Wow. Marriage comes up as an orange ray blockage

[jivatman]

These quotes are interesting and a pretty central part of the Ra material.

In a part about earth history, Ra describes how the situation of these sort of planetary orange ray blockage first came about:

22.5 Questioner: Can I assume then that this drastic drop in average life span from seven hundred years to less than one hundred years in length during this second 25,000 years was caused by an intensification of a lack of service to others?

Ra: I am Ra. This is in part correct. By the end of the second cycle, the Law of Responsibility had begun to be effectuated by the increasing ability of entities to grasp those lessons which there are to be learned in this density. Thus, entities had discovered many ways to indicate a bellicose nature, not only as tribes or what you call nations but in personal relationships, each with the other, the concept of barter having given way to the concept of money; also, the concept of ownership having won ascendancy over the concept of nonownership on an individual or group basis.

Each entity then was offered many more subtle ways of demonstrating either service toward others or service to self with the distortion of the manipulation of others. As each lesson was understood, those lessons of sharing, of giving, of receiving in free gratitude—each lesson could be rejected in practice.

Without demonstrating the fruits of such learn/teaching the life span became greatly reduced, for the ways of honor/duty were not being accepted.

(Side Note): Ra is not socialist. In fact, Ra equates socialism with fascism:

65.7 Questioner: How would conventional warfare offer the opportunities for seeking and service?

Ra: I am Ra. The possibility/probabilities exist for situations in which great portions of your continent and the globe in general might be involved in the type of warfare which you might liken to guerrilla warfare. The ideal of freedom from the so-called invading force of either the controlled fascism or the equally controlled social common ownership of all things would stimulate great quantities of contemplation upon the great polarization implicit in the contrast between freedom and control. In this scenario which is being considered at this time/space nexus the idea of obliterating valuable sites and personnel would not be considered an useful one. Other weapons would be used which do not destroy as your nuclear arms would. In this on-going struggle the light of freedom would burn within the mind/body/spirit complexes capable of such polarization. Lacking the opportunity for overt expression of the love of freedom, the seeking for inner knowledge would take root aided by those of the Brothers and Sisters of Sorrow which remember their calling upon this sphere.

I think the strongest case is the Ra is probably some form of anarchist, this is also supported by the Confederation, as Confederations are anarchist associations because they have no central control.
(/side note)

To get back to the original point, people became more bellicose and greedy. This bellicosity eventually became expressed in sexual relationships, that is, they became ways of demonstrating ownership and power rather than relationships for free love.

The idea of marriage for love is a very new idea. The idea of love in the middle ages was "courtly love", basically an adulterous relationship in which a married man courted a woman who was probably also married.

People married in order to consolidate power between families.
People married because if they didn't everyone would look down on you.
Women married in order to improve their status.
Men married in order to have children to carry on the family, work, etc.

The concept of love and marriage just had very little intersection. Hence love was courtly love, outside of marriage.

This is an interesting example of the quite confused and hypocritical societal mores of this planet. Love as a concept existed to a certain extent, but in a context which is not entirely pure, and somewhat tainted.

Nowadays, marriage, of course, is changing. While there is still a massive bias in the way the government treats married vs. non-married people, there is no longer the societal pressures. Thus, more marriages will be for love. But this is an extremely recent development and the inertia of thousands of years does not fade quickly.

I would say, Ra is criticizing our very hypocritical institution of marriage,
but one thing that is very clear to me is that Ra is not criticising monagamy.

83.3 Questioner: Thank you. I’m going to ask a rather long, complex question and I would request that the answer to each portion of this question be given if there was a significant difference prior to the veil than following the veil so that I can get an idea of how what we experience now is used for better polarization.
...
Ra: I am Ra. Firstly, let us establish that both before and after the veil the same conditions existed in time/space; that is, the veiling process is a space/time phenomenon.
...
In the third density entities are attempting to learn the ways of love. If it can be seen that all are one being it becomes much more difficult for the undisciplined personality to choose one mate and, thereby, initiate itself into a program of service. It is much more likely that the sexual energy will be dissipated more randomly without either great joy or great sorrow depending from these experiences.
...

84.22 Questioner: Did most Logoi plan, before the veil, to create a system of random sexual activity or the specific pairing of entities for specific periods of time, or did they have an objective in this respect?

Ra: I am Ra. This shall be the last full query of this working.

The harvest from the previous creation was that which included the male and female mind/body/spirit. It was the intention of the original Logoi that entities mate with one another in any fashion which caused a greater polarization. It was determined, after observation of the process of many Logoi, that polarization increased many fold if the mating were not indiscriminate. Consequent Logoi thusly preserved a bias towards the mated relationship which is more characteristic of more disciplined personalities and of what you may call higher densities. The free will of each entity, however, was always paramount and a bias only could be offered.

May we ask if there may be any brief queries before we leave this instrument?

Ra does not say that promiscuity, friends with benefits, serial dating, are negative,

But that monogamous relationships allow one to polarize more rapidly because they require a great deal more discipline and commitment to enter into them, as a "program of service", and that the other, less strong types of relationships, lack that.

Monagamy, of course, does not require marriage, and arguing about marriage, being a governmental institution, of course only brings us into the realm of politics from which very little understanding can come about.