If you need any sort of public assistance, marriage is a severe eligibility fence.
to be that perfect husband or wife
we’ve all decided to strive to be better, but all we’ve accomplished is to become alone
It seems that the institution of marriage is the issue and not human relationship?
Significantly higher than the 6% decades ago. Which seems to indicate human relationships are indeed in decline (the institution of marriage Is likely also in decline, but it’s not the sole reason for the high percentage)
This maximizes returns on capital at quarter and even decade timescales.
Now they're recognizing the error but it's too late for the billions who will live and die alone and alienated from the natural rhythms of family life.
The only solace, perhaps, is people are remarkably good at coping. Most of these victims will claim despite the mountains of data that they didn't fail and they're totally fulfilled, happy, and successful.
Is this a peculiarity of the US? Income was never an issue when i got the hots for someone...especially when things turned into long-term commitment. In fact, quite the opposite.
You can let the river current take you where it may, or you might plan and prepare do that you may land on a desirable bank. People have to take some control over their lives if they want to have some self determination.
In a classic agrarian economy, having a spouse and making children works out -- more children = more hands = more work done = more food or more product to market.
In a modern "pure" capitalist industrial/service economy, the economic model doesn't pay for the cost of the reproduction of the labour it depends on. So not a surprise when people do the same cost-benefit analysis for themselves and choose (or are forced) to have no children, and to not bother with marriage as a result.
The no-children "choice" often also ends up with no partner -- married or not. I personally knew several women in their late 30s and 40s who ended up leaving partners or leaving the dating scene because the men they were finding were not interested in or capable of being fathers. On an aggregate scale this adds up to a phenomenon.
Some advanced capitalist nations have gotten around this through high immigration rates. Others are attempting to get around it with debt to finance social programs or stimulus etc. In both cases it's really just "shooting the puck down the ice" so to speak. The next generation or the one after has to deal with the problem.
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
What happened in 1971? The Nixon Shock, which is when the dollar stopped being convertible to gold after it became evident that the US did not have the gold it claimed to have.
Mass group marriages!
Edit: Please point out even a single Politician that wasn’t a crook. I’ll wait.
Tie in the fact that the average salary can't support the 'traditional' lifestyle, and the desire for 'traditional' dating expectations. And now you have men checking out for one of many reasons, for example: not making enough with the right type of career.
And personally I see an unsustainable desire in women my age to travel. So instead of saving for the outcomes they might want (marriage and kide), an expectation that the man will provide the necessary support.
Life can become much brighter with such a person in your side.
Cheers!
You can have kids with a partner, but really no reason to formalize it with “marriage”. I guess there are tax reasons though that make it more logical though.
> misleads youth in thinking they can make their own reality and that there are shortcuts to success for all.
Many people, like myself, are not shooting for "success". We just want to live and hang out with our family and friends. That is success. And the economic structure makes that impossible because everyone else has the idea that success means having to figure out if they can retire on $3.5 million. But in doing so it affects people like us who want to retire in the place we grew up with our family. But people who this "success" is having a lot of sht come in and buy a house and turn it into an AirBnB rental.
The reality is that capitalist advertising keeps pushing the idea of what success is out further and further. So don't blame "the youth" blame people like yourself for telling everyone else what success looks like.
Perhaps they weren’t interested in the challenge and issues that come with a woman in her late 30s and early 40s attempting to conceive a natural healthy baby while risking her own life as well. I bet these men in a similar age range of these women are looking for partners and potential mothers in their 20s and early 30s. There’s less of chance of issues and conceiving is much much easier as the women aren’t premenopausal.
Like it or not, the government unfairly taxes single people.
The typical “poor” person living in the USA lives in the lap of luxury (in terms of clothing, food, shelter, etc) compared to a serf in medieval Europe, a peasant under the Assyrians, etc. I mean, how many poor people have running water, electricity, Air Conditioning, etc.? Can you imagine a poor person from 3,000 years ago seeing that and then hearing talk about wealth inequality? It would sound insane.
Cesar Augustus was worth $4.6 Trillion. That’s a pretty huge wealth disparity to a common person back then. What about Mansa Musa? His wealth was so vast that nobody even knows how to put a number to it. Do you think the common people under him were rich?
But if nothing else, marriage is an agreement that you’re not just gonna nope out when there’s adversity or when something better comes along. It’s a powerful mutual gesture.
If you aren’t compelled by that idea, there’s someone out there who will. Maybe you have to dump your current 6-year-long situationship to go look for them, but hey, it’s not like you’re married. ;)
The decline of religion also probably plays a role here. You'd have a hard time blaming that on the end of the gold standard.
I mean, sure, economics almost certainly plays a role. But it's not the sole cause.
The US was running up debts with post-WWII behavior for quite a while, especially with wars in Korea and Vietnam. This is what Charles de Gaulle was talking about when he referred to the US' "exorbitant privilege" in 1965 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorbitant_privilege) before repatriating France's gold. Multiple presidents preceeded Nixon and continued promoting expansionist policy and meddling in foreign countries with war (that the US could not afford if not for our exorbitant privilege), mostly to compete with or try asserting dominance over USSR.
Are there number on how many of the cohabitants are raising children and/or have a mortgage together?
If they have one or both, but are not married, then the traditional family has just evolved without the need for marriage.
