Mostafa Malekian's Revised View on Marriage

Question: Regarding what was quoted from Mr. Ghotbi about marriage[1], I wanted to know what you told Mr. Ghotbi that they did not write down, or, for example, what is the generally unethical aspect of marriage in general?

Mostafa Malekian's supplemented answer regarding marriage:

I cannot state it fully, as it would become very lengthy.

I have said many times that what Mr. Ghotbi wrote is what I said, but Mr. Ghotbi did not write (all of) what I said; that is, out of an hour and a half of my talk, he wrote down ten minutes of it, and of course, in those ten minutes, he attributed no falsehood to me and wrote exactly what I said, though he sometimes changed the phrasing, and because the text has been taken out of its context, it has become a source of misunderstanding.

The gist of my argument is that I say there must be fidelity in marriage. Then I would say that fidelity is a qualitative matter, not a quantitative one. Fidelity cannot be measured by the quantity of my life with my spouse; rather, it must be measured by the manner of my life with my spouse. That is, if I told you Ali and Zahra had sixty years of shared life together, and on the other hand, I said Houshang and Shokoufeh had six months of shared life, in our culture you would immediately say that those who lived together for sixty years were more faithful to each other. Those who could only live together for six months were not faithful people.

That is, it seems you are measuring fidelity by what? By the quantity of years these two shared together. I say always remember that the quality of fidelity cannot be measured by its quantity. Fidelity is a specific quality or manner of life; this manner of life is called fidelity, even if this manner of life lasts 24 hours, and other manners of life are called unfaithful, even if those other manners of life last 80 years.

Because our culture is one that has come to measure one of the most important qualities of life by quantity, and therefore a lifelong life is more valuable to it than lives that last five years, one year, or two months, and this has caused it to assign a value and sanctity to permanent marriage. And then the result of this is that when Ali says "I do" to Zahra and Zahra says "I do" to Ali, both of them have it in their minds that we said "I do" until when? Until eternity, until one of us departs from this world. Just as in Christianity, and especially in Catholic Christianity, when the priest recites the marriage formula, the two (i.e., the bride and groom) must repeat: We will be together in poverty and wealth, in sickness and health, in youth and old age, in fame and obscurity, until death parts us.

I say this is wrong. This is an incorrect foundation that has been laid and has caused people to consider prolonging a life sacred, and they say if a life lasts 15 years, 16 years is better, and if 16 years, 17 years is better, and if 17 years, 20 years is even better, and if 20 years, 60 years is truly a source of pride. Now, when they want to do this, they fall prey to five ethically corrupt consequences[2]. But I was not saying that marriage itself has five corrupt consequences; I was saying that if you want to measure the fidelity of marriage by its quantity and not consider it a qualitative matter, then you will always want to prolong it, and this creates five ethically corrupt consequences for the wife or the husband or both.

Therefore, my suggestion was that the institution of marriage, just as it has changed four times throughout history, must also change a fifth time. Initially, it was polyandry and male monogamy; then it transformed into polyandry and polygyny; then it transformed into polygyny and female monogamy; and then it transformed into male monogamy and female monogamy. It reached this point. I say you must go one phase further, and therefore marriage was not like this from the beginning for you to say it has sanctity (and thus) must remain as it is. I say, what was the reason for the historical evolution? Why did humans not stop at that same polyandry and male monogamy? They moved towards polygyny and polyandry, and then moved towards polygyny and female monogamy, and then moved towards female and male monogamy.

Why? Because the accumulation of historical experience has shown that this kind of marriage has corrupt consequences. For this reason, they want to move toward a marriage that has fewer of these corrupt consequences, and now we must arrive at this historical experience that this type of marriage also has corrupt consequences, and we must move toward a marriage that possesses the merits of our marriage but lacks its demerits, and that is:

Mostafa Malekian's Proposed Plan for Marriage

A boy and a girl enter into a shared life with 4 conditions[3]: if one of the two, not even with certainty but with doubt, suspects that one of these four conditions is being violated, they should immediately consider the marriage terminated; this means that even if they have lived together for only 2 months, their life has been faithful, and there should be no stigma upon either the woman or the man.

