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Is marriage fading?

The New Neo Posted on by

Marriage as an institution seems to be fading, and people know it.

But that doesn’t mean they don’t still want it for themselves. A recent Time/Pew poll found that “although 44% of Americans under 30 believe marriage is heading for extinction, only 5% of those in that age group do not want to get married.”

The poll had a number of other interesting findings. Fewer people are married. When they are, the increasing tendency is to marry someone of the same socioeconomic status as themselves, probably because the pool of women making decent salaries is higher than it used to be. The number of unmarried people living together has jumped in the last year, probably as a result of the recession. The rate of unwed parenthood is high, especially among those without college degrees, although the parents often live together for a while. Here’s a depressing statistic:

About 21% of American children will see at least two live-in partners of their mothers by the time they’re 15…And an additional 8% will see three or more.

That sort of revolving boyfriend/stepfather situation does not bode well for American children, nor for their perception of marriage as an institution.

As I wrote back in a lengthy post from three years back, marriage has lost out because so many of the practical benefits it used to confer are no longer so clear, and the costs seem more so:

What’s marriage needed for these days, anyway? Most people can have plenty of sex without getting married, and even become parents (although out-of-wedlock parenthood does not absolve the parent from the duty of child support on the dissolution of the partner relationship). Most people can support themselves without marriage, as well””at a lower level than they can with a working spouse, it’s true; but still, decently enough. And it’s simpler and easier not to have to cater to the wants and needs of another person.

The benefits of a good marriage””which are very real, and very valuable””seem far more amorphous than they used to be, because they now exist primarily in the realm of the emotional, and because the proliferation of divorce means they can’t be counted upon to last. There’s love, and trust, and companionship. There’s the satisfaction of a shared commitment, the deep and rewarding pleasure of knowing another human being intimately over time. There are still some economic benefits, too. But all of this requires a level of emotional maturity that seems more and more rare these days, and an ability to compromise and to regard the needs of another person as equal (or nearly equal) to one’s own.

Divorce was once the target of disapproval and even ostracism. Remember, for example, the days (not so long ago) when it was quaintly but universally acknowledged that a divorced politician would have a very hard time being elected? Likewise, in my youth there were only one or two kids in my entire community whose parents were divorced, and they reported that their status was somewhat pariah-like.

Now, of course, it’s changed, and to a certain extent that’s a good thing; I’m not advocating the shunning of the divorced. But marriage is one of the foundations of our society and especially important to child-rearing. It’s not that children can’t survive and even prosper in a divorce situation; it’s just that it becomes more difficult and less likely. Children more commonly thrive in a situation of stability, where they know that their parents have made a serious commitment to each other. Unfortunately, that is becoming increasingly rare.

[NOTE: I was thinking about that sentence I wrote, “I’m not advocating the shunning of the divorced.” It occurs to me that it’s difficult to know which came first, the relaxation of such shunning or the rise of the divorce rate.

My guess is that they may have been simultaneous. As women’s economic status rose and allowed them more often to support themselves, and the so-called sexual revolution allowed men easy access to sex outside of marriage, divorce become more desirable, easier to obtain legally, and society no longer disapproved all that much.

The shunning of the divorced had worked to discourage divorce. But it was only one piece of an integrated system all of whose parts discouraged the dissolution of marriages. Putting a single piece back in place in isolation would be ineffective and probably impossible, even if we wished to do so.]

Comments

Is marriage fading? — 118 Comments

  1. There’s very little to recommend marriage to an unmarried man. To paraphrase a comment at Hot Air, “unless a man has a burning desire to put half his assets on the line”.

  2. I, as a man, was very pro-marriage, committed 12 years of my life and my starting nest-egg to it. The Ex took me to the cleaners, taking away a lot that I built, still comes to bash me for more when she is in a financial dip.

    So, no, I cannot recommend marriage, unless you get a prenup. Although that didn’t help Paul Maccartney.

  3. My husband and I will be married 50 years next Fall, We have three children who are also happily married to their first spouses, and they all have children. People who have children should make a commitment to stay together (you notice I am not saying married) until the children are adults. When there is a divorce the children are in limbo. If the parents start new relationships the children must adapt. These changing relationships are terrible for growing children, they never know the rules and what tomorrow will bring. People must realize that you are not always #1, when you have children, they must come first!!

  4. Carol Shreiber:

    Congratulations!!

    However, I would add to what you say that making a commitment to stay together is best communicated to the children by being married. Not that that guarantees it, of course. But if a couple is unmarried, has kids, and tells those kids “Ah, but we’ve made a firm commitment to stay together without getting married,” that sends a contradictory message.

    Kids would rightly feel less secure under that sort of arrangement. They are not all that “nuanced” in their thinking.

  5. Increasingly, there is a growing split between high status and low status people with respect to marriage. Fifty years ago most adults (rich and poor) married. Something like 95% of adults married at some point in their lives. What this trend does is increase economic inequality, especially with respect to wealth formation. Two adults make more money than one and are more likely to be able to save and invest. Even in homes where one parent does not work there are savings associated with respect to child care and home maintenance. This means that parents are more able to help their children and to leave something to their children to be passed on further to grandchildren. The poor get poorer.

    The other major effect of the trend away from marriage among low status people is the effect upon children’s development. Single parent households can work, but the average difference in outcomes is huge in terms of school performance, employment, income and deviant behavior. The overwhelming majority of violent criminals come from single parent homes.

