The Poor Concept of Marriage

Simon Cowell, the American Idol host revealed that he will never marry girlfriend Terri Seymour because he fears she will do a Heather Mills on him and leave him broke.

"The concept of marriage was a scary and unrealistic one."

"The truth is that you get married and in a year or two, they clean you out. it's just not going to work."

Let's read what philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has to say about this subject:

"Part of the tension of marriage lies in its fulfillment of the woman and its narrowing and emptying of the man. When a man woos a woman he offers to give all the world for her; and when she marries him he does; he must forget the world as soon as the child comes; the altruism of love becomes the egoism of the family. Honesty and innovation are luxuries of celibacy."

People imagine that they are unselfish in love because they seek the advantage of another being, often in opposition to their own. But for doing they want to possess the other being.

Marriage: thus I call the will of two to create that one which is more than they who created it. I call marriage reverence unto each other as unto those who will such a will.

Equality between man and woman is impossible, because war between man and woman is eternal; there is here no peace without victory – peace comes only when one or the other is acknowledged master.

It is dangerous to try equality with a woman; she will not be content with that; she will rather content with subordination if the man is a man. Above all, her perfection and happiness lie in motherhood.

Everything in a woman is a riddle, and everything in woman hath one answer: its name is childbearing.

Man is for woman a means; the end is always the child. But what is woman for man? A dangerous toy!

Arthur Schopenhauer, the great philosopher's view on women:

"With young girls Nature seems to have had in view what is called a “striking effect”; as for a few years she dowers them with a wealth of beauty and is lavish in her gift of charm, at the expense of all the rest of their lives; so that during those years they may capture the fancy of some man to such a degree that he is hurried away into undertaking the honorable care of them … as long as they live – a step for which there would not seem to be any sufficient warrant if only reason directed man’s thought … Here, Nature proceeds with her usual economy; for just as female ant, after fecundation (i.e. impregnation), loses her wings, which are then superfluous, nay, actually a danger to the business of breeding; so, after giving birth to one or two children, a woman generally loses her beauty, probably, indeed, for similar reason."

(reference: Essay on the Freedom of the Will)

We are unhappy married, and unmarried we are unhappy. We are unhappy when alone, and unhappy in society. We are like hedge-hogs clustering together for warmth, uncomfortable when too closely packed, and yet miserable when kept apart. It is all too funny; and the life of every individual, if we survey it as a whole and only lay stress on its most significant features, is really always a tragedy; but gone through in detail it has the character of a comedy.

(reference: Will Durant; The Story of Philosopher)

A succession of sensual pursuits never satisfies for long; one must understand the ends of life as well as the art of acquiring means.

Where the highest philosophical thinking is concerned, all married men are suspect.