Of course, I have said the ideal is that this doubt never arises for either the woman or the man, but well, if it does arise, they should cut off the life; why do I say even if they doubt? Because even if one has doubt, they suffer their own pain and torment, even if these 4 conditions do not correspond to reality. Therefore, all marriages are potentially temporary. (Again, not the usual temporary marriage, because temporary marriages are the spare tire of permanent marriages, where you take 4 wives and then have 2 spare tires as well.)

I say all marriages should be assumed temporary; as long as these conditions are met, the life should continue, and if these conditions are not met, the life should be cut off so that neither husband nor wife is harmed psychologically or morally, even if their shared life lasted only 1 week; it doesn't matter, the man goes and marries another woman, and the woman another man, but again, in that life, they are faithful. So, it is possible that a man has a shared life with his wife 10 times, and all ten times are faithful; is this better, or having one shared marriage that is unfaithful from its first day to its last?

My Discussion is Ethical, Not Legal

Then I would say, because the law must allow all lifestyles to emerge, therefore, this proposal of mine should not be considered the only legal type of marriage; they must say this type of marriage is also completely legal. Whoever wants to, let them go and have that traditional marriage; if a man and woman are content for their marriage to be permanent, well, let them go and have a permanent marriage. Hence, my discussion was ethical, not legal; I was not saying the law should say, 'Do whatever kind of life you want.' All lifestyles in a democratic law must have the opportunity to emerge and manifest, but this too must be considered legal. Now, if after being considered legal, this type of marriage gradually eclipses the other marriages, then one cannot say 'whenever they doubt'! Because law deals with numbers, then my proposal is that every marriage be for 3 years; then, whenever the husband and wife want, they renew it for another three years, and after the next three years, renew it again...[4]

The Desired Permanence of Marriages is in This Manner

The ideal is that they renew it twenty times for 3 years, and I have always said, you and I, who come together with 2 million to invest in a business, you say, 'Mostafa, let's make a two-year contract together; if during these 2 years you were a trustworthy, faithful, and active partner, we will continue our partnership for another 2 years.' Even if I inflict all the loss on you, I have only caused you a loss of 2 million; you put safeguards for your two million. Now, if after two years you were trustworthy and faithful, you renew for another two years...

Then, for a person to come and put their entire life, all their youth, all their talents, all their possibilities and opportunities on the line, and then say '2 years, 2 years' is childish, '3 years, 3 years' is childish. No, do this: if both of them preserve their psychological health and moral virtue, they will renew 3 years by 3 years. Its ideal is to be renewed twenty times for 3 years, but if their moral virtue is not preserved, both of them must be able to be free immediately. Then, if this is the case, those five corrupt consequences will never occur; this was my point.

The Outer and Inner Aspects of Marriages

Our marriages appear as though we have uttered four Latin words in the Catholic rite or Arabic ones, and appear as though we go in wearing white and come out in a shroud, but their inner reality is betrayal upon betrayal. In my view, this is contrary to humanity, and not only contrary to moral virtue but also contrary to psychological health.

Psychological health means that when a woman is aggrieved by her husband, or a man by his wife, she or he suffers; in truth, this person is no longer themselves, and in this person's life, besides the moral problems that arise, there is no longer any joy in their life.

Now, if you consider these 4 conditions, you will realize that 90 percent of these religiously legal, customary, etc., marriages are not, in truth, marriages at all; they are the mental abrasion and erosion of husband and wife against one another, and they are destroying each other, and, as it happens, this is not at all libertine or licentious, but precisely the opposite.

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Footnotes:

[1] Five morally corrupt consequences of permanent marriage (permanent marriage in its traditional form):

 

First, I believe that marriage is sustained by feelings, emotions, and passions, and feelings, emotions, and passions are the most involuntary part of our being. Yet, within the institution of marriage, we want the most involuntary part of our being to be brought under the spur of law, clauses, and articles, and this is quite meaningless and will have negative moral outcomes.