    Many of the major social and economic differences between minority households and white households are directly related to marital status. Marriage among blacks has become rare and 72% of black children are born to an unmarried woman. Fewer than 15% of black children reach the age of 18 living with their two original parents. Children doing well in this situation is an uphill climb.

    It has been pointed out that to avoid poverty you should finish high school, avoid substance abuse, stay out of trouble with the law, get married, and don’t have children unless you are married. Statistically, coming from a two parent household makes all of these outcomes much more likely.

  6. Divorce makes it harder on the children. The phrase “kids raising kids” must now to be changed, adding the third generation since WWII (when the divorce rate really took off)–“kids raising kids raising kids”.

  7. I married late and happily–when my wife and I got to the “till death do us part” part, we meant every word. But I’m afraid I have to agree with I R A– there’s not a lot in marriage to appeal to a young man today. When divorce became easy and dependent wives and mothers morphed into fractious roommates who made more than you, it changed the whole dynamic. I don’t know what the answer is– I know very few women who want to give up their careers.

  8. Allow me to make an additional observation. On a societal level marriage civilizes men. If you live in a neighborhood of married people it is probably safe to walk around late at night. If you live in a neighborhood where almost everyone is single, you should have good locks. Unattached adult males are a threat to society — think wild west.

  9. Speaking from first-hand experience, courts don’t really favor women – they punish the breadwinner regardless of sex. Also regardless of whether that person wanted to be the breadwinner or not.

    The divorce trend may be turning back around. My ex and I are divorced and my son is the only one of his friends with divorced parents. It’s quite rare in our community for whatever reason. We are 10 – 15 years older than the other parents, and this is a very rural area. Not sure if those things play into it.

  10. Isn’t it interesting, how author of the post talks about real advantages of marriage being in emotional sphere – and adult men, supposedly grown up during the times of universal support of marriage, find not much in marriage to recommend young men – because of danger of “sharing one’s assets”. Kind of takes away the illusion of mutual desirability of “companionship, trust, commitment”. Looks like men do, as feminists tell us, see wife as an unpaid laborer, who does not bring value into the marriage that could be translated into monetary terms: note how assets are invariably called “mine”.

    Another commenter, *ros scssrs, goes further: his comment implies that men look for dependent partner, first and foremost – and if a woman does not give up her career after getting married, as in – she doesn’t want to turn all her attention towards pleasing her man – they will be right in not wanting to marry.

    What a wonderful picture is clearing up here. And then some blame women in marriage decline!

  11. Of course marraige is going its the first major goal of feminism since the 1850s and moses harmons daughter!!!

    you women are getting what you wanted, and making a whole new world…

    with 20 new offices of women and minorities, the proces now should speed up a lot…

    “In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them” — Dr. Mary Jo Bane, feminist and assistant professor of education at Welleslry College and associate director of the school’s Center for Research on Woman

    “No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.” — Interview with Simone de Beauvoir, “Sex, Society, and the Female Dilemma,” Saturday Review, June 14, 1975, p.18

    “[M]ost mother-women give up whatever ghost of a unique and human self they may have when they ‘marry’ and raise children.” — Phyllis Chesler, Women and Madness, p.294

    “It became increasingly clear to us that the institution of marriage `protects’ women in the same way that the institution of slavery was said to `protect’ blacks–that is, that the word `protection’ in this case is simply a euphemism for oppression,” — Sheila Cronan, “Marriage,” in Koedt, Levine, and Rapone, eds., Radical Feminism, p. 214.

    [edited for length by n-n]

  12. “The institution [of marriage] consistently proves itself unsatisfactory–even rotten…. The family is…directly connected to–is even the cause of–the ills of the larger society.” — Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (New York: Morrow, 1970), p. 254.

    “All patriarchists exalt the home and family as sacred, demanding it remain inviolate from prying eyes. Men want privacy for their violations of women… All women learn in childhood that women as a sex are men’s prey.” — Marilyn French

    “All men are rapists and that’s all they are” — Marilyn French, Authoress; (later, advisoress to Al Gore’s Presidential Campaign.)

    “The nuclear family must be destroyed, and people must find better ways of living together. … Whatever its ultimate meaning, the break-up of families now is an objectively revolutionary process. … “Families have supported oppression by separating people into small, isolated units, unable to join together to fight for common interests.” — Functions of the Family, Linda Gordon, WOMEN: A Journal of Liberation, Fall 1969

    “…No woman should have to deny herself any opportunities because of her special responsibilities to her children. … Families will be finally destroyed only when a revolutionary social and economic organization permits people’s needs for love and security to be met in ways that do not impose divisions of labor, or any external roles, at all.” — Functions of the Family, Linda Gordon, WOMEN: A Journal of Liberation, Fall, 1969

    “Being a housewife is an illegitimate profession… The choice to serve and be protected and plan towards being a family-maker is a choice that shouldn’t be. The heart of radical feminism is to change that” — Vivian Gornick, feminist author, University of Illinois, “The Daily Illini,” April 25, 1981

    “If women are to effect a significant amelioration in their condition it seems obvious that they must refuse to marry.” — Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971), p. 317

    “[The nuclear family is] a cornerstone of woman’s oppression: it enforces women’s dependence on men, it enforces heterosexuality and it imposes the prevailing masculine and feminine character structures on the next generation.” — Alison Jaggar, Feminist Politics and Human Nature

    “[W]omen, like men, should not have to bear children…. The destruction of the biological family, never envisioned by Freud, will allow the emergence of new women and men, different from any people who have previously existed.” — Alison Jaggar, Political Philosophies of Women’s Liberation: Feminism and Philosophy, (Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams & Co. 1977)

    “Destroy the family, you destroy the country.” — V.I. Lenin

    [edited for length by n-n]

  13. “Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex.” — Valerie Solana, SCUM founder (Society for Cutting Up Men.)


