The real inconvenient truth is that marriage still works best as 'an economic institution designed to build wealth and raise children'. It is the best vehicle we have designed for doing those things; other arrangements have proven sub-optimal. It may also accommodate other needs, but those are secondary. Ironically, those who realize this tend to have happier, more loving marriages.
The most common other arrangement in this society is serial monogamy (the original comment by marchenko means "stable marriage is the best", not "a bunch of marriages in a row are the best".)
In other cultures, the most common other arrangement is to give the child's mother's brother (uncle) all the rights and responsibilities that we give to the biological father/husband. The uncle rears the child, with the mother.
Marriage can exist in those societies but gives no rights over the child, and no or few responsibilities. (Might be time to consider offering this as an option for people in this society, at least.)
Children are little consoled by tax breaks, in my experience. Single mothers can't stay home on a tax break, since there's no income to get that break from.
Is being raised by ones uncle really more popular than being raised by ones grandparents, on a global scale? Somehow I doubt it. In many Asian countries being raised by grandparents is the norm but being raised by an uncle would be more of an uncommon arrangement.
I find that unlikely. I mean, what if there are no brothers? If, for sake of argument we say there are always exactly two children per family (approximation for stable population size and if some brothers die or move), there's about a 50:50 chance that a woman won't even have a brother to help raise the children.
Seems super unlikely to be the "most common" (by number of societies) arrangement when it only can work like 50% of the time in a society that DOES decide to do it. Was your Anthropology professor pulling your leg?
> If, for sake of argument we say there are always exactly two children per family (approximation for stable population size and if some brothers die or move),
Stable population size in any significant society is a very new thing, not historically common. Basing your assessment of historical likelihood on societies being assumed to have a trait that basically no premodern society did probably isn't reasonable.
I am from a part of the world - Kerala, India - where the matrilineal inheritance [1] was common up until about 50 years ago. This system worked as the GP described.
I've heard that arranged marriages end up as loving relationships. If choosen as compatible and with no choice but to make it work... plausible. Or it could be that people put up with damaging situations.
Arranged marriages are still marriages and come with the same issues. Couple of factors why they succeed often is:
* compatibility is established by design
* usually, its a union of families, which creates a wider social circle that helps out the newlywed couple through difficulties
Personally, I believe that _any_ two people living together and sharing so much will inevitably end up loving/hating each other. You simply can't be indifferent to people who are in such close social contact with you for so long.
There's also specific pressure creating cultural conformity; if you need to go to your mother in law when your husband is an asshole, you and your mother in law had better agree on what being an asshole is and how he should change. This creates a bias towards cultural stability but also limits unions involving social outsiders or non-traditional marriage partners.
Another factor not to dismiss is that cultures with arranged marriages also generally allow husbands to beat their wives. Therefore the marriage "works out"...or else.
Or put another way, you can find a standard by which the marriage worked out. But is it a relationship that the people involved would want to freely choose?
Wives do beat their husbands, I'll grant you that. But I'm going to want to see one hell of an impressive citation before I believe that they are "just as likely to beat their husbands".
Not that I'm agreeing with the grandparent comment, but this is a pretty great paper discussing that.
They're not just as likely to beat their husbands, but violence against children appears to be 50-50; family violence vs. intimate partner violence, basically.
In Bangladesh where I’m from (a “moderate” country) 80-90% of women are victims of domestic violence. The women do not hit back; that would get them killed.
That’s true. But arranged marriages (quasi-arranged marriages) are common even among folks who live in cultural subsets where wife beating is frowned upon (those who moved to the West or run in westernized circles). Those marriages seem just as happg as any others.
Part of the problem as I see it is that folks in the west often use their freedom to select for stupid things. (Omg she likes the same music!) My cousin just got matched up with someone where the criteria was: “she’s an engineer, her family is respectable and she’s not too religious.” I suspect it will be a good match.
Do you know people with arranged marriages? They work and I don't judge, but it's based on a very different cultural paradigm than what we're (mostly) used to the west; I certainly wouldn't call them happier than modern western marriages I'm familiar with. There's a lot more extended family negotiation when there are problems, rather than direct communication.
The problem is that they are often prone to emotional abuse and occasionally physical abuse. The option to not leave means people (usually women) put up with a lot. E.g., here is an article https://www.thehindu.com/society/sum-of-her-parts-why-are-th... on why organ donors in India are mostly women. Arranged marriages allow this kind of coercion to happen. There is a lot of other stuf why it doesn't work very well, if you expect to be equal partners.
I dunno. Violence in marriage is less frequent now then it used to be. Part of that is changing status and opportunities of women, but part of that is when people treat marriage as economic arrangement then what they get is mini startup with hard way to leave.
That era also have a lot of jokes about marriages that ends up with both partners despising each other and calling each other names.