The gold standard stuff is hilariously reductionist.
That's effectively what we've been doing for the past few decades. And the result is as shown in TFA: a generation of adults who will avoid marriage like the plague, because they've seen how toxic the results can be.
Although, people could maybe speculate that dual income families also became a necessity as a result of worsening economic conditions. I don't know.
(And for the record, I'm not using feminism as a negative word here.)
My parents weren't rich, but they had enough that I didn't qualify for the Pell grant. But once married, my parents money didn't count against me. And as a broke college kid, suddenly I did qualify!
It helped me to graduate debt free. (Going to a community college and then a state school, and working the entire time also made a big difference.)
Hmm. I wonder if this flows from divorce in the previous generation. If you didn't have a father (or at least not one who was present), you may not have seen a model of how to be a father. When you grow up, you are less likely to see it as something desirable, and less likely to know how to do it.
To avoid misunderstandings and red herrings, let me make some clarifying comments. Yes, I know that a number of those who left would have been lousy fathers if they stayed - even abusive. And that makes for a lousy model. And yes, I know that many of those without fathers present find others who can model fatherhood to them, and even of those who don't, some of them figure it out on their own. I still think that, on an aggregate scale, the absence of fathers a generation ago at least contributes to this trend today.
This doesn't make sense. Governments want children and immigrants because they need a tax base to stay in power.
As for businesses, they want employees doing things that project stability, such as getting a mortgage (a lot of companies give off time to close one), getting married, and having children. People who do that don't rock the boat and don't speak up because they have a life outside of work they need to upkeep with their paychecks; so they stay good worker bees.
Your argument regarding the airbnb driving up houses in your area is a valid one but the real issue is a shortage of homes, and the resolution is for someone that wants great financial success to assume risk and build more. Something often forgotten in castigating the rich is that many of them took on a massive amount of risk to succeed and in doing so provided jobs for others.
If the youth are unable to determine what their own version of success looks like then that's on them, you figured out yours, why cant everyone else? Honestly the root cause of your issue is likely globalization, manufacturing and livable blue collar jobs were lost because other countries were willing to do the work for far cheaper. This forced the United States to elevate financial services / software / thought leader style jobs with high salaries concentrated in fewer hands.
Marriage is not a requirement for pooling resources.
But there are also subtle but real and pervasive social & community benefits to it. You are often perceived by default as "established," reliable, trustworthy when you are married, in ways you wouldn't be in an unmarried partnership.
"Just a construct of society?" Sure. So is money. Something being a social construct doesn't mean it's fake, or powerless.
I wish more research was done in this area, it’s obviously an important one. Dating apps and their consequences seem to be a disaster in the making (if it’s not already here).
Going to share my story, I'm sorry how it comes off. If I was better at writing, I'm sure I could sound humble or something. I also did not censor anything controversial, I hope this can give my single people in their 30s and 40s some ideas. Although admittedly the dating market was different.
On growing as a person:
My wife really liked one of the homework assignments I had in my masters degree. She said 'lets do more of this at home'. Later she said 'You should write a book'. It turned me into a serial entrepreneur. It has turned me into a lame video gamer, into someone that gets 15 minutes of fame at conferences. I can see my impact on the world already, its cool that other people have read my work and are debunking myths without me having to jump into a thread to point them out anymore. Not to mention, my skills have skyrocketed past peers since I work on valuable things in the evening. I am obsessed with reading non-fiction now, I didn't expect this as a B student in high school. Happiness is like a 9/10 or 10/10.
On Money:
Having 2 earners mean that we can take risks with one income and always pay the bills.
I have been the big earner in the house for the last 11 years, during this time my wife became a doctor and started a clinic. We never took out loans because I could pay them off. After school she was making some money, which made being a contract worker easier(although I'm so frugal, it was never much of an issue). Now with her clinic, we are looking at ~500k/yr in profit in the next few years, at that point, its easy to sell the business.
Financially it was a great decision.
On Family:
I'm pretty sure that my happiness most likely comes from a successful evolutionary course. Wife + kids (+ financial security). Before kids, my happiness was dependent on my entrepreneurship or if I won in starcraft. The only thing that sucks is having to get a babysitter for evenings. Outside of that, every evening when I pick up the kids from daycare is bliss, even if someone is always crying. Maybe your frontal lobe can deny biology, but the rest of my body cannot. (Also, daycare is great, I tried being a stay at home dad... that sucked)
My tips:
Serial date, I dated 22 people between the ages of 18-19 with only 2 deal breakers(overweight[self control] or bought Apple products[intelligence]). I was probably rejected ~100 times, either outright, or by body language. I always looked for public events and would waste gas to get there. Girl number 22 was the one, Straight A student but never wore makeup. She was a gem. Being shallow, I had her do her hair and makeup a few months into dating. It didn't really matter, today I think she is hot even when she wakes up.
Maybe grab a girl from college, get a masters if you need to. I hate to say things like "The good ones are taken", but I have (girl) friends who are single in their 30s, there is something seriously wrong with all of them. Mostly alcoholism, but more likely a cocktail of other drugs too, and a dash of mental illness.
I was nerdy skinny when I dated these 22 people, but I'd recommend lifting weights, doing your hair, and trying to be a great person.