    “When women can support themselves, have entry to all the trades and professions with a house of their own over their heads and a bank account, they will own their bodies and be dictators in the social realm.” — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

    You have what you wanted. Liberation and a matriarchy. To deny it is to be like those who still blame bush… but you just blame men.

    Above is EVERY TOP feminist except for communist betty Freidan who likened a home to a nice gulag.. (she didnt raise her kids, her husband was a wall street guy, she didnt even do laundry)

    Only delusional women who believe that their personal versions and thoughts have some meaning outside their heads, think that these women are not now equal and synonymous with all women.

    Oppose feminism, and you are attacked as opposing women… ie, they are one and the same now.

    [edited for length by n-n]

  14. The trick to a successful marriage is living apart.

    Artfldgr, I did did skim your post in a few places, are you suggesting that women are a communist plot?

  15. Artfldgr: I have no idea why you’re focusing on Jewish women. In fact, the statistics are clear that it’s Jewish men who are marrying non-Jewish women in greater numbers than Jewish women marrying non-Jewish men. It’s a great deal like the statistics with black men and women. Asians tend to have the reverse: more Asian women marrying non-Asian men than the other way around.

    Here’s a link about Jewish women and intermarriage. The rates of Jewish women intermarrying have risen since the 80s, but still is lesser than the percentage of Jewish male intermarriage. It is very likely to be at least partly in reaction to the unavailability of Jewish men to Jewish women.

    Jewish women, however, were anomalous in this regard. They did not define marrying out as marrying up. They were raised to believe that there was nothing superior to a Jewish man. And, despite the social class advantages that might have accrued to them through marrying non-Jews, the rate of interfaith marriage for Jewish women was, until the decade of the 1970s, always considerably lower than that of Jewish men. In the Council of Jewish Federations 1970 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS, 1970) this differential persisted, though by the time a comprehensive reanalysis was undertaken of intermarriage patterns as reflected in eight Jewish community studies conducted between 1985 and 1988, the authors uncovered a trend toward equalization of the rates of outmarriage for Jewish men and women. They wrote that:

    in the past, Jewish men were much more likely than Jewish women to intermarry. Although rates of intermarriage and mixed marriage for both men and women have risen steadily over time, Jewish men are still more likely than Jewish women to intermarry. . . . The proportion of inmarriages declines by thirty-five percent in three decades, from ninety percent before 1960 to fifty-five percent in the decade of the 1980s. For Jewish women, the proportion of inmarriages declines by twenty-eight percent during the same period, from ninety-eight percent to seventy percent. . . . Apart from the fact that both groups are subject to the same societal influences, the two rates are also integrally connected to each other: as increasing proportions of Jewish men intermarry, there will be fewer available Jewish males for Jewish women. (Medding et al., pp. 8—9)

    .

  16. Artfldgr, I did did skim your post in a few places, are you suggesting that women are a communist plot?

    no, thats what the women who lead feminism claim its all about… i am just quoting what they say in private and in their writings which their followers dont read any more than a liberal knows about che on his t shirt…

    women and feminism are not synonymous, are they?

    shows my point does it… they dictate for all women, and all women are silent under the dictators and have to accept what they claim to want…

    from early last century feminism was an admitted soviet popular front.

    go ahead look up “popular fronts”
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_front

    here, read James R Barrett
    Chair, Professor of History1 and African American Studies

    [M]any of the roots of modern feminist movement are located in the Popular Front organizations of the postwar period. Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, as women poured into the Party, they organized national and state commissions on the status of women, raised the issue of women’s rights, and joined with liberal middle- and working-class women in consumer and feminist organizations. The creative thinking of Mary Inman, a theorist whom the feminists of the 1970s often invoked as a mother of the new movement, outlived her 1943 expulsion from the CPUSA. Communist women built on her ideas regarding the special exploitation of women, going beyond the Party’s usual language of class. By the late 1940s, such activity had pushed the CPUSA beyond its narrowly economic interpretation of women’s oppression and produced a campaign within the Party against what came to be called “male chauvinism.” The Party launched the Congress of American Women (CAW) in 1947, which was deeply influenced by Communists but also included many prominent and many anonymous early feminists. Born in the midst of political reaction, the organization was short-lived, but what survived of Popular Front-era women’s activism brought the issues of feminism into the labor movement and a variety of consumer and community groups. The Party’s activities also drew African American women to feminism, highlighting their tripple oppression, and laid the roots for Black feminist theory…The tragedy of these Popular Front women activists, as Landon Storrs (2003) has shown, was that while the Communist party provoked and to some degree nurtured this early feminism this same political link, in the context of postwar political repression and CPUSA sectarianism, helped to isolate them and limit their potential to create a mass feminist movement. The effect of such repression was severe enough that left-wing feminists covered up their close contacts with the CPUSA and their early feminist work in unions, consumer groups, and other Popular Front organizations even as they pioneered “second-wave feminism” in the late 1960s and early 1970s. (Barrett, 544)

    Source:

    Barrett, James R. “Rethinking the Popular Front.” Rethinking Marxism 21, no. 4 (Oct. 2009): 531-550.

    they just hid that part from common people

    same as the fact we learned that dems were the friends of the races, and unlearned that they in fact were the party of the KKK.
    o ahve money and power to cement thier relationships.