We get only one life and of course we want
it to be good. The main thing we want is
not to be alone. So, the best solution is
in the traditional "We gather together to
join this man and this women together with
the bonds of Holy matrimony."
This is a somewhat bombastic version of
what it sounds like:
Then they are no longer two people but one
couple. They are co-founders, full
partners, of the one life they share.
These statements are necessarily true even
if a lot of people deny them and ruin the
joining, bonding, founding, and
partnership; these statements are true
because we only get one life and have room
for only one really good marriage. Then,
"A house divided against itself cannot
stand".
The central objective of the marriage is
family formation, being a strong limb on
the tree. Why? So we won't be alone.
So, we will have family as the bedrock
of the rest of our lives, e.g., for
connections with others with and via our
children, grandchildren, etc.
It's a lot of work to do well with family
formation, and the main reason for work is
just to support the family.
With the marriage, the couple gets
activities, accomplishments, memories, and
traditions they like a lot, don't want to
lose, can't get anywhere else, and that
bond them together. Traditions are really
important because they bring good promise
of some good times in the future, e.g., US
Thanksgiving, Christmas, big times at
birthdays, etc. E.g., a good start on a
Christmas tradition is
With a divorce, all those activities, ...,
are lost along with much of the life.
Doing well at family formation is so
difficult and the necessary stages of life
are so short that there's nearly no
opportunity to do well at family formation
a second time. So that one marriage is
essentially the only chance you get; get a
divorce and have failed at that one chance
and have destroyed so much that will
likely never catch up.
Yes, pop culture is awash in denigration,
minimization, etc. of marriage and family
formation. Dumb.
An enemy of the US, or any country, could
hardly do better in destroying the US than
to sabotage the US family. I rank The
Problem that Has No Name as at
as the single most effective Communist
attack on the US ever, done more damage
than a nuclear bomb. Right, it was
written by middle class Long Island wife,
mother, and accused Communist Betty
Friedan in her The Feminine Mystique.
Sabotage.
And it's worked, in the US and all the
more advanced countries: Too few couples
see the importance of building strong
families, and the birth rate is so low
those people are rapidly going extinct,
literally.
Or Betty didn't see, or wanted others not
to see, that there was anything important
to do for a wife and mother at home with
young children. Well, some of what there
is to do is
(where doing well should keep her very
busy and productive) and continuing with
strong family formation.
Young parents are also missing something
crucial -- the ancestors back 1-3
generations close at hand helping out with
what they have learned being successful at
family formation.
This strongly suggests that economic factors- e.g. flat real wages, unaffordable housing, astronomical medical costs- and not sinister Communist plots are behind shrinking families.
One reason housing is so expensive is both partners working and, thus, not having kids, in effect eating their seed corn, and wasting their money on nonsense. We don't need McMansions. We don't need so many bedrooms -- in one bedroom can have bunk beds and a partition between the boys and the girls. Around the house, the children can do more -- less TV and Internet -- and good for child development. The kids can do better in all the important parts of growing up, not just leave so much of child development to the schools. E.g., for Hacker News, get the kids started programming, in whatever tools want, from assembler to the full stack, whatever. Don't need a dishwasher, two ovens, two cars, etc. Actually can do well hand washing a lot of the clothes. Can get by without a clothes dryer. Pizza? Have the kids make them at home, for about 10% of the cost of buying a pizza ready made. It's fun to make pizza.
Clothes don't have to be expensive; blue denim, really old canvas sail cloth, tough stuff, works great.
Medical costs? In the US (don't tell anyone) we have Community Health Centers and Hill-Burton hospitals.
Dental care? Eat like people in poor countries -- they have beautiful teeth with no dental care.
The very poor people of Mayotte are having kids -- it CAN be done without a lot of money.
Really unclear what communism has to do with any of this (population growth fell in the Warsaw bloc countries after the fall of communism BTW, and a country like Japan has negligible communist influence).
It's also unclear why the population derivative need be significantly positive, or, really, positive at all.
The message, the sabotage, was that being a wife and mother with young children in a middle class neighborhood in Long Island was a terrible situation. That message spread around the world and had people take family formation nowhere nearly seriously enough.
Yes, the message also went to Poland, along with France, Italy, Germany, especially Spain, and, yes, the US.
The Friedan message was one of the first of a flood of such, all claiming that people and especially women had some much better things go do than have families.
Evaluate the evidence of the causes as you will. Maybe notice that the enemies of the US benefited. The results are beyond question.
I can't prove this with the Radon-Nikodym theorem, the standard model of physics, a software proof of correctness, a solid engineering document, or a winning legal brief, but I can't ignore the message and its results.
