Ownership pt2

Yesterday's talk about ownership was just the tip of the iceberg. That talk was about things. This one is much more controversial because it is about people.

Think for just a moment, about all of the parents that you know. Think of all the children that they have had and all the stories they have told you. Now have you ever heard even a single tale about a child who left the womb in chains?

Of course you haven't because we are not born with ankle weights, handcuffs or collars. All men, and by men I mean people, are born free. We are not born into slavery, servitude or ownership. We are each our own person. And it is for each of us to decide what we do with our lives and how we live it. 

No man has the right to put a collar around your neck, unless you give him that right. No man has the right to make you his slave. No man has the right to claim ownership of you no matter who you are. No man can force you to do a thing that you truly do not want to do. You can simply say no. Or find a way to leave the circumstance. Or fight to assert your freedom, which may mean either your death or theirs. But choosing to live in servitude is far worse than dying free.

Slavery is an illusion. It isn't real. One man can not own another. One man can only tell another person what to do for as long as that person is willing to be told what to do and not one moment longer. When we make a different choice, one way or another, we become free.

Yet we do it all the time. We claim ownership of others and act as if it true. We as people, jealously guard the relationships we have and do our best to prevent others from taking those people away from us, without even asking said person what it is that they want. This is my wife, my brother, my friend. We feel some need to apply ownership to every relationship we have. But it isn't real.

My brother isn't mine. I don't own him. We happen to have the same mother and share some genetic traits and that is as far as it goes. There is no claim that I can make on his life other than that we are related. Anything else is only true in so much as he allows it to be.

As for my friends, they are not really mine either. They are free to make their own choices and live their own lives. We associate because we agree on most points and are not tremendous asshats to one another when we don't agree. But if I were to start consistently treating them like garbage, they would move on and be friends with other people.

Now for the big one. Marriage. It is a contract that exists between two or more(in the case of polygamy) individuals. And despite the religious,social, and political viewpoints and all of the varied specific wordings, a marriage is simply a promise for two people to be together until they no longer wish to be.

We may not want that to be true. But it is. Otherwise there would not be a word in our language for the concept of divorce.