The U.S. Divorce Rate Has Hit a 50-Year Low
ifstudies.org
ifstudies.org
Between the above post, and this post, not good if you read why this is occurring (economic security).
"Meanwhile, America’s so-called “marriage divide” is only widening. College-educated and economically better off Americans are more likely to marry and stay married, but working-class and poor Americans face more family instability and higher levels of singleness. For Americans in the top third income bracket, 64% are in an intact marriage, meaning they have only married once and are still in their first marriage. In contrast, only 24% of Americans in the lower-third income bracket are in an intact marriage, according to my analysis of the 2018 Census data."
Commitment and "sticking it out" is a topic onto itself. Love is sacrifice and marriage is a (hopefully rewarding) job (personal opinion, YMMV, this paragraph comes from several years of counseling and ~15 years of marriage). You want a cofounder who is going to work on the relationship and and stick it out with you, not one who is going to bounce whenever life gets hard. Marriage is just enough friction to not leave on a whim, but not so much friction you can't dissolve the partnership when necessary.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4012696/ (Reasons for Divorce and Recollections of Premarital Intervention: Implications for Improving Relationship Education)
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-19/divorce-d... (Divorce Destroys Finances of Americans Over 50, Studies Show)
I agree with your overall comment. It should be pointed out that, other than lawyer costs, divorce tends to be zero sum. So if it is financially devastating for one party, it tends to be a financial windfall for the other. Divorces can be equitable, or they can be lopsided, but don’t net destroy much value unless the parties are spiteful and deliberately destroy their own value.
I see this more often than one would expect. Most recently (older, but not senior, couple married for decades), one party did not agree with the other (amicable party offered 50/50, other party was spiteful), and ~$200k in value was destroyed through legal fees...to arrive at a 50/50 split.
Divorces can be amicable, but the frequency of this happening is not insignificant. Without a prenuptial agreement, you're rolling the dice. Do you feel lucky?
What? No. After a divorce, total costs across both parties go up because resources can no longer be shared: one party needs new housing, possibly a new car, possibly needs to get their own health insurance rather than being on the other's plan, etc. Not to mention both parties have to buy anew whatever goods (cookware, television, etc.) the other person got.
Even completely amicable divorce destroys a tremendous amount of wealth.
Cramming 4 working adults into a two bedroom house is a big efficiency increase. So the first thing a newly single person should be doing is looking for a roommate to share a tv and washing machine and 1/2 the cost of housing.
That said, I can't think of a single case where anyone I knew in their 30-50's who got divorced did anything but go out and buy their own personal house to live in by themselves.
AMEN! I could not agree with this statement more. If people had a firm grasp of this concept, the divorce rate will be even lower or maybe some might even decide not to marry in the first place cos they are too self-centered for that level of sacrifice.
Without children, marriage is ephemeral.
The need to formalise a relationship with a marriage ceremony is traditionally linked to religion.
Without religion, children or a stable income, why would a person need or want to get married?
I don't think most people get married for tax reasons.
I wonder if there is any standard place I can put the information on what to do if I am on brink of death somewhere so hospitals know to check for it.
It is that way because it was the default for a long time. Now it is shifting and it will take time for society to adjust to this new reality.
Look into the marriage tax penalty, in some situations you will pay more (both high income earners)
When I was in my late 20s, I also had good chemistry with a female friend who was 32 or 33. She hinted pretty strongly on several occasions that she thought we'd make a good couple. Unfortunately, she had a poor relationship with her father which is a no-go for me due to past bad experiences. I remember she confided in me that she felt like she needed to start looking to date guys in their late 40s/early 50s. She was good looking and a graduate student at Columbia University at the time. A lot of women in their mid 30s who should have very good dating prospects have a lot of stress about being passed over for younger women, and unfortunately they're often not wrong to worry.
If you can't imagine leaving your partner for someone else, and they're worried about being left because they're seeing their friends getting left, words are cheap and your partner will know it. If you can't imagine leaving your partner, then there aren't many downsides to getting married, and your partner will also know this.
Of course, there are others in different situations, but that's the experience of me, my wife, some of my wife's single female friends, and some of my single female friends in their mid-30s. Several of them very pleasant good looking women with graduate degrees from Ivy League schools and good careers.
So, for me, I had gotten a bit tired of the dating scene, really liked my partner, couldn't imagine breaking up, and knew my parter was getting anxious. For us, it was a good move, and has made our relationship much stronger.
Genuinely curious why this was (for you) a leading indicator of a bad relationship?
I've had one girlfriend who was essentially abandoned by her father and another whose father was essentially indifferent to her emotional well being or success in life. It was pretty obvious that at least for both of them, they always had a nagging feeling that I seemed to love and support them, but maybe it was just a charade. After noticing the connection, I actively sought out women with supportive fathers who clearly cared for their daughters.
My father-in-law is strict, but unquestionably supportive of my wife. My wife talks to her dad on the phone at least 5 times per week. When we were first dating, I consciously asked my wife about her father and watched her body language and listened to the way she talked about him.
Even early in our dating, my wife was far more likely to have a charitable interpretation of my actions/motivations vs. my ex-girlfriends whose fathers showed little evidence of caring. On the other hand, my wife still calls me 2-3 times per day at work, but it's a small price to pay for her subconsciously believing I genuinely have an altruistic interest in her well being.
Edit: there's also a heavy dose of cultural and personal context here. Her calling isn't being needy, but feeling culturally duty-bound. In her home country, as the only daughter, it's considered her responsibility to take care of her parents. Her brother lives 5 minutes from the parents, and he makes sure they're taken care of, but my wife feels a bit guilty living in another country and wants to make sure her parents don't feel abandoned. One of her father's sisters married an American, moved to the U.S., and slowly lost touch with the rest of the family, so she wants to ease any anxiety her parents have around that. Also, as much as I remind her that it's not her job to cook, as soon as she finishes lunch (at her place of work), she feels like a bad wife if she doesn't consult with me about what she should cook for dinner and what time she should start cooking to have dinner perfectly timed for my return from work. I've tried a bit to get her to stop asking what I want for dinner, but you can't change a person, and it is very sweet, other than it makes me feel a bit awkward. She cooks and I clean, and she finds cooking a good way to de-stress after work, but I still feel a bit bad that she feels like it's her duty to cook. She also talks with her brother's kids one or two times a week to help get them practice with their English. She's really trying to help out her whole family and keep everyone connected across the miles. Thailand: land of spicy food and sweet people.
For some, publicly declaring your commitment to one another can have a powerful affect on the relationship. It can communicate a shared vision and commitment for a lifetime. It is not requisite for that commitment, but it leverages cultural support structures that can help keep a relationship healthy.