E.g., she told me "I don't want to get married."; "Women don't have to just be cared for. Women can do things too. I want a career."; "Having children just perpetuates the present and doesn't make any progress."; "I don't want to give up the best years of my life and my career just to have some man's children." She got these messages from Friedan, etc. She tried. She failed. At her mother's farm, for two days she was missing and her body was found floating in a lake. She would have done JUST FINE if I had just gotten her PREGNANT when we first met when she was 19; easy enough to do -- her brain said no; her emotions said YES. Then have kept her pregnant. Then learned enough about clinical psychology to have solved her problems with the toxic message from Friedan. I have a friend, bright guy, Courant Ph.D., Member, Institute for Advanced Study, who rates Friedan as the greatest cause of death ever, worse than Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, Tojo, all put together -- just count the babies stopped with birth control or abortion in the more advanced countries, done. In an important sense, he's correct.
Positive slope is not necessary and maybe not even desirable. Negative slope is extinction.
There can be a lot of differences between now and then. I mentioned the main point -- not being alone.
There's more: IIRC "The fundamental problem in life is getting security in the face of the anxiety from our realization that alone we are vulnerable to the hostile forces of nature and society.". The three top recommended solutions are "love of spouse, love of God, and membership in groups.". You don't want to consider the last alternative. E. Fromm, The Art of Loving.
You can have a spouse(s), god(s), and/or a group without playing existential kick the can.
But that's juts me arguing against biological compulsions that have existed since gendered species arose in the soup in those bygone eons of prehistoric Earth. [Ultimately futile, yes. But no more so than anything else.] Evolution functions through drives, not the satisfaction of them. If it did, Warren Buffett and Bills Gates would've (likely) said 'yeah, this a enough money' by some point before, people wouldn't stuff themselves (raises hand) with terrible so-called food items loaded with sugar and salt to the point we wanna puke, tromping over one another at Black Friday sales, etc. And in the same (I would say) every reason people come up with for this (or anything else) is the anxiety induced justification for a priori desire(s) we can neither control, nor satisfy. However, perhaps, we shouldn't look down on this, it may be the very inability to admit to such, as well as the need, to justify it, that truly separates humans from (most) other species.
But I doubt they're gonna (ultimately) solve the problem, either. Perhaps we could medicate into oblivion. But, outside of that, fundamental anxiety is (probably) welded into the human species.
Trying not be acerbic but, an article on divorce that doesn't even mention children? Ridiculous and puerile. A divorce without children is a walk in the park. You can sign a few papers, say goodbye, and _never_ have to see that person again. The truth is that it's better for children if parents in a low-conflict marriage to stay together. It's not the right path for everyone, marriage is really complicated and some children are better off with divorced parents. But, that's not a pithy essay targeted at Millennials.
Also: "inconvenient" truth, is it really? Seems vary convenient that the article supports the idea of dumping the guilt you might feel in when dumping your spouse. This is giving comfort to the reader not introducing a truth that makes the reader reconsider the impact of their actions. An inconvenient truth might be that most people that stay married are happy they did.
I suspect you've hit the nail on the head of why the social taboo against divorce exists in the first place.
Ceteris paribus, it's better for children if their parents stay together. Therefore we've raised the social cost of a divorce until it's only accessible to people who really need to get out.
Because of cultural changes, this doesn't work as well as it has in the past at keeping couples together. There's good points (fewer people trapped in bad or abusive marriages) and bad points (more families who have to deal with the many practical problems of single parenthood).
> Therefore we've raised the social cost of a divorce until it's only accessible to people who really need to get out
I don't know what the time frame for this statement is, but all over the western world, divorce has been made substantially easier both legally and socially, since the end of WWII.
> Because of cultural changes, this doesn't work as well as it has in the past at keeping couples together.
Obviously culture and law are bound up together, but the advent of no-fault divorce and the decreasing benefits for the married over the unmarried did far more to make divorce easy, common, and therefore more acceptable than easing the stigma ever did directly.
>The truth is that it's better for children if parents in a low-conflict marriage to stay together.
My siblings and I are all young adults in our twenties, but we've wanted our parents to divorce for years now. It's a toxic, abusive relationship that's only still existing because of the conservative Roman Catholic culture they were raised in.
I recently broke up with my girlfriend because I thought and still think she's a bad influence on me; I have no desire to hang out with her. I often wonder what happened when I see couples divorce due to "irreconcilable differences" or couples who remain civil or even friends after divorce.
As a child with parents in a high-conflict marriage, I'm not even clear why parents in a low-conflict marriage would want to get divorced.
No, divorce is better for children if there is unresolved conflict. You resolve conflict by the right kind of fighting or struggle (or some approximation thereof) or by splitting up.
Marriage requires commitment from both parties. You can still have that commitment even if you are marrying for love. If you and your spouse are prepared to sacrifice, you'll have a very rewarding time.