    [edited for length by n-n]

  18. Jesus H. Christ, Artfl, get your own blog or something! I’ve gotten to the point where I scroll past everything you write — and now it takes too long to scroll past!

  19. I agree with Trimegistus, with genuine regret, in ^all^ particulars: “I scroll past everything [he] write[s] – and now it takes too long to scroll past!”

    Neo, I honestly do believe it’s time for corrective action.

  20. Amen to Trimegistus and MJR. Even the scrolling has gotten so burdensome that I lose track of the thread. Art needs a leash.

  21. I agree with Trimegistus, MJR, and Mr. Frank. I’ve been scrolling past everything Art posts for some time now. Maybe there are some interesting points in there somewhere, but I don’t feel like trying to tease them out of four consecutive arms-length posts.

  23. I have dealt with the length issue by shortening many of Artfldgr’s longer posts. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been extra-busy and probably haven’t done very much of that. But it is my general policy, and I plan to continue it.

  24. What’s marriage needed for these days, anyway?

    Good point. Alley cats do just fine without it.

    The other major effect of the trend away from marriage among low status people is the effect upon children’s development. Single parent households can work, but the average difference in outcomes is huge in terms of school performance, employment, income and deviant behavior. The overwhelming majority of violent criminals come from single parent homes.

    Social chromatography.

    It has been pointed out that to avoid poverty you should finish high school, avoid substance abuse, stay out of trouble with the law, get married, and don’t have children unless you are married. Statistically, coming from a two parent household makes all of these outcomes much more likely.

    Sorry, Mr. Frank, but this is a classic logical fallacy. It presumes that people avoid poverty because they did these things, whereas doing these things selects for those who have at certain level of impulse control, character, foresight, and maturity. It’s like saying that the barometer falls when it rains, therefore a falling barometer causes rain, when in fact they are consequences of a common cause. Put another way, if one were to compel someone to do all of these things, against his natural inclinations, and then turn him loose, he’d still end up a dirtbag. The behaviors cited above are signals of a sound character; they do not cause such.

  25. Whether courts actually favor women or not is beside the point. As in so many things, perception trumps reality. Men generally think this is the case, and that makes many of them marriage-shy. As a friend of mine pointed out, if your wife just gets tired of your ass, through no fault of your own you’re out on the street: no house, no kids, half of your existing assets, at least half of your future earnings – poof! You’re back in an apartment, like a 20-something, and broke. Sobering thought.

    And while the plural of anecdote is not data, a number of the guys I play ball with have really been hammered in divorces (my assessment), although curiously not one of them seems bitter about it (more matter of fact). One of them signed his business over to his wife (it didn’t make enough to support two households, apparently), and took a job as a sales clerk working with kids who are 40 years younger than he is. Yow.

  26. Henny Youngman had it right. Feminists have it wrong. (No humour.) God has it right. Communists have it wrong. (No God.)

    Its not lack of something (emotional maturity). Its too much something (wealth and “freedom”).

    Men are stupidly trying to figure it out. Women are wiser but unhappy, sick, and suicidal.

    We need each other, but neither side will give in first.

    “So don’t you ask me to give it back. I know you know it doesn’t mean that much to me. I’m not in love., I’m not in love.”

    And no one gets out of here alive!

  27. O.B.,

    I generally agree with your assessment but the “certain level of impulse control, character, foresight, and maturity” to which you refer are much more likely to be produced by a two parent home.

  28. Mr. Frank, I fully agree that a two parent home is the sine qua non of child-raising. I also think that the beneficial qualities cited arise partly from nurture, but also partly from nature.

    The stupid tend also to be the impulsive, and pretty much by definition lack foresight. These people are pretty doomed to being done to their whole lives, I suspect. There’s really no hope for these folks.

    Having said that, some who had some natural predilection toward probity can learn to be stupid if they’re around stupid people. These people can, in principle at least, avoid the fate of the group above.

  29. OB, here we go again:”half of his assets”.

    Why do you consider the assets exclusively property of a husband, anyway? In two working spouse family – which is a norm now rather than exception – husband is not the only money earner; in many cases he makes less than the wife. And what about other, not monetary contributions? What happened to a woman as a soul of a home, a guiding light of man’s life, an inspiration for his work (whatever it happens to be), a meaning and purpose of his existence? Shouldn’t she be thanked for that? Or all these qualities are valued only when relationship was rosy – and once it’s not, her midnight gilded carriage suddenly becomes a pumpkin and a princess turns into a cinderella?
    And what about the prospects of making a second home for a man and a woman? A man can easily find a lover/partner or marry 2nd time when he is in his 50s; how many women can start their home and family a second time in that age? Isn’t it fair they get to be compensated?

    You conservative men are known to lament the loss of masculinity, lack of gentlemanly behavior etc etc – forgetting that gentleman of 19th cent if he happened to separate from his wife considered it a duty to provide her with means of decent living. You want to be treated as a gentleman of yesteryear – behave like one!

  31. Marriage has been made less valuable to a large extent, as artfldgr says, due to the efforts of the women’s lib movement. artfldgr believes it was a conscious plot to weaken the country so the state could assume the role of parent. I’m not so sure of that, but I do know that the loss of stable families has not been good for the children raised in the dysfunctional families. Many people have had, I believe, good intentions in trying to make things more equal for women. What they did not foresee was how much chaos it would create for children in fragile families.

