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Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

> Legal marriage is a lifetime obligation where the terms aren't decided until after you sign.

That's part of the point - customary marriage vows are usually something like "to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, to love you and honour you until death do us part". There's a recognition there that life is uncertain and you can't predict exactly what the terms will be for the remainder of your life. But like most contracts, marriage is an exercise in giving up freedom to build trust - it's a way of aligning incentives so that two people can each know that the other has their back, even when they don't know exactly what that means.

If you're not interested in making that contract or don't feel you could possibly be ready for it, then by all means, don't get married. It's not for everyone. But there's stuff you miss out on with that choice too.

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Except the terms of the contract tend to favor one side much more than the other side. If anything marriage creates an incentive for one partner to leave after sufficiently "vesting".

It's much more so an act of trust for only one side of the deal, and for the other side it creates a ton of misaligned incentives.

So you’re saying that having someone be a stay-at-home mom or dad, giving up career prospects is something that should be gone into without marriage?

That places all the burden of uncertainty on one partner. Will they just walk if their partner decides to be unfaithful? Their entire life hinges on them.

Not marrying is fantastic if you do not intent to rear children and just both keep up with your jobs, but otherwise...

You 100% made that up out of whole cloth. He said no such thing.

1) Most married women with husbands who would be worth something in a divorce don’t stay home.

2) Why do you assume she gave something up? Suppose she wanted to be a stay at home mom for ten years, then took a job in marketing at a tech company making decent money, but not as much as him?

3) Divorce laws often say she is entitled to the lifestyle she was used to. This is crap. Two households now, both can’t live “how they’re used to”. Why does she get to? Btw, he’s used to sex every night, the court doesn’t grant him that.

4) The consequence of women having access to the broad workforce is expectation to participate in it. I don’t get a choice, why should she? She can stay home for a short amount of time and then go back to work. This way she’s can’t complain she’s dependent on him, so she should feel free right?

What people fail to understand is when there is little advantage in something because of poor treatment by the courts or whatever, people will stop participating. Women got divorced in droves when it became legal. It was their right. They walked away from it. Now men are often seeing little advantage and are walking away.

I think it’s fantastic (and representative) that you just started using ‘she’ where I was deliberately not using any gender.

1) Exactly

2) Someone who does not participate in the workforce for 10+ years is giving up some career advancement and therefore lifetime income. Potentially quite a lot.

>Btw, he’s used to sex every night, the court doesn’t grant him that

Wow that's a very deluded view, no one has a right to sex, married or not.

That's his point. Nobody has any right to it, just like nobody has a right to a specifc lifestyle.

He never said anything about being a stay at home parent, he's saying the lower income partner is the one who benefits financially and in some states alimony is perpetual after some amount of years.

In game theory, we call this a "precommitment mechanism" [1]. I have to say that, before reading this comment and viewing it through incentives, marriage did seem to me as an outdated institution.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precommitment

That sounds great. But that "each know that the other has their back" ends at divorce. And indeed, that vow ends with "until death do us part". So for it to actually mean anything, divorce would necessarily be impossible.

But divorce is ~50% likely. So the entire contract is fraudulent, and cannot be binding.

The point of a contract is to provide disincentives to breaking it, not to ensure that it is never broken. Contracts are broken all the time - that's what bankruptcy, non-payment, eviction, lawsuits, etc. are. But these are expensive and come with penalties to the breaker, so people have a strong incentive to keep their word.

(For that matter - it's not actually possible to compel someone to do something. Even laws can be broken; it is physically pretty easy to say run over a crowd of people with a car. But that's why laws are structured as a social contract: if you break the law, then you can expect the full force of the state to come down on you, leading to a long prison term or even execution. So you have a pretty strong incentive to follow them.)

From this POV, divorce being expensive, time-consuming, and costing you a whole lot is a feature, not a bug. That makes it a strong disincentive on both parties to cutting and running when things get hard.

Not a lawyer, but it's my understanding that the idea isn't just to have a penalty for breaking the contract, it's to provide a basis for resolving the dispute. So it seems like a messy lawsuit means the contract wasn't well written?

I get that. It's just that "until death do us part" is so blatantly unrealistic.

For what it's worth, my wife and I have both been married three times. My first marriage lasted five years, my second lasted 10 years, and my third has lasted 20 years, so far.

Still, I've always been fundamentally a single guy. But I'm also agreeable, so I keep getting married. However, I don't recall that I ever said "until death do us part". You gotta be realistic.

Edit: By "fundamentally a single guy", I mean that I'm extremely independent. I've learned how to be social, but I don't get lonely. And I resent commitments that distract me from whatever I'm currently focused on. Also, I've never wanted to have children.

