Right now, most people are just surviving with assets, mortgages, vehicles, and careers they already have. Starting out though, without these things, is very difficult.
Starting out even 5 years ago was easier. Lower used car prices, lower education costs, and now (for the US) a chance for loan forgiveness, which nobody entering college next year will get. It just gets harder and harder to stand up, to where you just end up questioning why even trying.
Why save $5K as a young man when, due to two years of inflation, you are hardly closer to affording that car than you were when you started?
> Although more unmarried men could stir up political trouble
I always find something a little dark about this argument against letting men be single, and against practices like polygamy with some men having multiple wives and others not having wives.
There's a kind of 'or else...' vibe to it. As if some people think it's women's job to marry men to stop them being a menace to society.
The US military takes this sort of thing into consideration for security clearances. You’re much less likely to sell state secrets if you have a family at home.
In a way even thinking about this when it comes to world leaders I would much rather all world leaders have rich family lives so that they can think about their families before they do anything stupid.
I don't like it either - but if history has taught us anything, angry young men are a common source of social revolution. Often because they have nothing to lose - and if they hate the system holding them down, tearing it down is fun revenge.
I'm at the point where I don't like it, but it is probably true regardless.
I'm not that familliar with situation in india, but in "the west", we've come to situations where young people (with a very wide definition of "young") are unable to afford homes (and in turn, kids), are underpaid, and in some of those countries (mostly usa) cannot even afford education and healthcare (in contrast to eg. europe, where education is taxpayer paid but healthcare is slowly going down lower and lower).
Maybe it is the time to say "stop", we want homes, better pay (and all the other stuff), and such major changes only come with enough people who are fed up and have nothing else to lose... so yes, young, childless, unmarried men.
I know most revolutions end badly, but find me a developed "western" place with affordable housing?
In my own personal opinion, entertainment, cohabitation (comparatively easy, low-risk, few obligations sex compared to historically), and alcohol/drugs are the only things keeping young men from getting violent.
If it were not for these things, I believe that we would be much closer to revolution even if nobody can see it yet. Potentially Tzarist Russia or Weimar Germany close. I think young men have all the social indicators needed to cause them to broadly revolt; we just have some placating methods that didn't exist historically.
The problem I see is, that those people are not the "80s movies bachelors" (with enough money, flashy clothes, nice houses and cars.. and well, drugs and sex), but people literally living on the edge of their financial capabilites, sharing 3 bedroom apartments with 5 more people, barely able to afford the rent and bills, and pretty much everything left over is going for entertainment (drug and sex). With the coming financial crisis (caused again by dick-measuring politicians) a rise in eg power and heat bills with already overinflated rents and layoffs will cause more and more people to basically "not-lose-anything" if they actually get violent.
Sadly, the governments solve this by taxing the "rich" (=middle class, because the actual rich always avoid the taxes, and engineers, coders, tradesmen etc. are the one who get fucked), bringing everyone (except the actual rich) to some low minimum needed to survive while still being fucked in every other sense. So yeah... the only way this can be solved is (in my, controversial opinion), is for people to actually get angry and replace the whole set of politicians and people in bed with them.
> As if some people think it's women's job to marry men to stop them being a menace to society.
The same argument is made for wealth transfers via taxes: pay up, or they might just take it, and it's cheaper and more efficient to codify wealth transfer instead of just letting it happen.
And you don't necessarily need men to get married to not be trouble makers. But you'll need them to have something to do. If that's not marriage, education or work, you better have entertainment or drugs available.
> There's a kind of 'or else...' vibe to it. As if some people think it's women's job to marry men to stop them being a menace to society.
I don't think anyone studying this seriously is making that argument or even trying to slyly imply it.
I think it breaks down like this:
We know "lots of single men" correlates with many indicators that are, broadly, "bad for society".
What is driving this change? What can we about it? The "what can we do about it?" is focused, again broadly, on "fixing men" or "fixing the incentives for men" or "fixing the opportunities for men."
No one is proposing, "Hey women, you better start marrying these unattractive layabouts or else society will collapse and you'll be living in dystopia...".
I'm sure I've read it in reputable newspapers presented as an argument for keeping consenting polygamous relationships illegal - 'all the high status men will get multiple wives and low status men won't have wives and will be troublemakers'.
Yeah I know it's true not questioning the fact... but is it women's job to solve it by marrying people they won't want to marry? Why should they do that to solve society's problems?
They're not romantic choices, the polygamy follows power distribution. The actual problem isn't that it's legal to have multiple wives, it's that resources are distributed so badly, that you end up with lots of poor men not having a stake in society. They're expected to work so that the rich and their wives can live leisurely, but it's all stick and no carrot. If the stick every breaks, you get lots of violence.
Worth noting that in countries with polygamy, it's not like women are afforded more choice than in their Western counterparts. Quite the contrary. The type of thing you see is a poor farmer marrying off his very young daughter as the 3rd wife of someone wealthy to provide for her. So in practice it's much closer to forced marriages, not unfettered choice for women.
Yes, that is true, but even that argument does not imply that "women should be forced to marry men they don't like." To make that jump is to make a straw man of the argument. Whether or not that is factually true about polygamous society, I have no idea (EDIT: looks like it is, according to the other comments). I'm saying only that "being against legal polygamy" does not mean "being for forced marriages."
It is saying that you may not be able to marry the person that you do actually want to marry though, and the justification given by some people is that is so that you are incentivised instead marry someone else, someone you presumably did not really want to marry.
> monogamy's main cultural evolutionary advantage over polygyny is the more egalitarian distribution of women, which reduces male competition and social problems.
It's this 'distribution of women' that seems dark to me. That can't be that much of a crazy opinion as people here seem to think?
> It's this 'distribution of women' that seems dark to me. That can't be that much of a crazy opinion as people here seem to think?
It's a very analytical, "cold" way to phrase it, yes, but you get this effect with many "human" problems that are studied scientifically, whether poverty, starvation, etc. Also note the same researchers can, and do, refer to the 'distribution of men' when discussing female mating preferences.
> incentivised instead marry someone else, someone you presumably did not really want to marry.
At a macro level, this is obviously true statistically. But do people experience it as such? You live in a non-polygamous society -- do you or the women you know feel like their spouses were forced on them? Because, to some degree, statistically, they were, as you correctly point out. But the mechanism is just via an accepted, background social norm... there are no arranged marriages, all marriages all voluntary, and everyone retains the option not to marry.
Yeah the theoretical situation is "I love X - can I marry him? No. Why not? Because he's already married and the other men will get violent if they don't also get a wife." and that sounds shitty. I don't know how many people experience that in reality.
But that is exactly the current system we have in the US and UK.
He can divorce and marry you, but that "frees up" his ex-wife to appease the roiling crowd of violent men. I'm being facetious, of course, because who thinks about it like that? No one. We just experience a cultural norm where people only marry one other person. And mostly no one complains.
And yet indirectly this norm has a macro statistical effect of keeping the peace.
> But that is exactly the current system we have in the US and UK.
Yeah I know - that's the situation I'm talking about. I know nobody seems to complain in public but I guess there are people out there is applies to. Maybe one day it'll change and people will be free to marry who they want.
> Maybe one day it'll change and people will be free to marry who they want.
People don't complain in private either. I've literally never heard it, even 2nd hand.
You're making it sound like a law against marrying someone of a difference race. It is nothing like that. Most Western women would be appalled at the idea of being someone's 3rd wife.
There is tiny subculture of poly-amorous people. Maybe some of them complain? But they can still be with who they want, just without the official seal.
If you're aware of this work and you think it's flawed, why don't you elaborate? That could be a great discussion.
If you're accusing Wiener and Mesquida of being sexist, or if you think research on this subject should be suppressed, you should come out and say that.
What's your contribution exactly other than strawmanning "some people" as bigots?
Nobody. You made up all those things you asked if I believed, out of thin air, for some bizarre reason. "If you're... If you're..." is a red flag for an argument. If you're not clear I was making an argument yourself... maybe it's because I didn't make it?
Your comment accused "some people" of being sexist. I asked you who those people are. There are specific academics who are proponents of this theory, so the most likely guess is that they were the target of your defamatory statement. I gave you the opportunity to clarify who you were defaming, but for some reason you don't want to. (In my opinion, you shouldn't be posting vague defamatory statements in the first place.)