    Here’s a link to an article that was published in the liberal LA Times about the issue.
    http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700081346/The-fragile-family-effect-Instability-causes-damage.html

    When a liberal newspaper prints an article that shines a spotlight on a problem that is exacerbated by diminishing numbers of stable marriages, you know that there is a problem.

    How do we go back to those golden days of yore?
    I’ve been married 54 years and, though it has never been a bed of roses, I would certainly do it again and recommend it to anyone who is willing to work at it. The joy of having children and seeing them out into the world as successful adults is something you appreciate more and more as you age. It is a major societal contribution when two adults raise responsible new citizens. I did not see that or know it when I was young, but I intuited it. When things got rocky, the thoughts of providing for our children always came to the fore.

    My wife only worked occasionally, mostly after our children were out of grade school. I was gone a lot, so she did yeomen duty as both mother and dad. Believe me, when I look back on the way she held the household together when I was gone, I have immense admiration and love for all she contributed to our family. If I could show young couples a movie of our life and how our devotion to each other has grown in our twilight years, maybe faith in marriage would be renewed. It saddens me that marriage is fading away because I think a continuation of our Republic depends on a stable, dependable families for us to raise responsible citizens.

  33. “The Ex took me to the cleaners, taking away a lot that I built, still comes to bash me for more when she is in a financial dip”

    which is why I’m all in favour of making divorce illegal, and some sort of “trial marriage” mandatory (say for the first year you’re legally married but can divorce without any financial or other requirements to either partner).

    “Speaking from first-hand experience, courts don’t really favor women – they punish the breadwinner regardless of sex”

    That’s new to me. Courts favour women massively, to the point where in many laws the men is explicitly mentioned as the one who has to pay up in case of divorce.

    “OB, here we go again:”half of his assets”.

    Why do you consider the assets exclusively property of a husband, anyway?”

    The law in many places reads that the man looses half of HIS property, the woman none of hers, and she also gets half of what is owned together.
    In fact in at least some places that extends to the woman receiving half the men’s income until the day he dies.
    Marry some guy with a good job, divorce him a few months later, and you never have to work again.

  34. JTW: links, please, to the source of the assertions you make.

    For example, regarding lifetime alimony, it is exceedingly rare. Alimony is usually short-term and for special circumstances, such as for a wife who had not worked outside the home and is going back to school to get a degree. Typically it is only awarded for the duration of her schooling, for example. Lifetime alimony is usually awarded only in very special cases, such as an elderly wife who has never worked or is ill, and only in long-term marriages.

    Here is a link to some general and typical facts. Here’s another.

  35. Marriage is in decline like pretty much every other bedrock institution of western civilisation in direct proportion to the rise of self centered narcissism. Without any real concept or empathy for “the other”, people make mostly short term decisions based on self gratification.

    In three or four generations we have gone from a meek and simple people concerned more about the well being of our offspring than ourselves, to a people who can’t imagine allowing their precious lives to get used up in such a sacrificial manner. A very explainable progression considering the darwinian view that our brief 70 or 80 years here is to be the totality of what we’ll ever get to experience of this thing called existence.

  36. “level of emotional maturity” are the keywords in this sharade. Most of modern men and women simply never aquire this nessesary level of maturity – a legacy of hippy madness.
    And yes, men look for dependent partner, first and foremost – and if a woman does not give up her career after getting married, as in – she doesn’t want to turn all her attention towards pleasing her man – they will be right in not wanting to marry. Here, of course, feminists are right. They are wrong in conclusion they infer from this undeniable truth: that marriage is raw deal for women. They forget that independence is an yoke, and that leadership is even more so, and that voluntary submission can be a very rewarding and fair price to pay for being led, protected and cared for. Here the insane and utopian strife for equality – the scourge of our times – destroys everything it touch. Any society and each societal institution is built on inequality, on hierarhy, on leadership and followship. Men are hierarhycal beings by nature, and every man wants to be master of his own house at the very least. Men are evolutionary hardwired for this. And women are evolutionary hardwired for submission, do they understand this or not. And when this natural order of things is disturbed and undermined, nothing good will follow.

  37. In the most simple terms, in marriage woman sacrifices her selfish ambitions to her husband and children, and for this sacrifice she gets meaning for her life. A fair exchange, in my view. Man, in his turn, sacrifices his sexual freedom and a good part of his independence and his wealth for care and emotional support. But virtues and rewards of self-sacrifice is hard to understand and to practice by never-matured individuals.

  38. In the South, Mamas always told their daughters that Jewish make very good husbands. The religious difference did not matter much, in a place and time when Mama and the kids went to church on Sunday and Daddy and the bass boat went fishing. If Daddy went to the office to catch up on some paper work in the peace and quiet of a Sunday morning, well, that was just one more example of the superiority of Jewish husbands.

  39. Look for the trend to reverse. Getting married and staying married is more productive in almost every dimension.

    Of course, who you marry and for what reason makes a big difference. There are a lot of men and women out there who are poor marriage material, and for a variety of reasons. This may be the central social issue of our time, and the one that most explains the bedrock political differences between the areas with more traditional social norms and the cities where there seems to be a complete breakdown–“Sex in the City” mores toward the upper reaches of society and exploding illegitimacy rates at the bottom, and not much boring, stable middle class in between.

    I got together with 16 of my college cronies earlier in the year, on the occasion that we are turning 50. The marriage statistics were interesting. All but one were or had been married. Only two had divorced: one is an academic and the other married a dancer. Most married later than average. There is a relatively high rate of religious observance, though not necessarily a majority. The observant religious has more children than average (we’re talking 3 children, not 8). As a group, we are much more economically successful than average, though in fairness, as a group we started with more advantages than most.