Just to be clear, I didn't get the "fundamentally a single guy" insight until about seven years into my third marriage. I got that I'd been trying to be the guy that my partners wanted me to be. Or indeed, that I'd decided that I wanted to be. But I just couldn't manage it, for more than five years or so. As in the Woody Allen line that lifeisstillgood quoted: "I couldn't keep that up - I would have had a heart attack."

So I shared that with my wife, and apologized. And that transformed our marriage. I stopped pretending to be someone I'm not, and resenting her for it. And I gather that she stopped expecting me to be someone I'm not.

The 50% divorce rate is a myth

Source?

It was true in the 1980s, but there are a few caveats with it:

1.) It measures the chance that a given marriage will end in divorce, not the chance that a given person will get divorced (which was closer to 40%). The stat is skewed upwards by a few serial divorcers: 60% of second marriages end in divorce, and 73% of third marriages. [1]

2.) The divorce rate has fallen: Millenials are 18% less likely to get divorced than Baby Boomers are (largely because they're less likely to get married in the first place unless they're in a stable relationship). [2]

3.) It's heavily class-based. College educated professionals have only a ~20% chance of getting divorced, while unskilled blue-collar laborers have a ~50% chance of getting divorced. [3]

[1] https://www.wf-lawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts/

[2] https://time.com/5434949/divorce-rate-children-marriage-bene...

[3] https://qz.com/1069806/the-highest-and-lowest-divorce-rates-...

Millennials are still young. Maybe they just need more time to catch up to the previous divorce rate.

> But like most contracts, marriage is an exercise in giving up freedom

Thankfully, we have progressed beyond this.

For both parties. You give up certain freedoms in order to get something more valuable.

> it's a way of aligning incentives so that two people can each know that the other has their back

But it doesn't align incentives. Instead, it creates unaligned incentives.

In most relationships, one person is more of a spender and one person is more of a saver. Marriage is one big F-U to the saver.

As far as I can tell, the real reasons to get married are the medical decision making and visitation rights. That's about it.

Money is something to be sure you're aligned on before getting married.

I'd argue that marriages that're based on alignment on money, kids, and lifestyle tend to do much better than ones that are based on passion, attraction, and wish-fulfillment. Unfortunately the popular image of love, dating, and marriage doesn't really reinforce this. (As a side note, I think pop conceptions of dating are seriously broken: there's this idea that it's about impressing the other person and making yourself more desirable, while you're significantly better off if you just be yourself and continue letting people reject you until you find the one person who doesn't reject you.)

>> you're significantly better off if you just be yourself and continue letting people reject you until you find the one person who doesn't reject you.)

Woody Allen joke:

(Girlfriend leaving him for good): It's over. You weren't like this when we first dated. You were passionate and attentive

(Allen): I couldn't keep that up - I would have had a heart attack.

I think there are heuristics to help find a good partner (the above idea is a doozy, and then the well known secretary problem). But in the end this is just helping you get past the, say, 80% of people who don't match you.

Getting from 80% to The One is probably impossible - and after twenty years of marriage I would say not needed - marriage is about growing together, working on the problems and fixing things.

If you marry literally the most perfect partner on the planet, and then fail to spend 20 years understanding or working on the relationship you will probably be in worst state than picking the first person on plentyoffish and putting in the effort.

There isn't really The One in an objective sense - there's a whole lot of people who would be bad matches and then a smaller group who would be decent ones. There's a One in a subjective sense, in that once you find a decent one and commit to them, you stop looking and work on making your relationship with The One as strong as possible.

That's what I meant. Actually there may be (theoretically there must be) one perfect match, but even if you could find that person the chances of staying perfect without work is zero. The best option is find Mrs almost perfect then work hard

The idea that everyone has a “The One” is a Hollywood trope. What if you meet someone perfect and they become a bitter alcoholic in ten years? Or what if they end up cheating on you? Were they not “The One”? Why didn’t you notice? Humans are imperfect and they change over time. Hollywood has been selling a specific idea of love for decades, and it’s not anywhere close to reality. That’s not to say you should marry the first stranger you meet, but it’s unrealistic to think there’s only ever one person “for you”.

Every ordered finite set has a maximum; GP's point is that even given the maximally best possible match, not investing effort into a relationship will be worse than investing effort into a relationship with a moderately good match.

> Every ordered finite set has a maximum;

Only if the order relation is total, which I'm pretty sure is not the case for romantic compatibility.

Exactly! Maybe you don’t get along the best with one person, but they still have nice qualities and you decide to work through your problems. Or you could leave them for someone similar, but where you don’t have to do that. It’s tempting to try to order those, but ultimately I don’t think it’s fair or reflects reality. It’s so subjective.

> In most relationships, one person is more of a spender and one person is more of a saver. Marriage is one big F-U to the saver.

