Married: I’ve promised to spend the rest of my life with someone else and
am still following through on that commitment.
Single: I’ve done no such thing.
Chris is right when he says that I " was talking about monogamous heterosexual relationships, in which “committed relationship” is something on the order of cohabitation without an engagement ring." I would also include people who are not cohabitating, but are in a serious monogomous relationship, whatever that means.
I included betrothal, because by accepting "will you marry me" with a resounding "yes!" you have entered into a verbal contract. This does not bless any sexual intercourse you may wish to have, but nonetheless you have given your word to marry this person. Granted, this contract can be broken much more easily than a marriage contract, but it is a contract nonetheless. However, I think it best to stick with Chris's two categories: married and single.
3 comments:
A while back, my mother was bemoaning the current "levels" of relationships. In particular, she wonders how one defines "cheating" for situations in which one isn't married.
That is a topic perhaps for another post, but because people engage in relationships that approximate marriage, but aren't married, when one of them decides to engage in inappropriate activities with someone else, it approximates adultry and certainly emotionally FEELS that way, even though the two people aren't REALLY committed.
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