    One thing more: the wives are all fantastic–smart, assertive, committed, capable, good company, fun to talk to.

  40. I see Neo put some links up about alimony.

    Unfortunately, it’s not so simple as it does vary by state. By far the worst offender for lifetime alimony is Massachussetts. Here’s a few links:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-benedict/why-massachusetts-divorce_b_107413.html

    http://www.massalimonyreform.org/
    Admittedly the second link is a political action group, but how many states have groups focused on alimony reform? The alimony laws in Mass seem to be loopy and to have ruined many lives.

  41. Oblio:

    “Look for the trend to reverse”?

    Wishful thinking. The decline in marriage has been going on for years, at least as long as you’ve been alive. I think this is mostly due to two things:

    A. The economy. Many women prefer to marry up, but in a bad economy where most women and men must work and where in many cities women out earn men, they have few men available.
    B. Family law changes. Short of abuse or repeat infidelity it is downright selfish for a woman or man to abandon a family just because they “don’t feel it”, yet most divorces are initiated in this country by women, and mostly they don’t allege mistreatment or cheating. Yet we have this ridiculous legal system where marriages with kids involved are treated exactly the same in terms of divorce as marriages without kids. Child support (unconstitutional debtors prisons included) and sometimes alimony as my links above prove, can sometimes be disastrous. Remember “no fault” is UNILATERAL divorce, it only takes one to want out.

  43. nn: It’s certainly the case in UK law, there’s been a lot of blogging about that in recent years.
    It’s now got bad enough there that even politicians are taking notice and figuring something needs to be done 🙂

    Similar laws exist across Europe, though most not as bad.

    ““Look for the trend to reverse”?

    Wishful thinking.
    ”

    Indeed. Marriage is ever more a convenience for the tax benefits only, and nothing else.
    When one partner (usually the female) finds someone else who’s bringing in more dough, she’s gone like the wind.
    A cousin and my best friend both had that happen to them.

  44. It’s accepted now that Dad and Mom can dump their children so they can go off and be sexually liberated with many partners.
    The children are just collateral damge for them.
    The grandparents just victims of abuse and aggression by the parents using the children as weapons.
    The whole marriage idea has become a crock of evil.

  45. artfldgr, know what’s missing in all those things all those people said? What they are all devoid of?

    Love.

  46. Brad: Massachusetts is an outlier, and the law there will probably be changed fairly soon to be in line with the rest of the country. There are movements afoot to do just that.

    JTW: I am writing about this country. Europe no doubt has a whole set of different laws. In this country the divorce laws are de jure gender-blind, and have been for a long time. De facto, of course, the result is that more women get alimony for the simple fact that more women fit the criteria for it: for example, having stayed home to raise children and needing some time to go back to school, or having stayed home to raise children and now being elderly with almost no potential earning power.

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  48. Bringing about love into discussion on marriage is just a confusing distraction, a leftover of decadent Romanticism. Love is a very welcome addition to marriage, but is neither necessary nor sufficient precondition to happy marriage. Marriage is the best environment in which love can arise and florish, not the other way round. The necessary and sufficient precondition is accepting of mutial responsibilities and commitment to them. This can be much easily achieved if love is present, but doable even without it.

  49. Neo:

    Thank you for your kind and timely reply, but please note I did mention that Mass was just one state, I never claimed Massachusetts was representative of the country as a whole, though I will note that one of your links claimed that a rate of 11 percent was “rare”. No, alimony, while not formally spelled out in the majority of marriages isn’t all that rare after all, and of course, once again, the rates vary by state as do the consequences. I wish I was as sanguine about alimony reform in Massachusetts as you are, but the woman that would have to let such a bill come to the floor is a lawyer who makes her money off divorces. There’s all sorts of conflicts of interest like that all through our political system, but I think it takes on a whole new level in our “family law” system because so much of the proceedings are closed to public scrutiny and there is often few checks on on family law judges from other branches of the judicial system. I bet you didn’t know that in some states the child support guidelines have been written by lobbyists from collections companies either.

  50. Brad: Please read carefully what I actually wrote, because I wrote it carefully [added emphasis mine]:

    For example, regarding lifetime alimony, it is exceedingly rare. Alimony is usually short-term and for special circumstances…

    We are speaking of lifetime alimony here, which is what the commenter “JTW” was speaking of when he/she wrote:

    The law in many places reads that the man looses half of HIS property, the woman none of hers, and she also gets half of what is owned together.
    In fact in at least some places that extends to the woman receiving half the men’s income until the day he dies.
    Marry some guy with a good job, divorce him a few months later, and you never have to work again.

    And by the way (at least as far as I know), nowhere in the US is it true that laws are written such that they state the man loses his property and the woman does not lose hers. The property is divided equitably. If the woman has a great deal more than the man, he is entitled to the same distribution as would occur if the sexes were reversed. He may not ask for it (pride, whatever), but he’s entitled to it.

    And I repeat: lifetime alimony is exceedingly rare (it is more common in Massachusetts, but I have not found actual statistics on how many lifetime awards there are in that state, or what percentage of divorces involve them. Do you have such a link? I’d be curious.) Even regular alimony is not common in almost all states in the US, and is ordinarily limited to what’s known as short-term or rehabilitative alimony, such as to go back to school, or to tide over an illness.

