Oddbean new post about login | logout TIL that most women my age are not married to their first husband.
Sad
Ok, but what % got married at all?
86%
Men have a lower ever-married rate, but their marriages are more successful because they're less likely to marry someone with a previous marriage.
This is the 2012 data set, from the Census. You'd have to comb through the newer American Community Survey, to get something newer, but I think they aren't collecting that data, anymore. Can't believe I've never heard anyone talk about it. Seems important.
This is the data, but apparently statisticians project marriage rates to miraculously shoot up like a Joe Biden vote count at 3 a.m. https://m.primal.net/Hnje.jpg
They have to do that or the government would need to raise retirement contributions.
I don't follow the connection 🤔
Governments use marriage rate projections to calculate birth rates, and from there inflation and retirement costs.
Ah I see. I guess they still care about maintaining that illusion, even though contributing to government retirement schemes serves no purpose whatsoever.
Is there something amiss in society or is it normal for humans to have multiple marriages?
We live long, have few or no children, women are often away from the house all day, and most occupations involve little physical labor or danger. There's no comparable era.
Women have to work a day job, either way, (most men don't want a housewife), so I guess a lot of women are just preferring to be alone and have more leisure time, sleep and independence. Which I can understand. Having a husband is exhausting, so if you still have to get up and put in your 8 hours at the job, it's like, "What do I keep him around for?" This is also what divorced women usually tell me.
Most men do want a housewife, but they’ve had this wish beaten out of them, because it’s “misogynistic” to divide life’s labors up that way
There is no statistical evidence that most men want a housewife.
The only data point I've seen is a song called Beefsteak and Trad Wife doing very well on Wavlake. I've a sneaky feeling it's not representative. I want my partner to be happy.
"...majorities of men and women say children are better off when both mothers and fathers focus equally on their job and home responsibilities (73% of men say this vs. 80% of women)." https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/04/st_2023.04.13_breadwinner-wives_11.png
I honestly didn’t have a preference and left it to my wife to decide and she chose housewife.
I don't know a single man IRL that wants a housewife. A minority want their wife home, while the kids are young, but not thereafter. A small number are ambivalent or only mildly disapproving.
How many of these dudes believe they are able to provide for a family with a single income?
I don't know, but the wives working seems to erode male wages and lead to monetary debasement, so they're sort of shooting themselves collectively in the foot, if that's their concern.
I’m guessing it’s 1) lack of men’s confidence to support a family on their own income, which is a reality in most places and for most families 2) greed. The more spendable money the better for the husband and for the wife if they don’t put the money into one pot for collective spending
I think it's also: 3) They dislike working and want her to suffer along with them out of solidarity/fairness. 4) They are completely unaware of how much more sleep and leisure single women (including mothers!) have, and how much women like self-directing their lives, so they don't realize that their wife is missing out on anything. 5) Worrying about female infidelity (not unfounded, particularly if he is away a lot). 6) Worrying that she'd spend all of the money on shopping and spas (makes sense, if she does a lot of spending while working, she might not stop merely because the income is lower). -------- I think we underestimate how many men see their wife's employer primarily as a sort of adult babysitter, rather than a source of income. And I think college is an alternative way that women fulfill #3, as it's tedious to sit in lectures and write exams, so she isn't "relaxing or having fun" during that time. So, women who find working difficult because their families move around a lot or their husbands have demanding hours, etc. can use that as their fallback "We Are Suffering As A Team, Everyone Is Struggling" option.
JFC You’ve thought a lot about this. From your reply seems there’s a lot of love and trust lost. Taking care of the home is hard fucking work. Taking care of children and a husband is perhaps 10x more. I could never be positive force as a stay home husband.
Most people have had bad previous relationships or have seen them in their immediate environment, and their choices in their current relationship are aimed at defending against this. Many wives want to work, for instance, to protect themselves against being financially trapped in a bad marriage, for instance. It's all very reactive.
Yes but can’t hedging against a bad marriage actually be a lack of commitment to a marriage? Like having one foot out the door? For example, should a man keep in touch with old girlfriends to protect himself from being emotionally trapped in a bad marriage? (Obviously not - but why is a woman having her own job outside the home so different?) The needing each other to survive and committing to each other no matter what is the important part and if you take that away, marriage is just another relationship (and you see this with the rise of the vague term “partner” for even heterosexual relationships - people are too non-committal to even using specific language about the deal)
I think hedging is normal and natural (spouses eventually die or become incapacitated, for instance). A healthy society takes common risks into account in the structure of the marriages. Our society does not do that. Rather than ensuring that men have emotional connections outside of marriages and housewives own property independently, we set everything up as if bad things never happen and let everyone slog it out in court or squabble over child support. So people increasingly hedge by avoiding marriage, altogether, or approaching their new marriage like it's a war zone. Which collapses the birth rate and we all suffer.