For me personally, I believe marriage provides a couple with an important concept that they are part of something greater than themselves. This is not an exclusively religious idea (I consider myself an atheist). When times are difficult (and they will be over the course of a lifetime), this bond can help a relationship survive when otherwise the pressure to give up can be significant.
I suppose there are legal reasons to get married.
They were applying for jobs in the same place, same people interviewing them etc. People didnt know they were dating.
When they found out he was partnered, they treated it very seriously, as if they were in a committed relationship, deserving of protection etc. When they found out she was partnered, it was different, he was just a boyfriend of who knows what status etc.
They decided to get married after that experience.
As others have noted, the purpose of marriage is to protect the relationship, but what that really means is protecting each other. In some cases this means ensuring equity of treatment.
Similar cases have shown up with COVID. Every couple of months this year I've listened to news stories about couples dealing with cross border restrictions on being able to see each other. The last one included a couple who had been together for years and were despairing about the fact that protections of border crossing only extended to married couples. I'm not suggesting judgement should be cast on them for not being married, as that's between them, but it's another example of how representing the significance of the relationship to the state can have consequences.
The financial devastation of divorce in a period of economic uncertainty makes marriage a very poor long-term value proposition. You can't really protect yourself from a predatory divorce in any way that will withstand a legal challenge.
Younger adults seeking independence should be very wary of "marriage". Love and relationship can exist in a healthier way outside of the sunken-cost fallacy.
An economic union only makes sense if the terms of rupture are clear and fair. A romantic union only makes sense if there is love. To confuse these two types of union is a huge mistake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_penalty
> If the incomes of the two persons are similar, then at the lower end of the tax schedule there is no difference between filing as singles and filing as a married couple (ignoring the question of deductions, see below). But at the higher end of the tax schedule, there is a penalty for a married couple whose incomes are similar, compared to what they would pay as singles.
What you describe was middle class white femalehood ideal - what was supposedly happiest setup. But that setup was impossible for quite a lot of families, plus some families choose different setup. And some women were single or their husbands die.
But the actual labor participation was much higher then what the ideal suggests.
But it is interesting how around 40% women working morphed into women were not working which morphed into idea that working woman would be rare.
https://www.fool.com/taxes/2018/11/15/the-irs-marriage-penal...
As far as I know at least.
> I am not sure what the rationale for marriage affecting taxes in the US was originally, but it doesn't make much sense to me.
I assume it’s because at the time the tax brackets which penalized dual high income earning households were decided, they weren’t politically powerful (or numerous) enough to push back on them. Nowadays, dual high income earning households are more common and they had the ability to get the brackets changed.
Does this offset the risk of divorce?
I don't see why this is problematic. The characteristics that will lead to economic success like long term planning, sticking to goals, not being a shit head, etc. seem to directly translate to a successful marriage.
The issue is that the ladder for those values to get you ahead has basically disappeared unless you hop on before you're done with high school.
There's still no ladder for them, personally.
I think first generation immigrants cut across the conscientiousness/income relationship that's being presented in this thread. It's a self-selecting group.
That only proves the rule. If your environment is awful but you have the right mindset/personality then you can still be successful.
And even if you work a shitty gas station job opportunities you can learn the gas station business, impress the owner, and get them to invest in opening your own. Or you can learn a trade in your spare time.
You most likely will be used to the extreme and thrown away. Lot of places don't care about who is working in low paid skilled jobs. They are as replaceable as ever. Amazon warehouses have machines doing the firing. Soon it will be your gas station. The machine doesn't get impressed unless you break your back.
And conflating poor people with being shit heads is interesting.
No wonder many worker class people feel the ire to hate big tech and workers increasingly.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/04...
Poor vs career-minded? Aren't the poor more likely to be career-minded in order to improve their situation? These don't seem mutually-exclusive at all. I don't see why being poor makes it more likely for one to marry earlier, either.
My perception of poverty is that it's a transitional state, where people are interested in leaving it.
Depending on how poor they are, the transition may be slow, and to a rich person, they may only seem to be moving between different tiers of poverty, but that doesn't mean they aren't career-minded.
In particular, I would think that the poor vs the not-poor feel more need to delay marriage and family until they feel they can better afford it after having achieved long-term educational and career goals.
The poor tend to stick to labor jobs that you can train any healthy person to do in a few weeks on the job.
Have you spoken to anyone who dates these days? All the young men hate it. Women have all the leverage until they hit 28.
"singleness" is an interesting term here. Are the authors implying that being single is inherently a bad thing? It seems as though they're using it to have a negative connotation.
The fact that involuntary singleness correlates with higher family instability is not a surprise.
Why does my relationship need to be officially registered?
Parental laws already don't require marriage as factor.
If two people are going to stay together, a piece if paper telling them they're officially together.doesn't make any difference and if two people are going to separate, some paper's likely not going to stop it.
had me in the first half
anyway there are a lot of state-sponsored benefits when you have the paper, as well as some ease theoretically in medical emergencies
you can skip the expensive ceremony, a lot of people do, others skip it and have one later, and of course yeah many don't get married
Is that not the same where you live?
Tax rates aren't the same for all tax brackets. So by not being married, despite having the same actual combined income, taxes are lower because it's taxed as two lower income brackets rather than the combined higher one with a higher tax rate.
https://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/tax-brackets.aspx
Also, it sounds like you might be confused about how income tax brackets work. Your income is not taxed at one rate... each amount is taxed at the rate for that bracket. This means that EVERYONE pays 10% on the first $9,875 they make, no matter how much they make in total. This is how marginal taxes work:
I get now that it was part of the conversation about the differences between the US and Canada.
If you don't want to, don't. It's not like this is a mandatory process for doing anything in 21st century.
What the official registering does affect is finance: tax, shared properties, healthcare plans, etc.
Marriage doesn't always let you live in your spouse's country (some countries have income thresholds, which must suck when both spouses have countries that won't let the other in), but it significantly increases the chance of being allowed to live together for many people.
As a paramedic, if you're conscious you'll typically get asked upon admission, "If anyone calls are we allowed to tell them you're here, and do you have any specific desires about visitors?".
If you're unconscious or unable to elucidate these things (which often correlate to the more serious end of the spectrum), not so much.
Her telling them that she was my husband instantly resolved the problem, no questions asked. It's not like they have any immediate way to check.
I really have know idea why we do the official registration bit. Presumably it makes life easier for the bureaucrates, which I don't particularly mind. If you had a mariage cerremony, and started calling yourselvs married without actually doing the paperwork, would anyone actually care?
The registration bit is the most important part, it’s not bureaucratic. For the same reason that you need to have documents drawn up to form a business partnership, it’s for when things go sideways. The registration is the proof that both parties entered into a contract, enforceable by the government.
If you are lucky enough to live in one of the few remaining places in the world where common-law marriage is still allowed, you can do precisely this. You essentially cohabitate for some amount of time (in my jurisdiction there is actually no set minimum time though I imagine the longer you live together the more legal water it holds) and then just tell people in public that you are married. No paperwork necessary.
