Getting into an institution with no easy way out discourages entry in the first place. Alimony has no place in a society where men and women are equal; child support is based on the paradigm of a traditional stay at home mom who never worked and who will never work, taking numbers from Kentucky(!?) in the late 50's, early 60's as a base and slowly increasing from there.
Add to this the fact that to get out of the institution of marriage; two lawyers are needed, both paid for--generally--by the working spouse. The minute children are in the mix divorce becomes more of a nightmare.
I forgot to add the involvement of the judicial system with its clogged calendars and burdensome discovery procedures.
It is no surprise at all that people avoid marriage.
> child support is based on the paradigm of a traditional stay at home mom who never worked and who will never work,
Not at all.
It's based on the belief that children are the responsibility of both parents. If the children live with one parent it is therefore believed that the other parent should still contribute to the costs, which sounds fair and sensible to me.
> Add to this the fact that to get out of the institution of marriage; two lawyers are needed
The same lawyer cannot represent opposed parties for obvious reasons...
No doubt the things you mention make marriage less attractive, but I think it's also worth noting that more and more young couples are choosing not to have children. I suspect, based on my own experience and that of friends, that this is a big factor in decisions not to marry. Why get hitched if you're not planning to start a family?
To put it more simply - marriage was created for a man and a woman who were both fulfilling strict social expectation of their gender. Man would hunt for food & protect the tribe, which eventually turned into work a 9-5 job and earn money. Woman would manage the house, cook food, raise kids.
It has increasingly less place in the world as lines between gender roles continue to blur.
A radio interview years ago with a woman from Africa compared African and western mariages. She basically claimed the Western and African view of a mariage was different to the point of incompatibility, and wondered what the hell we were doing.
African marriage, according to her, was based on what amounted to economic stability: 2 people share the cost and maintenance burden of a house, food, ... If one partner was ill, there was a guarantee the other would provide support. Children would need care early on, but added extra economic output when they became older. All of this required a long term commitment, as breaking up a marriage would condemn everyone involved to poverty. Love or even friendship were a nice bonus, but not required as long as partners could live and work together (in the most literal sense). Even something as parents abusing their children was not as bad as the children not having parents and die in the streets, besides, pressure of the local society should deal with the worst abuse.
Western mariage was based only love. We got rich enough to have the possibility for 1 person to pay and maintain house, food, ... Children can get economic support from a broken up marriage, even if the emotional impact of a breakup is extremely damaging to them. As a result, the basic stability requirements simply aren't there.
This means mariage does not require long term commitment, it provides long term commitment.
While I do not fully subscribe to this view, this woman certainly changed how I look at a marriage.
>> a woman from Africa compared African and western mariages.
Africa is a big place. That sounds more like west or south Africa. For instance, the north-east (Egypt and the Mediterranean countries) have a much more middle eastern view of the institution. And even within southern Africa, there is great disparity between rich an poor. Much of the economic certainty professed falls away with African people from more wealthy backgrounds. It is likely overinclusive so call these "African" views of marriage, rather they are the views of some particular African economic and social groups. Other groups have other ideas, some of them much more similar to western notions.
One thing that's massively changed, at least in my corner of the world (various bits of Europe) is that grandparents used to be much more involved in raising children. Nowadays, they are more commonly uninterested, living far away, or lack the past societal norm pressure. EDIT: Or are older, as they themselves had children later than past generations, and therefore less able to help.
Without that unpaid, keen, trustworthy workforce, raising children is much, much harder. You either have to rely on paid (very expensive), and variably-trustworthy professional childcare, or put something like 50-60 hours a week of childcare. I'm talking about everything other than normal working hours, where typically children are at school or nursery etc.
Soo... this extra pressure is enough I think to bust a marriage with children (it seems that parental separation rates are increasing, with or without marriage), or to put couples off having them in the first place - in which case the utility of a marriage in a secular world is much lower. In the UK for instance, next to none.