The real challenge is now days we don't encourage commitment, and your commitment alone won't make a happy marriage (e.g. it takes two for a happy marriage).
I agree that we need to de-stigmatize divorce that gets you out of a bad situation.
Edit: To say that since we marry for love so we should divorce for love does a disservice, namely because a marriage with two committed people is far more rewarding than one that only worked because of the initial fire of love.
Edit 2: Sorry Im using sappy language, it oddly seems the most concise.
Gday My view on marriage
5 years MONK here
2 years MGTOW
Women in today's Duluth & Unfair system is not worth
* Short Term Dating
* Long Term Dating
* Cohabit
* Marriage
* Even short term dating and the first date
Women DEMAND and EXPECT men to pay out money for resources
just because they are women and they have tits
and women dont have to give anything back for the transaction
* Due Process is getting REMOVED for MEN (#metoo)
* We are getting close to a stage that we will need
dash cam for ALL MEN in Western society to prove
we DIDN'T do something and the other person IS GUILTY
just like cars these days
What do women really offer in 2010-2020 ?
Most dont
* cook
* clean
* take care of kids
* sow/repair clothes
* garden
Most do support
* Socialism
* Veganism
* Minimalism
* Apple phones
* Apple laptops
Most DON'T
* watch or interested in - scifi
* watch or interested in - anime
* watch or interested in - Japanese/South Korean culture
Most choose to work in:-
* Nursing
* Teaching
* Child Care
* Office/Office Admin
Most dont or not interested in:-
* Geek CULTURE
* Fixing tech/computers
* Ardino/Raspi/electronics
* PC gaming coop
* Linux
* DIY repair
* scifi
In the end of the day what do most geek/nerd men have in same common interest with women ?
NOTHING
It then falls back to
Looks
Boobs
Pussy
Sex
If women choose to reject being TRADITIONAL and submitting to the house wife role
then most of them offer NOTHING TO MEN
Most men will have their own
* Car
* Home
* Job
* Money
* TV
* Lounge
* Bed
* Entertainment
Why do we "need" dating or marriage
it then falls back to the only thing we "need" is sex
If your above a 6 in looks and OVER 6 foot tall then use tinder
otherwise pay for a hooker or go MONK
Then the "need" for women disappears completely
ONCE Feminism in late 1970s changed the LAWS to SOCIALISM
in the lie of EQUALITY with NO FAULT DIVORCE RAPE
AND DULUTH MODEL in LAW and COURTS that was two
of the main factors that killed TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE
Until ALL WOMEN GLOBALLY stop using Hypergamy to choose men by
* Over 6 foot
* Over 6 in looks
* Over 6 inches
* Over 6 figure income
and finally look at men as an PERSON
not a resource device that you can screw over by LAW
and the laws ARE FIXED
and women are WILLING to go back to PROPER TRADITIONALISM
* One LAW for everyone with the SAME punishment for ALL.
No matter if your female or male , white or black,
born in the country or arrived later ,
everyone is held to the same standard . No more free PUSSY PASS's for women
* REMOVE Duluth Model from LAW + Courts + Police
* REMOVE PUSSY PASS for law/courts
* Centrelink changed to UBI (AUSTRALIA)
Everyone on benefits gets AUD$450 flat
No more money because your
Black
Female
or kids
* Capital Punishment for ALL
* False rape and False Sexual Assault to be convicted with the SAME sentence if it was the victim eg if its 10-20 years in jail for rape,
then its 10-20 years for FALSE CLAIM
* Ban Abortion
* Remove ALL government funding for ALL activism & religions
* Remove ALL government funding for any media outlet that push's socialism over unbias reporting
* NO religious clothing to be worn in Schools, Universities, government buildings , hospital , police or fire
* Ban the use of Political Correct and Identity politics in
- School
- Universities
- Government
* Remove "Gender" studies and ARTS from Universities If you want to do arts or socialism (gender) studies then you will CHOOSE to do it at a private school
with your own money, not government funded education place designed to teach people to actually get a JOB
* Remove Child support
* Remove Vagmony (Alimony)
* Remove forced 50% of other person's assets ( Are we still in the 50's that women dont work or are women accountable for their own life choices and equal , you cant have BOTH)
* Build more 1 bedroom affordable units for single people in EU and WEST
Choosing a best friend for the next 50-60 years is hard! Staying best friends for life is hard. Maintaining romantic feelings and enjoying the changing things sexual partnership brings over a lifetime, is hard too. Oh, and let's throw in the enormous perspective and life changes that children bring.
It takes two people who are willing to put in the time, energy, occasionally sacrifice, and explore together. For longer than people are really capable of projecting. Certainly longer than they stay the same person.
Alternatives exist, and I'm happy people explore them. But IMHO the core problem of a long human relationship isn't made any easier by adding more humans. 1:1 communication/connection seems a lot simpler than groups of any formation. And going through life without a close, long relationship (of any kind) does miss a lot of the value of the journey.
