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How Did Marriage Become a Mark of Privilege?

nytimes.com

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Re: How Did Marriage Become a Mark of Privilege?

#121

Post by adekok »

Mz wrote: post #112
adekok wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Women take on more work too, it is just not paid work Well, yes. I did say "take care of their kids". As for paid vs unpaid work, see:: http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=54757 In most western countries, men and women do roughly the same amount of total work. For men, more paid than unpaid. For women, the other way around. So again, just focussing on "women have it bad" misses a big part of the picture. > I a…

> Women take on more work too, it is just not paid work Well, yes. I did say "take care of their kids". This is what you originally said: Once people get married and have kids, men take on additional work to pay for their kids. Women take on less work to take care of their kids. You did not say that women do less paid work. You said they take on less work. This framing implicitly suggests that women's work isn't real…

> You did not say that women do less paid work.

I also did not say that MEN do more paid work.

Somehow, you didn't make that insinuation. You only made one towards women, and it was negative.

In poker, this is known as a "tell".

Any rational person would make the assumption that I was talking about paid work in both cases. Yet your conclusion was that I was saying something nefarious about women, while ignoring that the same logic would also apply to men.

The problem is that your position is female-centric. You see any discussion of mens issues as hostile and toxic. You demand that any discussion of womens issues cannot question basic assumptions. You take calm, even-handed comments as hating women.

It must be scary to live in such a hate-filled world.

Re: How Did Marriage Become a Mark of Privilege?

#123

Post by RijilV »

dpark wrote: post #76
RijilV wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly disagree on "do not want children there is no point in getting married." There's an emotional reason to get married, formalizing a life long commitment. That's a big one for a lot of folks (citation: my marriage). But lets say you're not a feelings type of person, and those arguments fall on deaf ears. If you live in a community property state marriage makes inheriting assets ridiculously easy and avoids all…

> Filing jointly with a single income does wonders for what you don't have to pay. Filing singly with a single income does even more assuming you have no dependents. Marrying someone with no income definitely doesn't result in a net increase in free cash flow. Taxes don't offset the cost of supporting an adult. To be clear, I'm not opposed to marriage nor to the concept of a stay-at-home spouse (of either gender), bu…

This is a good misconception and undervaluing of what work means. Just because someone lacks a paycheck does not mean they do not work. Since my spouse retired we eat out half as much, we are both in better shape, we grow a non-negligible amount of our own food, have organic eggs from our own chickens, etc etc. our weekends are no longer packed with house work, small and medium sized home improvement projects happen at cost without paying someone else.

We have a fanancial planner and have gone through multi excersizes tracking our spending. The end result is the work my spouse does saves around $50k a year in expenditure alone, not to mention the physical and mental health improvements.

I think we often forget what work means.

Re: How Did Marriage Become a Mark of Privilege?

#124

Post by atomical »

dguaraglia wrote: post #119
atomical wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Popular as a minority position?

Not sure what you mean. Considering there's slightly more males than females in the US, staying single must necessarily be an even smaller "minority position" for males.

The number of women who don't want to get married and have children is tiny. How could it be popular?

> Who would've thought of women as humans, right?

Is that really necessary?

Re: How Did Marriage Become a Mark of Privilege?

#125

Post by Blackthorn »

adekok wrote: post #121
Mz wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Women take on more work too, it is just not paid work Well, yes. I did say "take care of their kids". This is what you originally said: Once people get married and have kids, men take on additional work to pay for their kids. Women take on less work to take care of their kids. You did not say that women do less paid work. You said they take on less work. This framing implicitly suggests that women's work isn't real…

> You did not say that women do less paid work. I also did not say that MEN do more paid work. Somehow, you didn't make that insinuation. You only made one towards women, and it was negative. In poker, this is known as a "tell". Any rational person would make the assumption that I was talking about paid work in both cases. Yet your conclusion was that I was saying something nefarious about women, while ignoring that…

You said:

> Once people get married and have kids, men take on additional work to pay for their kids.

You now claim:

> I also did not say that MEN do more paid work.

???

Re: How Did Marriage Become a Mark of Privilege?

#126

Post by dguaraglia »

atomical wrote: post #124
dguaraglia wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you mean. Considering there's slightly more males than females in the US, staying single must necessarily be an even smaller "minority position" for males.

The number of women who don't want to get married and have children is tiny. How could it be popular? > Who would've thought of women as humans, right? Is that really necessary?

> The number of women who don't want to get married and have children is tiny. How could it be popular?

You do realize the vast majority of marriages happen between men and women, and if only a "tiny minority" of women didn't want to get married, then by necessity only a "tiny minority" of men wouldn't be married?

So either the article is overstating the phenomenon (by saying it's incredibly popular) or a similar amount of men and women must be choosing not to get married.

> Is that really necessary?

The OP was making the argument that "men choose not to get married because reasons." Seems like they never bothered to consider there's a significant amount of professional women that are not interested in getting married until later in life. There's been a lot of thinly veiled (and sometimes pretty blatant) misogyny around HN of late, that's why I made the joke about them probably having something do with it.