> Your comment accused "some people" of being sexist.
I literally haven't used the word 'sexist' once in this entire thread. That's a word you used. See what I mean? I can't defend the use of 'sexist'... because I didn't use it... you did!
I've leave this thread to let you argue with your own choice of words on your own!
> some people think it's women's job to marry men to stop them being a menace to society.
So now you're saying this view held by these 'some people' isn't sexist?
I don't really have any desire to continue this, the fact is you posted a defamatory statement and don't want to own it, but I think to have posted it at all is against the spirit of Hacker News, which encourages open inquiry and curiosity, not attacking people for their immorality or whatever you were doing here. You should post that kind of thing on Reddit's r/politics instead where I'm sure people will upvote it like crazy. Have a nice day.
It's not the identification of the cause - it's the action taken based on it 'and therefore we will enact this law' - for example laws forbidding consenting people to marry if one of them already has a marriage.
One thing at play is there’s likely a large imbalance with the male/female ratios — lots more single men than women under 50. Same in the US, specifically on the west coast cities.
What creates this imbalance? Don't more men die from accidents, and there's a slightly lower (like 0.5%) number of male people born? Is there some part of the country with far more women?
They are separate. You can have the same rights and opportunities and have cultural expections. Paying for marriage is not required, but something the families choose to do. The woman has every right not to participate in that and must consent to the marriage for it to take place.
Not disagreeing with you about equality, but in many other areas it's on the groom, yet I don't think any pregnant lady would think, "Shit my baby is boy/girl. I don't want to pay for his/her wedding. Better abort now."
How can there be much of an imbalance? Looking at the US numbers [0] it appears that there is a big imbalance if you just look at the 18-29 age group. But it reverses at the other end of the age spectrum.
So... young women prefer older men, and vice versa? I don't think that is a new thing.
In India female foeticide was a big thing in the last 20-30 years. Effects of that are now evident with an excess male population. Wherever you go in India, there are more men than women visible.
Given many societies either force women into different lives than men (e.g. Afghanistan) or have cultures that lead to, on average, different lives (most of the world that still has at least some bias towards women being the child carers, house runners, etc. even parts that have/are moved/ing away from that being a default expectation), "how many of each gender are visible as I walk around a country" is a really bad way to judge. And plenty of other potential cultural gender differences, for example in many countries men may feel less afraid of being out alone especially at night.
Hell, even IF looking at the streets were a good way to judge, you'd still have to look at an awful lot of a lot of them before you could make statements about a whole country the size of India, and you'd need to avoid any personal cognitive biases (like confirmation bias), and...
Maybe you can find a source for <30yo gender split there? But whatever it is, I highly doubt it's a big enough gap to be the cause for you not seeing (/noticing) as many women as men in public.
Around 109 males for 100 females in 1991(30 years ago) and 110 for 100 in 2001(20 years ago). Sex ratio at birth has only recently begin to normalize with complete banning of prenatal testing. This has already create a massive problem of "missing women":
Is there a large imbalance? That's definitely not true in the US. (according to the census, there are more single women than men in the US, and the different is only about ~3% or so)
I think a lot of men focus on dating apps specifically (where the numbers actually are super imbalanced) which creates the perception of a large imbalance everywhere, a perception that isn't really true in general.
You are including over 50s. Every single major city in the USA has more men than women under 50. It’s specifically imbalanced in the west coast tech areas.
I'm not sure where your getting this. According to the data, there's slightly more women (even if we scope it to just any single generation, let's say just millennials in NYC for simplicity - https://www.mynbc5.com/article/theres-a-reason-why-so-many-m... )
In my home state, for example, there's about 8% more single Women than Men. And there's a list of like two dozen medium-sized and major metros where this is true across the US (Pittsburgh, Boston, Detroit, Richmond and DC metro, etc) - https://www.movebuddha.com/blog/best-cities-single-men/
Naturally more men are born (slightly) plus immigration. Used to balance off by me facing early deaths from dangerous work and fighting wars, but that’s largely not happening anymore in the west.
> What happens to a society that has too many men? In this provocative book, Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer argue that, historically, high male-to-female ratios often trigger domestic and international violence. Most violent crime is committed by young unmarried males who lack stable social bonds. Although there is not always a direct cause-and-effect relationship, these surplus men often play a crucial role in making violence prevalent within society. Governments sometimes respond to this problem by enlisting young surplus males in military campaigns and high-risk public works projects. Countries with high male-to-female ratios also tend to develop authoritarian political systems.
> Hudson and den Boer suggest that the sex ratios of many Asian countries, particularly China and India—which represent almost 40 percent of the world's population—are being skewed in favor of males on a scale that may be unprecedented in human history. Through offspring sex selection (often in the form of sex-selective abortion and female infanticide), these countries are acquiring a disproportionate number of low-status young adult males, called "bare branches" by the Chinese.
> Hudson and den Boer argue that this surplus male population in Asia's largest countries threatens domestic stability and international security. The prospects for peace and democracy are dimmed by the growth of bare branches in China and India, and, they maintain, the sex ratios of these countries will have global implications in the twenty-first century.
Maybe we should quit making studies that start on broad assumptions.
Not making assumptions is the entire point of science, after all.
Not once in the article do they consider that some men simply don't want to get married. It's absurd.
Here's the worst part of the article:
> Without jobs that can be lost or wives and children who could suffer, young, unmarried, unemployed men are poised to cause or be recruited to cause social and political trouble, Basu said. On the other hand, she said, “young women getting more educated and marrying later may yet turn out to be the harbingers of the modernization and social change in the country that seems to be otherwise slow in coming.
So men who aren't getting married are a threat to society, and women who aren't getting married are the "harbingers of...social change". How pathetic.
> Not once in the article do they consider that some men simply don't want to get married.
I think it's a reasonable assumption that if men used to get married/desire marriage, but now don't, then something must have changed. "The hearts of men don't change in any age", as they say. Even if the changes in outcomes come as a result of changes in wants, people don't suddenly want something different for no reason.
> “Even today, marriages in India are largely arranged by families, even though young men and women do increasingly have veto power, and follow rigid customs about marrying within one’s own language, group, religion and caste,” Basu said.
> Marriage is also nearly universal in India, Basu said; in NFHS data from 2015-16, only 1% of women aged 35-39 and 2% of men aged 40-44 had never been married. Furthermore, women are expected to marry men of higher socioeconomic status – or in a pinch, equal.
Look at the rest of the world. This is an aberration.
It's painfully obvious that there are men in India who do not want to get married who are getting married anyway.
How could it possibly be a surprise to see fewer men getting married? That's the most obvious prediction I can think to make!
Well, that's a thing that's changed then? I was arguing against the idea that men as a group simply woke up one day and decided to be different than they used to.
> However, the article does seem to try to address the connection between being not married and issues of employment and education.
Only because it assumed that connection in the first place.
Ignoring data is effectively the same as poisoning data. If I held a cup under a waterfall, and tried to measure how much water I was pouring into the cup from a pitcher...
Maybe because marriage isn't as beneficial as it was 50 years ago? Young people can't afford to buy a home and start a family. So why rush to get married and bring kids into the world. Women are working a lot more and having great careers they don't want to leave.
What you describe is independent of gender. If one parent could sustain a household, marriage becomes a bit easier - you can divide family responsibilities.
But today you often need both partners to work, leaving both too tired to own all the household labor.
I wonder if we'll see an increase in polycules to address this and/or a return to multigenerational housing.
Women want men to take the burden until her life gets manageable. Today the burden women want men to take is too great for most men, so they don't want to get married. Women still want to get married as long as the man is willing to take that heavy burden, to them this isn't a problem.
Hey, I'm curious where you are from. Culturally, what you've said here would generally be considered offensive where I'm from. I suspect, but I'm not sure, that we come from different places/backgrounds.
Given that, I of course reject your sweeping generalizations about both men and women.
Where are you from and/or what are you offended by?
I think I might partially agree with OP, in that men just don't feel comfortable taking on these roles. It's debatable how "fair" they are. Many would say that men are still at the advantage and men just can't accept a reduced (but still dominate) role.
I do think I've seen some thing in my personal life (well my married friends') that are concerning and do point to some amount of unfair treatment.
