Next To You -Care for nothing

婚姻制度的可能
By loong5

「男女結婚，圖的就是長期的合作和保障。」

這樣的斷言會被批評為冷酷無情吧，但想深一層卻又有一定的道理。女性的最厲害的武器往往就是青春，而男性事業發展往往晚年才有所成（請勿霸權思維上身，僅為事實判斷），為防止「陳世美再現」，似乎婚姻作為契約的保障是必須的。而有一些關於婚姻制度的設計，諸如離婚後男方要給瞻養費，就是為那些不守契約的人提高其毀約的代價──結婚可不是說笑的，是要守約的。

現代社會的遲婚現象往往就是人們對「結婚代價」的理性計算（並不排除惰感的計算）後的博奕結果。如果離婚的代價是很高的，選擇不結婚的情侶自然會增多；反之如果結婚是一件很容易的事，那麼人們的擇偶標準將會更嚴謹，「有責任心」、「事業有成」等條件將大大升值；而「浪漫」、「風度」、「靚仔」等條件將會貶值。

同時，我們也可以想像一夫一妻制並不是必然的，可以有一夫多妻、一妻多夫、甚至是多妻多夫的組合。這些組合不是建基於「愛的多少」，往往是由於社會文化經濟的考慮而有不同的方案。試想像一個男女比例為１：５的地方，如果我們規定一夫一妻制，將會出現怎麼樣的結果？當然會有很多的一夫一妻，同時會有極多的婚外情。那立法打擊婚外情吧，應付的辦法就是索性不結婚好了。改變婚姻法使得婚姻變得神聖吧，那麼同居、一夜情等等「替補方案」將會大量出現，總之變的只是方式，動不動以道德之名去斥責別人生活不檢點，這樣的態度才真的要檢點一下。

一夫一妻制被賦予神聖的任務，某程度上只是男女比例相若、維持社會穩定所營造出來的某種社會道德，更重要的一點，是愛的表達形式是否一定要是一夫一妻的模式呢？

有好一些頗有趣的想法，節錄自＜太平洋島嶼的智慧＞
波利尼西亞的曼加阿(Mangaian)人中,「……女孩在父母親的屋內幾乎每一夜換一位求愛者，男孩則與對手競爭，看誰達到高潮的次數多。曼加阿姑娘對浪漫的山盟海誓從不感興趣，只是廣交男友，性交頻繁。性不是剛毅愛情的回報，相反，愛卻是性滿足的回報。」

「頑固維護女貞的姑娘倍受男人的歧視。」

「性關係與婚姻之間並無必然關係，婚姻只是宣告以往性關係的告一段落。」

婚姻的神聖，並不在於其形式化的表現。以為婚姻必然是一夫一妻制才是「正確」的，只是因為他們並不知道自己的價值觀有很大的程度上，取決於所在的社會和文化而已。太平洋島國的婚姻，就不會是一夫一妻的；就好像中國古代一般，在儒家世俗化的三綱五常的指導下，一夫多妻制也是自然不過的事了。

不過我從未走到另一個的極端，認為人對愛情的價值觀是相對的。也許我應該好好定義一下什麼是價值相對才是。所謂價值相對也者，就是一個人會認為其他價值體系的價值觀對他而言亦是無分高下的。比方說，香港的婚姻制度是一夫一妻，而太平洋某些島嶼是一夫多妻，由此結論說我們對婚姻的價值觀是相對的，兩者是無分高下的，我們不應該把自己的價值觀加諸到他們的身上．．．．．．可是，這是一件不可能的事，我們會容忍（ｔｏｌｅｒａｔｅ）和尊重別人的價值。基於我們對價值多元的尊重，我們認為自己才是自己人生的最佳評價者；但這絕不等如我們不會為各種的價值排序。以為價值觀相對於文化歷史，和人的價值觀很大程度上是文化歷史的產物，是兩組不同的命題──相對無所謂高低價值，但不同人的價值觀卻可以改變現存的歷史文化，為一互動的關係，並不需要認定人的價值觀是不能改變，甚至是不由自主早被決定了的。婚姻的不同形式，和文化／價值相對的觀念可說是完全無關，「相對」一詞的演繹，只是人們思考不嚴密的結果。