Re: How Did Marriage Become a Mark of Privilege?

#127

Post by dpark »

RijilV wrote: post #123
dpark wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Filing jointly with a single income does wonders for what you don't have to pay. Filing singly with a single income does even more assuming you have no dependents. Marrying someone with no income definitely doesn't result in a net increase in free cash flow. Taxes don't offset the cost of supporting an adult. To be clear, I'm not opposed to marriage nor to the concept of a stay-at-home spouse (of either gender), bu…

This is a good misconception and undervaluing of what work means. Just because someone lacks a paycheck does not mean they do not work. Since my spouse retired we eat out half as much, we are both in better shape, we grow a non-negligible amount of our own food, have organic eggs from our own chickens, etc etc. our weekends are no longer packed with house work, small and medium sized home improvement projects happen…

Replace "work" with "work for a paycheck". Obviously there is a lot of work to be done at the house (though not every stay-at-home spouse does this), and I don't think I really implied otherwise. The context of "work" was pretty clear.

I'll be honest, though, I think your financial planner is telling you what you want to hear. $50k reduction in expenses is huge, especially given that you didn't even mention childcare. You essentially listed food, cleaning, and labor for small home projects. And you only reduced your eating out by 50%. I'd be interested in seeing the numbers because I can't imagine how you're saving the equivalent of a ~$70k salary every year by cleaning your own house, doing your own small home projects (Is your wife really hanging drywall during the day while you're at work? If you're doing these home projects on nights/weekends, you're double counting.), and cutting your eating out budget by 50%. Do you eat at Michelin star restaurants multiple times per week?

Re: How Did Marriage Become a Mark of Privilege?

#128

Post by thriftwy »

Blackthorn wrote: post #117
thriftwy wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for that sacrifice Was career a sacrifice or something that she was happy to get rid of in exchange to support? I think I can find men who would be happy to do chores if a woman would be supporting them with high-paying job, and essentially zero women who will agree to such arrangement. Staying at home without working is a bad decision and you certainly can't chain man over it when it doesn't work. Promising of lif…

> Was career a sacrifice or something that she was happy to get rid of in exchange to support? Does not really matter what sort of words you want to call it. She still gave up her earning potential for the family. These decisions are made by two people, not one. And now, as a result of that, in divorce, they are woefully uneven going forward. Alimony is there to balance those scales. Don't like it? Don't have a stay…

> These decisions are made by two people, not one.

But they are affecting one of those people more than the other. So they should factor it in.

There should be implicit thinking "if we get separated later in life, then what?"

> Don't like it? Don't have a stay at home family.

I have no trust that alimony will only be applied to stay at home mothers, and not extended to any women with any earning capability.

And that is a trust issue right there that is damaging marriage as an institution.

Re: How Did Marriage Become a Mark of Privilege?

#129

Post by adekok »

Blackthorn wrote: post #125
adekok wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You did not say that women do less paid work. I also did not say that MEN do more paid work. Somehow, you didn't make that insinuation. You only made one towards women, and it was negative. In poker, this is known as a "tell". Any rational person would make the assumption that I was talking about paid work in both cases. Yet your conclusion was that I was saying something nefarious about women, while ignoring that…

You said: > Once people get married and have kids, men take on additional work to pay for their kids. You now claim: > I also did not say that MEN do more paid work. ???

If she's going to nit-pick and take twisted interpretations, I can use the same style of nit-picking to create twisted interpretations.

Pointing out that such interpretations are twisted is redundant.

Yes, I know they're twisted. That was the point FFS.

I'll also note you don't seem to have a problem with her twisted interpretation of things. Which is the hypocrisy I was trying to point out.

I mean honestly... read this quote:

Once people get married and have kids, men take on additional work to pay for their kids. Women take on less work to take care of their kids.

and try to explain how any rational person would conclude I was somehow nefariously assuming that women were not doing paid work.

Re: How Did Marriage Become a Mark of Privilege?

#130

Post by atomical »

dguaraglia wrote: post #126
atomical wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of women who don't want to get married and have children is tiny. How could it be popular? > Who would've thought of women as humans, right? Is that really necessary?

> The number of women who don't want to get married and have children is tiny. How could it be popular? You do realize the vast majority of marriages happen between men and women, and if only a "tiny minority" of women didn't want to get married, then by necessity only a "tiny minority" of men wouldn't be married? So either the article is overstating the phenomenon (by saying it's incredibly popular) or a similar amo…

> The OP was making the argument that "men choose not to get married because reasons." Seems like they never bothered to consider there's a significant amount of professional women that are not interested in getting married until later in life. There's been a lot of thinly veiled (and sometimes pretty blatant) misogyny around HN of late, that's why I made the joke about them probably having something do with it.

Are they required to mention a woman's perspective in every instance where they mentions a man's perspective to not be a woman hater?

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