    As far as child support guidelines go, I know quite a bit about them. Some states do a lot better than others with them. The guidelines were instituted in most cases to replace the old system where judges had almost unlimited discretion. I don’t like either system. My opinion (and I’ve written many posts dealing with these issues) is that the situation cannot be made truly fair. Divorce, especially with children, is a sad and sorry mess, and everyone suffers.

  51. Ayn Rand is the only genuine feminist I know who did not demonized or despised men, but instead adored and lionized them. She also understood them quite well, with their desperate strife for self-actualisation through creative activity. But it is impossible to “replace “Men” for “Women”” in context of Objectivism, a moral philosophy of Ayn Rand: she knew too well that men and women are different animals in their ultimate goals and existential passions. Women can bear children and invest in them their quest for immortality; men are not blessed with this crucial advantage, and their ideas, fortunes and businesses they create are their surrogate children. Libertarians and conservatives can have very different cultural agendas, but both want to reduce government to its bare bone Constitutional powers and prevent government intrusion in private and family life. They are natural allies in this struggle, not only in fiscal matters. And even the most libertarian person should not seek govenment intervention in traditional family with authoritative father and submissive mother and strictly disciplined, home schooled and religiously educated children.

  52. Sergey for President! His comments are a beacon of insight and common sense.

    The citizenship requirement isn’t a problem. We don’t worry about that anymore. It’s just a “nice to have” now.

  53. Neo:

    In response to the original discussion of “lifetime” alimony,you linked to resources that dealt with alimony as a whole, not just lifetime alimony. And that was what I was responding to, when I noted that a rate of eleven percent nationwide isn’t rare. My links were far more on topic than yours were in that case, since Massachusetts is, as far as I know , pretty much the only state to have lifetime alimony, and most alimony, as you point out, is restorative, not meant to replace a pension.

    I’d have to get back to you on rates in Massachusetts, as its been quite awhile since I looked at the figures and so I don’t remember them. I do know that I advise any man thinking of getting married to avoid Massachusetts, not just because of its alimony laws but because its family laws in general seem to have mostly been written by radical feminists of the “men are violent and always to blame” school. Not to get too off-topic but this will make the larger point about Massachusetts as well as give the men on these threads who haven’t yet cohabited or married a heads up about the domestic violence laws in their states. Older men and women , esp. those happily married might be shocked if they saw how far some of this has gone.

    http://www.mediaradar.org/docs/RADARreport-Ranking-of-States-DV-Laws.pdf

  54. Brad: my comment with the links was in response to the poster JTW, who made some incorrect and sweeping generalizations, at least as applied to this country. I specified that these were links to general information.

    If you go to that link and actually read it, you’ll see that 11% was a figure for alimony as a percentage of all support awards from a non-relative. It is not actually the percentage of divorce cases that award alimony. Perhaps the 11% figure also applies to that, but it’s unclear. If you have any figures for the percentage of divorce cases that are currently awarded alimony of any kind, that would be very interesting to see, too.

    11% is not “rare.” But it is also not especially common. And again, that applies even to temporary alimony (with the caveat above about what the 11% actually refers to).

    And even if a person gets married in Massachusetts, isn’t it where the divorce occurs that matters more?

  55. I try to avoid wishful thinking. I understand the trends, but many trends carry the seeds of their own destruction. I am not convinced that the cultural/legal environment that has been so toxic to marriage can exist much longer. When things get really tough–as they will–the value of family as the basic unit of social organization and welfare will rise, and marriage along with it. When? It has taken us decades to get to this point. Maybe we will be seeing signs of a resurgence in commitment to marriage among young people when the first Baby Boomers turn 75.

  56. @Mr. Frank
    Allow me to make an additional observation. On a societal level marriage civilizes men. If you live in a neighborhood of married people it is probably safe to walk around late at night. If you live in a neighborhood where almost everyone is single, you should have good locks. Unattached adult males are a threat to society – think wild west.

    That, fellow is a contemptible remark.
    Women do not civilize men. You are abetting the foolish, uncivilized , woman who wants to have the bad boy and hope he changes, yet not too much.

    You are of the same perverse level as the doltish preacher who calls the wife the moral center of the family: this gives permission for the girl to chase that alpha cock because the decency and moral character of the male no longer matters.

    As any of the mens rights sites will inform you, today’s women, continuing a trend from the sexual revolution, prefer to ride the alpha cock carousel and despise the hard working, decent, so-called beta male – this is the civilized male you hold in contempt.

    It is a man’s duty to be moral and decent before he gets married; and this is the very men the modern female despises – and you little fool are aiding and abetting that behavior.

  57. Occam’s Beard – to Russia! To live in rural Old Believer’ village, provide for wife and 8 children and whip them when show insufficient love, respect and submissiveness.

  58. …oh, and homeschool them in religious abracadabra, too.
    I wonder if his wife and kids would appreciate change of lifestyle.

    Fool.

  59. Hmm interesting.

    http://www.livestrong.com/article/176235-how-to-divorce-my-husband-when-he-controls-all-the-money/

    Seems “spousal maintanance” aka alimony can be granted while the divorce proceeds.

    Still doing more research, but I have determined that what really determines what states divorce laws rule is the state in which the divorce is filed first. In short, if wifey in Massachusetts decides to divorce you and likes that lifetime alimony, she’ll probably file first before you know it, and MA law is going to control. Still looking into rates of alimony though.

  60. Well, so far:

    Two sites give 15 percent figure, including one which is comprised of divorce attorney’s and you’d think they would know.They cite the ABA.

    http://www.equalityinmarriage.org/wdali.html

    http://www.attorneys.com/legal_center/articles/divorce/s/c/understanding_alimony_&_spousal_support_during_divorce/

    On the other hand, this blog says ten percent of the time, but it’s by a lawyer in Florida, and may only be referring to Florida stats.