If you view relationships in these win/loss terms they are never going to make sense. The same kind of logic can be used to tear down other types of relationships—like founder/cofounder relationships, business/employee relationships, or business/vendor/contractor relationships.

All of these relationships will have unequal benefits to the two parties.

> The same kind of logic can be used to tear down other types of relationships—like founder/cofounder relationships, business/employee relationships, or business/vendor/contractor relationships.

The legal structure around these relationships promote, rather than attack the alignment of incentives. The legal structure cannot be a replacement for trust, but it does have an effect (which is why it exists at all).

> If you view relationships in these win/loss terms they are never going to make sense.

Everyone views relationships in this way. The more intimate and trusting the relationship (e.g. marriage), the more advantage there is in decreasing legibility [1] in order to enhance stability. However, people still track contribution in low legibility relationships, just more fuzzily. If there is an imbalance that is too great for too much time, the relationship will tend to fail.

___

1. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-big-little-idea-call...

> Everyone views relationships in this way.

This is obviously false.

The degree to which you track contributions is germane and you cannot dismiss it from the conversation by saying that “everyone tracks contributions somewhat”, because the degree is important. It’s also not true that everyone tracks contributions, people in relationships are notoriously irrational and blind (especially if you define rationality relative to some “homo economicus” standard).

If you cannot imagine how people could have aligned incentives in a marriage then I think your model of marriage is incomplete. If you think that marriage is a big F-U to the person in a marriage who tends to save money, I simply don’t think I have a basis to argue that point, because your model of marriage and relationships is so completely alien to mine that I don’t know where to begin to find common ground. Your viewpoint may be somewhat incomprehensible to me.

Also immigration and tax benefits. Sometimes, getting married is the only way to be able to live with one's partner.

For instance, a friend of mine married his gf so he could get a visa to follow her after she got a job in the US (they had a child already, but didn't plan on getting married).

> immigration

That's fair

> tax benefits

I don't think marriage is a net positive if you were to do an "expected value" calculation and included the risk of divorce. However, I could be wrong.

You're absolutely right, and here are some approximate numbers to go with that.

Based on a Bay Area tech salary of let's say $200,000 per year, you would save about $5,000 on taxes assuming your partner earns very little and you enjoy almost the maximum tax advantage.

If you get divorced after 10 years, you've saved $50,000 in taxes, half of which will belong to your partner, so you've gained $25,000 assuming you kept your half so far.

A cheap divorce might only cost $5,000 and so you'd come out ahead, but a high conflict divorce could cost $100,000, or $200,000.

And on top of that if you were actually getting "tax savings", that means your partner earns much less than you, which means you'll be paying a lot of alimony to them for possibly the rest of their life, or at least half the length of the marriage.

Even in the case of a "cheap divorce" of $5,000, the alimony will surely eat up far more than the remaining tax savings. If you're earning let's say $200,000 and your spouse was earning much less, you're paying $1,000+ in spousal support per month for several years at least.

So yeah, the math definitely doesn't work out.

Things I have never understood about the US: Why does a divorce cost money?

Lawyers are expensive. Divorces are doubly expensive for the same reason that the Civil War saw the most dead American soldiers.

Why do you need a lawyer for a divorce?

I understand that if there's a conflict you need a court to resolve, then yes, you need a lawyer. But there has to be a significant number of divorces that are amicable, both parties agree to divorce, and you can divide your shared assets 50/50 in a fair way that both parties agree on, right?

Do you need a lawyer in those cases?

Or are those cases so incredibly rare because of cultural reasons that everyone just assumes a divorce costs money?

> Why do you need a lawyer for a divorce?

You don't need a lawyer for a divorce in the same sense that you don't need a lawyer ever.

Plenty of people succeed at pro se law all the time.

There is a good reason why people recommend lawyers, though, and that is because the law is very complicated.

I think lawyers are great at a few things:

1. They'll help you dot your i's and cross your t's. Even if the divorce is amicable, it's probably a good idea to do up the paper work and then take it by a lawyer just to make sure everything is done up right.

2. They'll keep everything above board. A decent lawyer will tell you about what is achievable in a divorce, which is a much better starting place for amicable negotiations than what feels right.

3. They'll help you protect yourself. Is it a good idea to move out of the marital home? What happens if your spouse incurs debt during the separation? These sorts of questions are often quickly answered and very important to get right.

> Or are those cases so incredibly rare because of cultural reasons that everyone just assumes a divorce costs money?

The breakup of personal relationships, such as a marriage, often result in very strong, negative emotions. I don't have any data on how frequent divorces are contentious, but it would not surprise me to learn that most are.

My guess is that part of your perception, however, is anchored in media - both social and traditional. There, contentious and expensive divorces are simply more interesting and are probably over-represented.