愛情是融化溝通壁壘的最佳溶劑，性則是最佳表達愛情的儀式，至於婚姻，有人可能不同意，但往往是經濟＋社會＋文化角力之下的契約論產物吧。

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北欧无“围城”
21世纪经济报道　王受之

我们看北欧的设计有一种理性、秩序、功能至上的特点，但同时是自由、自然的，其实这种感觉，贯穿在整个北欧的制度之中。比如婚姻。

目前北欧五国法律规定：未婚同居的男女和已婚夫妇一样，享有完全平等的社会地位，而且都要缴纳相关的税，其子女也都享有同等的福利待遇。如果同居的男女要分离，同居期间的房地产和家庭用品等由双方平分。与此同时，五国政府给新做父母者(不论结婚与否)都给予慷慨的经济援助：12个月的产后休假，期间工资发放90%。此外，父亲也能享受6个月的“产假”，女方从怀孕到分娩期间的一切医疗全部免费。每个孩子每年可获得1900美元到2500美元不等的补助，第二胎的还可再增加18%，以后每多生一个，就多一倍的补助。同时北欧国家把同居者所生育的子女称之为“未婚后儿童”，绝口不提“私生子”或“无合法身份子女”等字眼。什么单亲母亲、单亲父亲之类，在这里太正常了。

因此，现在很多北欧人只同居，不结婚。因为同居常见且合法，结婚少，因此北欧五国的离婚率大为减少。到北欧人家里做客，如事先不清楚男女主人的关系，还是直呼其名为好，因为北欧很多家庭属同居关系，未婚同居率在世界上最高。

关于未婚同居，北欧流传着一些广为人知的笑话。冰岛总统奥拉维尔·格里姆松(Olafur　R.Grimsson)的妻子古兹隆·卡特琳·索尔伯格多蒂尔1998年过世不久，他便在国家电视台公开宣布，他又重坠爱河并开始同居生活，他的犹太裔英国女友多丽特公开住进了冰岛总统府，并陪同他出访世界各国，冰岛人对此的反应就像“每天喝咖啡一样自然”。早在2000年，这对恋人即订婚并宣布最晚年底成亲，而他们迟迟“光打雷不下雨”，迫使瑞典媒体发起“催婚运动”，催促为国体计，请总统先生早结良缘。

而现年62岁的芬兰现任总统哈洛宁顺利当选为芬兰第一位女总统后，芬兰人面对一项历史难题：如何称呼与总统未婚同居15载的阿拉亚尔维。为此芬兰公民、律师和各大媒体开展起全国范围的大讨论。为了尽快结束讨论，总统办公厅发出通报，建议称“丈夫”，但许多人却对此不同意。芬兰一家电视台进行了一项调查：只有25%的人同意用“丈夫”这个称呼，约50%的人主张称“生活伴侣”，还有人建议用“男人”一词：哈洛宁和她的男人阿拉亚尔维。最后哈洛宁和阿拉亚尔维只好登记结婚，平息了这场历时半年沸沸扬扬的讨论。

未婚的丹麦女文化大臣怀着6个月身孕会见外国记者代表团；挪威王位合法继承人爱上了单身妈妈，并成为欧洲第一个公开与女友未婚同居的王子……北欧的优厚福利令已婚者悔不当初。优厚福利使得青年男女感到毫无结婚的必要，甚至还使很多已经结婚的男女感到后悔，这在冰岛体现得尤为突出，冰岛政府对同居者的住房补贴费用及其子女入托和读书的补贴费用大大超过那些已婚男女和他们的子女。因此，眼下不少已婚夫妇为了获得丰厚的福利待遇，索性分居或离婚，这样既可以增加收入，又可以改善生活。目前瑞典和冰岛有一半的儿童是未婚母亲所生，芬兰、挪威、丹麦略低一些。

钱钟书说婚姻像“围城”，结婚以前都想进城，进去以后又都想出城。显然，北欧人没有这个烦恼。

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华盛顿州最高法院7月26日一裁决支持禁止同性婚姻。法庭裁决称联邦宪法并没有给予同性婚姻的权利，各州立法者有权将婚姻限于一男一女的结合。
此判决以5比4票数通过。法官Barbara Madsen在判词中指出州宪并不支持让两位同性的人结婚，这是为了确保人类的繁殖得以持续、并保障孩子得以在亲生父母的家庭中成长。
案件涉及19对同性恋原告，他们控告华盛顿州98年的婚姻维护法案(Defense of Marriage Act Law)把婚姻规限于异性恋者的做法违反联邦平权法，后来华盛顿州的金恩郡及达尔特郡法官于04年判决同性恋者胜诉后，州政府上诉最高法院。此案于昨日于最高法院审理，最终判决同性恋原告败诉。
此案与7月初纽约上诉庭的判决十分雷同。该案法官以确保孩子的稳定成长为理由否决同性婚姻。至今麻州仍是全国唯一容许同性恋婚姻的州分。

