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Comment by tharne | Hacker News Reader

If there's one phenomenon that marks the modern era more than any other, it's the replacement of the relational with the transactional.

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Modern? Um, arranged marriages, child marriages, and forced marriages are far from modern yet they are inherently transactional and were extremely common in the past. Hardly modern.

We even consider it "tradition" to have a woman's father walk her down the isle during a wedding ceremony to "give her away" - representing a transfer of property from father to husband.

I'd like to read about the past 'forced' marriages.. I think we're being led to a mostly financial contract whereas I presume the human context of the past made these things way more emotional than it appears to be.

Forced marriage is the one that is forced by someone and you don't want it. There is no reason to put that word into quotes.

The fact that someone is getting financial advantage from that does not make it not forced if one of partners does not want it.

It's naive to me. Even today you're 'forced' to an extent. You don't marry someone that won't integrate.

I think back in the days kids immaturity was just too dangerous to let them marry whoever at the risk of destroying the family. I've seen that even today, when people are free there are long term costs. 1000 years ago it seems obvious that this was a matter of life and death and picking who will your kids marry was both logical and emotional optimum.

> "give her away" - representing a transfer of property from father to husband.

I doubt you're a father of a daughter you love dearly, or I think you'd see it differently. Have you ever heard a dad half-joking about how reluctant he felt to let his daughter go out on her first date? (Or jokes fathers sometimes tell about cleaning guns when first meeting her new boyfriend, etc.)

There is a "letting go" involved, and especially so when she gets married: someone else will be the first man in her life now. "Giving her away" in the wedding ceremony symbolizes that "letting go" that the dad does--hopefully willingly, joyfully, and knowing the man she's marrying will love her dearly.

> Have you ever heard a dad half-joking about how reluctant he felt to let his daughter go out on her first date? (Or jokes fathers sometimes tell about cleaning guns when first meeting her new boyfriend, etc.)

You're arguing against yourself here. That this trope exists for daughters and not for sons only reinforces the concept of women-as-property.

I don’t see how that follows logically. Feeling particularly protective of someone under your care doesn’t imply you think of them as property.

A more logical conclusion is that you feel protective because you recognize a threat (either real or perceived) to their safety and you have accepted responsibility for protecting them.

I would not be too worried. We had internet dating take over.

As a guy on dating sites it is apparent that love is already transactional and has always been.

Height, baldness, race, nationality seem to be the primary checkboxes for most women, shockingly even your education, work or usefulness to society rank pretty low.

I would qualify that and say: Relations are becoming more shallow and more transactional. Co-parenting with someone is still a long-term relationship, albeit every person in that relationship (including the child) is less close to every other person in it.

I think marriage for practical reasons is a very ancient phenomenon. Of course most people prefer to find someone who is both a good practical partner and attractive to them romantically, but if you can't do both probably better to have the practical connection without the romance than the opposite.

Probably a regression from Judeo-Christian values, where personal relationships and the character required to live relationally within a community are valued far above transactional or contractual relationships.

Indeed, let's go back to stoning, slavery, and forcing women to drink dusty water to assuage their husband's jealousy.

Those specific commands you name were given to people who were from a far worse background, and were a huge step up from what they had become accustomed to in their 400 years as slaves in ancient Egypt. As Jesus says about the Mosaic divorce law, "Moses gave you this law because your hearts were hard. But it was not always this way from the beginning."

If you want to criticize Judeo-Christian values, I suggest you start from a modern Jewish or Christian understanding of the values or scriptures in question.

Polygamy modern enough for you?

Look you can cherry pick all you want. But I've wasted a few decades trying to work through the inconsistencies and woo. Give me some scientific evidence instead of appealing to authority and nostalgia.

You were criticizing certain scriptural passages with what seemed to be an obvious lack of understanding of how those passages are understood by modern Jews and Christians.

The comment about polygamy is along the same lines -- where it occurs in scriptural narrative, it is not condoned, merely reported truthfully. Modern Jews and Christians don't understand scripture (in whole or in part) to be condoning the practice at all

> Give me some scientific evidence instead of appealing to authority and nostalgia.

I have appealed to neither authority nor nostalgia, unless you want to call talking about scripture an appeal to authority. The veracity of scripture is a basic assumption in Jewish and Christian belief, and I'll leave it at that. This thread isn't a good place to debate that topic.

These scriptures don't condemn slavery, polygamy, etc yet they're supposedly authored (however indirectly) by a perfectly moral, all powerful being.

In fact they demand women submit to husbands unconditionally, never teach men, not speak up during gatherings, rarely inherit property, and from time to time act as the spoils of war.

Modern Christian understanding varies, but even the most progressive is still founded on appeals to an authority who claims should not be tested.

Again, it's clear you don't understand the scriptures you're referring to. I'll keybase you if you want to discuss further (I certainly enjoy discussing these topics!) but this isn't a good forum for that.

Luckily we now have DNA tests which are much more accurate for determining paternity than dusty water.

For most people in most societies it always was. It just used to be surplus value extraction from the wife for the husband and clan, and later the capitalist employing the husband. With the increase in bargaining power of women in society extraction of surplus value bacame more two-way and the capitalist class was able to extract surplus value directly from the women instead of roundabout through the men. Hence both partners need to work to have the same living standard as before with just one partner working.

You could argue that in the past a lot of relationships were also transactional. In many circles marriage was more about securing inheritance. Marriage out of love is a relatively new concept.

That was really only true for a narrow segment of the population that had access to wealth though.

A small inheritance/dowry is still an inheritance/dowry. Also the transaction of a woman providing a man with children, in exchange for economic and physical security, is as old as civilization.

Marriage was a transaction for stability and security for the lower class as well.

Poor young women literally had no alternative to marriage beyond a few ill-paying professions.

Marriage was mostly a contract where the man say he is responsible for the kids born by the woman and the woman say she wont have kids with other men.

No, it was actually true of a very large segment of population at least in the 18th to early 20th centuries in europe / NA : small farmers a.k.a 70-90% of the population

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