I'm from the Pacific Northwest, in the US. I interpreted the post as being about how women wanting equality was somehow a negative.
If the post were framed more like, "Men are unwilling to give up the status and do the labor necessary for gender equality" I'd be more receptive, though even that would be a generalization.
I think the way it was framed, particularly as a generalization about "women" (as if that was somehow a homogenous group) stood out most strongly to me. Combined with the admittedly unclear idea that women want men to take their burdens...
That's the thing though, you or whoever are getting offended because people don't use drastically negative and judgemental undertones: "man be bad and not help women".
Men's frustrations domestically must always be framed in a way where men are doing something bad to women. As opposed to just not wanting to do certain work, or disagree about how it should be done (or whether it should be done).
Men are not saying that women should pick up the slack (others might be, but here we aren't). They're saying we'll just not have family, or the work should just not get done sometimes.
Further, I would speculate that if women are (rightly) displacing men, and IF they also tend to want to date men that make more money, that could be a problem...
... or at least there could be a lot more single people. Seems to be happening already and driven by other forces (social isolation).
> Without jobs that can be lost or wives and children who could suffer, young, unmarried, unemployed men are poised to cause or be recruited to cause social and political trouble, Basu said. On the other hand, she said, “young women getting more educated and marrying later may yet turn out to be the harbingers of the modernization and social change in the country that seems to be otherwise slow in coming.”
I have a wife and kid. I have more to lose, sure, but I also have lots to gain. My friends and family who are single and childless have less of both (according to them, I'm not trying to pass any judgment here).
That's a tradeoff that is up to everyone to make for themselves, but characterizing this voluntary life path as "slavery" is disingenuous and misleading at best.
I find great enjoyment and personal satisfaction in raising my child, and building a life together with my wife.
It's difficult to articulate, but I usually phrase it as something along these lines.
* As a child, relatively small things bring you true joy. Opening a toy, playing games with friends, lots of stuff. And the real version of joy, where your heart feels too big for your chest.
* After about age 20 or so, I noticed those moments becoming less and less frequent. It took more and more to grant them, things like kissing my wife for the first time, day of my marriage, etc.
* Raising my child seems to have reset this. I feel true and genuine joy almost every day, just interacting with them. It's like being a kid again, for me.
* I believe that raising my child without my wife would not be the same experience, and probably would not give me the happiness I have now. She has expressed all of this to me as well.
That is what my current life path offers me that a hypothetical single me would not have had, and it means an awful lot to me. This is obviously not going to be true for everyone, but I also don't imagine I'm the only one who feels this way. The above is almost a cliche, it's voiced so often.
Obviously there are also tons of stats about life expectancy, average earnings, and other such economic and practical metrics being better for married men in the USA. Those are probably true to a degree, but don't resonate with me the same way. Plus, this being HN, I imagine a lot of us would be fine either way.
it's not my take, but the article makes it sound like marriage is severely holding back people and that indian men are naturally inclined to riot. all of which is BS of course
There is a recurring theme on this topic, and the article alluded to it via these men potentially stirring "political trouble", that the freedom of women needs to be clamped down on because these men won't otherwise find partners, and thus will cause social instability.
To me it strikes me as the entirely wrong approach. Women should in fact continue to push for their autonomy and freedom, and a functioning society should be keeping these men in check rather than yielding to them in any capacity.
> Women should in fact continue to push for their autonomy and freedom, and a functioning society should be keeping these men in check rather than yielding to them in any capacity.
Which works great until there are so many of these "excess" men that you can't keep them "in check". They are allowed to vote too, after all.
It looks like the concern is less their voting, but more their propensity toward domestic terrorism.
Moreover, voting to subjugate a group of people and restrict their human rights is horrific. Men are not owed girlfriends or wives, and certainly not via the ballot box. Geez.
Please enlighten me and point to where in this article it makes it a women problem… feels like they are highlighting a men’s issue…
The article feel like it is trying to lay out facts relating to tradition while withholding opinion.
Seems to me there is a recurring problem where people overlay women’s rights on to everything… the world is multi dimensional and doesn’t singularly revolve around gender… this kind of thinking shuts down debate and ostracises potential participants. The formerly oppressed are becoming the oppressor..
I recently had the opportunity to tour a Marine base. I was blown away: it's all fucking kids. Drivers, checkpoint guards, helicopter pilots. All 18, 20, 22 years old. Kids! In charge of multi-million dollar hardware. The ones in their late 20s were few and far between. Middle aged men in uniform numbered in the single digits.
My point is: due to the natural curve of population growth there will always be more younger, potentially frustrated men who lack opportunity. Your only realistic hope will be to convince enough of them to help you police the subset who refuse to be convinced.
How do you influence them? What do you bribe them with?
I mean if you're at the point where you can't enforce laws in your society, you have even bigger problems; especially if you've allowed a small minority of men to hold your system hostage. So clearly, if that is the concern, better to nip it even sooner rather than let it fester.
Is there a society that has 100% enforcement rate? In the US, almost a third of murders go unsolved. There's also massive discrepancies in enforcement for lessor crimes when it comes to police and prosecutor "discretion".
Even the high clearance rate in places like Japan is suspect. So it seems like a problem, but it seems universal.
The "CSI effect" [1] tends to lead people to believe law enforcement is far more capable and effective than it is. Murder is the most likely to be solved crime, and its clearance/solving rate in the US is currently trending to drop below 50% for the first time ever. In some high crime areas like St. Louis, murder clearance rates are already in the thirties. [3]
The point of this is that the civility of society is, for better and for worse, not upheld by enforcement - but by an unspoken agreement to a social contract. If any remotely sizable group of people chose to break that agreement, it would be unpleasant times ahead. Even this issue aside, it seems self evident that trying to run a society through coercion would be unstable at best.
So what is the social contract in this instance? That men are entitled to women? That strikes me as... trying to run a society through coercion, just with the target being a group that people here seem fine with coercing.
Sometimes unpleasant times are necessary in the fight for human rights. Otherwise we would still have things like slavery. Additionally, women wouldn't have the right to vote, and they also wouldn't be able to make independent financial decisions like have their own bank accounts or mortgages. These things aren't that historic, and taking the side of trying to restrict women's relationship choices strikes me as being on the wrong side of history again.
That's quite the strawman, even by 'arguing on the internet' standards. I'd be happy to continue the discussion because I find this quite an interesting topic, but only if you're going to participant in good faith.
Until relatively recently, when progressive ideology began to push back against the influence of conservative Christianity, "Everyone is supposed to get married, or else" was the cultural norm throughout the Western world, and remaining single made you a social pariah and an outcast, or at least marked you as morally deviant, and a suspected homosexual.
Huh? Maybe the single guy trope (that's secretly gay), but I think we were passed the extreme stigma against single people by then. I think back in the 50s-70s, and it was a more critical norm... you just didn't want to be seen in our thirties with no spouse.
Of course, there is similar stigma to this day, but what OP was mentioning was real serious discrimination, ie. like ethnic minorities face, though to a much lesser extent.
And the same still applies, but you can replace "marriage" with "committed relationship". And most people might not desire marriage, but they desire a partner, and they're facing similar issues, albeit the social status fallout is smaller.
it wasnt as extreme. Even in the 60s , 10% of people were unmarried. These percentages have doubled since. According to the article in india that percentage was <2%
Unemployment is a major major problem in India. No jobs, no marriage. 1.4 billion people, most populous youth workforce that has existed ever in the entire history of the world, poor education system, lack of manufacturing sector, small land holdings etc. create a recipe for disaster. Millions of people literally slog for years in a rat race to get a low paying government bureaucratic job. Here is a recent exam in which the crowd was so much that they even chocked the railway lines:
To be fair, a lot of the comp in those low paying government jobs can be recovered by the employees of those jobs asking the people they're serving for a little "extra" to speed up the process.
I had a friend from India explain to me about 30 years ago that everything in India is done with bribes. His example was, if you wanted to get your high school transcript, you would have to bribe people all along the way. If you asked the wrong person, you'd have to pay them to tell you the right person. He said the whole society is run like this.
A lot of this has changed over the past 10 years because of digitization. By removing the need to physically file paperwork or physical verification, there's less opportunity or ability for low level bribe taking.