At about 9 p.m. on Oct. 15, Cheryl Ways' office phone rang with a call from her husband: "What are you still doing there? Come home," he begged. Ways, a 30-year-old IT worker at tech giant Agilent Technologies, told him she'd leave soon. Then she went back to work. A half-hour later, she shut off her computer and walked down Agilent's darkened corridors. It was hours after most of her co-workers had left, hours later than she typically stayed, and the last time she'd do it in her career.

Three weeks earlier, Ways had been laid off. In that, she was just another statistic in a truly dreadful year for the paycheck nation. According to outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas, corporate America announced nearly two million job cuts in 2001, the most since Challenger started its survey in 1993. Agilent, an $8.3 billion spinoff of Hewlett-Packard, had been hammered not only by the downturn in the economy but also by the downfall of the telecoms that were once big buyers of its chips, electronic components, and testing and measurement devices. So Ways' getting caught in a downsizing isn't surprising. What is surprising is the manner in which Ways left: not by spending her lame-duck days updating her resume on company time or prying the A's off office keyboards, but by working harder, longer, and with an intensity that rivaled the most productive periods of her five years at Agilent and HP.

The answer to why she did it--and how Agilent was able to wring such performance and devotion from tens of thousands of employees working beneath an ax--provides a lesson for all companies struggling to slim down in these post-boom years. In many ways, Agilent had a head start: It had worked hard on the way up to gain its employees' trust. But on the way down, Agilent has also made a series of smart moves involving good management, good planning, and most of all, empathy. In interviews with dozens of current, former, and soon-to-be former Agilent employees, almost no one had a bad word to say about the company. Which is how Agilent was able to slash, cut, and downsize its way to No. 31 on this year's list of the Best Companies to Work For.

Let's get one thing out of the way: This isn't a story about money. In all of FORTUNE's interviews, Agilent's severance--a package that involved at the minimum three months' pay and career-placement help--barely came up. Instead a host of other actions were raised: the Hail Mary steps the company took to avoid downsizing; the barrage of e-mails and face-to-face meetings with top management down; even the tired sound in the CEO's voice as he delivered news of mass layoffs. Together, these created an atmosphere in which people like Ways--three months after being axed--could say of her bosses, "I felt horrible they had to do this," and of her former co-workers, "This was my gift to them: to leave my job in the best way possible."

Letting employees go in a humane fashion isn't just about finding a way for executives to sleep at night. Bad downsizing, which management experts argue is the norm, is bad business. A recently completed study of 18 years' worth of downsizing data by Wayne Cascio, a business school professor at the University of Colorado at Denver, found that while large layoffs can boost stock prices for a couple of years, they don't lead to greater profits. One problem is that while expenses drop, revenues tend to drop too, as the remaining workers cope with what organizational behaviorists call survivor syndrome: the anger, fear, anxiety, frustration, and decreased risk taking that can follow mass layoffs. "Just when you need employees to take risks to turn the organization around, they take to the trenches," says David Noer, an employment consultant in Greensboro, N.C. "You end up with a double loss."

Agilent couldn't afford survivor syndrome. When HP spun off the company in November 1999 to focus on PCs and computer equipment, Agilent was left with technologies that general consumers not only never saw but would be hard-pressed to understand if they did. Agilent's customers were engineers and scientists who demanded the finest high-resolution spectrometers, the best Ethernet-over-SONET mapper chips, the most advanced mouse cDNA microarrays--products that win or lose in the market thanks only to their technological edge. To get out of this recession, Agilent needed employees motivated enough to invent great products.

Agilent is run by three people, one of whom is alive. At the earthly level, there's CEO Ned Barnholt. Barnholt, a 35-year veteran of HP, sports big gold-framed glasses that droop slightly at the sides. He wears his gray hair in a comb-over. He is completely without pretense. When Barnholt, 58, chats with employees--something he does frequently enough that in the past six months he's given speeches to and taken questions from some 20,000 workers--they call him Ned; calling him "Mr. Barnholt" elicits giggles from employees. But while Barnholt manages the company, he seems to consider himself only a caretaker for HP founders Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett. All big decisions are vetted with the question, What would Dave and Bill do?