Maybe oversimplified, but still seems like a form of deferred responsibility. Which I keep finding myself pointing fingers at.
You can point wherever you want, but it isn't going to help us get the birth rate back up.
Monkeys don’t masturbate in the wild, but they’re widely known to do it in captivity. I think it’s important to realize we’re in captivity in the modern world. Nihilism and anti-natalism are part and parcel.
Perhaps, but I have yet to see anyone make any suggestion toward reforming marriage to better fit our new reality.
There's also the fairly strong possibility that they don't want a new reality and instead are doing everything that they can do to return to the old ways. Cognitive dissonance can take a huge mental toll. A surprising amount of the global population flat-out doesn't like to learn and adapt to changing circumstances. 🤷♂️
That's always been the case. There are a few forward thinkers and everyone relies on them to show how to adapt.
Also, my suggestions are actually a return to (Germanic) tradition, focused on property ownership, away from the modernist system of income redistribution, based upon monetary debasement.
We also should account for the fact that berating people to stay committed to their marriage, while their acquaintances are divorcing, is fruitless moralizing. If people see parallels between the lives of the people divorcing their own lives, they will be inclined to follow suit. That is why divorce tends to be "contagious". Better would be, if they saw fewer commonalities and could view the divorces as "weird, personal unfortunate" incidents. That requires removing such commonalities.
Berating people to stay unhappy and unhealthy is definitely wrong. It’s hard to have strong marriages and strong families when everyone is here in modern captivity, instead of engaging with survival every day together. When people needed each other acutely, marriages and families were stronger.
I think adjusting incentives toward making productive behavior more attractive than unproductive behavior can go a long way to strengthening families.
At the end of the day it comes down to communication and balance. If those don’t happen every marriage is doomed to fail.
Unpopular view: A piece of paper from a government does not undo sacred vows taken before God and men. Also, government marriages were a 20th century invention in the US - and the initial purpose was anti-miscegenation. Segregation is useful to totalitarian rule.
Muting conversation as it went too deep in mythology
This is an interesting conversation to say the least I think few people if any think that men and women should not take equal part in life’s labor, I just think it’s the labor that has changed I do think there is a gendered predisposition for women toward aesthetics and socialization, and likewise for men for physical toil and risk-taking. But if aesthetics and socialization can be bought with money, and physical toil can be avoided and risk managed with money, and the western world’s methods for procuring money are not gender specific, then the need for traditional gender roles certainly diminishes. Essentially, with enough money you can replace a wife or a husband. The question then is two-fold - 1) is it ok to abandon traditional roles because we are sure we’ll never need them again (should we maintain them as a backup?), and 2) are we sure that our evolutionarily rooted needs are not being abandoned if we abandon these gender roles (Chesterton’s fence)
Hmmm. I actually think it's sensible to not want a perma-housewife. "Housewife", in the sense of a woman who does not help generate any income. This is useful, at the beginning when she's focused on becoming a mother and establishing a household, but most couples find some way for her to bring in a bit of cash, work part-time, or become more involved in managing family businesses or trading, at some later point, and that seems in keeping with Proverbs 31. I think the conversation should move away from housewife/careerwife and toward having one major breadwinner (usually the husband) and the other person being financially compensated within the marriage.
I think it's important to note that my system works just as well for any marriage or partnership, where one income stream is significantly higher than the other. Stay at home fathers are arguably in the worst financial position, in fact, as they don't have as much political/legal power as women do. They're a relatively large group (in some demographics, almost 25% and climbing) and anything too gender-specific would preclude them, unnecessarily.
Now we’re talking. I do think it’s detrimental to a marriage for both spouses to have two totally unrelated jobs with two totally different sets of bosses, co-workers, clients, etc. But working together in a family business? That sounds like the dream. Obviously many people make the two separate careers thing work, and they find other ways to connect and integrate. I just think they are starting from a challenging position. And then, yes, of course, the home-making and child-raising is a more demanding job early on, so being able to transition in and out of that is a question to address.
Wow, I'm divorced. I've filed for divorce. And to be honest, that wasn't the reason
That's what most of the divorced women I know tell me. That being married is restricting and exhausting, without adequate perceived benefit, and that they are happier alone or with someone else. This is also what women primarily respond in surveys (arguing over kids, career, housework).
I didn't go into my marriage thinking about "benefits". Admittedly, I was very young. But I entered into my marriage with the idea of a forever marriage. I wanted to build a future together with my now ex-husband. A family. A life together. I always enjoyed being a housewife and mother. I wasn't bored. And my ex liked it too. We decided together that I would be a housewife. We didn't have any financial problems. We had a functioning company. However, I have to admit that staying at home also made me extremely dependent on my ex-husband, which was dramatically noticeable. I went through some very difficult times. Boredom wasn't my issue and I certainly didn't give up quickly either.