I managed to make it four years under such an agreement with my partner doing things such as buying a house, relocating internationally, sharing taxes, finances and medical insurance, without actually needing paperwork. Relocating internationally was the trickiest, but after explanation to the new country of the law they were willing to accept the document that showed we bought a house together as evidence of our marriage.
Eventually this year we finally had to get some paperwork, forced to by, believe it or not, government bureaucrats who would absolutely not allow me to be placed under my partner’s medical insurance (government employee) without marriage documents. Fortunately our jurisdiction allows you to get a piece of paper that just says something like “We decided we were married on this date and the county affirms it”. The paper is stamped by the county and filed like typical marriage paperwork, takes about 5 minutes and does not require a judge.
Overall if someone wants the benefits of marriage without all of the pomp and circumstance and happens to be lucky enough to live in one of the jurisdictions where common law marriage is allowed, I can recommend it.
> Why does my relationship need to be officially registered
There could be many reasons why couples get married, and many reasons why couples get divorced.
Otherwise people would never get married :)
The laws have gotten less strict, and the social stigma lessened, but the state tries to keep it together as well. You mentioned that a piece of paper won't keep them together, but in most US states, "fault" for a marriage breaking up still comes into play in things like deciding how a court will divide assets, etc., and historically, sometimes you couldn't even get a divorce without someone getting assigned fault.
2. A marriage contractually binds you together in a lot of ways that are subtle but powerful. You share debts, you share risk, you share counsel. Your spouse cannot be compelled to testify against you. While few people will ever encounter this scenario, the idea is powerful. Legally speaking, your spouse and you are a unit that cannot be turned against each other.
If marriage has no point, why has it lasted so long and is so widespread? The reasons are there if you look for them.
[1] https://fs.blog/2020/03/chestertons-fence/
[2] https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-secret...
"Marriage is a contract" isn't just a catchphrase, it's literally a contract and serves exactly the same purpose as a business contract.
See how this statement sounds: "If 2 businesses are going to keep doing business together, a piece of paper telling them officially doing business together doesn't make any difference and if 2 business are going to break their engagements, some paper's likely not going to stop it"
In a sense everything above is true, but yet, a businesses wouldn't enter an important business deal without a contract.
Marriage can be seen similarly, when you sign the contract you are doing so with expectations : "this person makes me happy, I'm ok combining forces to go further"/"this business partnership makes me increase my profits, I'm ok doing this deal with them"
Both marriages and business deal can go sour. People change, business constraints change. Getting the right provisions in a contract makes sense in both cases.
Both people getting married and businesses striking a deal don't enter the contract with the hope that they will have to break the contract.
Both know they can break the contract if needed, with effect somewhat known.
This is why gays have fought for the right. They got tired of co-mingling their finances, buying a house together and then having one partner thrown out into the street with little more than the clothes on their back when one of them died and the parents (or nearest blood relative) inherited the house.
Sounds to me you're describing the whole point of marriage as a contract, as it specifies the default set of conditions and requirements that are applied to both parties, and also the rights and obligations of both parties in case of a contract resolution and even breach of contract.
> This is why prenuptial agreements can sometimes be a touchy subject, since it breaks that assumption of complete trust.
Again, it sounds like you're describing the whole point of marriage as a contract, as its the original (and baseline) prenuptial agreement.
This is a lot less obvious in practice than it seems. Fair-weather 'partnership' isn't really rare. Unless it has been tested at times of adversity it is hard to predict how people would react. A piece of paper does not ensure that the relationship will be anything but of the fair-weather variety, with one ready to jump ship at first signs of bad times, it does give one an opportunity to reflect on the gravity of the promise and vows and the public nature of the promise gives it some air of barrier to dissolution.
Just ask Jeff Besos!
A 'marriage' is not a 'ceremony' or a 'piece of paper'.
It's not 'typical' for a ceremony be 'expensive' - that's a very modern construct. My grandparents went to the Church, got married, there was a banquet at the hall, people brought food. That's it.
But how hard is it to understand that people want to honour their commitment in some way?
"Why do we have big awards ceremonies for those people (artists, citizens, soldiers), it's so expensive!"
Some (most?) people would want to honour that commitment. Many people who don't, just don't find themselves in the right conditions, but would otherwise.
But beyond the ceremony, marriage is a social institution, not a 'piece of paper'.
(Personally, I have a hard time grasping why people struggle with this)
A marriage is something 'that is built', the ceremony is just part of that, it takes time, effort, input to build a relationship, it's not just 'something that happens'.
Do not underestimate the value to children in knowing/feeling that their situation has personal, familial and societal permanence, even if that permanence is somewhat illusory.
That is not to say there isn't value to childless people in marriage. But the value of it truly became meaningful to me once we had children. Conflicts with the spouse that could potentially lead to severance of the relationship tend to be diminished when the perspective of the children is taken into account.
- DNA tests did not exist. a guy could get a woman pregnant, not recognize the child and have no legal obligation to pay for child support. A woman could also trick a man to support a kid that is not his, but that's another story.
- Many women were housewives, and a separation would leave them, and potentially their kids, with nothing.
- The wedding ring serves the purpose of telling everyone around you that you are not single. People did not have an online presence that could help you infer this.
Weddings serve many purposes, it is not only a celebration, it is also informational, and wedding gifts can be considered an early form of crowdfunding.
Marriage guarantees legitimacy of children under the law and financially protects people. They are also great for historic purposes.
Many cultures have converged towards the same thing for a reason.
We had already been together for over 10 years, but getting married was a commitment to each other that we'll try our hardest to make things work. It adds another layer of stability which is important for planning kids, careers, finances, and so forth. We can make choices as though our relationship will still exist X years down the line -- this isn't necessarily true, of course, but in the medium-term it becomes a reasonable assumption.
It also brought us closer. Mutually agreeing to be each other's life partners is a big step. I don't have to worry that my partner is going to choose their career over me or vice-versa. We've both decided to put our relationship first, which causes a subtle-but-important shift in your relationship.
People disrespecting your relationship with your partner because they don't believe its serious is a source of low level obnoxiousness.
Even with a signed power of attorney, it's the norm the medical people will ignore the input of a non-married partner. Yes, you can fight them at the level of bureaucracy and eventually win, but in critical moments you'll be ignored.
Your relationship doesn't need bot be registered but there can be many advantages of doing so, both formal (estate/inheritance/tax/liability) and informal (respect).
Because most humans are moronic enough, to value bit and pieces of paper that officially sanctify a relationship.
There are a lot of benefits to marriage, especially if you have a dual income marriage. For example, if one of you loses their job, you go to 50% of your normal income, rather than 0%. This gives you more time to wait for a higher paying job, rather than taking the first thing that comes along.