Indeed, the entire company functions on the premise that it is the real heir of Packard and Hewlett. When HP's house archivist had to choose between staying at HP or going with Barnholt, she went with Agilent. The company's Palo Alto headquarters is home to Hewlett and Packard's original 200A Audio Oscillator, which launched HP, and its labs still churn out testing and measurement devices. But even more, Agilent considers itself the true keeper of the HP Way--the management objectives devised by Hewlett and Packard that spelled out how to treat customers, shareholders, and most of all employees. The Way's key precept is that workers will give their best if they're treated honestly and listened to. In his 1995 book The HP Way, Packard asserted that making people feel that they are working toward a common purpose or solving a common problem creates "participatory management." To get there, all managers had to keep to a strict open-door policy and practice MBWA--management by walking around.

But by the late '90s, MBWA had turned into management by consensus. As the company's growth slowed, both former CEO Lew Platt and HP's new CEO, Carly Fiorina (who came aboard in the summer of 1999, as Agilent was spinning off), struggled with the dilemma of rejuvenating the business without tossing the Way. At Agilent, Barnholt's solution was to adopt it, but with three new "values" that he mentions at every turn: speed, accountability, and focus. To make them more than corporate buzzwords, he instituted a pay-for-performance plan for managers, for example, and retrained all 6,000 to get them making decisions faster and better.

For Agilent's first year, it seemed Barnholt had found the right formula. When the company announced in March 2000 that it had developed a photonic switch--a device it dubbed the "vital missing link" for the future all-optical network--its shares shot up 39% in one day, giving the company a $40 billion market cap. Hiring boomed as well. By November 2000, Agilent employed 47,000 people, a 12% boost in just one year.

Then came 2001: the year the revolution failed. Suddenly Barnholt had to figure out if the HP Way would work as well in reverse.

Early last March, Barnholt called a series of meetings with his top management, almost all of whom had been with HP for decades. They had heard their telecom customers report that business was bad and getting worse. And they had seen the cancellation rate on orders creeping up. Barnholt wanted to find a way to cut costs temporarily. What would Dave and Bill do? Easy. They would do the same thing they had done when HP's business soured in the '70s: Cut expenses and then, if necessary, cut salaries. So Barnholt froze hiring and slashed about 5,000 temps. He then asked all employees to cut discretionary spending--without explaining where, how, or how much.

Agilent peppered employees with information about why the cuts were necessary and how savings would help. Employees heard about it in e-mails, in Agilent's twice-a-week newsletter called InfoSparks, and in "coffee talks": regular news and brainstorming meetings that managers are required to hold with their people. Then Barnholt delivered his own take on the situation. As he does every quarter on the day Agilent releases its numbers to Wall Street, he stepped into a conference room down the hall from his office and recorded a speech to employees on the state of affairs. A few minutes later it was delivered, elementary school-style, over public-address systems companywide. He urged them to keep the fight going.

For Agilent workers, cost cutting became a calling. Employees built Websites to house data that once were printed out; they crashed with friends when traveling on business; they brought bags of chips to recruiting events instead of calling in catering. Without specific guidelines, no one knew how much they had to cut, so they tried to cut as much as possible. For Juan Yamuni, a 33-year-old analyst in Agilent's international treasury department, that meant curtailing approved business trips to South America, even though his managers never told him to cancel. "Top management was good about guiding you instead of getting a direct order"--he says, making a karate chop in the air--"from upstairs."

By late summer, the company had cut its travel expenses 50% and its printer and PC purchases 70%. But that wasn't enough to counteract the slowdown in business from Agilent's floundering customers. The company's revenue per employee fell from $71,000 a quarter at the end of October 2000 to $54,000 a quarter in April 2001 (excluding a 5,000-person division sold soon after to Philips Electronics). Even uglier, net income per employee fell from $6,500 to $1,900 in the same period. Instead of eliminating staff, Barnholt announced a temporary 10% across-the-board salary cut to wangle $280 million in annual savings. Employees cheered the move. "This was a matter of saving employees," says Stacy Yu, 25, who handles marketing for fiber-optic products. "It sounds hokey, but it's like a family. Everyone knows that we have to chip in to make sure that everyone else is okay."