Interesting. Your situation is probably more common in Germany, where housewives are more common. All my data is American. I was actually describing the opposite: Women who work full- or part-time, take care of the household and kids, and are expected to stay up late to entertain their husband and then get up at 6 am and repeat the whole process again. This is the life of the majority of married mothers.
Most women don't enter into marriage thinking about benefits. It's more that they become disillusioned after they enter into it and start asking themselves why they are putting up with the unhappiness. Fewer and fewer young women want to marry, and I am quite sure that it's because they are beginning to ask themselves if it's worth the effort. It's easy to say that they should just do it, anyway, but I doubt that will motivate them. If we can't describe what net-benefit marriage will bring them, then we might have to admit that it brings them none.
I have very special role models when it comes to marriage: my parents. They still have a wonderful and romantic marriage today. Of course, they had difficult times. There were also arguments. They didn't have the same opinion on everything. But they got through it together. They supported each other and grew together. That was my role model. And I firmly believe that a marriage is worth every effort and that the value of a marriage is not so easy to quantify
I was a housewife for a few years (and since 3 weeks 😁) and I never felt "financially trapped" because my husband has made a conscious effort to ensure that I own property in my own name. I think this is something other men could also do, to reduce womens' inclination to stay in the workforce and make marriage and motherhood more attractive to women.
Oh, I didn't feel financially dependent for a long time either. We owned everything together. What happened next is very personal. But believe me, I couldn't imagine it myself. But I certainly made clear mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes, if you're married long enough.
I don't think "owning together" is enough. I think the homemaker needs to own things outright. Solely in their own name, so that they can take it and walk out the door. Like have their own retirement account, gold vault, Bitcoin wallet, etc. It's a psychological thing, mostly, but psyche is important.
Women used to have to put up with a lot of husbandly misbehavior because they couldn't afford to leave, so being a housewife is surprisingly unattractive to most young women. They want to work at least part-time, to maintain independence.
and this is where it gets complicated. My children and I have had to experience in a very hard and impressive way what this dependency can mean. And yet I enjoyed every moment with my children. I'm sure that's why we're so close. Nevertheless, I would advise every woman to be and remain financially independent. A very complicated issue
Yes, we need to talk about it, tho. I think some men are beginning to see the point in having a housewife, again, but the sort of prudent woman who would make a good housewife is going to balk at the current situation and prefer to keep her day job. I think the key is in severing the direct link between earned-income and personal wealth of each spouse. More FINANCIAL acknowledgement of the homemaker's (male or female) contribution to the success of the entire family. So that homemakers can retain some financial independence without a salary.
This is interesting Laesarin. Most men consider marriage to be a huge financial risk right now due to alimony and child support, and they very often get shafted on custody of their own children. How do you think this squares up with the ideas discussed here? There seems to be a deep suspicion on both sides of this equation.
It depends a lot on which country or state you live in; where the divorce is filed. German women don't do very well out of divorce. They often get nothing or very little, and custody is usually shared. Florida is like winning the divorce lottery, I hear.
In Germany, many single mothers have major financial problems after divorce
That is unfortunate. It would be great to see humans achieve a balanced a fair solution to this - although it’d be even better to see both men and women treat each other well enough it was a non-issue. But that’s just me being a dreamer.
I think the government is the wrong place to try to achieve balance. This is the sort of thing that was handled in a marriage contract. Fathers used to make sure their star-struck, infatuated daughters got a good deal and a good deal is not "she arrives penniless and leaves penniless and then has to go grovel to a judge or beg her ex to pay his child support".
Not only in Germany. This is a hot topic and long to talk here.
I suspect a lot of divorced women are just receiving defacto welfare. I.e. even when they theoretically receive alimony or child support, the government has trouble pulling the money from their exes (because they disappear or quit their jobs) and the state fronts the money. On the other hand, some men really are being bled dry and not getting their visitation and custody rights respected. Both can be true.
I also think that there are many truths here. Unfortunately, there is often a lack of fairness in dealing with the situation. There are too many feelings and disappointments involved. Which is unfortunately to the detriment of the children.
Agreed. The worst seems to happen when people feel like they need to preemptively act. That causes a reaction and then a reaction to the reaction and... I suspect that this is partly fear-based chaos because the current system is failing people, so they can't calm down.
