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Comment by Thorentis | Hacker News Reader

That's like saying isn't death a healthy outcome for a cancer patient? Sure, it's what happens to many people that get cancer. But getting cancer in the first place is not "healthy", and so death caused by cancer is not "healthy".

If marriage is nothing more than a legal contract - which sadly for many people it is, then why even bother making vows such as "until death do us part"? All for show? Why not just put a time-clause for when the contract expires so that you can decide whether to sign a new one? A highly utilitarian, and in my opinion, tragically sad view of marriage, but that is essentially what it has become for many people.

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You're talking at cross purposes.

Divorce is a positive resolution to a terrible relationship. Death isn't a positive resolution to cancer.

Divorce is only negative if we don't condition on the existence of a terrible relationship.

Two things are accurate at the same time:

- A marriage turning into a terrible relationship is a negative outcome.

- Divorce as a reaction to a marriage turning sour is a positive outcome, since we've conditioned on that development and it's now a sunk cost.

I think this is only true if you modify the initial condition to be "...an irreparably terrible relationship". Without that, there is a third point which may be true:

- Fixing a marriage which is turning into a terrible relationship is a better outcome than divorce. In this way, divorce is a bad outcome, the same way as coming in second in Jeopardy and winning $2000 is a bad outcome compared to coming in first and winning (say) $10 000.

Is it?

It seems weird to say "well you signed some papers, so it's extremely valuable that you're together for some legal purposes rather then happy".

The point of repairing a relationship is to remember that you once were happy and can be again by correcting behaviors and the like. But it seems bizarre to assume that's assured - it's even more bizarre to think it would be wrong to acknowledge that maybe you'd only wind up content but not happy, and so a separation is still preferable.

Or that actually you'd be happier alone then with someone else, but not exactly miserable if you were still with them etc.

Uh, why?

> Divorce is only negative if we don't condition on the existence of a terrible relationship.

Not "only". A positive relationship that's ruined by outside factors/factions, for example, might end in divorce.

A relationship that benefits both people but has been mismanaged (ignorance, inexperience, etc.), might end in divorce.

Isn't the point of the OP in part that just by the biological accident of having female offspring one might become more likely to be divorced; that strongly implies that divorce isn't always down to inherent aspects of the relationship.

There is a third - people facing difficulties which are surmountable, divorce and negatively effect their lives and the lives of their children

> Death isn't a positive resolution to cancer.

not sure about that.

You're begging the question.

You are assuming what you are mean to prove, namely that life is inherently valuable, and that marriage is not inherently valuable. Someone who favours euthanasia could easily say that death is a positive resolution to disease.

To those who say life has inherent value, death is not positive, no matter the pain it may relieve. To those who say marriage has inherent value, divorce is not positive, no matter the pain it may relieve.

To turn your argument back on you: Death as a reaction to health/life turning sour is a positive outcome, since we've conditioned on that development and it's now a sunk cost.

I happen to think that both life and marriage are inherently valuable and worth sacrificing for and holding on to, and for similar reasons.

I think anyone I know who considers marriage as “just a legal contract” isn’t saying that one should treat marriage as a contractual relationship like any other but rather that the ceremony itself is unimportant relative to the relationship as a whole. I think these are two very different things people may mean by the phrase and I feel like your comment suggests that one of those things is common while I would suggest that the other interpretation is more common.

If people thought of marriage as nothing but a legal contract, likely to be broken, and acted rationally then I expect they wouldn’t bother at all: the benefits aren’t particularly great while the risks are large.

I think we probably mostly agree with our own opinions but perhaps disagree on the opinions of others.

> I feel like your comment suggests that one of those things is common while I would suggest that the other interpretation is more common.

I read it as people taking that step in a relationship without much thought because that's what society has conditioned us to believe is normal and then divorcing like breaking-up.

Surely such people would consider it to be a social requirement they must satisfy rather than just another legal contract?

Kind of, more like just another legal contract to sign up to satisfy a social requirement.

> the benefits aren’t particularly great while the risks are large.

Marriage brings specific legal and financial benefits, depending on the country (married couples tax allowances, spousal rights to pensions and inheritance etc, spousal privilege in court, visa/residency rights, child custody rights).

As these benefits have reduced over a few decades, the number of marriages has gone down (at least in the West?). I don't think that's a coincidence.