I was 50-50, but wedding surprisingly ended up one of the nicest experiences of my life, and there is plenty to compete for that spot. People tend to forget its not for the couple but for everybody else.
Wedding creates additional bonds. I didn't expect it, but it did. You want to have strong bonds in marriage, the more the better, because tough times will inevitably come. Bonds can be created in other ways (ie intense adventure experiences together), but they are different. It also covers things when SHTF - visits in hospitals, inheritance etc.
Divorces are expensive if people make them expensive when going down revenge rabbit hole. It can be as simple as 2 signatures on 1 paper and that's it. Choosing spouse is the most important choice in life and tons of folks don't do wise choices in this, with results all around. With kids divorce becomes more complex, but then even without marriage its complex depending on local laws.
As expected, the article says nothing of single-parent households. It mentions the black people that don't get married being disadvantaged but fails to mention that a majority of black children are raised in single-parent households.
Do you think that not getting rewarded for being unmarried is more of a problem than children being raised in a single-parent household?
I certainly agree that parents being married is a bonus for the child. Apart from any strictly emotional considerations, married parents form a more stable platform for care and support during childhood. The fact that splitting up is so inconvenient probably keeps parents together through bigger disagreements than unmarried parents.
Now that I say it though, divorces are such major trauma that perhaps the tail risk counterbalances that benefit. I guess still not, but it's less clear.
Interesting times ahead. Especially for Gen Z and younger, who rely heavily on dating apps instead of going out to meet new potential partners. Dating apps which are highly ineffective at actually generating relationships for most people (particularly for straight males). I predict Gen Z birth rate will be less than 1 per woman, but this might not be a problem for Western economies for now as Western countries can just increase immigration.
> Dating apps which are highly ineffective at actually generating relationships for most people (particularly for straight males).
I didn’t really find that’s the case. I think that’s the perception, but it wasn’t that hard to meet nice, educated people looking for actual relationships on the various dating apps I once used. The failure rate has got to be much less than the failure rate out of all the potential partners one meets naturally.
If anything, dating apps are equalizers. They don’t require you to break into a clique in any activity where you might try to naturally meet people.
Birth rates have been falling for decades at this point. Pretty much since the industrial revolution. Dating apps are new. Hard to blame birth rates on them.
My understanding is that the agricultural revolution played a major role in the traditional version monogamous marriage becoming "standard".
Since the industrial revolution the role of marriage and the structure of marriage has been slowly shifting. Most notably to be more equal,but also to be less mandatory
Maybe marriage just makes sense in an agricultural society, and doesn't make sense in an industrialized or knowledge-based society
"People will no longer get married and will live with each other just for sexual pleasure." - taken from the Wikipedia page about kali yuga. There are many more entertaining observations there:
Lust will be viewed as socially acceptable and sexual intercourse will be seen as the central requirement of life.
People will become addicted to intoxicating drinks and drugs.
Rulers will become unreasonable: they will levy taxes unfairly.
Rulers will no longer see it as their duty to promote spirituality, or to protect their subjects: they will become a danger to the world.
Avarice and wrath will be common. Humans will openly display animosity towards each other.
People will have thoughts of murder with no justification and will see nothing wrong in that.
Gurus will no longer be respected and their students will attempt to injure them.
Weather and environment will degrade with time and frequent and unpredictable rainfalls will happen. Earthquakes will be common.
The powerful people will dominate the poor people.
All the human beings will declare themselves as gods or boon given by gods and make it as a business instead of teachings.
Everything except the last one is the norm already. I'm curious what a society of self-proclaimed gods looks like.
This just sounds like standard "last days" apocalyptic religious claptrap.
Likelihood of dying by violence is lower in developed countries now than the historical norm. Forms of bigotry on average seem to be way down, acceptance of those different from you is up. People's morals have mostly gotten better, not worse.
There are still problems -- climate change is the big one that's potentially actually apocalyptic -- but for the most part humanity is prospering.
