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Comment by sliverstorm | Hacker News Reader

Whether or not marriage as an institution is biased against males or females (honestly, it seems to be biased against both) I am always astounded by people who see no value whatsoever in marriage.

America is practically founded on capitalism. How can you understand specialization & its benefits, and not see how marriage (well, used to) makes use of it?

Yes, if marriage was just about pretending "True Love is real, and the world is full of roses and daisies!" it would be a ridiculous sham. But as I have come to see it, it is more about facing the world as a "team". In larger groups (that is to say, extended family, all composed of marriage links), perhaps even as a "tribe"... think about that.

(Not to mention, kids are a thing we kind of need as a species, and I think most everyone is familiar with the plight of single parents)

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I don't think that marriage in USA is biased against anyone. But the divorce is HEAVILY biased agains men. For example, more than 70% of divorces are initiated by women, while they also get the custody of the children 90% of the time.

When it comes for child support, it's even worse. If in a family the husband begins to get a lower salary due to the state of the economy, then everybody should/will spend less. But if a divorced father gets a lower salary, "the child's standard of living must not change". Did you earn $200,000 per year pre-divorce, and now you barely can find work for $50,000? Too bad for you, you'll have to get an extra job to be able to pay the same amount of child support. If you fail to pay, you get to jail, but the support payments accumulate, so when you get out you'll be in even more debt, which will land you back in jail, and so on. And of course, this whole time, you will be considered a "deadbeat dad".

BTW, I was shocked to find out that, in some states, men* have to pay lifetime alimony. With all due respect, guys who get married on these terms are insane.

Marriage itself can be quite biased against males in the states. I have a friend who's wife successfully divorced him because she was not being "sexually satisfied". If a male tried to do the same, people would scream "domestic rape". Expectations of each sex, viewed through the lense of the courts, are very uneven.

And of course after the divorce the situation only becomes more dire.

If only that was the worst of cases. My mind is continually blown by the cases in which husband catches wife cheating, husband sues for divorce, wife gets custody, half of assets and alimony.

please cite your sources

This is one of those things teetering on the edge of "public knowledge". I have never met a single person who believes women receive the short end of the stick in divorce. In fact the only complaint from the women's end of things I've ever heard is '50% of his income is not enough'.

It is of course anecdotal, but as best I can tell, it is anecdotal evidence that is shared by every person in America- aka, 'public knowledge'.

I won't base too much too heavily on it. The idea that blacks were sub-human was once "public knowledge" because everyone had an anecdote about a black person doing something stupid.

It should be stated that:

* 'Common sense' is not necessarily common.

* 'Public knowledge' doesn't always match up to reality and can often be influenced by social biases (i.e. you may only remember the cases of a man getting the shaft in a divorce, but easily forget the ones where he makes out like a bandit).

http://web.archive.org/web/20070627182454/http://www.grant-t...

^60% of divorce settlements favorable to women, 40% even, 10% favorable to men. UK, 2004.

http://www.attorneys.com/legal_center/articles/child_custody...

^10-15% of men have sole custody of children

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120700651883978623.html

^3.6% of alimony recipients are male, 2006

I am not a fountain of sources, so I hope this will do for now.

A fun story illustrating how weird things are getting: http://mensnewsdaily.com/2011/02/27/man-receives-oral-sex-or...

1. I agree that most divorce proceedings do favor women.

2. As a friend of an attorney who tells me that most of his male clients never seek custody and don't even petition for visitation rights until the CS payments start coming due this is completely inline with our society. I'm sorry, but once the divorce is finished most guys just want to move on with their life, the family they had becomes an encumberment. Most would prefer to be free to start over than continue being reminded of a failed relationship. That's just the way it is.

3. The primary purpose of the act of having sex is reproduction. The courts have already decided that every time you have sex you implicitly agree that a baby might result. It doesn't matter if it's oral, anal, or vaginal if someone gets pregnant out of it you can't back out you've already given consent. Even before reading the article I already knew the outcome, skimming to the bottom confirmed 30-40 years of court cases on the same matter.

