Everyone Does, Fairly

Some would say that it's easier for us to give such an advice or more of an encouragement to people when you can put yourself into that person and to feel the same. Apparently.

But there are times when I just don't get it and things are way too contradictive exactly for the same occasion, thrills, and needs that could lead to the limited words spoken.

It may because we are really that person. And need not trying to getting us into.

[Moses] said, "O my Lord, open for me my chest (with assurance), and ease for me my task, and untie the knot (the defect) from my tongue, that they may understand my speech. And appoint for me a helper from my family. Haroon, my brother. Increase through him my strength, and let him share my task of conveying Allah message and Propethood, that we may exalt You much, and remember You much. Indeed, You are of us ever Seeing." (Q.S. Ta-Ha: 20, Verse 25-35). 

Despite of all the backgrounds alleged to be the engine; this is not about Gary and Guity, nor me and the anxiety. This is all mainly about getting done of what I've started.

And maybe there are things that's just better be finished.

So still I hope nothing serious next week. *finger finger crossed*

- M

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Mona Lisa Smirk

Last month, The Economist put a forlorn issue on its headline. After a concern on previous rating downgrade, they stopped for a while to such trend in the eastern part of the world before they continued the journey to a matter of current job plan today. A sec stop in an issue of love despair among Asians vis-a-vis the falling of marriage rates.

Something reacted in my face was nothing but a smile when I read the article.

You could imagine a Cruella in me, of looking at her innocent Dalmatians skin, being peeled off softly, or in the other head, how this anti-marriage activist, staring at something going on the earth, which most of them, working properly as her plan, particularly related to what she have campaigned for.

But don't always get so hard to the dark side. (Lemme have a moment for an excuse) I smiled simply because of the issue, it's nice to see how the world pays attention to your mind, an appearance of chemistry between these both that leads you to the perplexity, either what's been discussed here derived from the truth happens in the world or vice versa. It's the time that decides but the shorter thing is they are harmonized.

However there are some parts of the article, notwithstanding its fundamental argument, but essentially left disharmonized, probably regarding their suggestion on how to revive marriage in Asia:

Relaxing divorce laws might, paradoxically, boost marriage. Women who now steer clear of wedlock might be more willing to tie the knot if they know it can be untied—not just because they can get out of the marriage if it doesn’t work, but also because their freedom to leave might keep their husbands on their toes.

One thing seems a little bit nonsense or maybe two. Is it true that an ease to divorce might boost marriage, so it equals to, women reject marriage because of the tight procedures that divorce has? Sadly no, such an exhausted form of bureaucracy is not a big deal for women.

The second one is what about the reversion effect of women's freedom to leave? It is said that the freedom might keep their husband at home, no? A thousand times yes if the husband covered by a fear of women's freedom, but a million times no if it makes the husband blissfully freer from home. I have so much to learn.

Further recommendation: Why is divorce in Indonesia increasing?

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Katherine Ann Watson

Since Pretty Woman had brought her name high, how I love her character most here.

---Wellesley College, 1950s---

Katherine Watson: Since your wedding, you've missed six classes, a paper and your midterm.
Betty Warren: I was on my honeymoon and then I had to set up house. What does she expect?
Katherine Watson: Attendance.
Connie Baker: [timidly] Most of the faculty turn their heads when the married students miss a class or two.
Katherine Watson: Well then why not get married as freshman? That way you could graduate without actually ever stepping foot on campus.
Betty Warren: Don't disregard our traditions just because you're subversive.
Katherine Watson: Don't disrespect this class just because you're married.
Betty Warren: Don't disrespect me just because you're not.
Katherine Watson: Come to class, do the work, or I'll fail you.
Betty Warren: If you fail me, there will be consequences.
Katherine Watson: Are you threatening me?
Betty Warren: I'm educating you.
Katherine Watson: That's *my* job.

(Mona Lisa Smile, 2003).

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Couldn't Think What's the Title That Fits In

Do you know that as the husband and wife grow older, they lose their ability to hear each other? So what’s the point of marriage? If I may assume that what’s the point of marriage if you know that someday you will lose your ability to hear each other, then it won’t be different with what’s the point of living a life if you know that in the long run we’re all dead? Damn you marriage, damn you. And what a poor you are, life.

No need to act like a fucking wise person on blaming me cause am cursing this-oh-holy-life. Human got’s to have a sin and we’re only just a human, bloody ass. Let it becomes my own sacred problem with this fucking god. Is it a sin, of having no ‘g’ capital letter in it?