I understand why this is happening, but some of it is going to be unfair for women today. Raising a child still has more toll on mothers. They lose job and growth opportunity which has a long lasting impact on their future. They are still under paid comparing to men.
We want to get rid of these traditional contracts, but we are not prepared to make all the necessary changes in the society.
I'd highly recommend the Hidden Brain podcast When Did Marriage Become So Hard?. [1]
It goes into detail on how much we expect from our spouses, and how these expectations put pressure on a marriage. Couples who are able to get all of these benefits are super happy, but for many couples it's prudent to realize that historically we've not expected so many things from our spousal relationships. This realization allows couples to adjust their expectations for what a marriage is supposed to provide, and give them permission to have some of their social or other needs met by friends/colleagues/etc.
Getting married was the single best decision I ever made in my life. 30+ years later and now we have three grown children, 1 of whom is married, another is getting married next year, and the third is still in college. I think the fact people look at marriage as a transactional arrangement is a sad commentary on modern society, but at least it explains why the arts are dying: people don't do anything for love or beauty any longer, it's all for the almighty dollar. It's truly sad.
My thoughts are that most of the problems, like most things, stem from the Baby Boomer generation, the generation that likes to pin everything on Millennials and Gen Z now, which stemmed from their prior generations. It was Baby Boomers who divorced more than any other and yet pitched this idealized, fairytale version of marriages. Well, Millenials can see that doesn’t work, because they have first hand experience.
So Millenials, from what I can gather, are much more willing to be naturally skeptical of the pitch of marriage and wait it out. I myself view it as more of a partnership, entailing legal details (such as taxes and ownership) and a personal, non-religious commitment. Religion has also fallen out of favor, reducing the push to marry, at least in the faith. This also contributes to the newer generations living together longer before marriage, which prevents both marriages and divorces at the same time and certainly delays marriages. Lastly, there’s the finances. Millenials and Gen Z are slammed with rising costs, taxes, debt, one “lifetime” economic crisis after another, and more. All of this contributes to delays in and distractions to “settling down”. I simply don’t understand how I would have felt comfortable marrying in my 20s or even done it. I wasn’t prepared and couldn’t afford stable life and also moved a lot between school, graduate school, and finding a job that didn’t suck, all of which slows meeting people.
There are some financial benefits to marrying, if the marriage sticks, but I think those don't away the sheer pressure newer generations are under.
The family being the only remaining non-transactional long-term social construct in moden society, it is not surprising that both marriage and child bearing are anachronistic and have been falling for the past decades. Eventually, a combination of surrogate childbirth (and perhaps evetually 'true' SF-style in-vitro bottle babies) and professional parenting, either private or State-sponsored, will be the primary way to raise the next generations of producers and consumers.
It is sometimes tiring how prophetic British SF writers of the 1930's were.
I disagree with the assertion that family was ever non-transactional. Even the ways families begin, either through monogamous marriage or wedlock, require that one person select (or be arranged to accept) one partner with which to copulate. People engage in a transitional analysis anytime they ask themselves "is it worth it?". And that's more often then you seem to imply.
pseingatl|4 years ago
Add to this the fact that to get out of the institution of marriage; two lawyers are needed, both paid for--generally--by the working spouse. The minute children are in the mix divorce becomes more of a nightmare.
I forgot to add the involvement of the judicial system with its clogged calendars and burdensome discovery procedures.
It is no surprise at all that people avoid marriage.
mytailorisrich|4 years ago
Not at all.
It's based on the belief that children are the responsibility of both parents. If the children live with one parent it is therefore believed that the other parent should still contribute to the costs, which sounds fair and sensible to me.
