Subject: Re: Dating and other premarital relationships

From: [email-masked] (Subbarao Kambhampati)
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 90 22:25:39 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (RAMESH VISWANATHAN) writes:
>
>Changing behavior and practices must be accompanied by changing attitudes.  It
>is alright to have idealogies on dating and premarital sex *if* you have the
>mental maturity to deal with the pragmatic issues. 
>

Beautifully put! And I can vouch for the importance of such conscious
thinking of it, having seen some friends "devastated" to learn that
their potential partner had serious relationships before. Conscious
introspection, rather than "Jumping cultures" is the desired goal.

However, let me hasten to add that, while I personally am for a
completely broad minded approach to the issue of cohabitation, what I
proposed in my article was a much lower bound on acceptable behavior--
by those standards, anyone who tries to reduce the exploitation
involved in the system (say by taking longer time, going for more
enlightened, and less "automated" forms of arranged marriage) is going
in the right direction, while anyone who tries to squeeze the last
drop out of it for convenience or indifference (as most of us are
currently), is going in the wrong direction.

-rao