I can't tell if this comment is a fetish thing, pro-India nationalism (railing against perceived 'degeneracy') or anti-Indian racism (saying that Indian men are inferior).
It is a main cause why men of the nation do not marry. Many men do not want to be cuckolded. If being in modern marriage means being cuckolded and having his reputation ruined then the man will not be married and he will salvage and grow his reputation instead as a single man with no marriage.
What exactly is the rationale for this push for marriage? If both men and women have the same working opportunities?
Wasn't the point of marriage because women weren't supposed to work? And now they are, so what exactly is the point? "Taxes" or something?
Just look at the title of the article, it's implying that no marriage is associated with being "aimless", as if the meaning of life is marriage -> kids -> more cannon fodder and tax base. No higher purpose. Just more baby making
The entire attitude here (which is especially prevalent in US media) seems highly reactionary in tone. If (wo)men don't want marriage, then more power to them. Life is finite
The point of marriage is because you've found a partner you want to commit to.
And in "traditional" marriages, women absolutely do work. They just do unpaid labor (and often more than the man did, working weekends and evenings as well.) Laundry, cooking, cleaning, childcare, are all work.
And having kids can be emotionally fulfilling. Watching the development of ones children and experiencing the world through their eyes is powerful.
And I agree with you, if a woman doesn't want marriage, great! She should face no stigma for that choice. But your attitude that marriage is somehow transactional or whatever ignores a lot of human emotional aspects.
> And in "traditional" marriages, women absolutely do work. They just do unpaid labor (and often more than the man did, working weekends and evenings as well.) Laundry, cooking, cleaning, childcare, are all work.
Work in that context meant a job, ie paid labor
> And having kids can be emotionally fulfilling. Watching the development of ones children and experiencing the world through their eyes is powerful.
This has nothing to do with marriage
> But your attitude that marriage is somehow transactional or whatever ignores a lot of human emotional aspects.
Because it's a legal agreement, viz transactional. The emotional aspect is love. Love does not imply marriage (a legal agreement).
You love someone so much that you decide to enter into a legally binding agreement, and because of the love alone and not other factors like tradition or conformity?
This makes no sense, loving someone and entering into a legal agreement are two entirely different concepts
No one here is going to convince you via posting. You've got strong opinions here, clearly. I should probably just disengage and downvote and move on.
... But
The legal part of marriage is important, it provides protections for partners who are likely to make a life change based on love. My marriage certificate guarantees that if my partner or I chooses to give up a career to take care of the household, we aren't left penniless if we split.
It protects us in the outside world too, we are a household. We can easily operate for one another I'm financial, contractual, or other spaces.
It's social, it's a commitment visible to others. It's a way of saying I care so much I'm willing to put aside some of my independence for the purpose of this relationship. That carries emotional weight.
Of course love and legal marriage are different. Love whomever you want, but there are emotional reasons AND legal reasons to get married. (And plenty of reasons not to as well.)
>The point of marriage is because you've found a partner you want to commit to.
Your western centrism is showing. That's only a modern western view of marriage that commoners can get married for love. That's something that you can only do in a developed economy. Try marrying for love when you're a poor farmer and you don't know how next years harvest is going to be. For a lot of people, there are qualities besides love and attraction that are desirable in a marriage.
There's a difference between "not wanting to marry" and "not having the ability to marry". Very few people own private jets, but that's not a choice, and saying "if all these people don't want to own private jets, more power to them" is weird.
The headline is wrong. "Men" are not delaying (their own) marriage. Pre-arranged marriage is still a thing. It is usually not a decision of the individuals, but parents take care.
Like all parents, everyone wants the best for their children, even adult children. The caste system is still a relevant factor. Social level determines who can marry whom. A good job opens up better marriage options. A university degree (even if just on paper) helps, too. So parents are delaying the marriage deals.
This is a good book on some field research around the anthropological concept of "waiting" in North India - https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=17650 . Looking at my extended relatives of a similar age in small town North India, it's analysis of the malaise is pretty on point.
Although there is some truth to this, your comment has a casual racist undertone to it. Most Indians I personally know (Middle class and up) dont need to rebuilt as you’ve stated.
Replace ‘India’ in your comment with any other country in the world and you’ll know what I mean.
You are being too kind. There is absolutely no truth in the poster's statements, weirdly anecdotal and it is strongly racist. Yes, surely owing to a majority poor population an average indian is undernourished compared to their western counterparts (averages) which reflects in physical measures such as height, it is a long stretch to say they are _weak_. Poster is giving examples of moving to foreign lands as if the rest of world does it regularly, and mind you there is far more mobility in India because job market is much more concentrated to a select bunch of big cities to where all people from their small towns and cities flock to.
Every other Indian was stunted as a child due to lack of a healthy childhood diet. This results in permanent physical and mental underdevelopment and hence it might appear Indians are weak. Indians who do get enough nutrition are doing good the world over though.
Some men of the nation do stand proud! They say No, I will not be cuckold in cuckolded marriage. They say No, I will not marry if it means the wife will have relations with foreign men because I am of insufficient size and stamina and I will know of these relations. Those men who say No will be single men but they will also be men of dignity.
Is cuckolding really that common in Indian society? Or is this cuckolded as in the definition of “she has been with a foreign man before me” and the men are too insecure about her past?
Before internet it was unknown. Because of internet videos women now have new expectations for size and stamina. It is not about past relations with foreign men it is about relations that happen during the marriage. The local man who is of insufficient size and stamina knows that his wife finds satisfaction from men of other lands. The cuckolded man wants it to be a secret but it soon becomes known to all that he is a man with an unsatisfied wife. Hence there are men who say No I will not be a cuckold and so that man does not get married.
This is largely a mentality problem. Men are capable of choosing to self-select out of dating and marriage, but to project this issue on an entire gender speaks of personal insecurities.
A few in this thread dance around, avoiding the truth because they are afraid of being labeled a sexist. Few skirted the root causes and macro effects, but here it is, plainly: men are being displaced from their roles in society, and replaced with woman, to the detriment of everyone.
Men and women have evolved over millennia to be (traditionally) different; play different roles in the raising and caring of offspring, partaking in society, partner selection, and responsibilities.
India is facing the same problems as all developing countries, but it is more drastic, given their population explosion, politics, culture, and prevalence of automation.
Men and women are simply different; having evolved different preferences for social order; modernity is threatening this evolved order, faster than the average man and woman can realize, and the ramifications are simply more drastic on a communal and macroeconomic level than anyone (especially those rallying "equality and equity" for women) could had imagined.
Men overwhelmingly value looks; a woman's health is nearly apparent in their attractiveness, and good health usually correlates highly with healthy offspring. Attractiveness is certainly partly genetic, but in general, woman can simply be pretty, and find a partner - because the things that men value (good looks, wide hips, symmetrical face) are nearly effortless at an individual level.
Women overwhelmingly value social status, as men who are higher on the socio-economic totem pole make it far easier to rear children. More money, easier taking care of children, simple as. This has a far more profound effect though, and is where modernity rears its ugly head.
Because of the above preferences, women are naturally _hypergamous_ - they will date across and up, but not down. Men are not - and will gladly take a poorer woman, provided they look healthy. This aligns with both partner selection and duties; woman care for children, men care for women.
Due to the nature of wealth accumulation and inheritance, men have to perform much more to "stand out" and to find a partner - compared to the effort required for women of just having to been born with decent genetics. This is where modern economics ( capitalism, accumulation of capital, automation, displacement) come into play, displacing men, exacerbating the issues - as these are very recent inventions, relatively.
These are an evolved (un)conscious bias, an instinct, labeled a "preference", that is found in every society we have created. Men must provide, women must nurture.
It is as simple as that: we still have our hunter(men) - gatherer(women) traits, but we are no longer in that world.
The modern world is drastically different, but we haven't changed (innately) much, and this disparity is causing social issues in every developed country. Every one!
The 20% of men get their pick of 80% of women. Women work now, and if they do not demonstrate hypergamy, men do not value a woman's material contributions the same way - most find it subtly emasculating. This is just even more competition for the "traditional man's role" of being the provider. There is no inverse - men are not being selected for their looks by successful women, because that is simply not the innate biological imperative we have evolved over thousands of generations emerging. Traditions had value, now they may be an impeding force in a brave, new world.
