Interesting discussion. I recently asked a similar question about what drives the desire to get married in which I liked it to having a social disease. Meaning, we are infected with the idea that a perfect life includes getting married.

Maybe we expect too much from marriage these days?

Dina
Middle age marriage doesn't have to suck...Re-invent it.
www.ThisMarriageThing.com

I think the real "social disease" is the lack of subjectivity that exists in culture these days. According to many articles I've read on the topic, the use of "we" (inclusive or all-encompassing language) as exemplified in the post above mine denotes that there is an objective standard.

Take for instance the hypothesis that attempts to objectify marriage: "we are infected with the idea that a perfect life includes getting married."

Two problems with this idea. First, it implies that WE (all of us human beings, male and/or female) are suffering from a "social disease." Second, it implies an objective standard on the notion of perfection. As far as I can tell, the idea of the "perfect life" is up to the individual living the life. If a marriage, two kids, two dogs, a cat, and a white picket fence exemplifies the idea of perfection for a young man or woman, who's to say he or she is wrong? Only the most egocentric and inhumane among us would suggest that, yet here we are...

The real social disease crops out of the idea that personal experiences pass to universal truths. For instance, if I've had nothing but bad dating experiences, dating itself becomes bad. Period. End of story. I'll even get studies that back my point up. I'll even suggest that dating is a weird unnecessary ritual of society and that we don't need to date to be "perfect." There's that word again. See how quickly my personal experiences frame it as something completely universal and objective? I'll even start saying "we" a lot.

We (don't worry, this one's undeniable), as human beings, are getting closer and closer together thanks to technology and cultural changes. Because of this, in my view, the desire for sameness becomes even more apparent amongst many people. With this desire for sameness comes a desire for some form of universality. When something comes up that some of us don't apply to our own lives, we objectify it and force it out as an outdated mythology. The same "social disease" ideology has been leveled repeatedly throughout history at things that *some* have forced out of their lives in view of the *majority*. Religion is a social disease, for instance. Now, the notion that marriage is a "social disease" is being floated as well (and not just here by the poster above).

I posit that the notion behind prescribing something a social disease infers that somebody out there knows what the IDEAL "perfect" life is. I would absolutely love to hear from that person so that he or she could prescribe perfection upon us all, turn us all into automatons with "same" values, traits, beliefs, wishes, desires, and so on, and so that we could do away with the concept of individual choice, happiness, and desire once and for all. That would make things so much easier, wouldn't it? And furthermore, we wouldn't have to keep cooking up these weak attempts at scientific and anthropological guessing games.

In short, if one's perfect life involves marriage, they don't have a "social disease" any more than the notion that somebody who's perfect life involves sitting on top of a mountain of money has one. Both are based on deep-seeded historical and biological traditions. It would be easily argued that we all have some form of social disease, but then you'd have to say that all memes are diseases and that, I think, would be a hell of a stretch.