Your passion of sex, oh poor you are people who is making a marriage just for the sake of satisfying your freaking biological needs and your pride on achieving the most handsome, beautiful, richest, and glorious person in your own little width of life, or your oh-beautiful vested interest to hold god’s hand by having a heavenly veiled wife or maybe a signed forehead guy with a hanging pants. Or maybe a girl with a cross over her neck and a guy who has his Buddha or Gandhi books below his sheets. Do you feel such a heaven on that—uh? Congratulations if it is yes, beers!

Have you realized that satisfaction has its depreciation? That even the utility of your spouse—in doing sex—eventually will be degraded, and not so respectively similar with your passion which always sues you to have it more and more. How long you’ve been trying, to connect a dilemma between a monotonicity and a non-monotonicity? Hard, isn’t it?

I’ll raise my hand when someone asks who the person is over the earth having a difficulty to trust people especially regarding his faithfulness. Even when it comes to my friend’s case, there’s always my sincere pray deep down beyond every suggestion to them. There’s always my sincere pray deep down beyond my excitement on having a merry atmosphere and nice food in every wedding invitation I’ve attended. I’d blow my pray to them. And you may pray for me, a poor me, of being a skeptic on any fucking such a hell commitment matters in a relationship. But we may fall in love without being pro to the marriage, right?

Forgive me on having question marks too much in each paragraph. It’s just an effort from me to ensure that you’ve been trapped for so long in a labyrinth full of questions. That you’ve been considering before turning left, right, straight up, or step down. That you’ve been thinking before doing. I wanted to say that you’ve been researching before deciding a marriage, but it has been remained implicit honestly. Obviously just made it appears in an explicit way. Oh—forgive me, of having a lot of sorrows and mistakes.

This express is my own. Feel free to be agreed or not. But in the end, you can’t be such an egoist long after you have a family. Making your children as the reason behind your deep efforts to keep yourself in that marriage while you feel uncomfortable, that’s just fucking hurt for that children. And leaving your children outta there, letting them become beggars in certain traffic lights on the street, that’s also a form of creating slavery over your fucking passion of getting, marrying, and having an allowed and a routined sex with your past achievement, your ‘old desired girlfriend/boyfriend’. So go and get the answer of your questions.

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Comparative Advantage Analysis: Marriage of a Man and a Woman

When the trade goes into the things that are considered as taboo, yet they are essential for life.

We should know upfront. That I put a word “man” in the first order does not indicate that it is more respectful than the other one. It is only because “m” letter appears earlier than “w” in the alphabet order. It is such an unnecessary explanation indeed, just in case if there is a feminist or masculine (I could not find the exact antonym for feminist, could you?) minds this one.

This writing analyzes the form of comparative advantage in the case of a married man or woman. Sperm and ovum play their respective roles as its terms of trade. Furthermore, we use reproduction cells as the man’s and woman’s resources. As we are pursuing to considering whether the comparative advantage is still valid to create gains from trade in the form of a marriage, though we confine our analysis until the equilibrium of this marriage market. It is not because we could not find the answer, but it requires more assumptions and appropriate condition.

Maybe I will start from the definition of comparative advantage itself. Based on the Ricardian Model in Krugman (2009), a country has a comparative advantage in producing a good if the opportunity cost of producing that good is lower in the country than it is in other countries. For those who are not familiar with the opportunity cost, this is a cost of not being able to produce something else because resources have already been used. So, a country with a comparative advantage in producing a good uses its resources most efficiently when it produces that goods compared to producing other goods.

For instance, the US has a comparative advantage in spare parts production since it uses its resources more efficiently in producing spare parts compared to other uses. In contrast, Indonesia has a comparative advantage in textile production since it uses its resources more efficiently in producing textiles compared to other uses.

When we are trying to orchestrate this theory into the case of marriage, then we should formalize these ideas by constructing a slightly more complex model using the following simplifying assumptions:
1. There are only two admitted sex types; man and woman. This is not a kind of discrimination or I undermine the rights for people to consider which type of sex that fit for themselves, but it means to make it simpler
2. If the two countries in the theory are domestic (Indonesia) and foreign (the US), then “countries” regarding this case are man and woman
3. As only two goods which are textiles (Indonesia) and spare parts (the US) that important for production and consumption, in this case, man will have sperm as his product and woman will have ovum as her product
4. If labor services needed for Indonesia and the US to produce textiles and spare parts, then reproduction cells are the only resource important for the production of sperm and ovum
5. Reproduction cells productivity varies across sex types, usually due to differences in food substances, but the productivity and its supply in each country is constant across time
6. A marriage only happens between the different sex types. It is not a kind of discrimination or I undermine the rights for bi-sexes, lesbians, gays, or you name it. But rather because this is a “common type” of marriage and as we know that the assumption is needed just for the sake of making it easier to be analyzed.