In short: women's suffrage, the modern workplace, and the widespread hypergamy have displaced men.
This may all just sound like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate talking points, which make you wonder why they have been _massively_ popular as of late, especially with young men in the 16-25 range. But it isn't just men, woman are also noticing these disparities in role selection:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyR3jMVUgZadX9dHjuKFuMQ
Stereotypes are never useful, societies adapt to their needs. Our current societies are not going to die because they have decided to cut down on marriages or lots of children. We re smart enough to think for ourselves without consulting the books written by the Elders
we have so far. but there are biological impositions that may not be able to be overcome.
>Our current societies are not going to die because they have decided to cut down on marriages or lots of children.
They may not die, but unless we get robots caring for the elders soon, our continue expectation of population and economic growth is surely _unsustainable_
>We re smart enough to think for ourselves without consulting the books written by the Elders
Are we smart enough to prevent population/economic/ecologic collapse? Unless we are talking test tube babies and society conditioning....anything less than Brave New World simply won't work.
When half of women aged 30 are single and without a child, we didn't even need to damage our DNA a la Children of Men - just our society outpacing the human condition may be enough to ussure in an exponential degradation in quality of life.
men dont have babies. they aren't equal to women. unless that changes, and people accept it quickly, then men and women will continue to have crucial roles in society and the upbringing of the next generation - our continuity.
Hypergamy in women is driven at the sociological level by the gender differences themselves. That is, the more of an economic advantage men have over women, the more women tend to want to marry up. As the playing field levels, more empowered women are more willing to date lower class men. Which... makes sense. People take the easiest route available to them to improve their lives.
Complaining about the current state of things is largely complaining that men are slowly losing their long standing advantage and privileged position.
> As the playing field levels, more empowered women are more willing to date lower class men.
turns out, instinctual preferences may outpower the "free market", only time will tell. It isn't looking that way though - else we would see equalizing by now in partner selection. Instead, we have a more disproportionate amount of men being left partnerless, as is the problem the article, and many a census sentiment are leaning.
>Complaining about the current state of things is largely complaining that men are slowly losing their long standing advantage and privileged position.
>privileged
just because a hierarchy exists doesn't mean it is advantageous to those on top. the more complex the hierarchy, the worse change is for those on top.
But if you consider mindless drone office work to be empowering, then women would be more satisfied with their careers, which doesn't seem to be the case, "stereotypically"/statistically. It also just plays into the thesis that men are being displaced.
In the current environment, men cannot replace women, but women can almost replace men. That turns our societal norms into predicaments.
> turns out, instinctual preferences may outpower the "free market", only time will tell. It isn't looking that way though - else we would see equalizing by now in partner selection.
Thanks for the link, but it is specifically comparing _education_ levels, which has been strongly leaning towards more women, for various factors: such as, men are more interested in trades (partly economic, but also instinctual) and STEM, and most "education" now has been diluted to appeal to women; there are more creative, feminine studies now than 50 years ago.
>> the more complex the hierarchy, the worse change is for those on top.
>Because they can fall to the level of an unattractive woman 50 years prior?
Yes. unattractive woman 50 years ago still had plenty of men to choose from - most men didn't procreate, although the levels weren't as drastic today.
Now, unattractive men cannot convince the same ladies to "swing down", which is why there is an all time high of unchilded women at menopause age.
>India is a terrible example of generalized outcomes. It has a large gender imbalance and this whole dowry bullshit.
I want to agree, but, it _is_ the oldest civilization on the planet, and it is the in the most immediate dire population/ecologic/economic stress. I think something can be gleaned, and not placed at the hand of outdated cultural alone.
> Thanks for the link, but it is specifically comparing _education_ levels, which has been strongly leaning towards more women, for various factors: such as, men are more interested in trades (partly economic, but also instinctual) and STEM, and most "education" now has been diluted to appeal to women; there are more creative, feminine studies now than 50 years ago.
The study is illustrating the groups in which women broadly have more educational attainment than men, women are more likely to marry down. Including highlighting several subgroups where the majority of women are marrying down, and thus implying that the majority of men are marrying up.
Your arguments here try to diminish the meaningfulness of this metric. Which I think is dumb because it's clearly at least a good proxy measurement for women gaining some form of social power, but suppose you were correct and it's a meaningless metric. Then what's driving the high prevalence of women marrying down? Because they are. This is observed data. Women in these groups are marrying down. The idea that hypergamy is instinctive female behavior does not hold up to scrutiny against sociological studies.
We are speaking socio-economic. Money. Men are happy to provide money to women, woman are more happy with a man that can provide.
The linked study specifically tiptoes around it (money earned) and only speaks of "educational advantage", namely prevalence of women in higher education - my point was that college has been feminized, so this isn't a surprise.
Women may swing down in the later years, sure, because to rise up the educational/career ladder, takes time it and of itself. Time that females don't have, when maximizing mate selection. Men don't have that problem, old sperm is just as good, which also explains the 4-year on average disparity between men and women's ages.
Men like to swing down 4 years, women up. Aligns again with biology, and the preferences instilled in us.
> "Complaining about the current state of things is largely complaining that men are slowly losing their long standing advantage and privileged position."
This may be a popular talking point, but there's more to it than that. Mainly men can't assume the role of caretaker and gain the same level of respect and protection that housewives get; at least that's the perception, but while it may be exaggerated, there seems to be some truth in this.
Also, the fact that men and women just tend to look for different things in a partner. I agree that some of this "displacement" OP mentioned is exactly what you're talking about, but there's more to it than that. In addition to men not feeling comfortable being caretakers, women tend to prefer men that make more. Men don't care, or can even prefer women that make less than them.
I don't agree with OP and think he's been a bit reductionist, btw. It seems that people always jump to say we've just evened the playing field, but it's never going to be even if men and women want different things, and behave drastically differently.
Tribal polyamorous families were good when we gathered and hunted.
With the rise of agriculture and population density, came familial norms that were better accommodating to all the members of the society, namely women, who would fight over partner selection, to enforce monogamy, which is better....for the children, it turns out.
The nuclear family is a post agriculture invention. The norm for farming families, which were the majority of families for the past thousand or so years, was to have your whole family in one house, with grandparents doing most of the child watching.
Nuclear, in this exact context, I had meant monogamous, specifically not multiple women per man. Grandparents being included is almost moot, but culturally were very important, everywhere/when.
Before agriculture, specialization / modern civilization, and the _medical revolution_, of course you were going to have multiple women - most died in childbirth, and the ones that lived were too dependent to stand up on jealousy grounds.
Well written. Most people don't want to be reminded that at our very core we are just hairless apes who are subject to billions of years of evolutionary conditioning. Mate selection among primates follows quite straightforward patterns, we aren't that different afterall.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 225 ms ] threadRight now, most people are just surviving with assets, mortgages, vehicles, and careers they already have. Starting out though, without these things, is very difficult.
Starting out even 5 years ago was easier. Lower used car prices, lower education costs, and now (for the US) a chance for loan forgiveness, which nobody entering college next year will get. It just gets harder and harder to stand up, to where you just end up questioning why even trying.
Why save $5K as a young man when, due to two years of inflation, you are hardly closer to affording that car than you were when you started?
20 years ago in China people didn't value girls so they aborted them. Today there are many, many men who can't possibly feel valued.
I always find something a little dark about this argument against letting men be single, and against practices like polygamy with some men having multiple wives and others not having wives.
There's a kind of 'or else...' vibe to it. As if some people think it's women's job to marry men to stop them being a menace to society.
I'm at the point where I don't like it, but it is probably true regardless.
I'm not that familliar with situation in india, but in "the west", we've come to situations where young people (with a very wide definition of "young") are unable to afford homes (and in turn, kids), are underpaid, and in some of those countries (mostly usa) cannot even afford education and healthcare (in contrast to eg. europe, where education is taxpayer paid but healthcare is slowly going down lower and lower).
Maybe it is the time to say "stop", we want homes, better pay (and all the other stuff), and such major changes only come with enough people who are fed up and have nothing else to lose... so yes, young, childless, unmarried men.
I know most revolutions end badly, but find me a developed "western" place with affordable housing?
