Questioning the definition...

So  I never had the opportunity to take social psychology as an undergraduate student because it was never offered during a semester when I could take it, which led me to read some discarded social psych books I found during my internship. I love this stuff! The book I read basically mentioned a slew of social experiments, their results and the social implications that these studies held.  As I made my way through the book, I loved the authors theme (which he mentioned bluntly in the intro) that as social beings, we use self-censorship in order to function in a social environment . That is, we monitor or suppress our true feelings or thoughts in various situations in order to contribute to a collective collaboration. For example, how many times have you had to work in a group setting and have disagreed strongly with a decision, but have censored your disagreement out of fear of rejection? That is the point the author makes. In social situations, in which we all are subject to, we alter our individual beliefs, behavior, attitudes, etc. to conform  to communicated (or perceived) social standards.

Of all the sections and chapters, I absolutely found the research that the author presented on questioning other people's definition of a situation fascinating. In fact, he may have started out with that...which could be why I remember this so clearly to the exclusion of all the other material. Regardless, I found it intriguing! In fact, the author states that questioning another's definition of the situation is one of the hardest things a person can do. This requires rejecting another person's widely and publicly held view that their definition is valid (oh no, how tragic!). I found this confusing at first because it was novel to me, but when the experiments were described it made perfect sense. An example of questioning someone else's definition of a situation could be breaking a social norm, such as facing the crowd when you enter an elevator instead of facing the door. It could be objecting to your bosses view (when no one else does) on weapons of mass destruction being in Iraq, when in fact you have proof the contrary is true. It could be rejecting a well known professor's stance on an issue that is not solidified as a fact in your field. It is hard to question another's definition...it takes balls, cojones, lady berries, possibly a Xanax if you'd like...

This brings me to a conversation I was having with my beloved mom yesterday about marriage. And why I'm so apathetic towards getting married. It never really crossed my mind as a prospect. In fact, if I ever garnered the thought, it was imagining what a family photo would look like with kids...actually, I only think of marriage when I think about what my offspring would look like. I have no interest in having a wife otherwise...Now don't misinterpret me; I don't view women as only a womb and only interact with them for procreational ulterior motives. It's quite the contrary, I view women as  everything else but a wife. In fact, my mother wasn't a wife after I was the age of three, so my view of women as wife isn't as a counterpart to me, but more my equal, if not superior to me in some arenas. Therefore, when I think of marriage in the traditional sense, I think more of the relationship between parent-child than husband-wife. Note: I didn't say the relationship between mother-father. That's important. My dad relinquished his role as father when he dissolved his role as husband, which is cowardly. They are not synonymous. You have an obligation to your children. I always listen to newly married couples that are childless and they never say they are a family until they have children. Actually one of my friends recently got married and he introduced me to his wife, not his family...and I would imagine that when he has a kid, I will get introduced to his family.This is my opinion and I'm not mentioning that there are other couples that exist that don't want (or can't have) children and therefore their marriages are husband-wife. I am digressing, let me bring this back around...

Questioning the definition of the situation. right! So when you get married in the modern sense, you get married for love right?Let's get rid of the financial and other perks we don't acknowledge we get when we marry. Let focus on the love aspect. Most of us hope to marry for love. That makes sense to us. Arranged marriages, at least in the west are viewed as barbaric. And for the most part, we arrange our marriages unconsciously by picking and choosing who we want as a spouse years in advance (probably from childhood). So we marry for love and our love is validated by a marriage or some legal designation that allows  us to express our love in other ways outside of sex (financial, legal power of attorney, assets, rights to children,etc). We depend on the government and our elected officials to validate our existence and our experiences. We use marriage as the ultimate marker of our love towards another. As such, our government validates this experience of love and affinity and acknowledges our intentions towards this individual. Our government allots the rights that come along with being with that individual (such as staying in my home, eating my food, driving my car, making decision regarding my home my food my car, bank account,etc). If you didn't have these rights, I would not only kick your ass, but I would have legal authority to have you arrested for being in my home, trying to sell or appraise my home, taking food from my home, stealing or trying to sell my car, or trying to liquidate my assets (deposits are welcome!). As such, the definition of the situation is defined by what our government validates as being in existence.

Here's my two cents: some of the things I mentioned above don't need to be validated by marriage. I can give anyone all of the privileges of being loved without being married. I don't need marriage to validate my feelings or the existence of my relationship with someone. Legally, I don't feel the government should have that right; the right to validate the existence of love, affinity, connectedness and relationships. I never gave them that right, and they will never be granted it. My "bio" father is "legally" my parent/guardian and therefore is granted the rights legally to exercise whatever parental rights he receives. Now, that's what the law says. But in actuality, the man I consider my father and consider a parent is not authorized legally to be my father. In fact, he would be considered an invalid parent, with no biological or familial rights to be my guardian. With that said, the fact that this man is my father does not cease to exist and will never stop existing because of what is legally designated. In fact , my "bio" father never accepted the parental rights and never exercised them.

I mention marriage again on here because there is battle going on for marriage equality. At first, I was astounded by the fact that "one man, one women" wasn't good enough for some. I'll admit that, I was brainwashed. But, thinking about it for 5 minutes I began to see why it was wrong to deny it. Our definition of the situation is being challenged. What we considered a marriage is historically between men and women. That's a fact. But, the notion that a relationship is validated legally by our government is new. I'm sure 400 years ago you couldn't take away a child from their parent, the parent's rights were synonymous with the relationship. Now, marriage legally is the validation of a relationship that is synonymous with romance, eroticism, love, children, and family.  How do you look at a relationship that possess all these qualities and say it doesn't exist legally, so we cannot validate it? We can't. Legally we cannot say it does not exist because we don't acknowledge it. It exist regardless of legal status. It exists between the parties that experience it.

My point is, personally I don't need marriage to validate my relationship to someone I love to the exclusion of everyone else. It would be convenient to legally have my love validated, so that everyone's mother, aunt, uncle and grandmother  would be forced to do so by law, but it would not keep them from invalidating it otherwise. In terms of marriage equality, idealistically the government should acknowledge ALL relationships that we validate for ourselves. We should be able to exercise civically and civilly our love the same way we exercise our love sexually, emotionally and spiritually. No one can invalidate your experience or relationships... maybe a disease like Alzheimer's or a condition like Amnesia, but otherwise no one can invalidate your life. If that's what our government is becoming, a disease that can validate and invalidate our lives, we need to find a cure...and QUICK! I will fight for a cure and I suggest you do the same...I might never suffer from a invalidating disease, but if do, I should be able to get a vaccine. I personally might never get married, but it should be available to me, if choose so, and I should be able to exercise that right with whomever I choose.

I believe in God and many times I'm asked, "How can you believe in a being that you cannot see? You cannot validate or experience his/her existence with your senses"? I always look at the questioner and say, "It's valid for me because I've experienced God. The love that I feel from God is validated by my experience of everyday life, and God exists for me". Maybe for some, love comes in black and white , maybe perhaps some are color blind, but until you experience the full spectrum, how can you invalidate and deny the existence of red, yellow, blue, violet, pink, orange, puke green and baby poop brown? You simply cannot deny their existence....

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