The benefits of support and encouragement from a spouse are also real.
>The benefits of support and encouragement from a spouse are also real.
Neither of those are exclusive to marriage. Unmarried couples typically operate in a similar manner.
* If you're both employed, the higher earner could potentially be pulled down into a lower tax bracket
* If at least one spouse is salaried, the employer's insurance can often be shared at a reduced cost
* If both are salaried, the market of insurance policies you have to choose from essentially doubles
* If you're renting, you can essentially halve the cost of living (assuming dual income of some kind)
* If you're looking for a car or home, you can usually qualify for better loans (assuming neither spouse is a credit disaster)
I'm sure we'll eventually get divorced once one of us gets a long term partner, but I do think the trend for avoiding the legal system as long as possible is here to stay. I know one couple (or ex-couple, rather) that has been separated for over 5 years now.
I am someone who always assumed that divorce proceedings were expensive when there were conflicts in alimony, possessions and kids. ( and all this information is mostly from movies )
I'm sure it varies quite a bit from state to state though.
It can be done for around $1000 if you use a document prepare rather than an attorney.
But, if you're in the US and you're otherwise happy to be legally married but separated, you may want to consider waiting to legally divorce until you've been legally married 10 years. That way, either can use the other's social security record to claim as a spouse if unmarried (at no cost to the other ex-spouse).
I greatly disagree with the phrasing.
It puts too much emphasis on marriage as a desired state when clearly some non-negligible subset of the data is signaling something else that the author is not considering at all.
The article makes passing mention of a list of reasons people aren't getting married, taking a look at that study[1] shows
"Not ready for the commitment"
and
"Haven't found the right person"
accounting for 70% of all reasons, equivalently across both sexes.
did they factor in "not interested and don't really think about it except when people keep bringing it up for me" with the implication that of course the sentiment can change if someone made that connection or found such an arrangement interesting with another person?
I think the entire framing around this needs to match what people actually think, and I think it neglects a very common sentiment which would become more common as more people become aware that others think this way. Good news, then the divorce rate drops much closer to 0 or perhaps the financial repercussions around divorce are modernized and made more pragmatic.
[1]https://ifstudies.org/ifs-admin/resources/final2-ifs-single-... , page 11
Is this age corrected, because people tend to be in a low income segment earlier in their careers, and I don't think that “people are more likely to have gotten married the older they are” is surprising.
I think looking at it in terms of education mistakes the symptoms for the disease. Most people obviously had intact marriages back when few people went to college. A college education isn't a prerequisite for stable marriages. The delta is caused by something else that's correlated with both.
This is the thing that turned me away from liberalism after I got married and had kids. In Asian culture, we strongly believe that marriage and families are the purpose of life. Not only that, we believe that society has a responsibility to establish and reinforce norms that encourage people to get married and support their marriages. In my culture, elders get involved pretty intensively in e.g. mediating disputes between young couples to help establish healthy relationships. When I hear "elite" social conservatives lament about the breakdown of norms and social support around marriages, it strikes me as very much in line with how my culture perceives the same issues. And I can't help but agree with them when they complain that social elites won't preach what they practice when it comes to these norms.
Herein lies a fundamental difference in worldview. A liberal would say: well, let people who want to get married and have kids do that, and people who don't want to get married and have kids can do that. No need for coercive social norms. In a vacuum, that sounds true. But a conservative would say: how can you be so sure that those social norms aren't helping people who ultimately want to get married to do so and stay married? The idea that societal happiness is maximized by maximum personal freedom and the total absence of social coercion is not obviously true.
There are life happiness benefits to older people helping younger people know what to look for in a spouse, and setting expectations about marriage and life in general. There are benefits and efficiencies that come from people of a similar age having kids at the same time. There are benefits that accrue from people being involved in supporting each others' marriages. My wife and I got married and had kids in our mid 20s--average for Americans in general but pretty early among our demographic (college-educated coastal urbanites). We didn't realize it at the time, but living in DC/NYC we were pretty miserable. Nobody our age had kids and it was very isolating. We were so much happier after we moved to a more socially traditional exurban place where other people our age also had kids, peoples' parents were actively involved in helping them raise their children, etc.
As a very poor divorced single mom, I will suggest this is not entirely bad news. Poor people used to marry as their only hope of surviving and this often left them stuck in dysfunctional and unhappy relationships.
I would rather be single than forced into a miserable and possibly abusive relationship as my only hope of survival.
The upper classes have something of a tendency to view all details of lower class life like every single bit of it is terrible and more bad news. There is a tendency to never see any stats in any kind of positive light. If you are poor, well it must suck to be you and you must be a victim every step of the way.
I think that is problematic as a framing. I think discussions of issues impacting poor people really need more nuance than that.
I see this a lot in India where a young woman quickly gets out of a bad relationship and then prefers to be alone than in a bad relationship as she has more economic independence now.
I mean it's the general fault in all the communication of politicians and media since the late 70s that depict receivers of social security as beggars and undeserving and everybody who is poor is responsible for it themselves. I know this varies a bit from country to country, but even in Germany where we have a "strong" social security system (although it was weakened in the early 00s), the general public's opinion is receivers of social benefits are freeloaders, even among poor people.
Although studies show time and again that even if you are able to become a higher-earner, it still won't make you rich. The strongest indication for wealth is inheritance. And the top percent (owners, not earners) also pay less tax per wealth. So why are they not depicted as freeloaders?
Probably in part because hanging on to wealth involves some degree of stewardship. Inheriting wealth is the best way to get rich, but you can inherit wealth, run through your inheritance and end up a pauper in short order.
Of course, that's abusable because "he who has the gold makes the rules." People from wealthy families tend to be in a better position than poor people to influence the laws that get written and this tends to foster a situation where "them that has, gets."
This is something we need to guard against. In order to have a healthy society, we need to actively work at making sure that being born into the lower classes (or falling into them) isn't a trap because of wealthy people actively sabotaging the efforts of poor people to build something of value and accrue value to themselves legitimately.
I'm not for UBI because it breaks that connection between wealth and the creation of value. It actively encourages people to forget how to be productive in a way that is plugged into the larger system (I'm a former homemaker -- I assure you, knowing how to be productive in a way that is good for your own life doesn't automatically teach you how to be productive in a way that plugs you into the world of paid work).
In order for human society to continue to have wealth, there must be incentives for all humans to find ways to add value to the system. One of the ways to add value to the system is with good stewardship.
It may not seem obviously like a skill, but I spent some time reading every article and watching every TV show I could about what happens to lottery winners and two-thirds are bankrupt within five years. So simply being handed a whole lot of money doesn't, per se, tell you how to keep it.
The concept of UBI is a concept of wealth as a giant pile of gold somewhere that we can just tap into. It's a broken mental model.