If your relationship is on the fritz, try MDMA therapeutically. I can't say our relationship was, but it helped us figure out a few controversial issues like where to place TVs in our new house.
and childless. (assuming you have your genitals intact and that was still a possibility to begin with)
and paying an annual rent to the pharma industry to keep you alive from continuously evolving respiratory disease that shows up every two years, like clockwork.
till the point you get automated away by an AI that you helped train by contributing to discussions like this one, and they don't need you any more.
what a wonderful future..
My goofball self has turned quite serious with age. I also have become more ambitious. My wife kind of nudged me a few times.
People can change, but you have to be patient.
- The share of adult children who live with their parents has been increasing -- unsurprising given the cost of housing. But while a millennial might grudgingly get their boomer parents to put up with extended cohabitation, that situation makes it hard to find a mate, and asking a partner to move into your basement bedroom is probably a non-starter.
- Especially prior to the pandemic, there has been a long trend of workers were becoming less mobile. Likely both partners in a marriage need to work, but housing that works for one partners job may not work for the other's.
- The share of workers with multiple jobs (or one 'job' plus gig work) has increased. As you spend more hours working just to stay afloat, of course it's harder to find and nurture a relationship.
Outdoor malls, hobbies, gym, parties, libraries, book stores, parks, heck ask chatgpt.
F society who says you can't talk to strangers, those are losers. Say Hi, ask about jobs/hobbies, if they arent interested, you can tell from body language. Tell them it was nice talking to them and leave. They won't remember how you cold-opened, heck in 3 days they won't remember you at all.
This is only one example of what the hyper individualism mixed with capitalism for the sake capitalism creates in terms of disincentives for normal healthy communities
Not really. Ending the dollar's convertibility into gold obviously had a severe impact on how foreign economies viewed the US and the dollar. I think it's "hilariously" ignorant to pretend that this wasn't a factor.
The economic reality for the US was that, before this, we just had to print money for the value of $100 worth of gold. Meanwhile, other countries had to produce actual goods or services that were valued at $100 worth of gold.
As multiple countries started repatriating their gold, the US does a rugpull and says we're done with that? It was effectively a US default on debt (which would have happened if we allowed repatriation anyway, because we didn't have enough gold to pay back all of our creditors who wanted their gold).
Yes, there were quite a few factors happening concurrently with this. But I don't see how it's simple to disentangle the effective default on debt denominated in the global reserve currency with all the other global economic volatility at the time. Laundry-listing other things that happened at the same time is not an explanation.
Edit: Just want to point out that, IMO, the real problem was the US was defaulting on our debt. What Nixon did was just like an escape hatch for it where the US did not have to call it what it was and we also got to keep the gold. I agree with you in the sense that I think bad things would have happened with or without Nixon ending the gold standard. But I view that event as a clear sign and catalyst or accelerant for all the volatility that ensued immediately after. I still think it's crazy the US ended up on top after this anyway.
It's all doable, of course, but all risk has increased. One thing I would do in my life on a do over is start earlier.
Late 30s you're playing on hard mode. Early 40s, you've got to sperm donor that and solo it (which a friend of a friend is doing). The time risk is very high!
If you wanna actually find yourself in a relationship, do what I did and travel to other countries. Contrary to the mainstream narrative perpetuated by american propaganda, most women outside america aren't "poor and uneducated and looking for a passport."
Other people just want other things, and that’s OK too.
In this case, the Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID) movement seems to suddenly be making significant progress after stalling since the 90s - just in time for culling expensive Boomers [1] (and, also in Canada, mentally ill homeless and teens).
As mentioned in the link, assisted suicide is being pushed by providers (at least to some degree), which still doesn’t prove intention, but is quite a bit more concerning than people deciding on this course of action by themselves.
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/veterans-maid-rcmp-investig...
I was at a wedding a few weeks ago, specifically looking for donors or entrepreneurial minded people. When I found out that a dude worked at Amazon Warehouse, I didn't turn around and walk away, I wrapped up the conversation and--- Oh my gosh this guy has a super cool hobby with a ton of skill. I got his phone number because this person and I might benefit from connecting later. Who knows.
But more than half the conversations will flop, who cares. You and they lost a few minutes of life communicating, how terrible! Call it practicing social skills if you need to.
I can envision a decent proportion of men, at least myself and a few I know, who would find it preferable to have a redundant source of income in the household.
Even if a woman ends up becoming a non income earning partner temporarily or permanently, having one who is capable of earning more can be a desirable trait for multiple reasons.
If everything goes well you can buy a lovely house in the suburbs, raise 2.5 kids, grow old together with your wife and live happily ever after.
If it goes wrong she takes your kids and half your assets immediately, followed by several years of child support and possibly alimony.
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2022/08/18/...
https://archive.is/8FAsi/4ca20b298a776c0318c24337c475fa4dce0...
https://www.taubcenter.org.il/en/research/israels-exceptiona...
>Though Haredim are just 13% of the population, their offspring make up 19% of Israeli children under the age of 14, and 24% of those under the age of four.
>As can be seen, secular Jews are roughly at 2 children per woman and "religious" (but not Haredi) are at 4. Once again, other OECD countries are roughly between 1.0 and 1.7 and falling. And they, too, have a share of religious traditionalists.