If it were not for these things, I believe that we would be much closer to revolution even if nobody can see it yet. Potentially Tzarist Russia or Weimar Germany close. I think young men have all the social indicators needed to cause them to broadly revolt; we just have some placating methods that didn't exist historically.
Sadly, the governments solve this by taxing the "rich" (=middle class, because the actual rich always avoid the taxes, and engineers, coders, tradesmen etc. are the one who get fucked), bringing everyone (except the actual rich) to some low minimum needed to survive while still being fucked in every other sense. So yeah... the only way this can be solved is (in my, controversial opinion), is for people to actually get angry and replace the whole set of politicians and people in bed with them.
The same argument is made for wealth transfers via taxes: pay up, or they might just take it, and it's cheaper and more efficient to codify wealth transfer instead of just letting it happen.
And you don't necessarily need men to get married to not be trouble makers. But you'll need them to have something to do. If that's not marriage, education or work, you better have entertainment or drugs available.
I don't think anyone studying this seriously is making that argument or even trying to slyly imply it.
I think it breaks down like this:
We know "lots of single men" correlates with many indicators that are, broadly, "bad for society".
What is driving this change? What can we about it? The "what can we do about it?" is focused, again broadly, on "fixing men" or "fixing the incentives for men" or "fixing the opportunities for men."
No one is proposing, "Hey women, you better start marrying these unattractive layabouts or else society will collapse and you'll be living in dystopia...".
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/case-ag...
> monogamy's main cultural evolutionary advantage over polygyny is the more egalitarian distribution of women, which reduces male competition and social problems.
It's this 'distribution of women' that seems dark to me. That can't be that much of a crazy opinion as people here seem to think?
It's a very analytical, "cold" way to phrase it, yes, but you get this effect with many "human" problems that are studied scientifically, whether poverty, starvation, etc. Also note the same researchers can, and do, refer to the 'distribution of men' when discussing female mating preferences.
> incentivised instead marry someone else, someone you presumably did not really want to marry.
At a macro level, this is obviously true statistically. But do people experience it as such? You live in a non-polygamous society -- do you or the women you know feel like their spouses were forced on them? Because, to some degree, statistically, they were, as you correctly point out. But the mechanism is just via an accepted, background social norm... there are no arranged marriages, all marriages all voluntary, and everyone retains the option not to marry.
He can divorce and marry you, but that "frees up" his ex-wife to appease the roiling crowd of violent men. I'm being facetious, of course, because who thinks about it like that? No one. We just experience a cultural norm where people only marry one other person. And mostly no one complains.
And yet indirectly this norm has a macro statistical effect of keeping the peace.
Yeah I know - that's the situation I'm talking about. I know nobody seems to complain in public but I guess there are people out there is applies to. Maybe one day it'll change and people will be free to marry who they want.
People don't complain in private either. I've literally never heard it, even 2nd hand.
You're making it sound like a law against marrying someone of a difference race. It is nothing like that. Most Western women would be appalled at the idea of being someone's 3rd wife.
There is tiny subculture of poly-amorous people. Maybe some of them complain? But they can still be with who they want, just without the official seal.
Where are they illegal? Or are you talking about marriage?
Polygamy means multiple marriages at the same time.
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/young-men-and-war-could-w...
If you're aware of this work and you think it's flawed, why don't you elaborate? That could be a great discussion.
If you're accusing Wiener and Mesquida of being sexist, or if you think research on this subject should be suppressed, you should come out and say that.
What's your contribution exactly other than strawmanning "some people" as bigots?
Why don't you elaborate on exactly who you were libeling here?
The answer to all their questions is basically 'I never said that in the first place.'
How's that going to lead to an interesting discussion?
I literally haven't used the word 'sexist' once in this entire thread. That's a word you used. See what I mean? I can't defend the use of 'sexist'... because I didn't use it... you did!
I've leave this thread to let you argue with your own choice of words on your own!
> some people think it's women's job to marry men to stop them being a menace to society.
So now you're saying this view held by these 'some people' isn't sexist?
I don't really have any desire to continue this, the fact is you posted a defamatory statement and don't want to own it, but I think to have posted it at all is against the spirit of Hacker News, which encourages open inquiry and curiosity, not attacking people for their immorality or whatever you were doing here. You should post that kind of thing on Reddit's r/politics instead where I'm sure people will upvote it like crazy. Have a nice day.
What region are you talking about? At least globally, there seem to be more men born than women.[1] Also seems to hold for the US[2].
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Global_P...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USA_Population_Pyramid.sv...
So... young women prefer older men, and vice versa? I don't think that is a new thing.
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/a-profi...
Hell, even IF looking at the streets were a good way to judge, you'd still have to look at an awful lot of a lot of them before you could make statements about a whole country the size of India, and you'd need to avoid any personal cognitive biases (like confirmation bias), and...
This link suggests that as of last yeah there were 1020 women per 1000 men in India https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303286/india-urban-and-...
Maybe you can find a source for <30yo gender split there? But whatever it is, I highly doubt it's a big enough gap to be the cause for you not seeing (/noticing) as many women as men in public.
Around 109 males for 100 females in 1991(30 years ago) and 110 for 100 in 2001(20 years ago). Sex ratio at birth has only recently begin to normalize with complete banning of prenatal testing. This has already create a massive problem of "missing women":
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/46-million-girls-went...
https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/missing-girls-indi...
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/unmarried-single-ame...
I think a lot of men focus on dating apps specifically (where the numbers actually are super imbalanced) which creates the perception of a large imbalance everywhere, a perception that isn't really true in general.
In my home state, for example, there's about 8% more single Women than Men. And there's a list of like two dozen medium-sized and major metros where this is true across the US (Pittsburgh, Boston, Detroit, Richmond and DC metro, etc) - https://www.movebuddha.com/blog/best-cities-single-men/
Atlanta too, has more single women than men by a wide margin ( https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/atlanta/why-dating-i... )
Yes, the tech hub metros lean male-heavy (SF, Seattle, Austin, etc). But, generally speaking, most of the US is the opposite, so.
This is just a US-thing: more men on the west coast, more women on the east coast.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/799446/resident-populati...
This is known as "bare branches":
India’s bare branches - https://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/india-s-bare-branches...
Tackling India's Bare Branches - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353220444_Tackling_...
Bare branches, redundant males - https://www.economist.com/asia/2015/04/18/bare-branches-redu...
India’s Bare Branches - https://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2011/03/19/india’s-bare-branc...
(and many more)
The book that brought attention to this all is Bare Branches - The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262582643/bare-branches/
> What happens to a society that has too many men? In this provocative book, Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer argue that, historically, high male-to-female ratios often trigger domestic and international violence. Most violent crime is committed by young unmarried males who lack stable social bonds. Although there is not always a direct cause-and-effect relationship, these surplus men often play a crucial role in making violence prevalent within society. Governments sometimes respond to this problem by enlisting young surplus males in military campaigns and high-risk public works projects. Countries with high male-to-female ratios also tend to develop authoritarian political systems.
> Hudson and den Boer suggest that the sex ratios of many Asian countries, particularly China and India—which represent almost 40 percent of the world's population—are being skewed in favor of males on a scale that may be unprecedented in human history. Through offspring sex selection (often in the form of sex-selective abortion and female infanticide), these countries are acquiring a disproportionate number of low-status young adult males, called "bare branches" by the Chinese.
> Hudson and den Boer argue that this surplus male population in Asia's largest countries threatens domestic stability and international security. The prospects for peace and democracy are dimmed by the growth of bare branches in China and India, and, they maintain, the sex ratios of these countries will have global implications in the twenty-first century.
Not making assumptions is the entire point of science, after all.
Not once in the article do they consider that some men simply don't want to get married. It's absurd.
Here's the worst part of the article:
> Without jobs that can be lost or wives and children who could suffer, young, unmarried, unemployed men are poised to cause or be recruited to cause social and political trouble, Basu said. On the other hand, she said, “young women getting more educated and marrying later may yet turn out to be the harbingers of the modernization and social change in the country that seems to be otherwise slow in coming.
So men who aren't getting married are a threat to society, and women who aren't getting married are the "harbingers of...social change". How pathetic.
I think it's a reasonable assumption that if men used to get married/desire marriage, but now don't, then something must have changed. "The hearts of men don't change in any age", as they say. Even if the changes in outcomes come as a result of changes in wants, people don't suddenly want something different for no reason.
