In fact, society could much more readily support children financially than it can provide a missing parent, so if anything it's a bit strange that we allow divorce or absent parents but require financial support.
In fact, society could much more readily support children financially than it can provide a missing parent, so if anything it's a bit strange that we allow divorce or absent parents but require financial support.
Forcing marriage seems like a terrible way to achieve the same thing.
My parents are Asians who don’t get along, while my wife’s parents are white people who have been divorced three times each. Her parents are happier, but my life was easier and opportunities came much more readily. Divorce is a great way to turn a solidly middle class family into two financially struggling families, disrupt kids’ education, extra-curricular activities, social circles, etc. And it doesn’t end when the kids grow up, because that strain of financial resources continues into adulthood when parents come to depend on children.
Americans are rich enough where imposing those costs on their kids isn’t fatal. But imagine you’re in a third world village, and at the edge of survival to begin with. Your mom and dad are “no longer in love.” Dad leaves, and the mom and kids starve to death immediately. That’s why most traditional societies have strong norms against divorce.
I'm not pro-divorce, but it's difficult to isolate just one variable here. There are numerous other cultural differences.
Being the child of a first generation migrant seems to be good for social mobility. Being part of a exclusive clique with entrenched access to elite power might help too. Probably there are many factors.
And Mormons don’t have “entrenched access to exclusive power.” They’re a persecuted minority that was driven to the arid desert and managed to turn it into a thriving place.
I don't think that "upward social mobility" should be our only metric.
> But imagine you’re in a third world village, and at the edge of survival to begin with. Your mom and dad are “no longer in love.” Dad leaves, and the mom and kids starve to death immediately. That’s why most traditional societies have strong norms against divorce.
Most traditional societies don't have nuclear families, with 2.4 children and only two adults to raise them in the suburbs outside of a large city.
Life is full of trade offs. No need to delude yourself into thinking divorce, in the typical case, isn’t a trade off between your well being and your kid’s.
Similar reasoning could justify adultery being a crime against your children.