That makes sense. I figured a cultural difference had to be at play. In the states I’m noticing a huge movement of men who have no interest in getting married because the woman can leave at any given point (and do in much higher numbers than the men) and basically bankrupt the men, along with depriving them of their children. I’m not saying we don’t have bastards here that women need to be able to escape from, just that the pendulum seems to have swung a different direction here, which has caused that same skepticism on the other gender’s behalf. As a side note, my wife’s desire to be a house wife was a pretty big part of my decision to propose. Her assistance at home unlocked a ton of freedom and even financial possibility for us. There is more than one way to make sure a woman isn’t trapped. It was my initiative to make sure the land was jointly held, that she had access to the same accounts I did, and to make sure she stayed (geographically) close to her own family and was in regular contact with them. (Means and a place to go is essential to any woman attempting to escape an abusive situation) I would encourage any young woman to seek a man that does the same - and to consider the opposite a huge red flag. It’s a comfort to me that she’s set up this way, as it removes a temptation to get away with any misbehavior or taking for granted - as I don’t have to worry about feeling like I could get away with it. If that makes any sense.
Yes, reducing occasion to sin, for both sides. 💯 I have always had that sort of setup, and that has actually reduced my incentive to leave, when we've had an argument. I can leave with enough for a down-payment on an apartment and a car, just by grabbing my phone and walking down the street to my uncle's house. Feeling trapped induces panic and increases sneakiness and vindictiveness.
There are very particular states where property is just split 50/50, after one day of marriage, and wealthy men in those states can get reamed, it's true. They think the entire world is like that, but it isn't. Divorce usually leaves women poorer. They often leave despite that, which should give us all pause.
Being able to work in partnership and for the highest benefit of your partner is important. People have different ideas of how that looks for them. I think finding a partner who shares your goals and outlook is incredibly important too. I know some people look down on the term partner. But I’ve seen spouses I wouldn’t consider partners so I confer a great deal of meaning to the term.
I get that. I've gotten wind of some crazy stuff, from both sexes, the last few months, so my divorce-outrage-faucet has run completely dry. People seem so normal for decades and then... Ugh. No, you didn't.
I feel like when it comes to others you don’t really know the truth of their relationships. You only know who that person is to you. I have an ex who was a great friend and absolutely toxic as a boyfriend.
The interaction between two people can lead to very different behaviors. People also behave very differently depending on their environment
It's a dance between the sexes. The secret is to find the harmony across multiple roles, and build each other up in them. So for example, she's an amazing home maker, and creates the context for vibrant family like and home education, all of which takes great skill, planning, and execution equal to many professional jobs. I'm her biggest fan, facilitating some of her plans, sharing in some of the jobs to be done, and sponsoring the lifestyle through what I earn outside the home. She encourages and coaches me in that, and ensures I pace myself well to not burn out. Homemaker and breadwinner in harmony, not in competition, pursuing a common vision. If we were a startup, the dynamics would be similar, we're a partnership in the true sense of the word - and all the 'isms' be damned. But that's not the only axis... there's more to life than households and economics. There's a spiritual axis, where she is intuitive, emotional, devoted, inspiring... and I am grounded, theological, sometimes confrontational where things encroach on our family from outside, sometimes firm in guiding our older teens in the path of life, or ensuring they show respect to the feminine as well as the masculine. I lead and she inspired, again it's a dance, a harmony not a competition, and we are the biggest fans of each other... as it should be. There's a romantic axis, not for detail here, but again it's about harmony and about encouraging the other, not a competition. The 'manly advice' to get your pleasure first is boyish nonsense. When you enter a negotiation to see what you can get it's a zero sum tension that soon runs out of sparkle. When you each focus on the others joy, it's creative abundance. You don't learn this in a few weeks. Divorces of the nonviolent kind, tend to be the end of a long journey of insecurity, boredom and contempt. Marriages that thrive tend to involve a shared vision, the daily dance of harmony, and having each others backs. I don't care how many other connections or commitments I have, I'm going to be the one person she can count on, and if I have to drop someone else to ensure that's the case, they're getting dropped. Bosses included. Parents included. Friends who make you try to impress them included. Flirty acquaintances who think they can displace what you already have. That's where you build integrity and relationship capital over time. You choose each other over everyone else, even if that involves short term discomfort, you choose daily not just on the wedding day. I can see why relationships that endure look back and talk about hitting a crisis at 5 years, 10 years etc... we both change and grow in these periods, you can reinvent yourself completely in 5 years... and there's effort needed to readjust, realign, grow together not just grow alongside... we call these moments 'falling in love all over again'... we're in such a season now and our teenagers call it "mum, dad, go on honeymoon or something"... but awkwardness aside I'm glad we can give them this example alongside the shouting matches we've had when the harmony was temporarily conquered by competition and selfish ambitions. At the same time, I have to admit, this is my second chance. My wife met me when I was a young widower, not the smoothest pick up artist nor that romantically inclined given what I'd been through. But we started a conversation that developed into a harmonious understanding and shared vision, and then I just couldn't keep my eyes off her for a moment... fifteen years later I still smile when I wake and see her resting on the pillow next to mine. That's a long form and I bet the clients won't know what to do with it, but... here it is. 💜
Yikes...
