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The Married Will Soon Be the Minority

nytimes.com

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Re: The Married Will Soon Be the Minority

#41

Post by mytailorisrich »

pseingatl wrote: post #5

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 ins…

> 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...

Re: The Married Will Soon Be the Minority

#42

Post by echelon »

Thlom wrote: post #35
echelon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should you be forced by the state to pay your ex that is no longer a part of your life? It's a form of indentured servitude, sometimes granted to someone that you hate or that hates you.

It makes sense if your ex stayed out of the workplace during your relationship to take care of children and the home.

And if there are no children and both partners work?

Re: The Married Will Soon Be the Minority

#43

Post by TulliusCicero »

dustintrex wrote: post #40
dutchCourage wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we will have normal social structures again. What do you consider "normal"?

Monogamous marriage between a man and a woman is historically far and away most common social structure around the world, although obviously there is a vast amount of variety.

Okay, but we still have monogamous long-term relationships between straight men and women as the norm, in terms of what is most common. Those haven't gone away.

We've just become more accepting of people who don't fit the standard mold. So it sounds like anyone clamoring for a return to historical norms is actually clamoring for a return to bigotry: returning to treating gay people like garbage, for example, and denying their relationships legal rights.

Re: The Married Will Soon Be the Minority

#44

Post by TulliusCicero »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #11
akomtu wrote: post #8

"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 t…

> All the human beings will declare themselves as gods or boon given by gods and make it as a business instead of teachings. I mean that is a perfect description of LinkedIn and Instagram to some extent.

You could apply something generic like that to all kinds of things. It's like a horoscope.

Like, think about what it's saying: "people will be full of themselves". Do you really think this is the first time in history people have thought that about others?

Re: The Married Will Soon Be the Minority

#45

Post by readthenotes1 »

dustintrex wrote: post #40
dutchCourage wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we will have normal social structures again. What do you consider "normal"?

Monogamous marriage between a man and a woman is historically far and away most common social structure around the world, although obviously there is a vast amount of variety.

Monogamous for whom? Muslims hardly revere monogamy, though they draw the line at tetragamy for most.

Re: The Married Will Soon Be the Minority

#46

Post by gsich »

echelon wrote: post #38
gsich wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then don't marry. Monogamy is still the dominant lifestyle form. It's also a safety if children are involved.

> Then don't marry. What about people with partners that are non-citizens? I know a lot of people in that situation, myself included. Double income households are penalized outside of marriage. Marriage also shackles you to the other partners' debts. Lots of people have mountains of student debt. Divorce, even without kids, incurs alimony and division of property. And you have to deal with expensive lawyers and the c…

>What about people with partners that are non-citizens? I know a lot of people in that situation, myself included.

Marry or become a citizen. Or don't, depending on where you live this may not be a problem.

>Double income households are penalized outside of marriage.

Yes, because POV from the state is that you are 2 unmarried people. If you want something that is like marriage but doesn't have the same name (ie civil union), I am all for that.

>We're not having many of these now. Population growth is now driven mostly by immigration.

Which in term leads to population decrease from the other country. So not directly a solution.

Re: The Married Will Soon Be the Minority

#47

Post by saiya-jin »

crooked-v wrote: post #29
gsich wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a feature of marriage. "Therefore, examine whoever binds forever".

Maybe it's time to try out those term-limited renewable contract marriages that appeared in a lot of classic scifi.

Islam has those since forever - nikah mut'ah. One way to sleep around ie while traveling and not get into troubles with quran.

Re: The Married Will Soon Be the Minority

#48

Post by hyperman1 »

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.

Re: The Married Will Soon Be the Minority

#49

Post by bawolff »

pcbro141 wrote: post #2

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 ju…

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.

Re: The Married Will Soon Be the Minority

#50

Post by alterego2 »

LurkingPenguin wrote: post #17
pseingatl wrote: post #5

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 ins…

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?

The things he mentions are likely contributing to the decision not to have children as well.

You must pay child support regardless of whether you're married, and divorce is way easier without children.

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