Just as a preface, where I'm from, divorce does not typically cost any money at all, you never use a lawyer, it's simple paperwork that you send in to the tax authority and that's it. Only if the disagreement on how to split the assets is so strong that one party threatens court do you need a lawyer.

Also, if there's kids involved, you need a shared custody agreement which might result in one party paying child support to the other, but that's a thing that's triggered by the divorce, it's not part of the divorce itself.

> it's probably a good idea to do up the paper work and then take it by a lawyer

How hard can divorce paperwork be? "We're done, signed: A, B" How can you screw it up? If you get confirmation from whatever government body that keeps track of it, you're divorced, right? Otherwise you're not divorced?

> what is achievable in a divorce

What? You split your assets 50/50 and then you're done? What else is there to argue about?

> What happens if your spouse incurs debt during the separation?

Wait, what, how long does a divorce normally take in the US?

> My guess is that part of your perception, however, is anchored in media

No, no. I was specifically responding to some grandparent poster that claimed a "cheap divorce" only cost about $5000. I think that's an outrageous amount of money, and I don't understand why people in the US seem to be ok with divorce having to cost any money at all?

> Also, if there's kids involved, you need a shared custody agreement which might result in one party paying child support to the other, but that's a thing that's triggered by the divorce, it's not part of the divorce itself.

In the US, child support is not automatic. If either party goes to court, court ordered child support can be arranged, but otherwise, it is left up to the parties involved (I could be wrong about this, and it might vary from state to state).

> How hard can divorce paperwork be? "We're done, signed: A, B" How can you screw it up?

Honestly, I'm not a lawyer, and I've never been divorced, so I don't know. But I do know that something as "simple" as a will is pretty easy to screw up. I can't imagine other aspects of family law are any different.

> You split your assets 50/50 and then you're done? What else is there to argue about?

1. Sometimes assets are not so easy to split. Partnerships in small businesses, pensions, membership in a family business, etc.

2. There are 2 property systems. One is "community property", where everything is considered to be jointly owned by the couple. In the other, people own what they own. I'm not very well versed in the difference.

3. People generally are not expected to split property they came into the marriage with or gained via inheritance. However, if it becomes co-mingled in certain ways with marital property, then it becomes marital property.

4. Sometimes people want to keep certain pieces of property (e.g. heirlooms). Properly valuing these can be difficult.

There are probably other issues that I'm not familiar with - this is just the stuff that comes to mind.

> Wait, what, how long does a divorce normally take in the US?

It varies from state to state. Some states require 1 year separation before a divorce is granted. If lawyers and money are involved, it could be very long indeed.

I'm not sure what the statistics are, but the high conflict cases anecdotally seem to be as frequent as the amicable ones, and the "medium conflict" ones that still cost 10s of thousands of dollars seem very common.

The whole marriage/divorce system is (unintentionally) designed such that conflict is likely, and there are also plenty of lawyers and maybe-or-maybe-not-well-meaning friends to stoke the flames.

and in the united states, medical insurance. through work, it covers spouses. and family.

> As far as I can tell, the real reasons to get married are the medical decision making and visitation rights. That's about it.

Perhaps there is something more to an arrangement developed all over the world spanning a variety of cultures. Yes, one aspect of marriage is the business partnership. But there are other aspects to a marriage relationship that can’t be codified in law. Maybe it’s not as necessary with women now having just as much economic power as men.

> Perhaps there is something more to an arrangement developed all over the world spanning a variety of cultures. Yes, one aspect of marriage is the business partnership. But there are other aspects to a marriage relationship that can’t be codified in law.

I have nothing against the cultural institution of marriage. It's probably a good idea for most people.

However, most people are unwilling to participate in the cultural institution of marriage without also having a legal marriage.

At this point in the US, the laws surrounding marriage and the cultural institution have almost nothing to do with each other. For example, almost all of the laws around the sexual aspects of marriage: for cause divorce, alienation of affections, etc. are gone in most places.

So when people are evaluating marriage, the most important thing to evaluate is the law, because that's what affects people lives the most.

If you can’t legally drain each other’s checking accounts, then you’re not “participating in the cultural institution”.

It’s about trusting someone to merge legal entities with you, and trusting someone to pull the plug on your life support at the right time, and all the cultural baggage that entails.

If you want a roommate you coparent with, that’s awesome. Go for it. But that’s not a marriage.

> However, most people are unwilling to participate in the cultural institution of marriage without also having a legal marriage.

I don't think it's a lack of willingness, I think it's social pressure. If someone told me they were "married", but hadn't actually been legally married, I would find that odd.

I'm ambivalent on the whole thing; I tire of people gossiping about how so-and-so are "finally" getting married (if they're together and are both happy, that's enough), and I would be fine being in a long-term, unmarried relationship, but I don't feel so strongly anti-legal-marriage that I would make it a showstopper for a relationship of my own.

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