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"Marriage is for white people"

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Re: "Marriage is for white people"

#41

Post by RK »

patio11 wrote: post #34

At the risk of stepping on a landmine, what if the issue isn't so much black people aren't marrying as (a large portion of) black men are unmarriagable? (Unemployed or underemployed, have drug problems, involved with the criminal justice system, etc. Pick any socioeconomic system you want to look at, young single black males do not come out looking great in aggregate.) Combine that with a cultural norm in (a large po…

Combine that with a cultural norm in (a large portion of) the black community to not get married outside of one's race, and you'd expect to see this.

You'll notice that the author never suggests that black women look to men in the other 78% of the US population for a potential husband. I guess that would be worse than never getting married.

Re: "Marriage is for white people"

#42

Post by lionhearted »

fatdog789 wrote: post #36
lionhearted wrote: post #7

> Sex, love and childbearing have become a la carte choices rather than a package deal that comes with marriage. The American legal system right now is absolutely draconian and broken to men. A man can try to be a good father and husband, do nothing wrong except be a bit of a putz, then his wife divorces him, gets full custody of the kids, and 30-50% of his after-tax income. She receives more money if he doesn't get…

There are so many inaccuracies in that comment I don't know where to begin. 1) Contrary to popular belief, most prenups are not thrown out -- the only requirements for a valid prenup to survive legal challenge is that both the (future) husband and wife were separately represented by counsel, AND that both spouses disclosed ALL properties (real and personal) they possessed. The validity of a prenuptial agreement is me…

> There are so many inaccuracies in that comment I don't know where to begin.

You could begin by sourcing your claims :) I wrote my reply casually, based on my knowledge of the law, statistics, studies, and a number of personal anecdotes. This time, I'll source myself and provide links to official statistics and the actual law this time, as you're mistaken on a few counts.

> 1) ...The validity of a prenuptial agreement is measured at the time it was signed, unless extraordinary circumstances justify re-evaluating it at the time of divorce...

This is simply not true. For instance, here's the California legal code:

"Any provision in a premarital agreement regarding spousal support, including, but not limited to, a waiver of it, is not enforceable... if the provision regarding spousal support is unconscionable at the time of enforcement."

California Family Code, Section 1612.7, part c. Convenient link here:

http://law.justia.com/california/codes/fam/1610-1617.html

That hinges on the word "unconscionable"? In the real, practical world, that means that SUBJECTIVELY THE JUDGE DOESN'T THINK IT'S RIGHT BASED ON AMERICAN VALUES. Yes, that's actually how it goes.

Edit: Here's the legal definition and some discussion of unconscionable for curious people. Practically, it leaves it up the judge's... conscience. Subjective.

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Unconscionable

> 2) Spousal support -- does not include money for the children.

Correct. If the woman sues for full custody, and gets it, she gets more than equalization of income. Therefore, pressing for full custody and no father's custody rights = more money. Big problem.

> Interlude: Nas. Nas is a millionaire. He had a kid, with a woman, and lived a lavish lifestyle. B/c of that, on divorce, his wife and kid get to continue living a lavish lifestyle via alimony (wife's standard of living during marriage) and child support (child's standard of living during marriage).

Right, I think that's crazy. He had her to host parties for him, cook for him, keep the home, help him keep his finances. All of that is gone. His quality of living will go down, it is shot, he no longer receives enjoyment of having his child around to play with when he comes home from a hard day. She's used to living a $150,000 per month lifestyle and thus deserves to keep it? He's used to having a supportive wife behind him, that keeps the home, that helps, that he can bounce ideas off of. That's gone. He should pay her close to $2 million a year because it'd be a shame for her quality of life to go down while his is getting shot up? The system is crazy.

> Lesson to learn: If you're rich, live a normal lifestyle and you won't pay (relatively) much in support.

So then you live modesty, and save, and invest, and the assets are split 50/50 if you divorce instead. Not much better.

> 5) The divorce rate for...

A lot of the statistics overlap and there's a lot of noise there, but divorce rates are high here. For instance, "The National Center for Health Statistics recently released a report which found that 43 percent of first marriages end in separation or divorce within 15 years. The study is based on the National Survey of Family Growth, a nationally representative sample of women age 15 to 44 in 1995. Bramlett, Matthew and William Mosher. "First marriage dissolution, divorce, and remariage: United States," Advance Data From Vital and Health Statistics; No.323. Hyattsville MD: National Center for Health Statistics: 2 1.

http://www.divorcereform.org/rates.html (first one in Google for "divorce rates", looks relatively unbiased and cites sources)

The divorce rates are high in the States. Subjectively, I think it'd be a good thing if they were lower and would lead to more individual happiness and a stronger society on the whole. You can debate how high the rates are when controlling for certain statistics, but they're clearly really way too damn high (again, in my subjective judgment).