But everything was far from okay. Sales were plummeting, with customers canceling almost $250 million in orders in Agilent's third quarter. For the first time, the company was facing a quarterly loss. Barnholt was forced to do something that Hewlett and Packard had never had to: cut staff. In mid-June he gathered his management team and challenged them to find a way to slash 4,000 people--9% of the company--and to do it without making them or the survivors feel mistreated. Hard enough. Then he laid out tough ground rules: Employees were to be told they were being let go only by their direct managers, and no across-the-board cuts were to take place. Barnholt wanted everything handled division by division, looking at each program and each employee. And he wanted all names ready in one month. "I was very worried," he says. "We were in new territory here. Our people don't have experience with this."

So Agilent went on a downsizing campaign that was two parts communication, one part execution. Barnholt knew that he had to set the tone. On Aug. 20, the day Agilent would report a quarterly loss of $219 million--its first ever--Barnholt broke tradition and got on the P.A. before releasing the information to Wall Street. He wanted employees to hear about the downsizing from him, not from CNBC. Barnholt first thanked everyone for cutting costs and cutting salaries. Then he presented the deteriorating state of business. As staffers across the country stared slack-jawed at speakers in the ceiling, Barnholt said that downsizing was unavoidable. He detailed how many people would lose their jobs, where the number came from, and how the "painful" process would work. "This is the toughest decision of my career," he said, his voice ragged. "But we've run out of alternatives."

The second round of communication came from the managers doing the layoffs. Barnholt sent more than 3,000 managers through a series of daylong training sessions at outplacement firm Drake Beam Morin, where they role-played and listened to the right and wrong ways to let people go. Back at Agilent, managers were told to be as honest as possible, to keep the door even more open than usual, and to field every question lobbed. At the same time, they had to evaluate every program and position they oversaw to come up with the 4,000 total. Forms used to help in the analysis were posted on Agilent's intranet; employees could see the criteria by which they'd be measured.

Just as people were being told whether they'd stay or go, Sept. 11 hit. Any chance of an imminent recovery disappeared. Barnholt again met with his executive staff and announced in November that another 9% would have to be cut. In one year, then, Barnholt would be eliminating 8,000 full-time workers and almost 5,000 temp workers--27% of Agilent's staff at its peak. The August downsizing program was repeated, with Barnholt crafting a new message and managers submitting new names.

"I knew that this wasn't part of the HP Way, and it's not what Bill and Dave would have wanted," says Benjamin Steers, a 26-year-old IT worker who joined Agilent out of college. "But if they were faced with the same situation, they would have had to do the exact same thing. And even though all of us probably lost sleep worrying about our jobs and whether we'd have them or not, I know Ned probably lost a lot more having to get up there in front of everybody and make this announcement and have to let go people in his family."

Management couldn't have written a better response. Agilent had succeeded in turning the "us vs. them" of corporate downsizing into just "us."

For all Agilent's communication, empathy, and family bonding, the company is not out of the woods, either financially or culturally. Tech and telecom companies still aren't buying as they used to. And if finances don't improve, another round of downsizing is possible. The more Barnholt cleans house, the less likely the remaining staff are to view him as the benevolent head of their family.

Take the paradox of the booming semiconductor factory. Employees at Agilent's Newark, Calif., fab (as it's called in the industry) developed a groundbreaking way to make special cell phone filter chips called FBARs. After years of research, the fab by early summer was just beginning to turn out chips. Despite that, Agilent's top management figured that they could save millions by shutting it down and moving operations--fewer than 5% of Newark's 300 people--to a bigger fab in Colorado.

Dave Allen, the general manager of the division, delivered the news. Standing in the cafeteria in early September, he explained the cost savings and told the workers that almost all of them would be out of a job within a year. The fab, he said, would close by October 2002. But he also said that since the chips were in high demand and since the manufacturing process was so new, he needed everyone to stay focused and committed.

At first, "everything went to hell," as Allen reported to his boss. For ten days, production dropped. Then it went up. And up. Soon Newark was producing more chips at a faster rate than anyone had forecast. Why? "We were brutally honest with them about what we're doing--what drove the decision, what the timing is, what's going to happen," explains Allen. "That honesty and integrity up-front is critical. If you don't have it, you lose their hearts and their minds, and they won't be productive."

That's the management point of view. But on the ground, more basic human instincts are at play, like hope and the desire to hold on to a job. A group of the fab's workers sat in a break room recently trying to explain why they've been so driven--even while being driven out. At first they couldn't come up with any definite reasons. But then one woman started talking. "Well," says Mary Dominguez, who has been working at the fab for 16 years, "maybe Fort Collins won't work. And maybe they'll let us stay." Everyone nodded.