> Add to this the fact that to get out of the institution of marriage; two lawyers are needed
The same lawyer cannot represent opposed parties for obvious reasons...
dmitrygr|4 years ago
LurkingPenguin|4 years ago
jhanschoo|4 years ago
gsich|4 years ago
"Therefore, examine whoever binds forever".
paxys|4 years ago
It has increasingly less place in the world as lines between gender roles continue to blur.
hyperman1|4 years ago
African marriage, according to her, was based on what amounted to economic stability: 2 people share the cost and maintenance burden of a house, food, ... If one partner was ill, there was a guarantee the other would provide support. Children would need care early on, but added extra economic output when they became older. All of this required a long term commitment, as breaking up a marriage would condemn everyone involved to poverty. Love or even friendship were a nice bonus, but not required as long as partners could live and work together (in the most literal sense). Even something as parents abusing their children was not as bad as the children not having parents and die in the streets, besides, pressure of the local society should deal with the worst abuse.
Western mariage was based only love. We got rich enough to have the possibility for 1 person to pay and maintain house, food, ... Children can get economic support from a broken up marriage, even if the emotional impact of a breakup is extremely damaging to them. As a result, the basic stability requirements simply aren't there.
This means mariage does not require long term commitment, it provides long term commitment.
While I do not fully subscribe to this view, this woman certainly changed how I look at a marriage.
sandworm101|4 years ago
Africa is a big place. That sounds more like west or south Africa. For instance, the north-east (Egypt and the Mediterranean countries) have a much more middle eastern view of the institution. And even within southern Africa, there is great disparity between rich an poor. Much of the economic certainty professed falls away with African people from more wealthy backgrounds. It is likely overinclusive so call these "African" views of marriage, rather they are the views of some particular African economic and social groups. Other groups have other ideas, some of them much more similar to western notions.
rich_sasha|4 years ago
Without that unpaid, keen, trustworthy workforce, raising children is much, much harder. You either have to rely on paid (very expensive), and variably-trustworthy professional childcare, or put something like 50-60 hours a week of childcare. I'm talking about everything other than normal working hours, where typically children are at school or nursery etc.
Soo... this extra pressure is enough I think to bust a marriage with children (it seems that parental separation rates are increasing, with or without marriage), or to put couples off having them in the first place - in which case the utility of a marriage in a secular world is much lower. In the UK for instance, next to none.
dijit|4 years ago
But it is a scary endeavour with no practical upside, high financial cost and absurd legal risk.
Why would I get married? Love? You can love without marriage.
If marriage is to prove you love someone then I don’t think I want to bother loving anyone.
bobsmooth|4 years ago
There's tax incentives and you become each other's medical proxy, among other things.
>high financial cost
The paperwork is cheap. Weddings are as expensive as you make them.
>absurd legal risk
That's true, divorces are expensive.
saiya-jin|4 years ago
Wedding creates additional bonds. I didn't expect it, but it did. You want to have strong bonds in marriage, the more the better, because tough times will inevitably come. Bonds can be created in other ways (ie intense adventure experiences together), but they are different. It also covers things when SHTF - visits in hospitals, inheritance etc.
Divorces are expensive if people make them expensive when going down revenge rabbit hole. It can be as simple as 2 signatures on 1 paper and that's it. Choosing spouse is the most important choice in life and tons of folks don't do wise choices in this, with results all around. With kids divorce becomes more complex, but then even without marriage its complex depending on local laws.
HKH2|4 years ago
Do you think that not getting rewarded for being unmarried is more of a problem than children being raised in a single-parent household?
rich_sasha|4 years ago
Now that I say it though, divorces are such major trauma that perhaps the tail risk counterbalances that benefit. I guess still not, but it's less clear.
pcbro141|4 years ago
bmitc|4 years ago
I didn’t really find that’s the case. I think that’s the perception, but it wasn’t that hard to meet nice, educated people looking for actual relationships on the various dating apps I once used. The failure rate has got to be much less than the failure rate out of all the potential partners one meets naturally.