> 5) Harsh divorce laws discourage divorce.

Yes and no. Harsh divorce laws against both partners discourage divorce. Harsh divorce laws against one gender increase divorce. One quick and dirty way to figure out which side a country's divorce laws are slanted is to look at who initiates divorce proceedings by gender.

United States? Over 2/3rds initiated by women. It's close to 70%.

http://health.discovery.com/centers/loverelationships/articl...

I tried searching divorce rates by country to find the statistics for you, but I couldn't find a link - so this is going off personal recall, but I remember seeing some crystal clear statistics. Divorce rates close to 50/50 in much of Continentinal Europe, slanted 70/30 men in many Islamic countries, and 70/30 women in the USA and UK. Those are just numbers - but my subjective judgment call? Things are messed up here. I ended my original comment with a statement that wasn't quite right. I'll amend it:

If the laws were made less brutal to men, I think you'd see more people marrying, marrying at an earlier age, having more children, and paradoxically - I think the divorce rate would go down.

Re: "Marriage is for white people"

#43

Post by defen »

DaniFong wrote: post #20
TomOfTTB wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t track for me. Look at men in the past. It’s against men’s evolutionary nature to marry yet they still got married just as quickly (and they didn’t need wives to support them). So your argument that women are taking a role traditionally held by men before and hence aren’t marrying doesn’t seem to hold water. Here’s the problem: The feminist narrative currently out there is a myth. It says women were alway…

That's a pretty warped depiction of 'the feminist narrative,' and in any case exceptions don't make the rule. In California, in the 1850's, for example, it was determined that any property of a married woman's was legally the property of her husband. Therefore the hundreds of entrepreneurial and successful women land or business owners were suddenly rendered legally and financially dependent on their husbands. Only s…

The copy of "The Age of Gold" by H.W. Brands sitting in front of me says you are wrong about married women's property in 1850's California. From the soft cover, pg. 283, regarding the constitutional convention held in Monterey in 1849:

`A proposal to permit women to keep control of their property upon marrying led to discussion of the relative merits of the common-law and civil-law traditions. "I am not wedded either to the common law or the civil law", observed Halleck, "nor, as yet, to a woman; but having some hopes that some time or other I may be wedded, and wishing to avoid the fate of my friend from San Francisco [a crotchety old misogynist], I shall advocate this section in the constitution, and I would call upon all the bachelors in this convention to vote for it." Enough did to win the measure's approval.`

So unless there was a constitutional amendment created a few years after the constitution itself that I'm not aware of, married women actually were allowed to keep their property in California. Indeed, the text from the original 1849 constitution states, in part:

`Sec. 14. All property, both real and personal, of the wife, owned or claimed by marriage, and that acquired afterwards by gift, devise, or descent, shall be her separate property; and laws shall be passed more clearly defining the rights of the wife, in relation as well to her separate property as to that held in common with her husband. Laws shall also be passed providing for the registration of the wife's separate property.`

Re: "Marriage is for white people"

#44

Post by gcheong »

"He believes that his presence and example in the home is why both his sons decided to marry when their girlfriends became pregnant."

How about just not getting girls pregnant in the first place?

Re: "Marriage is for white people"

#45

Post by plinkplonk »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #33
emmett wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First - great collection of links. The history of slavery deserves a more thorough understanding than what's normally taught in high school. And yet, it was not the Irish who couldn't vote as late as the 60s, nor were the Irish the ones in segregated schools through the 70s, nor were there Irish divisions of the armed forces in World War II sent on the most dangerous missions. There were not masses of Irishmen enslav…

The problem is that using the criteria of "well within the lifetime of people alive" is arbitrary. Nazis killed six million Jews -- an evil much worse than slavery -- well within the lifetime of people alive. All sorts of people having been doing all sorts of mean things to other people well within the lifetime of people alive. I'm in my 40s, which means that I never knew a society that wouldn't allow blacks to vote.…

" those that start each day looking for opportunities and those that start each day looking to the past. I'd rather be the second kind of person."

Did you mean "I'd rather be the first kind of person." ? The sentence seems to shift in meaning when you change that word, to one that fits the paragraph more.

Re: "Marriage is for white people"

#46

Post by eru »

sown wrote: post #13
andreyf wrote: post #2

I'm really torn between whether this is about those crazy black kids that won't get off my lawn, or the future our society is heading in... ideas?

Maybe it'll be like europe some how where people seem to not get married in large numbers.

And they do not get a lot of kids either. (In most parts.) Though that does not seem to correlate. Fertility in Scandinavia is relatively high for European standards, and they do not care too much about wedlock any longer.