Attributes like physical attractiveness and traditional positive feminine qualities are generally what men list as what they seek.
Of course, we all know of exceptions but the general patterns of what men/women look for in a partner is quite well known at this point.
Yeah, but American/human mating rituals being what they are, it's not like you'll be getting married and having kids in that situation.
When I am out I have zero interest in talking to people. Nothing worse than being in the mall and a person walks up trying to sell me something. That's what people who hit on others in public are doing, trying to sell something, themselves in this case.
The various forms of collateral you mention (wives, children, mortgages -- the things the Mafia don would ask you about) have a carrying cost which companies would probably rather not pay. And with golden handcuffs (plus restrictive H1-B visas in some cases) the companies may have enough leverage without them.
> Governments want children and immigrants because they need a tax base to stay in power.
I don't think they plan that far ahead, because the electoral cycle is only four years long. It's like issues of national debt: You may have a momentary crisis, but you find some path of low resistance out of it (issue more debt), and keep going. That works because the rest of the world is happy (for some reason) to keep buying up the debt. Demographic issues can be papered over similarly, so long as the money -- the same money, ironically -- provides an incentive to come.
(It's also worth considering that, since Reagan/Thatcher (and arguably Carter, though in many ways he seemed like a good man), the State has lost power to the Corporation, so even if the State does pursue longer-term interests, it may not play a large enough role in day-to-day life to have an effect.)
If you're just following gradients, I think this is the basin you stay in. But it feels like some kind of behavioral sink.
men have been pushed down by a culture that devalues masculine traits. k-8 is dominated by female teachers who don't know how to deal with male students and exhibit strong favoritism towards female students. Additionally, higher ed strongly favors reserving educational opportunities for female students. The end result is that boys that don't come from families that strongly push for education for them get left behind as the state would rather they be out of the picture entirely.
men haven't fallen behind, Boys are being tripped and corralled into a rigged game and they are dropping out of the system
In one extreme instance the parents had divvied up the house with dad ending up in a quasi-finished basement like an unwanted old dog. If they ever crossed paths it was an instant war.
Fortunately divorce has become much more acceptable since those days (this was in the 80s). Back then people would stay trapped in an unhealthy marriage 'til death do us part'.
Marriage collapses two separate legal entities into a single entity, putting you even more at the mercy of the increasingly extractive financial/legal system. In a committed relationship, how does it make sense to throw away the flexibility of having independent legal entities for each of you, especially when creating new solid legal entities is quite expensive ?
With everything being increasingly financialized (eg the medical billing industry cancer), there are many sources of extreme liability these days. Long tail events that can stick you with some insane amount of debt that will drastically alter the course of your life. If we're married, any debts pinned on my partner automatically end up being my responsibility, meaning our entire life is completely at risk.
Whereas if we're not married, then each one of us is effectively holding half of our wealth in an informal trust for both of us. And for solidifying and committing to that arrangement, it would seem these trusts could be formalized in a way the courts would have to respect. Rather than defaulting to the expected traditional legal transaction, becoming a singular entity, and then having to grasp at sketchy asset protection methods and the like.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying to interrupt someone mid-run or talk to someone focused with ear-buds in.
If someone is leaving the gym, you can say 'hey got a sec?', If they answer 'no', that is their answer.
(Also, people who put makeup and tight pants on for the gym, are looking to be hit on. The people trying to be ignored, will put 0 effort into their appearance and will have a stare 100 ft in front of them. Even if you miss these signs, the worst thing that is going to happen is that you are turned down and they wasted 5 minutes. I'm sure the married people ITT had no issue interrupting these beautiful people's precious time. )
EDIT: If you need to, have a bonus reason for talking to someone: "I'm trying to find someone who knows nutrition for a nonprofit" or "I'm looking for a mechanical engineer for a product I'm thinking about".
So that paragraph reads like "You are wrong because [essentially the same thing you said phrased differently]".
It means that the Bretton Woods economic system was very favorable for Americans while it lasted. And the middle class could afford a house, a car, have multiple kids, send those kids to college, and have the living standard referred to as "the American dream".
You could even get a job without a college degree, marry in your 20s and sustain a household on one job.
My personal pet theory is that it's biological in nature and likely related to the spreading obesity. But necessarily causal, but potentially correlated by the diet or similar.
The industrial and agricultural revolutions have only recently allowed most of us to live in cities and do other work than trying to grow enough food to survive. And so new ways of living are arising that work for people in the new era.
We are probably going to see a lot more variety in living arrangements before things settle into a new normal. I wish I could be around for the next couple hundred years to see it all happen!
2013 was still suffering from the after effects of the great recession that caused massive unemployment and a incredible increase in suffering.
How are current economic conditions worse than two of the greatest crashes in US history? YoY inflation is drastically slowing and unemployment is at record lows.
The economy is doing pretty goddamn amazingly right now
There might be a few people that put make up on and never leave the house, but that is a minority. People wear makeup so they look good for other people.
Nope, people can't just act 'normal' and be avoided. Normal people have conversations.
Anyway, remember its that you can't have a conversation. The rest of the world has no problem.
You've built up having a 5 minute conversation to thinking you are a telemarketer.