Societal wealth is an abundance of goods and services and it takes human wisdom and human effort and human self restraint to make sure societal wealth lives on and doesn't disappear suddenly. Once it's gone, it's a lot harder to recreate than it is to maintain the existence of.
I think UBI is a recipe for killing the goose that's laying the golden eggs. Our challenge currently in the world is to figure out where to go from here without doing that.
Stewardship (without being an abusive classist asshole crapping all over the lower classes and treating them as your de facto slaves) is a valid part of finding those solutions so we can foster a golden age instead of stumbling into a dark age as our next stage.
Inflation is merely the rise in price when demand exceeds supply. Since consumer inflation is dead it follows that there is an abundance of goods, primarily because companies have access to a lot of capital but they don't have to deploy that capital in the USA or Europe and actually employ workers there. They can simply deploy it in countries with low labor costs. In principle that is perfectly fine because countries like India and China deserve to grow but in practice it means that a lot of the money printing is completely misguided. It's like taking the wrong medicine. It won't cure you but you will still suffer from side effects. The end result is a lot of overalued stocks without any of the economic performance to justify their market cap.
Instead of a UBI it would make sense to have jobs programs that invest into public infrastructure like road maintenance or into the power grid. Those jobs cannot be shipped away to another country and they are the type of "busywork" that is actually useful without directly competing with private industry.
A previous comment by me:
I'm trying to say something like: When your caterpillar morphs into a butterfly, harping on how your butterfly is "failing to thrive according to standard, well-established caterpillar metrics used globally for the past thousand years and certified as super duper accurate for caterpillars by many respected institutions." is basically gibberish that says damn near nothing about the state of the butterfly's actual health for which we have zero established metrics, having never seen one before.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22028732
I'm trying to figure out how to write more about that and mostly failing.
Though I do like your idea of investing in infrastructure. I'm trying to figure out how to provide planning and economic development resources and services to small communities and I really appreciate your observation as food for thought for that effort.
Nevertheless, I do think we know (for the most part) what is going on. It's just that we reached feudal times again (never left them?), where decisions are made by our rulers and as long as the great ruler of america and the great ruler of china are friends, then there is no war. And everything else is waged on the backs of 'The People'. Or something.
On a more serious note, the above comment mentions a job guarantee. That is part of Kelton's MMT proposal. There are two things I don't like about it:
1. MMT is called a theory, but it's actually a descriptive model, and it has shown in the last 3 decades, that it is quite the acurate model. 2. Kelton conflates what MMT teaches us about monetary politics and fiat currencies with her own agenda, namely the job guarantee. And it's hard to argue against the latter, when you acknowledge the first. And that is only possible, because MMT is called a 'theory'.
Nevertheless, I believe you are right DoreenMichele, that we as humans should never stand still. I don't think I could 'not work'. As such a universal job guarantee or public programs are scary to me, because although I like work and won't stop anytime soon, I feel like this will be abused by politicians to cement long working hours. And while I do like work, I think less working hours per person is what we should thrive for. This is a conflict in my head.
I am a fan of UBI, because I don't see myself stopping to work anytime soon, and it would have just relieved me of a lot of stress when I grew up with basically nothing. At the same time, I can see that there are jobs people might not pick up if they had sufficient UBI. Thus these jobs need MUCH higher pay. Because the people doing them (mostly) do them out of passion.
Where does it lead us? Unfortunately where we have always been: the very classical class fight. It's not a grand conspiracy theory, there is no one controlling entity with one mind, but in general laws and law making are skewed towards "havers". Which you might as well just call our new feudal lords.
And until we put up some sorts of guards against (too much) abuse of power, dismantling of democracy, opaque deal-making and abusement of the planet's resources (especially without pay or even subsidized) I don't see it ending anytime soon.
IMO, it’s worth it because we can’t halt progress because of socio-economic road blocks.
The amount of productivity and time lost fighting over piddling sums of money in a country that has trillion dollar budgets is not worth it.
Better to institute UBI if that will reduce noise. I used to be against UBI, but once that seed of free money has been planted, it’s going to be difficult to eradicate that weed seed bank. Thanks to start ups( hello, YC!) who experimented with giving out free money. Time to pay up and move on.
Historically, if you were a median woman you needed marriage to have access to a stable income. If you were a median human, you needed marriage to have socially-acceptable sex.
Nowadays, people in their 20s have many paths to wealth and sex that do not require the commitment of marriage.
People can remain financially and sexually independent for more of their lives (feasibly indefinitely), which means they can be more choosy with their marriage partners. This implies fewer and happier marriages, and a lower divorce rate.
That's my interpretation of the presented data, anyways.
> https://i.imgur.com/b07CQKU.png
Higher age at marriage means that people are more sure of what they want by the time they settle down, so are less likely to regret their choice of partner.
> https://i.imgur.com/0rWEnNh.png
More premarital sex also means more are sure of sexual compatibility before marriage. That's a massive component of a healthy relationship that the no-sex-before-marriage crowd gets no data on before committing.
> https://i.imgur.com/l9E3rVY.jpg
More women entering the workforce means that there's more equality on many parts of the relationship. Speaking anecdotally, my parents (dad was in tech working long hours, mom raised us and did housework) always accused the other of not doing enough, and a big factor of that is that the type of work they did was more or less incomparable. How do you measure the effort and stress of corporate life vs that of raising kids?
There's also the resentment a non-working partner can have of being completely financially reliant on the other. In the other direction, resentment for being seen as only good for being a source of money.
Both parents having roughly equivalent types of work, financial power, and relationship responsibilities probably facilitates better communication and empathy.
All 3 point to people getting married for the wrong reasons are just not getting married anymore.
Getting married because you're young and "in love"/pregnant- bad idea.
Getting married because you want to have sex -- bad idea.
Getting married as a means to acquire resources/security from a man -- bad idea.
by "bad idea" i just mean fraught with risks, amongst them divorce.
However, the people who never get married should inform our view - it seems likely that people not being hasty about getting married would lead to fewer shittier marriages.
For example, if people who don't believe in the institution of marriage stop getting married(say due to lower societal pressure), they become "never"s and improve the average of the pool of married people.
Divorce has multi-generational effects that reverberate far beyond the relationship of you and your spouse. I am in a marriage with four kids and my in-laws are divorced. MY marriage and family life is exponentially more difficult because of my in-laws' divorce. E.g. think holidays are hard? Just wait until you have to simultaneously manage holidays with kids while not insulting your in-laws with who gets time when.
Don't @ me with "but what about the wife-beater junkie?!" Yes, safety and sanity of course require separation in cases. But barring safety and the extremes, remember that any "other spouse" out there likewise has flaws and will also change with the passage of time. Also, you are likely very flawed and suck in many ways that only relationships will bring to surface. There is no such thing as a perfect spouse because there is a common weakness that will be brought to each relationship: YOU.