> Marriage is also nearly universal in India, Basu said; in NFHS data from 2015-16, only 1% of women aged 35-39 and 2% of men aged 40-44 had never been married. Furthermore, women are expected to marry men of higher socioeconomic status – or in a pinch, equal.
Look at the rest of the world. This is an aberration.
It's painfully obvious that there are men in India who do not want to get married who are getting married anyway.
How could it possibly be a surprise to see fewer men getting married? That's the most obvious prediction I can think to make!
However, the article does seem to try to address the connection between being not married and issues of employment and education.
I suspect the article is just a shallow bit of what might be actual information.
Only because it assumed that connection in the first place.
Ignoring data is effectively the same as poisoning data. If I held a cup under a waterfall, and tried to measure how much water I was pouring into the cup from a pitcher...
“Some men, the ones without decent or any jobs, especially when they are not very well educated, have a hard time getting married,”
Maybe because marriage isn't as beneficial as it was 50 years ago? Young people can't afford to buy a home and start a family. So why rush to get married and bring kids into the world. Women are working a lot more and having great careers they don't want to leave.
But today you often need both partners to work, leaving both too tired to own all the household labor.
I wonder if we'll see an increase in polycules to address this and/or a return to multigenerational housing.
Given that, I of course reject your sweeping generalizations about both men and women.
I think I might partially agree with OP, in that men just don't feel comfortable taking on these roles. It's debatable how "fair" they are. Many would say that men are still at the advantage and men just can't accept a reduced (but still dominate) role.
I do think I've seen some thing in my personal life (well my married friends') that are concerning and do point to some amount of unfair treatment.
If the post were framed more like, "Men are unwilling to give up the status and do the labor necessary for gender equality" I'd be more receptive, though even that would be a generalization.
I think the way it was framed, particularly as a generalization about "women" (as if that was somehow a homogenous group) stood out most strongly to me. Combined with the admittedly unclear idea that women want men to take their burdens...
Men's frustrations domestically must always be framed in a way where men are doing something bad to women. As opposed to just not wanting to do certain work, or disagree about how it should be done (or whether it should be done).
Men are not saying that women should pick up the slack (others might be, but here we aren't). They're saying we'll just not have family, or the work should just not get done sometimes.
Further, I would speculate that if women are (rightly) displacing men, and IF they also tend to want to date men that make more money, that could be a problem...
... or at least there could be a lot more single people. Seems to be happening already and driven by other forces (social isolation).
Sounds like marriage is modern slavery for both
Of all places, India has a very long history of arranged/forced marriages. That's a gross human right violation.
The article is so biased that it even starts with "Marriage is highly revered".
I have a wife and kid. I have more to lose, sure, but I also have lots to gain. My friends and family who are single and childless have less of both (according to them, I'm not trying to pass any judgment here).
That's a tradeoff that is up to everyone to make for themselves, but characterizing this voluntary life path as "slavery" is disingenuous and misleading at best.
It's difficult to articulate, but I usually phrase it as something along these lines.
* As a child, relatively small things bring you true joy. Opening a toy, playing games with friends, lots of stuff. And the real version of joy, where your heart feels too big for your chest.
* After about age 20 or so, I noticed those moments becoming less and less frequent. It took more and more to grant them, things like kissing my wife for the first time, day of my marriage, etc.
* Raising my child seems to have reset this. I feel true and genuine joy almost every day, just interacting with them. It's like being a kid again, for me.
* I believe that raising my child without my wife would not be the same experience, and probably would not give me the happiness I have now. She has expressed all of this to me as well.
That is what my current life path offers me that a hypothetical single me would not have had, and it means an awful lot to me. This is obviously not going to be true for everyone, but I also don't imagine I'm the only one who feels this way. The above is almost a cliche, it's voiced so often.
Obviously there are also tons of stats about life expectancy, average earnings, and other such economic and practical metrics being better for married men in the USA. Those are probably true to a degree, but don't resonate with me the same way. Plus, this being HN, I imagine a lot of us would be fine either way.
To me it strikes me as the entirely wrong approach. Women should in fact continue to push for their autonomy and freedom, and a functioning society should be keeping these men in check rather than yielding to them in any capacity.
Which works great until there are so many of these "excess" men that you can't keep them "in check". They are allowed to vote too, after all.
Moreover, voting to subjugate a group of people and restrict their human rights is horrific. Men are not owed girlfriends or wives, and certainly not via the ballot box. Geez.
The article feel like it is trying to lay out facts relating to tradition while withholding opinion.
Seems to me there is a recurring problem where people overlay women’s rights on to everything… the world is multi dimensional and doesn’t singularly revolve around gender… this kind of thinking shuts down debate and ostracises potential participants. The formerly oppressed are becoming the oppressor..
My point is: due to the natural curve of population growth there will always be more younger, potentially frustrated men who lack opportunity. Your only realistic hope will be to convince enough of them to help you police the subset who refuse to be convinced.
How do you influence them? What do you bribe them with?
Even the high clearance rate in places like Japan is suspect. So it seems like a problem, but it seems universal.
The point of this is that the civility of society is, for better and for worse, not upheld by enforcement - but by an unspoken agreement to a social contract. If any remotely sizable group of people chose to break that agreement, it would be unpleasant times ahead. Even this issue aside, it seems self evident that trying to run a society through coercion would be unstable at best.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSI_effect
[2] - https://www.murderdata.org/p/blog-page.html
[3] - https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/05/08/americas-...
Sometimes unpleasant times are necessary in the fight for human rights. Otherwise we would still have things like slavery. Additionally, women wouldn't have the right to vote, and they also wouldn't be able to make independent financial decisions like have their own bank accounts or mortgages. These things aren't that historic, and taking the side of trying to restrict women's relationship choices strikes me as being on the wrong side of history again.
Of course, there is similar stigma to this day, but what OP was mentioning was real serious discrimination, ie. like ethnic minorities face, though to a much lesser extent.
https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/lucknow/moving-scen...
Wasn't the point of marriage because women weren't supposed to work? And now they are, so what exactly is the point? "Taxes" or something?
Just look at the title of the article, it's implying that no marriage is associated with being "aimless", as if the meaning of life is marriage -> kids -> more cannon fodder and tax base. No higher purpose. Just more baby making
The entire attitude here (which is especially prevalent in US media) seems highly reactionary in tone. If (wo)men don't want marriage, then more power to them. Life is finite
edit: if you downvote, reply
And in "traditional" marriages, women absolutely do work. They just do unpaid labor (and often more than the man did, working weekends and evenings as well.) Laundry, cooking, cleaning, childcare, are all work.
And having kids can be emotionally fulfilling. Watching the development of ones children and experiencing the world through their eyes is powerful.
And I agree with you, if a woman doesn't want marriage, great! She should face no stigma for that choice. But your attitude that marriage is somehow transactional or whatever ignores a lot of human emotional aspects.
Work in that context meant a job, ie paid labor
> And having kids can be emotionally fulfilling. Watching the development of ones children and experiencing the world through their eyes is powerful.
This has nothing to do with marriage
> But your attitude that marriage is somehow transactional or whatever ignores a lot of human emotional aspects.
Because it's a legal agreement, viz transactional. The emotional aspect is love. Love does not imply marriage (a legal agreement).
You love someone so much that you decide to enter into a legally binding agreement, and because of the love alone and not other factors like tradition or conformity?
This makes no sense, loving someone and entering into a legal agreement are two entirely different concepts
... But
The legal part of marriage is important, it provides protections for partners who are likely to make a life change based on love. My marriage certificate guarantees that if my partner or I chooses to give up a career to take care of the household, we aren't left penniless if we split.
It protects us in the outside world too, we are a household. We can easily operate for one another I'm financial, contractual, or other spaces.
It's social, it's a commitment visible to others. It's a way of saying I care so much I'm willing to put aside some of my independence for the purpose of this relationship. That carries emotional weight.
Of course love and legal marriage are different. Love whomever you want, but there are emotional reasons AND legal reasons to get married. (And plenty of reasons not to as well.)
Your western centrism is showing. That's only a modern western view of marriage that commoners can get married for love. That's something that you can only do in a developed economy. Try marrying for love when you're a poor farmer and you don't know how next years harvest is going to be. For a lot of people, there are qualities besides love and attraction that are desirable in a marriage.