It's not like you have a coin flip chance at a happy life or an unhappy divorce. You can influence the odds here. In fact, you can really stack the deck in your favor, so to speak.
Sure, people lie and people change, but it's not like you have to get married after a certain amount of time. You can wait to see what the person is like at their worst and then decide. Yeah, it's a 2 way street and you have to work with their timetable too. But no one is forcing you to just jump into a marriage blindly.
My understanding is that economic conditions for Blacks are not significantly better than those of Whites and Asians, and are probably somewhat worse.
Which suggests your hypothesis is not backed by data.
Marriage is not a capstone, it's a cornerstone
Meaning that you build a life together. You don't 'have it all figured out' and then cap that off with a wedding to someone from central casting, riding off into the sunset. You struggle together and make something with someone else. That's a vulnerable place to be, at the whims of another, and that's why marriage is not just a 'super-duper-friendship'.
Higher IQs are correlated with higher incomes, too: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230208125113.h...
Anecdata source of one - but most of my friends from college who could've ended up with many many women ended up with women that had super rich parents, and most of the women that everyone was crazy about ended up with men with rich parents.
None of them claim to have married for money - but from the outside - the odds seem to be that at least some of them probably did.
Men. You know any?
> I can envision a decent proportion of men
You can envision it? Anyone can envision anything.
> at least myself and a few I know, who would find it preferable to have a redundant source of income in the household.
"Myself and a few I know"? Are you a man? Then you should know. What's with the awkward response?
> having one who is capable of earning more can be a desirable trait for multiple reasons.
As the OP stated, men are attracted by youth, beauty and physical traits. Women put more focus on money and status. Men are biologically programmed to want women they can breed with. Women are biologically programmed to want men who can provide for them and their offspring. It's why women want men who are taller than them and also who make more money than them.
Sure, it would be nice for a woman to have youth/beauty and money. But given a choice of a woman with youth/beauty + no money and no youth/beauty + money, most guys would choose youth/beauty + no money. I don't remember a single time anyone ever wondered about "how much a woman makes" when it comes to dating.
If you are a man, ask yourself, would you rather have an old ugly female doctor or a young attractive homeless woman. If you are a man, your lived experience should be source enough.
A lot of being single is tied pervasive poverty. For folks living paycheck to paycheck, how might they get to another country and then support themselves there?
For me, it was tabs vs. spaces. I mean, come on.
I'll present most of FL as an example. During those crashes, one could still subsist on 2 typical incomes. FF to today and basic expenses have skyrocketed; it takes 4 typical incomes to live tight. Worse is that expenses are still climbing fast.
The economy may be spectacular for some folks but it pales against the expenses faced by most folks.
Yes, everything is interdependent, and the myth of the separate individual is only a capitalist materialistic concept used to pit us against each other.
Houellebecq - Extension du domaine de la lutteFor many decades, a couple could pool typical wages and meet their basic bills. What I'm see now is it takes 4 typical wages to stay housed, up from 3 last year. Based on the last few months, that hasn't leveled out yet.
A relationship matters if 1 bedroom housing is a necessary part of the plan.
We're talking about marriage, which is a very specific thing with a legal definition.
"I didn't want to approach them, he wasn't that tall, but she insisted so we did anyway. He was kind of cute until he took off his hat. His friend was country and I love country."
They explain the night, how they went to different tables and had different drinks. They exchanged phone numbers.
I was a bit bothered that they never mentioned anything I deemed important "Job/Education/etc..." Apparently a "construction safety manager".
The girl ended up mentioning that he was a big Trump supporter and that she is very liberal, I asked her how that would work with the whole 'country' thing. She said that she is always going to be working and not a stay at home mom.
And 1 month later she broke up with him.
Weird how height, hair, and 'country' was more important than job and beliefs.
The study is on marriage, true but the same trends are applying to couples in general - so the same conversation applies there as well. Given the likely causes, there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to look at marriage in isolation.
As paths to affordable cohabitation decline, relationships are declining right along with them.
The problem is that there are 2 single points of failure in a marriage, and you only control one of them. I can be the best husband I can possibly be, work hard, provide for my family, love my wife with everything I have, and otherwise do what I can to try to make her happy. However, if she choses not to reciprocate this, there's literally nothing I can do about it. (You can change the genders here as appropriate, it's just that I'm a heterosexual male.)
The other problem is that people can change. Sometimes people go out of their way to be the very best version of themselves until they are married and then they just stop trying as hard or stop pretending to be the person the other person wants them to be. Also, people change as they get older, they have different priorities, different interests, new hobbies, changes in physical appearance, changes in libido, etc. After 10 or 20 years of marriage, it is very unlikely that you and your spouse haven't changed in some very significant ways.
that may correlate with it being considered uncouth to have such considerations in mind.
Sounds like cryptobros politics.
Well, generally men do the proposing, and as far as I am aware, most proposals are successful. So if the number of marriages are declining, then it means men are not proposing—either they are uninterested in getting married, or they are but don’t reach a point in their relationships where they believe a proposal would be successful. Not sure what the distribution of those is.
Reconstruction of Europe, huge population boom, control over new overseas territory, massive reduction in competition from European nations which had lost their colonies (and a large part of their own native labour force), huge investments in housing & infrastructure, it's hard to overstate just how massively growth focused the years from 1945-1965 or so were. The closest comparison would be the massive growth that China has from the mid-90s til recently.