Lastly, lest you think of marriage as just a relationship with two people, have some bloody perspective on our species and society and realize that the stability of society will come from each new generation. Stability is not built into human civilization; it is won by blood, sweat, and tears. One of the greatest indicators of success in a child, in the future who you depend on, is a stable two-parent household.
EDIT:
I'm not advocating that people stay in abusive relationships. I am aware of how common abuse can be. I am also not advocating that you just "stick it out" while fighting like dogs for decades.
What I am advocating for is for spouses in a strained relationship not to consider divorce a solution that removes a problem from their life. Put in the work (which may a long time!) to see if you can make it work.
What can happen very often is that divorce removes the problem from the spouses and places the burden of the problem onto the children.And then, of course, the children cannot complain about it because it is the child's fault that they have issues with their parents divorce (which is always very friendly and amicable).
What I am advocating for is for spouses in a strained relationship not to consider divorce a solution that removes a problem from their life.
What can happen very often is that it removes the problem from the spouses and places the burden of the problem onto the children.
And then, of course, the children cannot discuss it because it is the child's fault that they have issues with their parents divorce (which is always very friendly and amicable).
> One of the greatest indicators of success in a child, in the future who you depend on, is a stable two-parent household.
I don't disagree. But you again miss the point. The reason people get divorce is because there's no stable household. Two-parent household doesn't automatically mean stable household.
My point is you better work on your marriage, on creating a stable household, like your life depends on your marriage before ending it, because your children's life may very well depend on it.
Work to achieve that stable household like you've never worked for anything else before. Go to therapy. Form new habits. Make sacrifices in your schedules to give your spouse what they need. Try and try again and see what works. Because your not just fighting for you, your fighting for your kids.
P.S. given that I am in a marriage that is approaching a decade in length, I can assure you that I know just how shitty things can get in a relationship between two people :-)
Yes, managing holidays with a complicated family is complicated, but that's really a minor inconvenience. Me and my step-sisters have two sets of stable parents that we can go to if we need help, and an even larger support network of aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. beyond them. Our parents are much happier and that in turn gives them more energy to be supportive. No matter how unusual a problem, there's almost always someone in my extended family who has experience with it and advice.
Divorce doesn't have to make life less stable. It can make life richer and more stable. If you care about the children but the marriage isn't working, it's better to divorce while you're still capable of co-parenting than wait until you're constantly arguing and can't stand the sight of each other. That's part of fighting for stability as well.
You should make every reasonable effort to salvage your marriage, but you should NOT sacrifice your happiness and stay in a failed marriage just for the sake of your children. Your duty as a parent is to love them, keep them safe, and live your life as best you can.
Stability is not impossible in divorce; in fact, it can be easier, depending on the marriage.
If you are putting work into a relationship then you haven't found the right person.
Regardless of whether COVID-19 resolves quickly or not, further declines in marriage rates are all but guaranteed.
Wealth and income inequality has gotten so bad in the US that it is now possible to make a compelling argument for progressive policies and a robust welfare state on the basis of goals previously considered conservative (goals like encouraging procreation and family cohesion). Individuals correctly identify the costs of marriage and having children and choose rationally to avoid incurring those costs, or are simply unable to incur those costs in the case of homeownership. As rents and other costs of living exacerbated by having a family continue to balloon, it's only a matter of time until the upper middle class begins to suffer the same effects.
A progressive think tank called People's Policy Project has thought up the Family Fun Pack (https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/projects/family-fun-pac...) to address exactly these problems, though currently its support among elected politicians is mostly nonexistent.
It's all fine, everything is going as planned. You don't want the next generation to be rational critical thinkers. And if the current generation refuses to reproduce, that's awesome! There are loads of others who don't look at this rationally and their offsprings will likely not. These are the voters you want!
Some conservatives have already started noticing that, it seems: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/tucker-car...
It seems odd to make such a blanket claim without any citations or clarifications regarding:
- Must the parents be married to each other?
- Must the parents be happily married?
I suspect that many people divorce specifically because they don't want their children reared in a house where the parents are merely tolerating each other if not being outright hostile toward each other.
Consider the source. It is a conservative think tank.
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Family_S...
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0e3d/640709c889472858054c8f...
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/are-children-raised-with-...
You understand that two-parent families are not exclusively married families, or that it's disingenuous to posit that if a family isn't single parent, it must be a married family, right?
And you're right, the links aren't exclusively about marriage. So if "married" was erased from the original claim, you'd agree with it?
Also the number of children to un weds and single moms have risen over time.
So even if the remaining relationships are improving their odds, their representation across the pool (of children) is declining.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr48/nvs48_16.pdf
This suggests to me that couples are still coupling, just not inviting Uncle Sam to the party. Given that other users have shown a wealth divide for marriage, it would seem that poor couples are opting out of marriage in order to obtain/keep local/state/federal resources, e.g. SNAP, Medicaid, etc, which almost always have income caps for eligibility.
This is misleadingly wrong. It's NUMBER OF out of 1000, so the % will be 1/10 of what is shown.
They do correctly say "For every 1,000 marriages in the last year, only 14.9 ended in divorce," in the text, but it's easy for someone to come away with the wrong impression of a very high overall divorce rate.
Or put another way, people are splitting up (a form of divorce) without ever getting married, so the stats look good if you only track true divorces.
I would like to see stats on poeple living together in a committed relationship, who then split.
It seems more like people are rejecting the marriage certificate, but not everything else that comes with marriage (commitment, living together, children, etc). Maybe it's time to extend common-law marriage?
Marriage was a largely stress-free happening of little consequence, except for your pastor and direct family. It served as a somewhat trivial proof of love and dedication, or something. Divorce was rare because you'd be judged by society for it. Nobody wants grandma to judge you for it, especially if grandma is only 45 years old and will live to whine about it for another 45.
Fast forward to the past decade (or two) and today. Out of high school we can't really (very rarely) find valuable career employment, we need a university degree. Depending on where you live in the world (ahem, USA) you go into a lot of debt studying for what is hopefully a marketable degree.
Then you start with an income of $30,000 USD per year if you're lucky. That house you would like to start a family in apparently costs $400k nowadays, and you can't possibly get a mortgage for it.
Also, you're still $30k (US average) in educational debts.
Honestly, you can't even afford to date and eat out (food, perv), you can barely afford a car to get to work. So you live at home until you're in your 30s. If you're lucky you can stick around in some seedy apartment with a bunch of roommates.
Your career is growing strong, your responsibilities are growing stronger, dating-apps make it easier to find a new partner, you don't have the energy to deal with all the difficulties a relationship brings along with it, and you're still paying off your university degree (and car).