So props to those who make it, and figure out how to keep on making it. Props to those who discover they can't make it with that particular person. Props to everyone except the assholes who give you shit for trying.
I strongly dislike this article. The article portrays the view that divorce is something that's "ok, because situations change and it's alright to change your mind". I say this as someone who almost got divorced this past year.
The problem with divorce is that most of the time it involves breaking a promise—a vow actually. And that's the real issue that I find so disturbing. In fact, I see no problem with two people saying "I will marry you and stay with you as long as conditions x, y, and z are met". As long as both parties understand the conditions going into the marriage and recognize the possibility that it may end under specific circumstances, then fine with me. Who am I to judge someone's lifestyle choices?
But breaking an unconditional promise to be with someone forever is disturbing. I'm increasingly repulsed by this idea that people aren't responsible for their actions. Cause always has an effect, even if it's an effect that is delayed for years. And personally, without having some basis of moral axioms (keeping your word for instance), then it really just feels like our existence borders on nihilism. What's the point of anything? If words are meaningless, then why even bother in the first place? Why make a "promise" if it's just going to be broken later? It means nothing. You live, you die, and all along the way not one thing was held sacred. In a universe without any meaning, we have to create our own, and if someone's word can't even be trusted, then why bother with anything at all?
So in summary, I don't have a problem with divorce per se, but breaking your word to someone else is a massive problem, and TED articles like this aren't helping by contributing to the increasing vacuity of promises that have no meaning.
Indeed, the unconditionality of the promise is one of my biggest problems with marriage. I’d be much happier with a conditional promise (“... until death so us part, or you hit me, or we cannot have children, or you become substantially different than you’re now, ...”) but eventhem it’s hard to list all the exceptions.
It is only an unconditional promise if done in a jurisdiction that does not allow divorce under any conditions. My lease does not explicitly say that it is contingent on the landlord keeping it fit for habitation, but nevertheless it is contingent on that.
57 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 168 ms ] threadCouldn't we simply have tax breaks per children and be done with it?
In other cultures, the most common other arrangement is to give the child's mother's brother (uncle) all the rights and responsibilities that we give to the biological father/husband. The uncle rears the child, with the mother. Marriage can exist in those societies but gives no rights over the child, and no or few responsibilities. (Might be time to consider offering this as an option for people in this society, at least.)
Children are little consoled by tax breaks, in my experience. Single mothers can't stay home on a tax break, since there's no income to get that break from.
Seems super unlikely to be the "most common" (by number of societies) arrangement when it only can work like 50% of the time in a society that DOES decide to do it. Was your Anthropology professor pulling your leg?
Stable population size in any significant society is a very new thing, not historically common. Basing your assessment of historical likelihood on societies being assumed to have a trait that basically no premodern society did probably isn't reasonable.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marumakkathayam
I've heard that arranged marriages end up as loving relationships. If choosen as compatible and with no choice but to make it work... plausible. Or it could be that people put up with damaging situations.
* compatibility is established by design
* usually, its a union of families, which creates a wider social circle that helps out the newlywed couple through difficulties
Personally, I believe that _any_ two people living together and sharing so much will inevitably end up loving/hating each other. You simply can't be indifferent to people who are in such close social contact with you for so long.
Also helping are having kids if only because it creates and orders the TODO list when a baby cries or a child needs food, shoes, etc.
Also helping are well established ROLES. Both husband and wife already know in good terms what they are to do.
Also helped was the village church and the weekly services emphasizing family formation.
Also helped was village social pressure, at times really severe.
Or put another way, you can find a standard by which the marriage worked out. But is it a relationship that the people involved would want to freely choose?
Wives are just as likely to beat their husbands so the marriage "works out or else", even in "those" cultures. Most of the world isn't Saudi Arabia.
They're not just as likely to beat their husbands, but violence against children appears to be 50-50; family violence vs. intimate partner violence, basically.
https://www.dvrcv.org.au/sites/default/files/Mens%20as%20vic...
The rates of both depend on a lot of factors like culture, employment rates of males, employment rates of women, etc.
Part of the problem as I see it is that folks in the west often use their freedom to select for stupid things. (Omg she likes the same music!) My cousin just got matched up with someone where the criteria was: “she’s an engineer, her family is respectable and she’s not too religious.” I suspect it will be a good match.
That era also have a lot of jokes about marriages that ends up with both partners despising each other and calling each other names.
This is a somewhat bombastic version of what it sounds like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6rX3wlDsVI
This is a lot of what it both looks like and sounds like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBBL-t7CKbU
Then they are no longer two people but one couple. They are co-founders, full partners, of the one life they share. These statements are necessarily true even if a lot of people deny them and ruin the joining, bonding, founding, and partnership; these statements are true because we only get one life and have room for only one really good marriage. Then, "A house divided against itself cannot stand".