The outburst of left wing and cultural radicalism in the late 60s, the Vietnam war, heavier US involvement in central America, the decline in corporate profits in the 70s, the development of computing technology and information automation, all of these are connected with the fundamental saturation and then decline in the growth capacity of US imperial economic power...
When limits to growth are hit, the response is usually some kind of crisis -- because capitalism requires continuous growth. War either colonial or against other colonial powers, social turbulence, etc. etc.
Dropping the gold standard was just one of the panic-moves performed by US capital interests to try to salvage things. And honestly, it likely had little to no effect.
After the mid-90s there was a reprieve from this for a bit, as the collapse of the USSR and the opening of China to western industrial interests opened up new economic horizons. Which now seem to be closing off.
Yo can look at it as a downside or as an upside.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system#Wartime_d...
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
I don't see manned missions to the moon every year from NASA anymore, do you?
This has zero legal binding whatsoever while having exit clauses that statistically heavily favor women even in cases where they are the ones initiating. While it may make sense on a case by case basis, its a statistically terrible decision to bet on
The US was living beyond its means throughout the entire time, subsidized by the other members of that system. The end of the Bretton Woods system affirmed that.
How it ended? by Nixon preventing a bank run on the system because he didn't have the equivalent gold for all the currency he issued.
The US was clever enough to use its economic advantage to invest in its military to a point in which that move could be tolerated by the rest of the countries.
Any further replies from you will be read out loud in chicken voice.
I'm not at all in the same camp as the other commenter (it's clear where their allegiances lie) but you really are in the wrong here.
You have no idea how frequently these seeming-innocuous conversations turn verbally or physically violent when the initiator feels spurned.
This is provable! Try it sometime-- play catfish on a dating app and see for yourself.
> "Hey, can I have a second of your time?"
> "No, sorry, I'm in a hurry." [Or just don't respond.]
> "Fucking worthless bitch..."
There's no need for it. That's not interrupting someone's precious time. If in-person, the woman is going to see this guy again in some context, knowing she pissed him off. She sees him as a threat, and he sees her as a source of humiliation. This creates a hostile situation for both.
I've directly investigated enough histrionic cases to believe "you were asking for it" is absolutely a thing for cluster-B types (sometimes even literally, in fucking print), but am telling you the makeup, clothing and demeanor are not deterrents. Women could look like aloof genderless homeless blobs and still get harassed. It's just a hostile world out there.
Shitty marriage settlements for men exist, but it is is in large part a re-balancing of an inequity that existed for time immemorial before that: a woman marries some guy, gets pregnant, and she and her kids become dependant on him and some combination of the following happens: a) leaves her, with kid, destitute b) abuses her c) abuses kid d) makes her miserable. It happened for probably millennia. It still happens. Men always held the power in marriage relationships by violence and/or by cultural convention and or by economic power.
I think the status quo sucks but you can see how family law got to where it is. I think it's going to take a couple generations for this to get sorted out.
In a farming society fathers and mothers have a lot of meaningful expertise to pass down to their children. And they work closely with their children for decades. Family time is intense and probably not exactly utopian, but intimate and constructive.
As a father to a kid in the urbanized 20th and 21st century, way less well defined and the role super confusing. My kid is unlikely to do what I'm doing. I'm out of the house at work almost all day, and they're at school. My spouse and I would live relatively separate lives, convening only after work hours. What am I supposed to be teaching my son? Most values will come from society at large not from home. How do I relate to my spouse?
It's not surprising there's a general disintegration of the family. Conservatives want to blame it on liberal values and lack of religion, but this is complete nonsense. The economic model changed, and the point of both marriage and the family changed as well. Forcing religion on your kids or getting all freaked out about family values and abortion won't fix it. The economic foundation of the whole thing is gone.
Fun fact. Student Loan Debts are considered marital property in community property states. So her debt is now our debt and may become your debt in a divorce.
if you're living paycheck to paycheck, get yourself out of that situation first. I know its harsh but you have no business contributing to a relationship till you're able to take care of yourself beyond the bare minimum. Not only that but you can take the most risks to change your status quo when you're single. you don't have anyone dependent on you and no one who's time you accountable to.
Basically if you're single and living paycheck to paycheck, suck it up, educate yourself and work on moving up in life before I try to bring someone into your life. Way too many people are stuck in life because they try to furnish a livingroom when they don't even have a foundation.
What reasons? I'm genuinely curious.
To clarify, you're saying no one earning less than 4x typical wages should be in a relationship. Did you date much in high school?
> if you're living paycheck to paycheck, get yourself out of that situation first.
So married couples who've hit hard times should do what, divorce and send the kids to foster care?
> Basically if you're single and living paycheck to paycheck, suck it up, educate yourself
Is it your opinion that there is an abundance of high paying jobs that accept degrees and certs from the University Of Sucked It Up And Educated Self?
Or are you thinking about non-degree'd high paying jobs? While there are more than zero, non-degree'd typically means the type of specialized skills that lie on the other side of well entrenched gatekeeping. However, one can overcome gatekeeping. All one needs is enough connections, cash, years and luck - the same sort of stuff it takes to get a university degree.