You're in your early to mid thirties now, moving into your first own place. A small apartment still, but it's your own. At $300k it is laughably expensive for such a small and old apartment, though... it's yours! Finally, your own tiny slice of heaven!
You finally find that one parter that you feel safe and comfortable around, you love them. You even consider children and marriage.
But by now you've learned to do the math first. You open your Google Sheets document and tally up your expenses and incomes. Well, let's find out how much a child costs.
If you're in the USA, just birthing a child in a hospital sets you back $15,000 USD. You'll need a bigger apartment in due time to give the child their own bedroom. You need a car that's safe for a child. Clothing, medical care, insurances, food, toys, schoolbooks, and so much more.
And since both you and your partner (need to) work, you also need to figure out how expensive daycare is.
Well, you can't afford to have a child just yet.
How about marriage?
HOLY SH-- I mean, obviously diamonds are a De Beers monopoly and their prices are inflated nonsense. But a decent ring will set you back quite a hefty price for the both of you. What's that, an ENGAGEMENT RING? Is that different from a marriage ring? On average that will set you back 1 month worth of salary in total, and nobody will be impressed by what you came up with.
Gosh.
Okay, what's next. Wedding party. On average that will set you back $23,000 USD.
Well, you know what? Let's wait a few years. That's only smart. We can save up for all of this.
Then you're celebrating your 40th birthday. Your debts are mostly paid off, except your mortgage and cars of course, and it's getting a bit late to have children. You and your partner may have decided against it entirely by now. That leaves marriage. Those elderly family members who were always asking and pressuring you about it have all died by now, or suffer dementia.
You know what?
Let's skip it.
Theory:
Couples who do not go through hardship together (whether economic or otherwise) do not bond as closely as those who have, and therefore are more prone to divorce.
I have no evidence to support this...
So I do not think so.
What the boomers did luck into was the value of assets being deflated due to those 22% interest rates. As the interest rates came down, allowing people to pay more for those assets, those who were able to service the debt saw their wealth balloon to heights never before seen. That's more meaningful today than in the 1980s, though.
Until recent events, the younger generations have had a relatively stable job market and low interest rates, reducing financial stress. It will be interesting to see if COVID-19 pushes the divorce rate back up.
Our continued failure to meaningfully and collectively address these emergencies today is costing us all, a nearly impossible to calculate, amount of money in reactionary services, reduced economic velocity, stunted GDP, and the unrealized potential of our neglected human capital.
[0] https://urbanventures.org/facts-about-poverty#:~:text=Genera....
[1] https://www.nber.org/digest/jan00/poverty-and-mistreatment-c...
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5371750/
[3] https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/report_2720/... and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5880535/
[4] https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/19/02/low-income-student...
[5] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/educati... and https://hechingerreport.org/a-decade-of-research-on-the-rich... and https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/education
[6] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2016/02... and https://www2.ed.gov/offices/OPE/AgenProj/report/theme1a.html and https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262954174_Poor_and_...
[7] https://sunrisehouse.com/addiction-demographics/socioeconomi...
[8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003335062...
[9] http://economyleague.org/colorofinequalitypart5 and https://academic.oup.com/inthealth/advance-article/doi/10.10... and https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/28/7369383...
I.e. America has decided the education system is what we use as aid to these families that are suffering too much to focus on actually getting an education.
This reason is so sad. Marriage has a social meaning but it is not mandatory to make it a social event. If the ceremony is what’s stopping from making an otherwise desired alliance, skipping or strongly downsizing the ceremony should be a better accepted choice.
Marriage is a success multiplier. Successful people generally marry other successful people. Your monetary, behavioral, and intellectual capital double just by signing a piece of paper, given you find the right person. Plus you get significant tax benefits (on ~$300k combined income, you can save $20k-$30k per year).
But there's a huge downside, too. If you get divorced, you (give or take) lose half your assets on top of attorney & emotional costs. Younger generations are getting married later because they weren't given the stability that Boomers had, and therefore can't take the same risk their parents did. A divorce didn't mean a financial end for many boomers (or, at least, they probably weren't aware that's what could happen).
With the rise of the internet, young people are aware of the risks and how susceptible they are to those risks. Since younger generations also no longer feel the same level of stigma for fulfilling sexual and emotional needs from partners outside of marriage, it follows that marriage rates would fall.
It also makes sense that divorce rates would fall. Older generations' marriages that have lasted this long will probably last until death. Younger generations that choose to marry will likely have found and married another successful, responsible person. My guess is these marriages are (on average) more stable than those of previous generations.
And their situation isn't crap enough to put up with less than ideal marriages for the financial security as was the case for the generations prior to the boomers.
Also, in even older generation, marriage was needed for financial security of the woman - the pay gap was large even when she worked and had good job for a woman. So women were under financial pressure to marry in addition to social one.
Plus, unmarried males were seen as immature or irresponsible. A guy was more likely to get pay raise or promotion explicitly with the "he needs money to feed family" thinking. So guys were motivate to marry because of subtle and not-so-subtle discrimination.
Plus, in marriage case, doubling happen only if both partners earn the same and have same amount of money. In divorce case, the "lose half your assets" happen only if you perceive all common money as yours only, which makes somewhat sense only if you are single earner.
This is why I said this is the case if you find the right person.
> Your financial analysis is attributing shared property in marriage to one partner only.
Marriage is pretty close to becoming a single person. Your partner's assets become "yours". You get to live like you were making more money, because costs will not scale to equal 2 incomes. In fact, many costs can half, and other savings are significant too, like taxes. 2 people making $200k are taxed much less than one making $400k. If you combine finances, you're also investing more for retirement and will see a larger compounding effect over time.
I think this isn't really all that fair. Especially for early boomers (people ~75yo now), women were very economically vulnerable. There were limited career opportunities for women overall and discrimination against divorced women was common. (Marital status discrimination was and in much of the US still is legal -- the discrimination didn't need to be subtle at the time.)
Is this bad? I understand marriage as a religious rite. I've never understood why the government cares enough to give tax, finance and legal incentives to married couples...
Now, you might argue that children can be born and raised outside of marriage, and that is true. However, until very recently that was considered extremely bad. Current consensus is still that children benefit significantly from two stable parental figures.
A married couple is a hell of a lot better than single parents for raising kids. The government wants functional kids because functional kids grow up, have jobs, don't revolt, don't engage in petty crime, have careers, pay taxes, etc, etc.
Is this true? Perhaps is it that two-parent families are better for raising kids? Or is it a function of household income?
Is marriage just being treated as shorthand for a lot of things it isn't necessary for?
edit: misunderstood what the the parent meant.
It's hard to separate those, and there's plenty of intuition for why two parents might be better in addition to household income: e.g., availability of at least one parent at any given time.
> Is marriage just being treated as shorthand for a lot of things it isn't necessary for?