The central objective of the marriage is family formation, being a strong limb on the tree. Why? So we won't be alone. So, we will have family as the bedrock of the rest of our lives, e.g., for connections with others with and via our children, grandchildren, etc.
It's a lot of work to do well with family formation, and the main reason for work is just to support the family.
With the marriage, the couple gets activities, accomplishments, memories, and traditions they like a lot, don't want to lose, can't get anywhere else, and that bond them together. Traditions are really important because they bring good promise of some good times in the future, e.g., US Thanksgiving, Christmas, big times at birthdays, etc. E.g., a good start on a Christmas tradition is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnoIZ_RzV9M
With a divorce, all those activities, ..., are lost along with much of the life. Doing well at family formation is so difficult and the necessary stages of life are so short that there's nearly no opportunity to do well at family formation a second time. So that one marriage is essentially the only chance you get; get a divorce and have failed at that one chance and have destroyed so much that will likely never catch up.
Yes, pop culture is awash in denigration, minimization, etc. of marriage and family formation. Dumb.
An enemy of the US, or any country, could hardly do better in destroying the US than to sabotage the US family. I rank The Problem that Has No Name as at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920960/
as the single most effective Communist attack on the US ever, done more damage than a nuclear bomb. Right, it was written by middle class Long Island wife, mother, and accused Communist Betty Friedan in her The Feminine Mystique. Sabotage.
And it's worked, in the US and all the more advanced countries: Too few couples see the importance of building strong families, and the birth rate is so low those people are rapidly going extinct, literally.
Or Betty didn't see, or wanted others not to see, that there was anything important to do for a wife and mother at home with young children. Well, some of what there is to do is
emotional, verbal, physical, rational, psychological, athletic, social, literary, artistic, mathematical, scientific, technical, political, romantic development
(where doing well should keep her very busy and productive) and continuing with strong family formation.
Young parents are also missing something crucial -- the ancestors back 1-3 generations close at hand helping out with what they have learned being successful at family formation.
E.g., A few days ago there...
This strongly suggests that economic factors- e.g. flat real wages, unaffordable housing, astronomical medical costs- and not sinister Communist plots are behind shrinking families.
One reason housing is so expensive is both partners working and, thus, not having kids, in effect eating their seed corn, and wasting their money on nonsense. We don't need McMansions. We don't need so many bedrooms -- in one bedroom can have bunk beds and a partition between the boys and the girls. Around the house, the children can do more -- less TV and Internet -- and good for child development. The kids can do better in all the important parts of growing up, not just leave so much of child development to the schools. E.g., for Hacker News, get the kids started programming, in whatever tools want, from assembler to the full stack, whatever. Don't need a dishwasher, two ovens, two cars, etc. Actually can do well hand washing a lot of the clothes. Can get by without a clothes dryer. Pizza? Have the kids make them at home, for about 10% of the cost of buying a pizza ready made. It's fun to make pizza.
Clothes don't have to be expensive; blue denim, really old canvas sail cloth, tough stuff, works great.
Medical costs? In the US (don't tell anyone) we have Community Health Centers and Hill-Burton hospitals.
Dental care? Eat like people in poor countries -- they have beautiful teeth with no dental care.
The very poor people of Mayotte are having kids -- it CAN be done without a lot of money.
It's also unclear why the population derivative need be significantly positive, or, really, positive at all.
Yes, the message also went to Poland, along with France, Italy, Germany, especially Spain, and, yes, the US.
The Friedan message was one of the first of a flood of such, all claiming that people and especially women had some much better things go do than have families.
Evaluate the evidence of the causes as you will. Maybe notice that the enemies of the US benefited. The results are beyond question.
I can't prove this with the Radon-Nikodym theorem, the standard model of physics, a software proof of correctness, a solid engineering document, or a winning legal brief, but I can't ignore the message and its results.
E.g., she told me "I don't want to get married."; "Women don't have to just be cared for. Women can do things too. I want a career."; "Having children just perpetuates the present and doesn't make any progress."; "I don't want to give up the best years of my life and my career just to have some man's children." She got these messages from Friedan, etc. She tried. She failed. At her mother's farm, for two days she was missing and her body was found floating in a lake. She would have done JUST FINE if I had just gotten her PREGNANT when we first met when she was 19; easy enough to do -- her brain said no; her emotions said YES. Then have kept her pregnant. Then learned enough about clinical psychology to have solved her problems with the toxic message from Friedan. I have a friend, bright guy, Courant Ph.D., Member, Institute for Advanced Study, who rates Friedan as the greatest cause of death ever, worse than Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, Tojo, all put together -- just count the babies stopped with birth control or abortion in the more advanced countries, done. In an important sense, he's correct.
