :angry:

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Personally, this means for me that I will never become intimate with any girl until we are engaged to marry, no matter how "old-fashioned" or "un-European" or whatever else some people will think this is. If she ain't good enough to be married, she ain't good enough to be kissed.

I agree with most of your purpose here but I take it a little differently. I don’t want to be intimate with anyone that isn’t good enough to be married – that part is simple. But the practicality of getting married is not. My questions to your position are thus: You can have romantic love without an engagement or marriage - what actually changes the moment you propose? Love, pleasure and romance are not zero sums; it is not today at the expense of tomorrow – what is your reason for putting off intimacy with a romantic partner, how is it in your self-interest?

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To me, marriage is a contract of lifelong commitment. Granted, most people end up breaking that contract, but I don't plan to, and I want my children to be born under that contract. I had always planned to save sex until marriage...then I was like, okay, forget that, I'll just wait until I'm with the person I know I'm gonna marry. Then I said, okay, forget that, I'm horny and I want it now. As it turns out, I had to wait until I was with this girl anyway, so it all worked out for the best.

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what is your reason for putting off intimacy with a romantic partner, how is it in your self-interest?

Because romantic intimacy is an expression of the highest degree of love. It is a way of saying, "You are the most important person in my life; out of all of the girls, I have chosen you because I think you are the best." I won't say this to anyone unless it is actually true!

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You consider kissing to be intimate?  Have you honestly never kissed a girl?

I meant the word "kiss" in a narrow sense here, and even as a short way of saying "getting romantically involved with by means of physical action." Another way of expressing the same idea would be, "If you're going to leave her, don't touch her in the first place."

Now, the threshold for what constitutes romantic intimacy varies by the culture and by the individual. At the one end of the spectrum, Bill Clinton didn't think he had sex with Monica when Monica had sex with her; at the other, Abdul thinks that a woman lifting her chador would be an act of promiscuity. I have my own threshold; I will not go into details but I can tell you that it is lower than Bill's and higher than Abdul's. :lol:

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Zoso,

Well, this makes your Deism easier to understand: you believe in God, but not a God who asks anything from you (which is what you have rejected), especially chastity.

I'm with Capitalism Forever on this one: if the girl isn't worth marrying, then it's a violation of her dignity and mine to treat her like an object. If you can't be heroic, but have to give in to your animal nature, then that's your business. I see that unplanned pregnancies are a real possibility for you, yet you're still not sure if you're going to marry the girl. I wonder what she would think if she could read this exchange, and see how she and her family are being discussed.

You're a real hero.

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Whoa, whoa...what? No, I'm sure that I'm going to marry her, barring some kind of catastrophe that separates us. We just aren't officially engaged yet, i.e. there isn't an engagement ring on her finger and we haven't started planning a wedding yet. I don't see how anything I've said is disrespectful to her or her family. My "I'm horny now" comment was just meant to illustrate the way my views on premarital sex evolved over the years. I'm glad that I was forced to wait until I found her...that was my whole point.

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