> In Tudor England the ever increasing demand for wool had a dramatic effect on the landscape. The attraction of large profits to be made from wool encouraged manorial lords to enclose common land and convert it from arable to (mainly) sheep pasture. The consequent eviction of commoners or villagers from their homes and loss of their livelihoods became an important political issue for the Tudors.[44] The resulting depopulation was financially disadvantageous to the Crown. The authorities were concerned that many of the people subsequently dispossessed would become vagabonds and thieves. Also the depopulation of villages would produce a weakened workforce and enfeeble the military strength of the state.[44]
From this my mind goes to the Highland Clearances [2] (and to America's Rust Belt and England's North).
In both cases, capitalists were more than happy to replace people with sheep, because that's where the profits lay.
The interesting thing about the quote above, is that it fits the pattern I mentioned, in which the interests of capitalists are not exactly the same as the State's.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure#The_end_of_the_Ope...
But I guess one has to be the type for it. If one’s idea of a good life is marriage, then not getting to that point is obviously a problem which will create emotional struggle and subsequent issues.
Couldn't get girls to look at me, much less date me in high school. And whatever amount of money you need to make is determined by the women you are trying to attract. I don't make the rules there but its on you to demonstrate your value to your potential partner in a way they can understand.
> So married couples who've hit hard times should do what, divorce and send the kids to foster care?
the original question proposed that you were single at the time. If you're already in a relationship and have responsibilities (ie: kids) that's different. You obviously can't abdicate preexisting responsibilities and I'm not suggesting that anyone do such a thing.
> Is it your opinion that there is an abundance of high paying jobs that accept degrees and certs from the University Of Sucked It Up And Educated Self?
why are you waiting for a high paying job? you should be focusing on developing a high earning skill. spend a few hours a day learning to code or maintaining linux boxes. you can get a minisforum pc for as little as $400 (I'm typing on it as we speak). coding isn't your thing? hop on fiverr and figure out what jobs are in demand. a lot of software like onshape is free to learn and plenty of places will hire you to use it. you won't make much money but you'll pickup useful skills that develop overtime. Hell I saw a youtube interview of a guy in his 20's making 10k MMR washing windows for clients he met going door to door. I'm not badass enough to do that but I'm not hungry enough to do it either.
If you are living in america, you're already setup with advantages that can put you ahead if you take advantage of them. using square or stripe, you can easily charge cards. through the internet, you can advertise services to people. you have cheap banking to store your money safely. getting an LLC means you can write off business expenses instead of paying taxes on them. hell, we have community colleges if you want to invest time in getting ahead.
In a perfect world, we'd have a safety net that subsidizes people who want to move up but you have to live in the world as it is. I had a minimum wage job in my 20's. At some point, something clicked and realized I would need to change something radically if I wanted to not be doing that for the rest of my life. So I stopped drinking with my coworkers and started spending my money on books instead. I would go to the cafe and practice web development. eventually I found a guy on linkedin who paid me $200 per gig on some small jobs. it wasn't much but it was enough to start getting some experience. eventually I got a fulltime job paying a salary maintaining websites. It wasn't much but it was enough that I was able to keep a consistent schedule. I kept studying and saved money for 4 years while sharing an apartment to save money. I did't eat meat. just rice, beans and veggies, cooked ahead of time.
with all that cash over 4 years, I sold off everything and flew to san francisco to do a coding bootcamp. finally after years of hard work, I could afford a descent place and wear nice clothes and I met my first girlfriend shortly after.
so I reiterate. if you're single and living paycheck to paycheck. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER before you think about getting into a relationship.
Yeah. Spent more time there than not.
> And whatever amount of money you need to make is determined by the women you are trying to attract.
You deliver this like it dwarfs all other factors considered by superior women. I grew up around those women and I know that that isn't remotely true.
> If you're already in a relationship and have responsibilities (ie: kids) that's different. You obviously can't abdicate preexisting responsibilities and I'm not suggesting that anyone do such a thing.
You've just advocated working one's way out of poverty while in a relationship.
> why are you waiting for a high paying job?
I never said waiting. That came from you.
> you should be focusing on developing a high earning skill.
Yes and I addressed that. You next toss out a number of niche jobs that only a small segment of the public is well adapted to. You offered up statistical anomaly as if window washing was a path anyone could take to a high salary.
You also fairly well hurdle-over the issue where the number of high paying jobs is a fraction of the working age population. Based on your assertion and it's underlying tone, if people are [NEGATIVE ADJECTIVE] enough to lose the employment lottery, they deserve being deprived of the supportive intimate relationships that successful people depend on to be successful.
> If you are living in america, you're already setup with advantages that can put you ahead if you take advantage of them.
We'll take this point on and assume we're discussing white, binary males without crippling health issues, the group it is mostly likely to be true for. For every community of men, who each work consistently hard and well, some eventually land in fortunate positions and some will not. This is reality in America.
For all other groups, the percentage who navigate America well and eventually land in fortunate positions will be less.
I believe I have one example of that dynamic, clever, opportunity seizing ideal you seem to have in your head, me. I talked and taught myself into a lifetime of technical jobs, mostly self employed. I spent a life pulling off the unlikely. I eventually wound up running IT for a region of car dealerships - until the 2008 crash. I pivoted and worked my way into medical support and the ACA put my indy medical clients out of business. I pivoted to corp medical, picked up some big clients and my wife became psychotic - and that led to a decade of my family living in frequent hunger.