Since there are no other issues about the economics of marriage that I have learned unless the one from Becker (1973), then I am using his theory of marriage (part 1) to support this theoretical analysis. In his paper, Becker stressed that there are two basic assumptions; each person tries to do as well as possible and that the “marriage market” is in equilibrium.

If I may assume that the sentence of “each person tries to do as well as possible” as a characteristic of this trade that man tries to sell his produced sperms to woman and woman tries to sell his ovum to man as well as possible, then the “marriage market” is in equilibrium.

Unfortunately, comparative advantage theory has its confusion. The trade (marriage) will only be beneficial if the man and woman quite productive in facing the competitiveness of trade. The benefit of competitiveness from trade does not only depend on the relative productivity to foreign, but also to the price of domestic production factor function (price of reproduction cells) relatively to the price of foreign production factor function. It means that the reproduction cells of man and woman should be able to guarantee that they may produce the healthy sperm and ovum.

The second one is that the competitiveness is not tantamount and creating disadvantage to either man or woman if the trade happens only based on the low price of reproduction cells. It means that the domestic industry should not be fooled by the foreign industry, or we used to avoid the appearance of violence against the marriage.

The third one is that there is an unequal trade in a marriage. Once, either each man or woman may exploit their reproduction cells in excessively producing either each sperm or ovum. And it may lead to the hurting each other.

In a nutshell, the comparative advantage does create gains from trade but the gain to a man and woman from marrying (doing the trade) compared to remaining single (keeping it autarky) is shown to depend positively on other factors such as affectionate feelings, incomes, human capital, and relative difference in their reproduction cells to produce the healthy sperm and ovum. Or in other words, marriage is not as easy as returning another palm side if you want to benefit each other.

Another conclusion is, since this is only a theoretical analysis (not empirical), so the tendency to be proven wrong remains possible.

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Marriage & Gain From Trade

I am always wanting and waiting for this kind of moment run through within my family. At the almost twenty nine years of my parents’ building of a family, it-will-happen, soon. Strange at first but I do not want to be too neurotic for this. I now believe that every one has their own judgment about what they have considered as their best choice of their life, as long as it is combined by the assumption that everyone’s freedom is restricted to the other’s freedom. So, I choose to tolerate it rather than arguing it and subsequently lose control. As Malthus ever said, that food is necessary to the existence of a man and that the passion between the sexes is necessary. But if I have a chance to imagine that Malthus is still alive today, I would very love to convey my thought to him that no wonder that a man always uses passion between the sexes as “the necessity of their food”. I repeat and boldly underline once again; a man. And I wish that he would not be offended, considering that he was a person trapped inside man's body.

Marriage, for me, is a terminology for every love birds who considered themselves in a well-prepared condition for having a further commitment. Yes, further commitment, and it sounds creepy. It is like a decision to freer the trade or to keep it autarky.

Y = C + I + G, or
Y = C + I + G + (X – M)

The difference of autarky and free trade appears in the value of (X – M). The value of (X – M) or current account indicates about how does the exchange occur within these two parties. If you contribute a lot outside, then your current account would be positive, vice versa.

I believe that a marriage of a man and a woman has the same criterion with a bilateral trade, ceteris paribus, assuming that the trade is only happened between the subjects; any trade-influence between families, friends, and relatives are not counted as well. So, a marriage of a man and a woman is like a bilateral trade in the open economy. If the trade in the open economy always creates gains from trade, the question is, is there any gains from trade in a marriage of two different kinds of sex?

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Syekh Pujiono

Berawal dari sebuah milis. Yang pada akhirnya memacu adrenalin untuk memberikan tanggapan mengenai kasus seorang kyai dengan profesinya sebagai pengusaha yang berniat akan menikahi dua orang perempuan yang berumur 7 dan 9 tahun setelah memperistri seorang perempuan berumur 12 tahun.

Dalam hal ini saya tidak mengatasnamakan sebuah agama dalam berpendapat. Bukan karena saya mengabaikan agama yang saya anut, tetapi karena selain agama saya terlalu suci untuk dicampuradukkan ke dalam masalah ini, tetapi juga karena saya sangat menghargai perbedaan dan keanekaragaman serta kemerdekaan dalam beragama. Dan bagaimanapun juga, setiap agama mengajarkan kita untuk memahami segala perbedaan yang ada. Maka dari itu saya akan berpendapat dari sisi sebagai seorang manusia khususnya wanita yang hidup di negara yang bernama Indonesia.

