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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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Pretty sure very few women ever liked that the right to physically abuse them was part of the marriage contract

Whether they liked every part of it or not, they consented. They could refuse, remain unmarried. The contract contained its share of unpleasant duties and sacrifices for men too.

Are you willing to defend the proposition that it should be legal to beat your wife?

Actually yes, with the same caveats as before. Just like it should be legal to beat your lover in a BDSM game. As long as it's all consented and they can exit the agreement, closed doors, not my business etc.

You're claiming in the past that a woman could instantly divorce a husband and "revoke sexual access"? That is not actually how it worked, modulo some few and probably apocryphal tribal societies.

The romans had divorce.

edgily contrarian

just contrarian, the edginess is circumstantial.

Actually yes, with the same caveats as before. Just like it should be legal to beat your lover in a BDSM game.

Consenting to be "beaten" because you're into BDSM is not remotely the same thing as consenting to a marriage in which your husband has the legal right to punch you in the face, but I guess you've made your position clear enough. We inhabit very different moral universes, is all I can say.

I don't see it. Different conceptions of personal liberty, more like. It’s a very emotional subject. I recognize this position is unlikely to win me any brownie points at parties. I must have picked it up in some MRA or libertarian forum.

I'm not particularly "emotional" about it. I'm just stating things in blunt terms because that leaves less room to waffle. I don't see the right to punch my wife in the face as an inviolable personal liberty, and you apparently think it's an intolerable infringement of state power that a man can be arrested for that.

I mean the constant appeals to the image of a woman being raped and beaten in front of you. It's like bringing up a starving child in a discussion on food security, it's a bit cheap, exploitation movie, less autistic than usual for this place.

But the reason I keep bringing it up is because those are the logical implications that you don't want to pursue. If we were talking about food security and someone was proposing policies that would, in fact, result in starving children, it would not be cheap or exploitative to ask if the other person has considered this and is really willing to stand by it. You want to talk in abstract terms about the "marital contract" and "implied consent" and you keep insisting that "back in the days of our ancestors they didn't need the state interfering with private marital relationships." If that is really how you feel, fair enough, but to be clear, yes, you're saying you're fine with spouses being beaten and raped, and you don't think the law should intervene. That's not some edge case or hypothetical.

In my scenario, she is also not beaten and raped. Husband is confused by the refusal, she divorces if he persists, everyone lives happily ever after. Unless I guess she wants to continue, in which case, I bow to her will.

The guy who shows up in the food security discussion and accuses his opponents of wanting starving children is a terrible debater, and there's millions of them on reddit.

In my scenario, she is also not beaten and raped. Husband is confused by the refusal, she divorces if he persists, everyone lives happily ever after. Unless I guess she wants to continue, in which case, I bow to her will.

Your scenario assumes reasonable, non-abusive people. What about the scenario where the husband does not back off, confused, but decides to use force? I don't know why you keep insisting "But you see, your lurid scenario wouldn't happen because in my world, people don't do that."

The guy who shows up in the food security discussion and accuses his opponents of wanting starving children is a terrible debater, and there's millions of them on reddit.

Yeah, but that's not what's happening here. What's happening here is you're saying "I propose policy X," and I say "Policy X will have a predictable consequence Y, is that really what you're in favor of?" And you respond with "Why do you keep bringing up Y?! That's cheap and exploitative!"

Okay, let's assume the husband is the absolute worst, and the wife is wonderful. DIVORCE is the end of that scenario in my argument, not beatings and rapes. For you it's JAIL, and this apparently means we have completely incompatible moralities, and I'm responsible for rapes somehow. Yet the same number of rapes happened in both scenarios.

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