The inconvenient truth about love and divorce (2016) | Hacker News Reader

The inconvenient truth about love and divorce (2016)

ideas.ted.com

62 pointsgodelmachine49 comments

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.

Sounds like Dirty Jobs' don't do what you love, love what you do https://youtube.com/watch?v=NT1i26RbrhM&t=8s

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.

Good that you mentioned the two families. And having 3-4 generations all right there is a big help.

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.

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?

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.

What are the other arrangements?

Couldn't we simply have tax breaks per children and be done with it?

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.

By unique societies studied, over time - not by numbers of individuals. This is what I was told in Anthropology class.

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.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marumakkathayam

Tax breaks doesn't help share both parenting tasks and paeenting influence.

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.

http://yourdivorcequestions.org/will-divorce-make-me-happier...

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.

It's not a walk in the park. Assets need to be divided. Stay at home moms need to be supported.

Asset division leans heavily towards women. If real sexism exists for males in this country it is especially evident during divorce.

They specifically said a divorce without children. No stay at home moms.

My mistake, I meant stay at home wives.

> The truth is that it's better for children if parents in a low-conflict marriage to stay together.

A low-conflict marriage where the conflict isn't resolved becomes a high-conflict marriage, inevitably.

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.

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.

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.

Maybe something as complex as marriage means more than one thing?

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.

don't forget to get that document notarized :P

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.

OP posted an ethical argument, not a legal one.

The particular legal precedent in one's jurisdiction is orthogonal to the moral question of breaking a lifelong oath.

If "love ends" it means it either has never been there (it was limerence, desire, friendship, confusion or whatever) or you were doing it wrong.

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