I agree that these benefits are more likely the result of two-parent families rather than anything to do with the ritual of marriage.
Plus, divorced parents coparenting is not the same as single parent - the large financial pressure on parent is much smaller.
Americans seem perfectly normal in that regard. Maybe your part of the world is unusual?
It would have been better in hindsight if the U.S. had done what other governments around the world had done and called every contract it deals with a ‘civil union.’
Then there would be no confusion that ‘civil union’ has nothing to do with religion.
As a more concrete example, in the US we need a working population to support the Social Security of the retired population.
When these rules were being created, people assumed that children are better off in home with two married parents and that people are more likely to have children if they are married. So it made sense for the government to encourage marriage with the incentives you mentioned.
Of course, you may want to argue those assumptions now. But that is beyond the scope of my comment.
In the case of two earners, it also significantly reduces risk in a world where most people are paid a single salary or wage rather than having many customers.
Marriage is social institution that can have religious artefacts or governance, it's not specifically a religious thing per sey.
Marriage-like institutions (i.e. formalized cohabitation + commitment + usually children) is a social concept that transcends most cultures, traditions, religions.
'Religion' or at least the 'applied' or 'civic' parts of religion, in some places came to embody the social governance of that institution, particularly in the West.
There are no 'formal marriage rituals' in Buddhism at least in the way we'd understand that in other faiths - it's literally a 'secular institution' in their view [1]. (They have blessing rituals etc. they're not marrying you)
In some places, the Religious Clerics manage it, in others the Civic Cleric, in other places, both.
Someone mentioned 'it's a legal thing in the US' - which isn't quite right either.
A 'marriage contract' is a civic formalization of the social institution, used in some places wherein the civil state governs the rules about it.
Even language such as 'right to be married' is really misleading: 'the right to have a recognized marriage' would be more appropriate.
Edit: To help your understanding: 'Sweden' is the formalized state of the 'Swedish people' (historically ethnic group). But if there were no formal nation state, the area 'where the Swedes live' may still be referred to possibly as 'Sweden' ie a social construct exists without formal recognition. Some aboriginal communities to this use the the term 'Nation' to describe their people, even with there are no civic formalities involved. The point being 'a Nation' exists independant of formal recognition, which is a civic construct. Marriages are an ancient kind of social organization and existed long before we developed the civic (or religious) notion of 'law'.
For one spouse staying at home, they would now qualify for all forms of assistance and tax credits. Balance that against the single earner's reduced break points on marginal taxes and the status quo probably brings in more money to the government.
Of course it looks like big incentives when you don't look at the penalties from being married.
As if unmarried people cannot be couples and have kids.
It used to be like that. Nowadays religions have little to no influence on marriage. Most people don't actually practice what the texts prescribe.
A prenup is fundamentally a discussion between two people, that love each other enough to marry, on how they will treat each other in the event of divorce. I would much rather have an uncomfortable discussion before marriage with the woman who loves me enough to marry me, than to leave my fate in the hands of a woman who hates me enough to divorce me.
A solid and fair prenup would be a hard requirement for me to get married.
- I love her and want good things for her right now. That may change after years go by. But there's no reason to ignore how I feel now and make decisions based on how I might feel a long time away.
- Symbolism is important. It might not be tangible, but you can't deny it has effects in the world.
They generally don’t, and it’s shown in the data where higher earning couples marry each other. But it’s not strictly about money, the spouse can also be bringing outsized looks, family wealth, connections, or other achievements.
Pre-marital assets are generally not community property, so, no. You could lose half your during-the-marriage earnings, but you specifically mentioned pre-marital financial assets.
No, only half your savings after getting married. If you started the marriage with 0, tough luck, I guess.
there are many other areas of life where it is useful to government to have a backup person responsible for your life. Note that if you are not married but living together that might be because you don't trust the other person with those decisions...
> % of newly divorced people per 1,000 married population
What does that even mean? The text clears this up:
> For every 1,000 marriages in the last year, only 14.9 ended in divorce...
But... seriously, how difficult is it to label charts properly? https://xkcd.com/833/ /rant
There are plenty of other ways in which people are probably feeling less pushed toget married. Holidays are very inconvenient when married if your and your spouse's families live in different places, for example.
One is that it has become much more acceptable for couples to live together before getting married. 50 years ago, doing so was seen as somewhat scandalous by a large fraction of the population. In many circles, even sex before marriage was still frowned upon.
That would lead to couple getting married, then moving in together for the first time and perhaps even having sex together for the first time. Those are huge changes in the nature of the relationship.
It is not too hard to find that you get alone great with someone when you do not live with them and/or do not have sex with them but that you do not when living with them and/or having sex with them.
Thus, I'd expect with living together and premarital sex much more accepted for many couples that in the past would have found out they should not be married until after they got married to find that out nowadays during the "living together" stage.
That couple nowadays becomes a "never married" couple rather than a "divorced after a short marriage" couple. This contributes to lowering both the marriage rate and the divorce rate.
I'd expect a similar effect from the growing acceptance of having amd raising a child as a single parent. Many couples that never wanted to get married in the first place used to do so if they had a birth control failure while dating. I'd expect that too led to eventually divorces that would not happen in similar circumstances today.
Monogamy is a breeding ground for drama. It creates a lifelong conflict between choosing to be a faithful spouse, and choosing to follow natural human instincts.
I know a woman with an open relationship, she regularly has many partners but has a husband. A friend had approached her one time thinking she was going to make a difficult and shocking revelation to her: that she had seen her husband with another woman. It was then that she had to delicately explain the arrangement of her open marriage to her friend.
If it was a problem, why did so many societies choose that path back then? Lower overall life expectancy and the prevalence of disease required you to play a game of probabilities with reproduction.
Say you want four adult children. According to one source, 50% of children died before adulthood back 500 years ago [1]. So, you must plan to have eight children. Is this task doable if you start in your late 20's/early 30's? Likely not.
Also, life expectancy for the mother was far lower than today [2]. The mother will be providing the food to nurture the infants, so her early demise is to be avoided. Starting earlier is again preferred.
Modern society sets up different incentives for the marriage equation. We're told careers are more important than starting families.
Monogamy is not the only path to fulfillment, but people must seek the other paths on their own. Normalizing non-monogamous relationships for the unprepared leads to disastrous consequences for all parties involved.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past
[2] https://www.sarahwoodbury.com/life-expectancy-in-the-middle-...
Many of us have had grandparents or parents pressure us, suggesting we hurry up and propose, hurry up and find a significant other, and things like that. Crank that up to 11 and you’ve got what it was like to be young 70 years ago.
People were getting married right out of high school because that’s what they had to do. If you think about how at one time a woman would need to have a husband to do something simple like get a loan from a bank, how could she go through adult life without getting married?
That dynamic is a recipe for bad marriages and divorce.