Second, in marriage, since it is morally assumed that one should marry for love, and love is a mutual matter whose sustenance also depends on both parties, therefore, if a characteristic in me changes, or a characteristic in my beloved changes, or in both of us changes, love will undoubtedly wax or wane. Of course, where it waxes, no problem arises, but where it wanes, it means that in marriage, if you act upon fidelity, which is your moral duty, you must continue your life with this person, but this is incompatible with "natural inclination," which is also our moral duty. Why should we create an institution that creates a conflict between two of our moral duties? Whichever of these two I choose, I have a problem. So, let us not create this conflict between the two in the first place.

Third, for the very same reason you fell in love with this person, you might fall in love with someone else in the future, and that love might intensify over this one. Then, by what reasoning can your right to live with that person be taken away? Why should we make a commitment to a former spouse conflict with love for another person? Let us not create an institution that causes this problem. We should not always ask what we must do when a conflict arises. Why should we undertake something that causes a conflict to emerge in the first place?

Fourth, a person's psychological health, the provision of which is a moral duty, requires privacy, and marriage takes privacy away from you. That is, for your psychological health, you need to have a private sphere for yourself. Privacy means that I must, at certain moments, for certain instants, be in solitude as I wish, and this abandonment and solitude is always negated in married life. Of course, the extent to which marriage takes this privacy away from a person varies from society to society, but there is no society in which marriage does not take this privacy away at all, and you no longer have that privacy, and this is detrimental to our psychological health.

Fifth is the issue that you and your partner are only alike in loving and being beloved, but differ in all other characteristics. Now, if this difference manifests in practice, what should be done? Suppose you love cinema and detest theater, and your spouse loves theater and detests cinema, and you want to go out together; this is easy, and if you want to be very reasonable and act ethically, you say, you go to your theater and I'll go to my cinema. So far, there is no problem. But what if it is an issue where you cannot say, I'll go my way and you go yours? For example, we want to buy a house. I want to buy a house in a neighborhood that has clean air but no social prestige, but my spouse wants a house in a neighborhood that has social prestige but very polluted air. Can we say here, you buy your house and I'll buy mine? The problem is precisely that if I want to preserve my spouse's right, I must sacrifice my own right, and if I want to preserve my own right, I must sacrifice my spouse's right. Let's suppose in buying the house we settled the matter like this: in buying the house, you listen to me, but in buying the car, I listen to you. But here, although ethically the conflict is resolved, gradually, psychologically, you come to the conclusion that I am buying this person's love at a high cost. The cost is that I have to forgo my own desires.

 

[2] Five ethically corrupt consequences of permanent marriage (permanent marriage in the traditional form)

[3] Four conditions for entering a shared life:

1_ When I enter into a contract with a woman, neither from my side nor from hers, and a fortiori from both of us, should this contract mean the annulment of a contract that one of us had with a previous spouse. That is, it should not be the case that when I enter this life, it means I have annulled my contract with the previous woman. Meaning, our relationship should not be such that the very nature of this relationship signifies that each party is trampling another contract they have elsewhere with this contract.

2_ I must not engage in deception to create or maintain this relationship, not just deception through speech; most of our deceptions are through action. That is, I know this girl likes a scholarly man, so I, who know no scholarship at all, keep saying, the new hermeneuticists say this, contrary to the German idealists... I talk like this so she thinks I am a scholar. Or, for instance, she wants a generous husband, so I, whose total tips in my entire life haven't added up to 10,000 tomans, give 10,000 tomans to this waiter to show that I am a generous person.

3_ This relationship must not harm the present or future of either party.

4_ Treat the other party as a person, not an object; regard them as a "who," not a "what." That is, consider them a human being, and considering them a human being means respecting their rationality in the realm of thought and their freedom in the realm of action. Now, with these four conditions, look at the marriages of our fathers and mothers, which were conducted customarily, legally, and socially? They are very rare, and those who had them were very fortunate, but where is such a thing found?

[4] The reason for it being three years: Because psychologically, no matter how much people love their partner, there is a possibility that after three years, that person will become ordinary to them, and it is then that the person is likely to pursue matters contrary to ethics.

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Mostafa Malekian's Revised View on Marriage | 28 June 2013 | A Conversation with Mostafa Malekian

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Audio of Mostafa Malekian's Revised View on Marriage

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