Re: "Marriage is for white people"

#47

Post by indiejade »

9oliYQjP wrote: post #31
nopassrecover wrote: post #10

What is the American obsession with race? I'm sure there's a more useful explanation behind these rates (perhaps family tradition of marriage, income, place of living etc. etc.).

I'm not American, but Americans get a bad rap on race relations. Go to other westernized countries and racism is far more systemic. I mean for crying out loud, you have the gypsies all across Europe who are marginalized, Spanish fans taunting a black F1 driver with the "N" word, Japan is a completely xenophobic mess, etc. All otherwise comparable countries in terms of standard of living. Except the United States is i…

Say what you will, but at least Americans don't sweep their race relation problems under a rug like some other countries.

Good point. Besides, America is a young country, relatively speaking to white settlement. I have actually attempted to really think logically about why I'm almost never . . . um, "attracted" to white blondes from the western hemisphere, and have reached the conclusion that it's all about diversity in the gene pool. After tracing some of my genealogical roots to Native American ancestry, I guess I'm also partially resentful to the dominance of white culture and its concept of property usurping. That, and I'm pretty revolted by the concept of inbreeding.

Anyway. It actually makes little sense for countries to hold fast to their racism, if they want to survive and thrive. There are two genetic mutation varieties that occur in heavily homogeneous populations: mutation and recombination. They either ensure the continuation of a line of genetics, or destroy its chances for survival. With inbreeding, the mutations / recombinations are usually manifested in unattractiveness or stupidity. Not trying to be mean, just stating my observations.

So since in the USA we have this huge population of immigrants, our gene pool is actually primed to produce better people (survival of the fittest). Not specific to any race.

Re: "Marriage is for white people"

#48

Post by noonespecial »

9oliYQjP wrote: post #31
nopassrecover wrote: post #10

What is the American obsession with race? I'm sure there's a more useful explanation behind these rates (perhaps family tradition of marriage, income, place of living etc. etc.).

I'm not American, but Americans get a bad rap on race relations. Go to other westernized countries and racism is far more systemic. I mean for crying out loud, you have the gypsies all across Europe who are marginalized, Spanish fans taunting a black F1 driver with the "N" word, Japan is a completely xenophobic mess, etc. All otherwise comparable countries in terms of standard of living. Except the United States is i…

As an American with lots of time abroad, I can second this. Americans are extremely uptight when it comes to race, but that might be a good thing. With all of the talk in America about race, you might start to expect, as I have caught myself doing several times, that the US must be a race relations disaster. Upon returning, I was shocked to rediscover that it wasn't any worse than the other places I'd been, and in many cases better.

The thing I really like about Americans, is they're just don't throw up their hands and say "oh well, that's the way its always been, can't do anything to change it now." (The gypsies definitely come to mind here) For better or worse, they try.

Re: "Marriage is for white people"

#49

Post by cg »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #29
msluyter wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s against men’s evolutionary nature to marry yet they still got married just as quickly (and they didn’t need wives to support them). Actually, as I understand it, current evo-psych holds that men (and women) have dual evolutionary strategies. One, as you imply, is to play the field as widely as possible. But the other is to invest one's energy in a single woman/family in order to increase the chances for a partic…

I've never heard of this occuring at a primitive level (which was what I was referring to). I know there are primates where females are considered the "leaders" such as Gibbons and monogamy has been observed in them but I've never seen a male dominated society of primates where monogamy was naturally occuring. Again, I'm not disputing the fact that men can want to be monogomous or realize it's the best way to breed.…

I think you're misunderstanding the previous comment. It says the objective of the monogamous strategy is to increase the chances of survival for a particular set of offspring, not a particular type. That is, if a man partners with a woman and provides for the children they have together, he increases that set of offspring's chances of survival.

The point about marriage and/or monogamy benefitting lower status males is that, in a polygynous system, all or most of the females will be having sex with the few high-status males who can provide for them and their offspring (barring rape). High-status males would have lots of sex partners and opportunities to produce offspring, low-status males would have few or none.

Re: "Marriage is for white people"

#50

Post by DanielBMarkham »

plinkplonk wrote: post #45
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that using the criteria of "well within the lifetime of people alive" is arbitrary. Nazis killed six million Jews -- an evil much worse than slavery -- well within the lifetime of people alive. All sorts of people having been doing all sorts of mean things to other people well within the lifetime of people alive. I'm in my 40s, which means that I never knew a society that wouldn't allow blacks to vote.…

" those that start each day looking for opportunities and those that start each day looking to the past. I'd rather be the second kind of person." Did you mean "I'd rather be the first kind of person." ? The sentence seems to shift in meaning when you change that word, to one that fits the paragraph more.

Brain fart. Doh!

Yes. You're right.

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