You don't need a legal marriage to share a loving and fulfilling life together with a partner. But, if you do share a loving and fulfilling life together, marriage might benefit you for one or more of the above reasons.

Alternative framing is that in the past people stayed for benefits in marriages with people they disliked.

I think it's important to make the distinction between religious and civil mariage.

Clearly civil mariage is just a contact, whose main purpose is the divorce (at least in my country - France - divorce is the main benefit of marriage). And as far as I know there is no commitment for it to last for life, but just until the end of the contract.

> divorce is the main benefit of marriage

...what? Are you saying French people intentionally get married in order to reap benefits of divorce?

The benefit of being protected by the divorce. Divorce is here to protect the "weaker" (sorry probably not the right word) party.

For example if they have kids and one of the parent stops working to raise the kids, divorce will make sure that person is not left without anything.

There is another civil union (the PACS) and as far as I know the main (and maybe only) differences is that PACS do not get divorce (you can part much more quickly, each party just get their own stuff and that's it) and something related to ineritance taxes. So that's the main reasons why people marry I guess :)

To be fair, I'll add that it's also not legal to marry religiously if you are not married civilly, so some people probably get married civilly just to be able to marry religiously.

> For example if they have kids and one of the parent stops working to raise the kids, divorce will make sure that person is not left without anything.

It isn't the divorce which creates those rights, it is the marriage. The divorce rules only make it so that those rights are not abruptly suppressed after the dissolution of the marriage.

Divorce is a benefit in the US as well.

If you are married for some years in a state without common law marriage and then get divorced, you are probably due some of the house value, for example, even if it was in your husband's name. And one of the cars, and so on.

The same couple, not married, might have to sue to get one of the two cars and might not get any value from the house, even though they helped save for the down payment.

And there are lots of little things like that.

Marriage and family as we know it is a relatively recent habit, only about few thousand years, even hundreds of years in many regions. It was justified and necessary to adapt in new environment like agricultural civilization, but it may be not advantageous in new current era of digital world.

This kind of thought is so far from my own. Marriage and family are the most important things in the vast majority of people's lives. Computers and Internet don't make them obsolete...

>That's like saying isn't death a healthy outcome for a cancer patient? ... But getting cancer in the first place is not "healthy", and so death caused by cancer is not "healthy".

What if your analogy is right and marriage is really not healthy in the first place? At least it cannot work for all people?

>If marriage is nothing more than a legal contract - which sadly for many people it is, then why even bother making vows such as "until death do us part"?

It could be a legal contract with such timing: “until death” why not? Wasn’t it always has been like this by definition?

>All for show? If contract is not taken seriously then any contract become ‘for show’

>Why not just put a time-clause for when the contract expires so that you can decide whether to sign a new one?

Because it would make it opposite to what it meant to represent? Anyway, why to bother if many people consider it breakable at any moment already? Much more comfortable for those who do not intend to keep own promises.

>A highly utilitarian, and in my opinion, tragically sad view of marriage, but that is essentially what it has become for many people.

Has become? What if it always has been like this by design And many attempts to make it something else have failed?

Wouldn't a tumor removal be a better metaphor for an unhealthy marriage? There are so many worse outcomes than a divorce, there are no worse outcomes from cancer than death.

Why even have any pre-determined time clause?

I would say the most sensible thing is simply the mutual declaration for the sake of administrivia, that until any of the members of a marriage say otherwise, we all are married. The only reason to even have the document is just for things like power of attorney. Who shall be considered a legal guardian responsible for a child, who is allowed to make decisions for another while they are incapacitated, etc. And the expiration date is "until further notice".

I don't think you have a right to call that sort of family sad or "tragic".

That's actually incredibly insulting, even abusive when it's embedded in policy that everyone has to live under.

Just imagine if I called your family sad and tragic. Even if I used hard unavoidable data to back up the judgement.

You don't think they have the right to have an opinion? How tolerant.

Everyone doesn't have to "live under" it, you don't have to get married.

I suspect having Mummy and Daddy being together "until further notice" would have disastrous impacts on children's sense of permanence and development.

That is defacto reality. If every kid at least knows a kid from a divorced family the damage to the sense of permanence of the family unit has already been done.

Not necessarily. I knew people from different families who were divorced, but rationalized that my parents were different and more committed, and so still just accepted it as an axiom that families stay together (except when they don’t).

