But unilateral divorce doesn’t just destabilize marriage. It also changes the power dynamics within marriage from favoring the more committed partner to favouring the less committed partner. ...States have passed a lot of laws making the responsibilities and rights of the married and the unmarried are increasingly similar. I wonder if those legislators even realized they were destroying marriage.Unilateral divorce is sometimes portrayed as an advance in human freedom, but this is a mistake. By removing the ability to credibly commit to a long-term relationship, unilateral divorce prevents couples from reaching a mutually-beneficial bargain that greatly assists in the raising of children. ...
To get married is no longer such a major commitment and no longer offers the degree of security which it once did, since divorce is now relatively easy and the responsibilities and rights of the married and the unmarried are increasingly similar. These developments are often presented as an advance in human freedom since they allow individuals to exit unilaterally from unhappy relationships at minimum cost to themselves and with minimum delay. However, this is a one-sided view, since it ignores the benefits and freedoms associated with trust and security. The fact that individuals can now exit easily, and unilaterally, from a relationship makes it difficult for couples to make credible commitments to each other. They can promise anything they want, but most of these promises are no longer legally enforceable, and many are undermined by social policies which reward those who break their promises.
Update: Here is a podcast discussion.
1 comment:
There would be a really easy way to shore up marriage. Stop rewarding women for divorcing their husbands or having children out of wedlock. If women had to give up the security and wealth of their partner when they divorced their husband, divorce would become less common. Single women (evaluated by many decades of compiled crime data) have statistically shown they are consistently bad at being able to exert enough discipline to properly raise children past a certain age, and are quite excellent at creating criminal men. The prisons are chock full of men raised by single mothers. Like it or not, the data clearly doesn't give single parenting a lot of wiggle room.
Also, If women could lose all of her husband's support if it was revealed the children weren't in fact his, the gravy train would come to a screeching halt. Cuckolds or any marriage where no children are produced shouldn't really have any acknowledged relevancy or tranfer of wealth outside of the established wills of both participants, as the entire purpose of marriage is to secure lineage, security, and resources for the upbringing of children, not for women to be pampered as if they are long lost disney princesses or heiresses. No man gets an eternal paycheck after they quit their job, the ladies really need to learn this the hard way. Fast.
Shacking up also has nothing to do with the value of marriage, the raising of children does. Marriage is supposed to establish the legal accountability for the protection of the children in the event the parents are lost or incapacitated, not the comfortable lifestyle of the woman who wishes to enjoy the benefits of a partner without being married to one.
Coddled western women and their obscene pursuit of personal vanity has become the unfortunate end game of our culture. It will eventually destroy our civilization if it continues for much longer and becomes further untethered from the necessities and unfair foibles of human reproduction.
For behavioral research into this phenomenon, it might be good idea to read up on John Calhoun's research (1950s - 1970s) and "The Beautiful Ones" problem. Too much freedom from biological necessity always results in extinction.
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