1) Okay, I'm confused. That seems like a distinction without a difference to me - but I imagine you're distinguishing on the basis that discrimination is intentional (including subconscious intention?) and exclusion (in this context) is accidental. Is that right?
2) No - it's not the argument that convinced me. I was at some pains to make that clear in the first substantive paragraph of my post.
I'm not trying to say that that the exclusion of singletons from the social lives of married couples is an evil on a par with sexual or racial discrimination. This part of the discussion span off (spun off? I always get confused about that verb) from a teasing jibe I made en route to the main subject, several comments ago. But I do think that it's slightly disingenuous to suppose that social practices that develop so as include or exclude certain groups always do so accidentally, even if exclusion is not their avowed purpose. No one who has grown up under the British class system could seriously buy that.
no subject
2) No - it's not the argument that convinced me. I was at some pains to make that clear in the first substantive paragraph of my post.
I'm not trying to say that that the exclusion of singletons from the social lives of married couples is an evil on a par with sexual or racial discrimination. This part of the discussion span off (spun off? I always get confused about that verb) from a teasing jibe I made en route to the main subject, several comments ago. But I do think that it's slightly disingenuous to suppose that social practices that develop so as include or exclude certain groups always do so accidentally, even if exclusion is not their avowed purpose. No one who has grown up under the British class system could seriously buy that.