While obviously not that consistent, as a kid I perfectly accepted that logic. If I try to place myself in that same mindset, I think I’d find the definition of “marriage is together until further notice” far more concerning than knowing some divorced parents.

> That's like saying isn't death a healthy outcome for a cancer patient?

The end of a marriage (where both participants continue living) and a cancer death, are not comparable.

Your "if you're not going to stay in a bad marriage until you physically die, what's the point of marriage?" viewpoint where marriage is permanent xor utilitarian is a false dichotomy.

Divorce doesn't mean that the participants failed, or that they entered into the marriage simply out of utility.

Divorce doesn't mean that the participants failed, or that they entered into the marriage simply out of utility.

On the contrary, by their own measure, it is a failure. No one gets married anticipating or wanting a divorce. Everyone wants it to last forever.

That's why the comment you responded to suggested a time-bounded contract. Which no one wants.

Have you ever gone through a divorce? Mine was amicable, but even then it was the worst thing I've ever experienced.

> No one gets married anticipating or wanting a divorce.

I think the existence of reasonable precautions such as prenuptial agreements indicates that this statement is false: many people enter into a marriage with the full knowledge that it may end before the death of one of the partners (presumably contrary to their desire at the time). I think that counts as "anticipating".

Heinlein put it well: "We always marry strangers."

Only 5% of all married couples in the United States got married with a prenup. The fact that signing a prenup is so completely in everyone's interest and the fact that only 5% of marriages have them proves my point - no one is anticipating or looking forward to their own divorce.

Heinlein put it well: "We always marry strangers."

He was married 3 times. I'd be willing to bet he had 2 of those divorces behind him when he wrote that.

> The fact that signing a prenup is so completely in everyone's interest and the fact that only 5% of marriages have them proves my point - no one is anticipating or looking forward to their own divorce.

When my spouse and I got married, we had basically no assets of note. (Drafting and) Signing a prenup would have been in the interest of our lawyers, but not our interest.

If 5% anticipate divorce in that way, it can’t prove your point “no one is anticipating or looking forward to their own divorce”.

That’s one in twenty.

How dare someone slightly exaggerate!

Technically it would be a failed marriage. That doesn't mean the people involved are themselves 'failures'.

Many enter marriages very optimistically and with a limited view of what it will become. People change, learn more about themselves and their partners, and kids are a powerful dynamic adding a lot of stress and needs. I don't think it's constructive to judge any divorce without having lived through that relationship first.

> Technically it would be a failed marriage. That doesn't mean the people involved are themselves 'failures'.

That's true but nobody was arguing that. The disagreement wasn't about whether they are failures (a description) but whether they failed (an action). I would say they definitely failed.

A better analogy might be "amputating a leg is a healthy end to gangrene". Better not to have gangrene in the first place, but if someone does, better to amputate the leg than die.

But you wouldn't say "amputating a leg is a healthy end to having legs" because for most leg havers, there are better outcomes.

In the same vein, I'd say "divorce is a healthy end to a bad marriage" but not "divorce is a healthy end to marriages in general".

The “bad” part seems like a strange distinction to need to make. Are people in good marriages getting divorced?

In other words, I think it’s reasonable to say that divorce is a healthy way to end a marriage, because if it ended in divorce, then by definition, at least one party thought it needed to, making it a bad marriage.

For middle class folks, marriage isn't much different than a typical employment contract with a large firm. Marriage usually revolves around house and assets, so your 200k down payment is the 100k sign on bonus for your spouse. Paying out mortgage is the stock vesting plan. Kids are additional stock grants for good performance. Divorce is selling shares.

I would say middle class folks will probably consider marriage to be more important. Like Viktor Frankl would say, the meaning of your life is either from your work, love or courage in difficulty for survival.

Most middle class folks I am sure don't fall in third bucket; and a lot of them are just doing 9-5 jobs, probably not doing something which can drive them like say most of the big entrepreneurs or researchers seem to be.

So that leaves love, which would become kind of very important to give their life a meaning. Marriage being a vow to have that love lasting throughout seems special. I am in late 20s, and even though I would want to do something great, the strive to find someone compatible with me seems to weigh on my mind more these days.

Those middle class folks are wasting their lives, then: just like an office job is an illusion of meaningful work, their marriage is an illusion of love.

What do you do for a living?

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