Point #3 is not entirely true. The article seemed to imply that the law was all about advocating for the child, instead of pandering to a disagreement between the biological parents at the (possible) expense of the child.

This implies that I may not even need to have sex to be forced into child support payments. For example, what if someone sneaks into my bedroom at night (or maybe we're sharing a hotel room while travelling) and is able to make off with some semen while I sleep? By the legal argument that we must advocate for the child, I would be forced into child support. Sure, I could attempt to seek some sort of relief from the mother for what she did, but that would be completely separate from whether or not I am legally obligated to pay child support for the next 18 years.

Maybe all men should be forced to wear locks on their genitalia lest some crazy woman somewhere decide that they want to force the man to create a child?

some crazy woman somewhere decide that they want to force the man to create a child?

The third verse of every other rap song is about this very topic.

There was actually another case I don't have a link to at the moment where a guy passed out drunk at a party and a women he had never met essentially raped him in his sleep. Yup, he was forced to pay child support too.

Imprison the woman for rape and get full custody due to criminal ineligibility of the woman? (And being in prison at the time). Then when she get's out of jail you get child support payments. It sucks to have some stranger's child, but usually women who do this know the man in some way.

That would require convicting the woman for rape. Good luck with that.

I love children, but as a specie, we've secured our dominant position on this planet a long time ago. There's over 7 billion of us now. If children isn't your thing, why bring some into the world, and risk neglecting them?

The main problems are these:

1) Due to social values, we build momentum. If marriage ceases to happen and children cease to be born, 50 years from now we won't have 50 million fewer people- we'll have 1 billion fewer people, and it will take decades to reverse the trend. (made-up numbers, but I hope you take my point)

2) It's not just about protecting the species. We have a tiny bit of a Ponzi scheme going. The young support the old, and as a result graphs like this: http://japanfocus.org/data/fig3.jpg (Japan's population) As a taxpayer, make your blood run cold.

1) I understand your point, but according to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

It only took a decade to go from 6 to 7 billion. We can build up a population in the blink of an eye.

2) Do parents have children to bring more tax payers into the world? :) Ponzi scheme or not, people taking the time to establish themselves first means fewer children, but also fewer neglected children.

Do parents have children to bring more tax payers into the world? :)

You say it like it's a silly idea, but not long ago people in America had children expressly for the purpose of helping around the farm, and in Asian cultures there is still an explicit overtone that parents have children so that they have someone to depend upon in old age.

And by 'explicit overtone', I mean your parents say it to your face and you become a social pariah if you abandon your family- at least as best I understand it from my Asian friends.

Agreed, in asia a family unit is not just parents and their children. It involves, grandparents, and great grandparents if they are around. It's not a "you have to take care of me" kind of a deal but something like "family takes care of itself" -> when you have kids, grandparents help out actively in raising them, then you are adults you help your parents, physicall, financially. Families often have assets stowed away as a collective unit.

surprisingly enough, 'species' is both the singular and plural form of the word.

In what sense are we the dominant species?

You can "handle things as a team" without bringing into bring into the equation the full force of a modern judiciary system and a stone-age property rights system.

The judiciary system and stone-age property system instill a certain permanence. It is much harder to give everything you've got when the other party can up and walk away whenever they please. Maybe in modern times we have better solutions than a modern judiciary system, but the system is the way it is for a reason.

Would you co-found a company without the full force of a modern judiciary system?

I wouldn't co-found a company with someone I had an emotional attachment to.

"But as I have come to see it, it is more about facing the world as a "team". In larger groups (that is to say, extended family, all composed of marriage links), perhaps even as a "tribe"... think about that."

I agree! Why do those links have to be marital? I'm not sure they have to be. Which is why the we need to be more open.

because, marital/blood link are more stronger than open/causal links.

janees' grammar is terrible, but he's not entirely wrong. We like to think we are above 'foolish' things like being related to people, but as my grandparents have put it, my brothers will always be my brothers. That is one thing that cannot change- and somehow, that is special. Call me base, call me old-fashioned, but I have come to feel that blood ties are not as imaginary as I used to believe.

If you want a concrete reason that "blood" ties are non-imaginary, there's kin selection: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection

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