We marry to have kids. State-supported monogamy is the most stable for raising the next generation.
You don't have to have kids, or be able to have kids, but that is the exception, not the rule.
Marriage is for the kids.
Like all parents, everyone wants the best for their children, even adult children. The caste system is still a relevant factor. Social level determines who can marry whom. A good job opens up better marriage options. A university degree (even if just on paper) helps, too. So parents are delaying the marriage deals.
Replace ‘India’ in your comment with any other country in the world and you’ll know what I mean.
Men and women have evolved over millennia to be (traditionally) different; play different roles in the raising and caring of offspring, partaking in society, partner selection, and responsibilities.
India is facing the same problems as all developing countries, but it is more drastic, given their population explosion, politics, culture, and prevalence of automation.
Men and women are simply different; having evolved different preferences for social order; modernity is threatening this evolved order, faster than the average man and woman can realize, and the ramifications are simply more drastic on a communal and macroeconomic level than anyone (especially those rallying "equality and equity" for women) could had imagined.
Men overwhelmingly value looks; a woman's health is nearly apparent in their attractiveness, and good health usually correlates highly with healthy offspring. Attractiveness is certainly partly genetic, but in general, woman can simply be pretty, and find a partner - because the things that men value (good looks, wide hips, symmetrical face) are nearly effortless at an individual level.
Women overwhelmingly value social status, as men who are higher on the socio-economic totem pole make it far easier to rear children. More money, easier taking care of children, simple as. This has a far more profound effect though, and is where modernity rears its ugly head.
Because of the above preferences, women are naturally _hypergamous_ - they will date across and up, but not down. Men are not - and will gladly take a poorer woman, provided they look healthy. This aligns with both partner selection and duties; woman care for children, men care for women.
Due to the nature of wealth accumulation and inheritance, men have to perform much more to "stand out" and to find a partner - compared to the effort required for women of just having to been born with decent genetics. This is where modern economics ( capitalism, accumulation of capital, automation, displacement) come into play, displacing men, exacerbating the issues - as these are very recent inventions, relatively.
These are an evolved (un)conscious bias, an instinct, labeled a "preference", that is found in every society we have created. Men must provide, women must nurture.
It is as simple as that: we still have our hunter(men) - gatherer(women) traits, but we are no longer in that world.
The modern world is drastically different, but we haven't changed (innately) much, and this disparity is causing social issues in every developed country. Every one!
The 20% of men get their pick of 80% of women. Women work now, and if they do not demonstrate hypergamy, men do not value a woman's material contributions the same way - most find it subtly emasculating. This is just even more competition for the "traditional man's role" of being the provider. There is no inverse - men are not being selected for their looks by successful women, because that is simply not the innate biological imperative we have evolved over thousands of generations emerging. Traditions had value, now they may be an impeding force in a brave, new world.
In short: women's suffrage, the modern workplace, and the widespread hypergamy have displaced men.
This may all just sound like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate talking points, which make you wonder why they have been _massively_ popular as of late, especially with young men in the 16-25 range. But it isn't just men, woman are also noticing these disparities in role selection: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyR3jMVUgZadX9dHjuKFuMQ
Thanks for c...
ironic
>societies adapt to their needs.
we have so far. but there are biological impositions that may not be able to be overcome.
>Our current societies are not going to die because they have decided to cut down on marriages or lots of children.
They may not die, but unless we get robots caring for the elders soon, our continue expectation of population and economic growth is surely _unsustainable_
>We re smart enough to think for ourselves without consulting the books written by the Elders
Are we smart enough to prevent population/economic/ecologic collapse? Unless we are talking test tube babies and society conditioning....anything less than Brave New World simply won't work.
When half of women aged 30 are single and without a child, we didn't even need to damage our DNA a la Children of Men - just our society outpacing the human condition may be enough to ussure in an exponential degradation in quality of life.
men dont have babies. they aren't equal to women. unless that changes, and people accept it quickly, then men and women will continue to have crucial roles in society and the upbringing of the next generation - our continuity.
Complaining about the current state of things is largely complaining that men are slowly losing their long standing advantage and privileged position.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797612441004
> No matter what you tell yourself, men and women compliment each other for a functional society, and we have disrupted that.
> The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
Society is different therefore society is a disaster. Got it.
turns out, instinctual preferences may outpower the "free market", only time will tell. It isn't looking that way though - else we would see equalizing by now in partner selection. Instead, we have a more disproportionate amount of men being left partnerless, as is the problem the article, and many a census sentiment are leaning.
>Complaining about the current state of things is largely complaining that men are slowly losing their long standing advantage and privileged position.
>privileged
just because a hierarchy exists doesn't mean it is advantageous to those on top. the more complex the hierarchy, the worse change is for those on top.
But if you consider mindless drone office work to be empowering, then women would be more satisfied with their careers, which doesn't seem to be the case, "stereotypically"/statistically. It also just plays into the thesis that men are being displaced.
In the current environment, men cannot replace women, but women can almost replace men. That turns our societal norms into predicaments.
We do see this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5421994/
in addition to my previous link which looks at multiple country at a single time. Women are marrying lower status men more and more frequently.
> the more complex the hierarchy, the worse change is for those on top.
Because they can fall to the level of an unattractive woman 50 years prior?
___
India is a terrible example of generalized outcomes. It has a large gender imbalance and this whole dowry bullshit.
>> the more complex the hierarchy, the worse change is for those on top.
>Because they can fall to the level of an unattractive woman 50 years prior?
Yes. unattractive woman 50 years ago still had plenty of men to choose from - most men didn't procreate, although the levels weren't as drastic today.
Now, unattractive men cannot convince the same ladies to "swing down", which is why there is an all time high of unchilded women at menopause age.
>India is a terrible example of generalized outcomes. It has a large gender imbalance and this whole dowry bullshit.
I want to agree, but, it _is_ the oldest civilization on the planet, and it is the in the most immediate dire population/ecologic/economic stress. I think something can be gleaned, and not placed at the hand of outdated cultural alone.
The study is illustrating the groups in which women broadly have more educational attainment than men, women are more likely to marry down. Including highlighting several subgroups where the majority of women are marrying down, and thus implying that the majority of men are marrying up.
Your arguments here try to diminish the meaningfulness of this metric. Which I think is dumb because it's clearly at least a good proxy measurement for women gaining some form of social power, but suppose you were correct and it's a meaningless metric. Then what's driving the high prevalence of women marrying down? Because they are. This is observed data. Women in these groups are marrying down. The idea that hypergamy is instinctive female behavior does not hold up to scrutiny against sociological studies.
The linked study specifically tiptoes around it (money earned) and only speaks of "educational advantage", namely prevalence of women in higher education - my point was that college has been feminized, so this isn't a surprise.
Women may swing down in the later years, sure, because to rise up the educational/career ladder, takes time it and of itself. Time that females don't have, when maximizing mate selection. Men don't have that problem, old sperm is just as good, which also explains the 4-year on average disparity between men and women's ages.
Men like to swing down 4 years, women up. Aligns again with biology, and the preferences instilled in us.
This may be a popular talking point, but there's more to it than that. Mainly men can't assume the role of caretaker and gain the same level of respect and protection that housewives get; at least that's the perception, but while it may be exaggerated, there seems to be some truth in this.
Also, the fact that men and women just tend to look for different things in a partner. I agree that some of this "displacement" OP mentioned is exactly what you're talking about, but there's more to it than that. In addition to men not feeling comfortable being caretakers, women tend to prefer men that make more. Men don't care, or can even prefer women that make less than them.
I don't agree with OP and think he's been a bit reductionist, btw. It seems that people always jump to say we've just evened the playing field, but it's never going to be even if men and women want different things, and behave drastically differently.
heavy lifting there.
Tribal polyamorous families were good when we gathered and hunted.
With the rise of agriculture and population density, came familial norms that were better accommodating to all the members of the society, namely women, who would fight over partner selection, to enforce monogamy, which is better....for the children, it turns out.
The nuclear family only became normative in the 50's in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_family
Before agriculture, specialization / modern civilization, and the _medical revolution_, of course you were going to have multiple women - most died in childbirth, and the ones that lived were too dependent to stand up on jealousy grounds.