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The Decline of Marriage

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21–30 of 114 posts

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#21
This is rather misleading. What you are seeing is not so much the decline of marriage but rather the success of anti-gentile policies implemented by Israel designed to control non-Jewish populations.

The Jews want small ethnic groups filled with willing sex slaves. The Jews want to break up marriage so that the non-Jewish populations are filled with sexually available single people.

The Jews want to turn the world into a fucking zoo.

Literally. A fucking zoo.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#22
post #8

> If people are voluntarily opting out of marriage and family I'm not married, I'm in a long term committed relationship, I have kids. The article seems to think that being married and having kids is somehow the same. It's not.

It doesn't say they're the same, just that they're correlated:

> The decline of marriage correlates strongly with reduced fertility rates as well.

Further, it looks at the data in aggregate so there can be lots of "but I.." comments without invalidating the data or the affecting the analysis.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#23
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m with you on almost everything, I happen to agree communal and/or polyamorous parenting is great (no sarcasm, kids raised this way are great); but when do you think universal female suffrage happened in the U.S.? The 19th amendment was ratified in 1920. Are you implying there was some kind of poll tax or equivalent suppression of the female vote until the 60s?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/07/living/sixties-women-5-things/... I think ~50 years ago referred more to this type of thing, while stuff like voting rights was just included since it's relevant to the struggle as a whole.

Agreed that 1960s housewives didn’t have it easy. But they most certainly could, and did, vote.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#24

Natural selection will take care of this eventually, either genetically or memeticly. I suspect the outcome will not be as happy as what the traditions we flouted provided. The birth rate is likely the most telling critique of western society. Our revealed preference is our civilization is not worth perpetuating. As of now only those who deliberately desire children and those unable to follow the instructions on the…

As a corollary, based on population growth rates/disparities between birth rates, people are going to be very surprised how quickly Mormonism rises. They're basically the only chunk of native born Americans that have a birth rates above replacement, and it's a LOT above replacement.

Religion has a way of self-moderating as it grows. There's already a huge movement of ex-Mormons, and it's inevitable that pockets of Mormons with a different (and more open-minded) view will form as it spreads further from the source.

Think about how many variations on Christianity exist in the US. If Mormons hold to the trend of every other religion that's gotten distant from its origins, I don't mind it replacing the thousand variations on other stories about some guy having adventures in the desert.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#25
Monogamy isn't dead as the author seems to imply by the falling marriage rates. Many people I know are not married but are in 10+ year long-term monogamous relationships (myself included). We don't ever plan to get married because I don't like the government telling me what to do and how our assets must be split in the case we decide to break up (though we never plan to). We also are vehemently anti-religious and would never support an institution like marriage for that reason either.

I personally don't want to have children because my life is fulfilling as it is and I don't want extra distractions when there is no void to fill, but I think this notion of "illegitimacy" is very outdated and should be retired.

I think a lot of the long term economic and population concerns will be solved by workplace automation and biotechnology revolutions in human lifespan respectively, so they are largely overblown. I also don't think a future child-raising industry where children are raised together in government sponsored and supervised systems would be as dystopian as depicted in Brave New World.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#26

Wow, this article isn't scientific at all, in the least. >As mentioned in the previous essay, single parenthood correlates with a number of social maladies. >The best environment for these children is a home with their biological mother and father. Marriage is statistically the best way to ensure these environments for children. Healthy marriages create stable families. Stable families create strong and safe communit…

I'm almost certain widespread polyamory will degenerate into polygamy approximately instantaneously.

A Brave New World!

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#27
Like I imagine many HN readers, I had a visceral negative reaction to a lot of this post, since it directly attacks a lot of the new cultural norms I grew up in (and cherish).

On the other hand, it does seem to raise some interesting points, so I hope it doesn't get flagged. Our new culture is relatively untested; a lot of our ideas about sex and relationships and children are only a couple generations old. I'm happily married with no children (maybe some to come in the future? Not sure). In this thread I've seen people propose polyamorous communes, and long term life partnerships with children but not marriage. These things may work out, but there's not much of a historical precedent for them, as far as I know.

I recently came back from a trip to Oman. I talked with a ton of people there, and their cultural perspective was very different (and interesting!). While a lot of the younger adults were wanting to get married and have children a little later, there was still a pretty sizeable contingent of the population my age that already had several children. And it was clear that Islam there was such a community-driving force, I could see how their traditions were pretty robust.

All this to say, I have my doubts that my concept of "prosperous, liberal, Western civilization" will live on for the long term. But if the people are fairly content and happy as it fades, is that such an issue? I'm not sure. My biggest regret if it dies is that we may never figure out all the secrets of the universe. But alas, thinking of all my highly educated PhD scientist friends in their 30s, there's only one child.

edit to add: I completely forgot to mention probably the most culturally interesting part (to me) of the Oman trip: it was for a wedding of a friend, but it was a mostly arranged marriage (the bride and groom had veto power, but their parents found the match and they only knew each other for a short while before deciding to marry).

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#28
post #6

The article is a PR piece for " Keiyaku Kekkon ", a japanese marriage partner startup. I quickly read through the text - and wondered what I had learned. It does not present any interesting conclusions, or back its statements with data. Here is the exec summary of the startup's business model: "Keiyaku Kekkon is a marriage-focused dating website with a twist. The name is Japanese and literally means "Contract Marriag…

AKA the non-starter business model.

In the unmarried pool, male and female strategies are incentive-incompatible. Both parties in that pool have unrealistic expectations for what they are able to offer (not making normative judgments here), hence the difficulty in finding partners in the first place.

Believe it or not, the culprit here, again, is wealth inequality.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#29
"As mentioned in the previous essay, single parenthood correlates with a number of social maladies."

This may be true historically, but does it have to be that way going forward? My thoughts, not based on studies but based on people I know, is that the general interest in marriage has declined as there is a preference for greater autonomy amongst both men and women, not to mention economic independence. Marriage was born out of economic need, and was given a religious stamp of approval. If the same economic need isn't there, and developed countries are becoming more secular in their beliefs, it would seem only natural that marriage rates would decline.

But that doesn't mean people don't want children, or can't have children. With the introduction of ivf, and both egg and sperm donors -known or unknown- its possible for the birth rate to be maintained. It may sound bizarre now just as putting ones profile up online in search of a mate was at one time, but it could be become the new norm. Search for gametes the same way you searched for a partner at one time.

As far as the maladies of single parenthood go, much of that may be attributed to the education levels of the single parent and/or their poor economic circumstances. It doesn't have to be that way though. Of our last 4 US Presidents, 2 pretty much grew up without having a reliable father around for most of their life. They seemed to both have had pretty smart moms.

Re: The Decline of Marriage

#30

Natural selection will take care of this eventually, either genetically or memeticly. I suspect the outcome will not be as happy as what the traditions we flouted provided. The birth rate is likely the most telling critique of western society. Our revealed preference is our civilization is not worth perpetuating. As of now only those who deliberately desire children and those unable to follow the instructions on the…

Are you a fan of Ken Arrow? :)

I've found his accomplishments in theory of choice to be invaluable when studying the marriage/partnership systems.

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