@Augustus_McCrae I saw your comment on the other thread. Just to be clear this is what I said:
I'm going to explain the comment so the board can better understand WHY a woman would hold this view. I realize there will be flaming and gnashing of teeth about what I am about to say, and that's OK. Not everything that serves a man's agenda serves a traditionally minded woman's agenda.
Don't miss the second part of the comment, this is VERY old school and was espoused by my grandmother. Let me explain why. The way I was raised was that sex was reserved for marriage, and that dating was for the express purpose of life mate selection.
I was further raised that if a man was not interested in marriage that a woman is foolish to stick around because she is then wasting her time on a man who isn't planning to marry her and as such she is foolish to be exclusive (e.g. not open to other suitors) with someone who isn't serious about her as a life partner. That is why you have marriage VOWS. You are publicly vowing to be committed/exclusive. You don't do that in any other relationship because no other relationship agreement is that formal with formal expectations. That is an extremely conservative view.
So just understand the context.
Also, that type of arrangement is typical for a young woman who plans to be married and have her husband's children and build a family. There are still virgins out there who will not give up sex until the wedding night. Emotionally it is foolish for a woman to give up her body without commitment because then she is open to emotional hurt and the damage associated with it. Think of it this way...My grandmother and my mother-in-law and my mother, who all married as virgins, never went through the heavy emotional hurt of a breakup where they were sexually intimate with a man and then dumped or left. My mother had other issues so I'm not going to include her because she was screwed up in other ways, but I know numerous older (elderly now) women who would tell a young lady the same thing...namely that
if a man isn't willing to put a ring on it, you need to have your eyes open for someone else, because the current man doesn't like you well enough.
From a woman's perspective (especially a marriage/family minded/traditional woman) this is actually excellent advice. How many women end up in 4 year and 5 year relationships with men who are never planning to marry and these women end up wasting years of their reproductive potential with men who are enjoying them sexually but do not plan to marry them? Plenty.
Marriage is a different level of commitment. It just IS. It is the election for the woman to say I will bear your children (which is still physically hazardous to a woman in a very real way - can be incapacitating or deadly - its a serious risk for mother and baby), and it is two people saying legally and publicly that they are now a family. Traditionally after marriage the couple resides together, the woman changes her legal name, the "two become one".
Obviously modern society has blurred the lines from what was typical in my grandmother's day. In my grandmother's day young people got married young and didn't date for years and years because the man wanted sex and had to get married to get it. Except in very conservative societies those days are largely gone. Women give out sex freely and living together is common without marriage.
Hopefully that explains the rationale behind the comment. I think there are still women who are raised with traces of what my granny believed running around, and many of you here have been dumped after a while by a woman who wants marriage/family because you weren't going in that direction.
For someone like me, things change because the child bearing phase of life is over and my priorities are different. But I am raising my daughters to understand what my grandmother taught me. There are still men around who want a traditional wife & family and few young women who understand the value that confers to a man. So I see both ends of the spectrum up close and personal.
Now if you Augustus have arrived at an arrangement that suits you and your LTR, that is great. Relationships happen on an individual level between 2 people who can agree to whatever they please. Zekko has done this and been in an LTR for over 10 years. At some point I will settle into a similar arrangement as I'm not doing the babies/family thing anymore.
My comment in the other thread is more about how young women seeking marriage and family may behave in the context of the LTR if their deeper desire (to be married) goes unsatisfied. Many of those girls will branch swing. I don't think that should surprise anyone, I'm merely explaining the rationale behind some of it.