Positive slope is not necessary and maybe not even desirable. Negative slope is extinction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth#Red_giant_stag...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_the_universe#Far...
(Though, if you want, you could argue a red sun is somehow a communist plot.)
There's more: IIRC "The fundamental problem in life is getting security in the face of the anxiety from our realization that alone we are vulnerable to the hostile forces of nature and society.". The three top recommended solutions are "love of spouse, love of God, and membership in groups.". You don't want to consider the last alternative. E. Fromm, The Art of Loving.
But that's juts me arguing against biological compulsions that have existed since gendered species arose in the soup in those bygone eons of prehistoric Earth. [Ultimately futile, yes. But no more so than anything else.] Evolution functions through drives, not the satisfaction of them. If it did, Warren Buffett and Bills Gates would've (likely) said 'yeah, this a enough money' by some point before, people wouldn't stuff themselves (raises hand) with terrible so-called food items loaded with sugar and salt to the point we wanna puke, tromping over one another at Black Friday sales, etc. And in the same (I would say) every reason people come up with for this (or anything else) is the anxiety induced justification for a priori desire(s) we can neither control, nor satisfy. However, perhaps, we shouldn't look down on this, it may be the very inability to admit to such, as well as the need, to justify it, that truly separates humans from (most) other species.
But I doubt they're gonna (ultimately) solve the problem, either. Perhaps we could medicate into oblivion. But, outside of that, fundamental anxiety is (probably) welded into the human species.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDqDJJcJAOg
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2062990-we-don-t-really-wan...
Also: "inconvenient" truth, is it really? Seems vary convenient that the article supports the idea of dumping the guilt you might feel in when dumping your spouse. This is giving comfort to the reader not introducing a truth that makes the reader reconsider the impact of their actions. An inconvenient truth might be that most people that stay married are happy they did.
http://yourdivorcequestions.org/will-divorce-make-me-happier...
Ceteris paribus, it's better for children if their parents stay together. Therefore we've raised the social cost of a divorce until it's only accessible to people who really need to get out.
Because of cultural changes, this doesn't work as well as it has in the past at keeping couples together. There's good points (fewer people trapped in bad or abusive marriages) and bad points (more families who have to deal with the many practical problems of single parenthood).
I don't know what the time frame for this statement is, but all over the western world, divorce has been made substantially easier both legally and socially, since the end of WWII.
> Because of cultural changes, this doesn't work as well as it has in the past at keeping couples together.
Obviously culture and law are bound up together, but the advent of no-fault divorce and the decreasing benefits for the married over the unmarried did far more to make divorce easy, common, and therefore more acceptable than easing the stigma ever did directly.
Asset division leans heavily towards women. If real sexism exists for males in this country it is especially evident during divorce.
My siblings and I are all young adults in our twenties, but we've wanted our parents to divorce for years now. It's a toxic, abusive relationship that's only still existing because of the conservative Roman Catholic culture they were raised in.
I recently broke up with my girlfriend because I thought and still think she's a bad influence on me; I have no desire to hang out with her. I often wonder what happened when I see couples divorce due to "irreconcilable differences" or couples who remain civil or even friends after divorce.
As a child with parents in a high-conflict marriage, I'm not even clear why parents in a low-conflict marriage would want to get divorced.
A low-conflict marriage where the conflict isn't resolved becomes a high-conflict marriage, inevitably.
The real challenge is now days we don't encourage commitment, and your commitment alone won't make a happy marriage (e.g. it takes two for a happy marriage).
I agree that we need to de-stigmatize divorce that gets you out of a bad situation.
Edit: To say that since we marry for love so we should divorce for love does a disservice, namely because a marriage with two committed people is far more rewarding than one that only worked because of the initial fire of love.
Edit 2: Sorry Im using sappy language, it oddly seems the most concise.
Its filled with LEFT REGRESSIVE SOCIALIST narrative now
* Replace Democracy with Socialism
* women dependent on state for resources
* women HATE MEN+Democracy/west
* Misinformation
* change words
* Remove individual accountability for women via
- abortion
- No fault divorce
- Duluth model
- pussy pass in courts
- Metoo
Women in today's Duluth & Unfair system is not worth
* Short Term Dating
* Long Term Dating
* Cohabit
* Marriage
* Even short term dating and the first date
Women DEMAND and EXPECT men to pay out money for resources
just because they are women and they have tits and women dont have to give anything back for the transaction
* Due Process is getting REMOVED for MEN (#metoo)
* We are getting close to a stage that we will need dash cam for ALL MEN in Western society to prove
we DIDN'T do something and the other person IS GUILTY just like cars these days
What do women really offer in 2010-2020 ?