If anything, dating apps are equalizers. They don’t require you to break into a clique in any activity where you might try to naturally meet people.
bawolff|4 years ago
adammunich|4 years ago
iammisc|4 years ago
This is not a pejorative. As an immigrant, I think this will be great.
gremloni|4 years ago
lancepioch|4 years ago
bawolff|4 years ago
Since the industrial revolution the role of marriage and the structure of marriage has been slowly shifting. Most notably to be more equal,but also to be less mandatory
Maybe marriage just makes sense in an agricultural society, and doesn't make sense in an industrialized or knowledge-based society
akomtu|4 years ago
Lust will be viewed as socially acceptable and sexual intercourse will be seen as the central requirement of life.
People will become addicted to intoxicating drinks and drugs.
Rulers will become unreasonable: they will levy taxes unfairly.
Rulers will no longer see it as their duty to promote spirituality, or to protect their subjects: they will become a danger to the world.
Avarice and wrath will be common. Humans will openly display animosity towards each other.
People will have thoughts of murder with no justification and will see nothing wrong in that.
Gurus will no longer be respected and their students will attempt to injure them.
Weather and environment will degrade with time and frequent and unpredictable rainfalls will happen. Earthquakes will be common.
The powerful people will dominate the poor people.
All the human beings will declare themselves as gods or boon given by gods and make it as a business instead of teachings.
Everything except the last one is the norm already. I'm curious what a society of self-proclaimed gods looks like.
bamboozled|4 years ago
Are Earthquakes truly more common now?
TulliusCicero|4 years ago
Likelihood of dying by violence is lower in developed countries now than the historical norm. Forms of bigotry on average seem to be way down, acceptance of those different from you is up. People's morals have mostly gotten better, not worse.
There are still problems -- climate change is the big one that's potentially actually apocalyptic -- but for the most part humanity is prospering.
cscurmudgeon|4 years ago
I mean that is a perfect description of LinkedIn and Instagram to some extent.
LurkingPenguin|4 years ago
> Lasting for 432,000 years (1,200 divine years), Kali Yuga began 5,122 years ago and has 426,878 years left as of 2021 CE.
TheGigaChad|4 years ago
[deleted]
stunt|4 years ago
We want to get rid of these traditional contracts, but we are not prepared to make all the necessary changes in the society.
gnicholas|4 years ago
It goes into detail on how much we expect from our spouses, and how these expectations put pressure on a marriage. Couples who are able to get all of these benefits are super happy, but for many couples it's prudent to realize that historically we've not expected so many things from our spousal relationships. This realization allows couples to adjust their expectations for what a marriage is supposed to provide, and give them permission to have some of their social or other needs met by friends/colleagues/etc.
1: https://www.npr.org/2018/02/12/584531641/when-did-marriage-b...
taylodl|4 years ago
haspoken|4 years ago
bmitc|4 years ago
So Millenials, from what I can gather, are much more willing to be naturally skeptical of the pitch of marriage and wait it out. I myself view it as more of a partnership, entailing legal details (such as taxes and ownership) and a personal, non-religious commitment. Religion has also fallen out of favor, reducing the push to marry, at least in the faith. This also contributes to the newer generations living together longer before marriage, which prevents both marriages and divorces at the same time and certainly delays marriages. Lastly, there’s the finances. Millenials and Gen Z are slammed with rising costs, taxes, debt, one “lifetime” economic crisis after another, and more. All of this contributes to delays in and distractions to “settling down”. I simply don’t understand how I would have felt comfortable marrying in my 20s or even done it. I wasn’t prepared and couldn’t afford stable life and also moved a lot between school, graduate school, and finding a job that didn’t suck, all of which slows meeting people.
There are some financial benefits to marrying, if the marriage sticks, but I think those don't away the sheer pressure newer generations are under.
ramblerman|4 years ago
Every married generation would have encouraged the next one to get married, it's not suddenly a thing the baby boomers started doing.
dsq|4 years ago
Dracophoenix|4 years ago
Aside from that, I agree that Huxley was right