A quick note that hiding poverty is mandatory while trying to mine life for opportunities (poverty spooks people). That effort consumes significant energy and resources, which are scarce.
One thing about survivor bias. It fairly well divides people who think they understand broad realities of life from those who do. Once I landed squarely on this side of it, I learned the millions who don't make it have stories a lot like mine.
The American Dream® mentality assumes that life will eventually run out of the worst circumstances, the ones that take down the most tenacious opportunists. For some that's true. For the rest, they learn that life can very well keep it up for 3 or 4 decades. Meaningful social safety nets can mitigate that and allow folks to escape feedback loops a lot sooner. But get that boost, folks have to live in states where those safety nets exist. I don't.
I did finally work my way out of extreme poverty (wife left to become homeless & vulnerable, which allowed the rest of us to make progress). By mid 2021 we had months of living expenses saved up. Yet, like other folks with money in the bank, we nearly became homeless because there was suddenly 1 rental available for each, I don't know - maybe 400 (maybe 1000) applicants. We did manage to beat astronomical odds again and am housed.
It was just in time to come up against ageism. For those of us here, some will succeed and my efforts will be as diligent as theirs. Even so, we all know we're competing for the same shrinking pool of opportunities - and connections aren't as powerful as they used to be.
> So I stopped drinking with my coworkers and started spending my money on books instead.
Sober at 22 and only spent on strict necessities for the next 30 years.
> but you have to live in the world as it is.
Yes. Knowing the world as it really is seems important too.
I didn't say that was the sole consideration but it would be wildly disingenuous to say its not a factor in the big picture. the only guys I've run into that managed to have relationships before achieving financial success were young white guys.
> You've just advocated working one's way out of poverty while in a relationship.
do you have an alternative suggestion? seriously. its a damned if you do/don't situation and I won't claim to qualified to answer that. I know guys who have moved up in the world from humble origins while having a family and they have all told me it would have been infinitely easier doing it on their own.
> You next toss out a number of niche jobs that only a small segment of the public is well adapted to. You offered up statistical anomaly as if window washing was a path anyone could take to a high salary.
what do you expect me to say? everyone should learn to code? I can't rattle off every possible option out there. my point is that if you're using your brain, you can find a way to carve out a niche that pays well. what that niche happens to be is going to vary according to the individual and beyond the scope of a HN post. Its less about being hand and more of a point that you have agency in whether you live in poverty or success.
> assume we're discussing white, binary males without crippling health issues,
fair point about the crippling health issue. but I am not white. I'm south asian an ethnic group confirmed by OK cupid in their own high level research to be the least likely group to get replies back from women on dating sites. If anything, I'm playing the dating game on hard mode. I'll even go so far as to say I don't personally know ANY south asian men in relationships with american girls who make less than 6 figures. Being a south asian guy making less than 100k is like being a white guy under 5'5".
> Based on your assertion and it's underlying tone, if people are [NEGATIVE ADJECTIVE] enough to lose the employment lottery, they deserve being deprived of the supportive intimate relationships that successful people depend on to be successful.
no one OWES you relationship. A relationship has its perks but its also a responsibility. Shit happens in life and we can't control that but you can take steps to secure the best position you can in life before you get into a relationship because you want whats best for you both.
> I did finally work my way out of extreme poverty (wife left to become homeless & vulnerable, which allowed the rest of us to make progress).
hope she and you are doing better.
Of course these are generalities, but they also fall out of the game theory of dating. For a woman, choosing a partner is extremely high risk as she will bear the children, will redirect energy away from her career to raise them, and will, most of the time, end up raising the children alone if the marriage breaks up. Men don’t really have any of those concerns because there’s not the same expectation they would raise the children on their own without help. I’ve known plenty of guys who ran out on the kids and zero women who left the kids with the guy.
You replied: > I didn't say that was the sole consideration
Can you see how your reply doesn't rebut what I actually said?
Not at all. The only women who prioritize a high income above more important considerations are those that happen to do that - and none other. Among the most capable and brilliant women I've known, that sort of computation isn't something I've seen with any regularity.
Sure. Don't use an arbitrary, unproven rule as an excuse to turn down the opportunity of forming a mutually uplifting relationship - should such an opportunity present itself.
Instead of a paragraph of different coding paths, offer a half dozen paths to high income that well reflect the scope of the population's capabilities (inc the half of the population with below average intellect for example).
If there is an astounding abundance of likely paths available - and they are realistic for folks working the hours it takes to survive in a 4 income economy - coming up with a handful of highly likely examples should be trivial.
That reality genuinely sucks. People suck.
That said, my qualification was just to establish the lowest difficulty level. I wanted to give your American Dream® scenario it's strongest possible showing - before exposing it to reality. It wasn't a comment on anything else.
Take good paying jobs away, make everything more expensive and here we are with Passport Bros (essentially a flee America movement) and multigenerational living. You have to have a good steady income and some stable foundation to build such an expensive life. America isn't giving men what they need to build a stable family.
Source: A 40-year old who has no interest in marriage and only saw it as an "antiquated social construct" when I was younger. I learned there's more to it.