Most dont * cook
* clean
* take care of kids
* sow/repair clothes
* garden
Most do support
* Socialism
* Veganism
* Minimalism
* Apple phones
* Apple laptops
Most DON'T
* watch or interested in - scifi
* watch or interested in - anime
* watch or interested in - Japanese/South Korean culture
Most choose to work in:-
* Nursing
* Teaching
* Child Care
* Office/Office Admin
Most dont or not interested in:-
* Geek CULTURE
* Fixing tech/computers
* Ardino/Raspi/electronics
* PC gaming coop
* Linux
* DIY repair
* scifi
In the end of the day what do most geek/nerd men have in same common interest with women ?
NOTHING
It then falls back to
Looks
Boobs
Pussy
Sex
If women choose to reject being TRADITIONAL and submitting to the house wife role
then most of them offer NOTHING TO MEN
Most men will have their own
* Car
* Home
* Job
* Money
* TV
* Lounge
* Bed
* Entertainment
Why do we "need" dating or marriage
it then falls back to the only thing we "need" is sex
If your above a 6 in looks and OVER 6 foot tall then use tinder
otherwise pay for a hooker or go MONK
Then the "need" for women disappears completely
ONCE Feminism in late 1970s changed the LAWS to SOCIALISM
in the lie of EQUALITY with NO FAULT DIVORCE RAPE
AND DULUTH MODEL in LAW and COURTS that was two
and the laws ARE FIXEDand women are WILLING to go back to PROPER TRADITIONALISM
Marriage is OVER
* One LAW for everyone with the SAME punishment for ALL. No matter if your female or male , white or black, born in the country or arrived later , everyone is held to the same standard . No more free PUSSY PASS's for women
* REMOVE Duluth Model from LAW + Courts + Police
* REMOVE PUSSY PASS for law/courts
* Centrelink changed to UBI (AUSTRALIA) Everyone on benefits gets AUD$450 flat
No more money because your
Black
Female
or kids
* Capital Punishment for ALL
* False rape and False Sexual Assault to be convicted with the SAME sentence if it was the victim eg if its 10-20 years in jail for rape, then its 10-20 years for FALSE CLAIM
* Ban Abortion
* Remove ALL government funding for ALL activism & religions
* Remove ALL government funding for any media outlet that push's socialism over unbias reporting
* NO religious clothing to be worn in Schools, Universities, government buildings , hospital , police or fire
* Ban the use of Political Correct and Identity politics in
* Remove "Gender" studies and ARTS from Universities If you want to do arts or socialism (gender) studies then you will CHOOSE to do it at a private schoolwith your own money, not government funded education place designed to teach people to actually get a JOB
* Remove Child support
* Remove Vagmony (Alimony)
* Remove forced 50% of other person's assets ( Are we still in the 50's that women dont work or are women accountable for their own life choices and equal , you cant have BOTH)
* Build more 1 bedroom affordable units for single people in EU and WEST
* Allow TINY homes to be built in the west
* False rape/dv/assault claim register database - https://youtu.be/x7qFiVkDgG8?t=28m35s
It takes two people who are willing to put in the time, energy, occasionally sacrifice, and explore together. For longer than people are really capable of projecting. Certainly longer than they stay the same person.
Alternatives exist, and I'm happy people explore them. But IMHO the core problem of a long human relationship isn't made any easier by adding more humans. 1:1 communication/connection seems a lot simpler than groups of any formation. And going through life without a close, long relationship (of any kind) does miss a lot of the value of the journey.
So props to those who make it, and figure out how to keep on making it. Props to those who discover they can't make it with that particular person. Props to everyone except the assholes who give you shit for trying.
The problem with divorce is that most of the time it involves breaking a promise—a vow actually. And that's the real issue that I find so disturbing. In fact, I see no problem with two people saying "I will marry you and stay with you as long as conditions x, y, and z are met". As long as both parties understand the conditions going into the marriage and recognize the possibility that it may end under specific circumstances, then fine with me. Who am I to judge someone's lifestyle choices?
But breaking an unconditional promise to be with someone forever is disturbing. I'm increasingly repulsed by this idea that people aren't responsible for their actions. Cause always has an effect, even if it's an effect that is delayed for years. And personally, without having some basis of moral axioms (keeping your word for instance), then it really just feels like our existence borders on nihilism. What's the point of anything? If words are meaningless, then why even bother in the first place? Why make a "promise" if it's just going to be broken later? It means nothing. You live, you die, and all along the way not one thing was held sacred. In a universe without any meaning, we have to create our own, and if someone's word can't even be trusted, then why bother with anything at all?
So in summary, I don't have a problem with divorce per se, but breaking your word to someone else is a massive problem, and TED articles like this aren't helping by contributing to the increasing vacuity of promises that have no meaning.
The particular legal precedent in one's jurisdiction is orthogonal to the moral question of breaking a lifelong oath.