Tanggapan pertama yang terlintas adalah sebuah kalimat setiap orang memang memiliki hak untuk menata kehidupannya sesuai dengan yang diinginkannya. Dan memang pula setiap manusia berhak untuk menentukan jalan kehidupannya masing-masing khususnya dalam urusan berumah tangga apakah akan menikahi seseorang berumur 20 tahun atau menikahi seseorang berumur 5 tahun sekalipun, atau bahkan pria menikahi pria. Tetapi dalam hal ini ketika kita hidup di sebuah negara yang mengenal sebuah peribahasa yang indah yaitu ”Di mana bumi dipijak, di situ langit dijunjung” akan mengingatkan kita pada segala aturan, norma, dan kebiasaan yang ada pada masyarakat yang apabila dilanggar akan mengakibatkan gejolak-gejolak positif maupun negatif. Dalam hal ini sikap pro dan kontra. Maka tidak heran jika banyak masyarakat yang memberikan tanggapan terhadap kasus ini. Karena selain melanggar kebiasaan yang ada pada masyarakat, kasus ini juga sebenarnya melanggar aturan yang sudah ditetapkan oleh pemerintah dalam undang-undang perkawinan yang menyebutkan bahwa batas usia pria maupun wanita yang menikah adalah minimal berusia 16 tahun. Jelas peraturan ini menyimpulkan bahwa tidak ada pernikahan yang diakui oleh negara apabila mempelai berusia di bawah 16 tahun. Apalagi dengan isu poligami yang saat ini masih menjadi hal yang kontroversial bagi(sebagian) masyarakat. Mengenai alasan yang dikemukakan oleh kyai tersebut tentang pernikahannya dengan gadis di bawah umur, ia menuturkan bahwa ia tidak sudi menikah dengan gadis yang sudah kuliah (16 tahun ke atas) karena pasti kelakuannya sudah bejat. Ya, tidak apa-apa kalau memang persepsi yang ada di matanya bahwa gadis yang sudah kuliah a.k.a 16 tahun ke atas adalah kelakuannya sudah bejat, tetapi menurut pandangan saya, setiap manusia itu berbeda-beda tidak bisa digeneralisasikan sebagai satu kesimpulan umum apalagi menyangkut sifat dan kelakuan.

Sekali lagi, saya sangat menghargai perbedaan dan dalam hal ini pula saya sangat menghargai persepsi yang ada di matanya karena(pastinya) ia adalah manusia dan setiap manusia pasti mempunyai pemikiran yang berbeda. Untuk itu, mari kita lihat dari sisi psikologis perkembangan anak.

Perkembangan anak di usia remaja yang sudah menikah pastinya akan memiliki perbedaan dengan perkembangan anak di usia remaja tetapi belum menikah. Misalnya dalam hal pergaulan. Setiap manusia yang masih dalam batas usia dapat disebut sebagai seorang anak-anak, pasti memiliki hak dan kesempatannya untuk bermain dengan teman-teman sebayanya. Ketika anak yang sudah menikah di bawah umur dari yang ditetapkan ini bermain dengan teman sebayanya, akan menimbulkan rasa saling ketidaknyamanan dan kejanggalan di antara mereka. Lantas apakah ia harus bergaul dengan ibu-ibu yang notabene dalam hal ini memiliki kesamaan status dengannya sebagai seorang ibu rumah tangga. Jadi, cobalah untuk berfikir panjang mengenai kasus ini, karena hal ini tentu akan mengakibatkan berbagai efek samping yang tidak hanya mengganggu kestabilan perkembangan si anak tetapi juga terhadap kemaslahatan sebuah keluarga yang akan dibangunnya.

Pada intinya, semua hal pasti memiliki waktu yang lebih tepat.

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Did Jackie Kennedy know about Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy's affair while they were married?

Somebody said;

She absolutely knew, not only about Monroe, but about numerous other flings her husband had. It is a well-founded rumor that Joe Kennedy (JFK's father) paid her $1,000,000 not to divorce him and thereby ruin his political aspirations.According to many sources, Jackie actually met with Monroe face to face in a hotel suite at the Pierre Hotel in New York to hash out the problem, as it was becoming public knowledge, but nothing positive came of the meeting, as Monroe was convinced she would become the next First Lady.When the Democratic National Committee asked Monroe to sing her famous rendition of "Happy Birthday" to the President at Madison Square Garden, Jackie refused to attend and instead stayed in the Virginia countryside with her children rather than being publicly humiliated in front of thousands of people.Incidentally, almost the entire Kennedy family also knew of the affair. A letter exists from his sister Jean to Marilyn in which she says she has heard that her brother and Marilyn "are the new item."

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