    Next post will have anything I find on Massachusetts but once again, alimony is clearly not unheard of.

  62. Sergey, you should write a manual for those considering marriage. You have obviously given the subject a great deal of thought and your ideas about what is involved seem spot on to me.

    When I was courting my wife, I had no idea what I was looking for in a woman. However, after many years of marriage and a separation, I went through some counseling that provided me with invaluable insights. My wife is a very independent person who likes to be in control. Interestingly enough my mother was the same type of woman. (Was I unconsciously seeking a woman like my mother?) Things may have fallen apart rather quickly when we were young except for the fact that, as a Navy pilot, I was gone for long stretches of time. My wife was willing to let me be in charge for the short periods I was home. She then reasserted her independence when I left. We continued quite nicely in this pattern (23 years) until our son died in a mountain climbing accident. That traumatic incident changed the dynamic in the marriage. (As it does in all marriages.) Wanting to exert full time control became a goal for both of us. (Neither of us recognized thsi on a conscious level.) It led to the kind of strife that can destroy a marriage. A separation resulted and divorce proceedings were soon underway.

    In my job as an airline pilot I had worked with a number of men who had been divorced. Some more than once. One thing I learned from talking with them was that almost none of them were happier, even when they had remarried. That led me to get some counseling that opened my eyes to what my problems were. After months of writing long letters and talking on the phone, my wife and I decided to try to reconcile. The first two years were touch and go. Both of us had to learn how to compromise, give up some authority, fight fairly when we fought, and learn to appreciate what each of us contributed to the partnership. We continued in counseling all during this period.

    That was 21 years ago. I’m fortunate we were able to travel the path we did. My life is far richer in every way. If our story can be a help to anyone dealing with problems in their marriage, it’s worth telling the story.

  63. OB, here we go again:”half of his assets”.

    Indeed. Just as a woman talks about “her children.”

  64. I must report failure.

    Web searching, and a search of the major reform sites for Massachusetts returned nothing. There’s supposedly to be a follow up PDF on Mass Alimony Reform website with statistics, but I can’t find it. The link to statistics I did find on that site was an Excel spreadsheet, with IRS data but it was for all the marriages in the country, not Massachusetts in particular, though I did find it interesting that alimony rates varied quite dramatically at times from top to bottom of the income scale.

  67. Since you bore and delivered them, and you say they’re yours, he has no responsibility for them. Right?

  68. No, Occam, he calls our son “my”, too.
    And we divided our mutual assets equally at our amicable divorce. We built it together during 21 years of marriage.

    Does your wife approve of idea of inherent submissiveness of women and their natural happiness and goal of life in pleasing the man?

  69. Oh, and I worked all my life, too. In home and outside. Making about 10% less money than my husband -but then our fields are very different.

    And I was the soul of the home, it’s hearth fire, the light and inspiration and a solid rock to my family. Gratis.

  70. Also, Occam, I don’t know if you realize how this division in your mind characterize those hypothetical men.
    Who talk about and mourn disappearance of ” myassets”. While women concentrate on my children.
    Kind of tells you about the priorities and values these two humans have, no?

  72. Every social institution and feature has its roots in evolutionary biology of human species, in instincts and built-in automatic reactions that arose during this hundred millenia long history of development. In its totality this biological bedrock is known as human nature, it is very conservative and could not be ignored or changed. The only thing we can do is to accomodate themselves, our customs and institutions to this reality. This is the scientific basis of conservatism as a type of political and moral philosophy: nature is conservative, reality is conservative.
    On the other hand, liberalism since its emergence in French Enlightenment, most notably in works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, insists on infinite plasticity of human psyche, on ability to form and shape it as we wish by proper upbringing, indoctrination and social pressure. The motto of liberals always was “Yes, we can”. Instincts, natural dispositions and other biological restrictions are considered by them as a hindrance to social progress and to their far-fetched plans of utopia building. This approach is known as “blank slate” template, and is typical to all progressives, from Jacobines to Bolsheviks. Needless to say, this claim has no basis in biological science, history or anthropology.
    What follows from these general considerations for the problem at hand – destiny of marriage? First, look for biological background. There is such thing as sexual dimorphism: biologically and genetically programmed difference between men and women. It is not restricted to anatomy and physiology of reproductive system, it is all-pervasive, influencing every aspect of organism structure and function, including brain structure and function. What is the most important here, it defines different social behaviour of men and women. (One amusing observation: genetical difference between man and woman is bigger than between human and shimpanze: the first includes a whole new chromosome – Y-chromosome, while the second involves only point gene mutations, comprising no more than 3% of the whole genome. It can be said, that in terms of genetics men and women belong to two different species.)
    The leading trait of the male psyhology is hierarchic behaviour, the strife for dominance. Biological significance of this trait is that natural selection of humans targets males first. This allows to remove from reproduction defective individuals without damaging reproductive potential of population. In terms of reproduction males are always overabundant, a single alpha-male is sufficient to impregnate all the women in the group. This arrangement vastly accelerates evolutionary development and explains why power is the ultimate aphrodisiac for men. Recent genetic survey of East Asia population has shown that about 15 mln people in the region are descendants of a single male individual, and allowed to establish time and place of his life. Even his identity was found, since some of these descendants knew their origin and were proud of it. This man was Genghis Khan.
    This trait has enormous social consequences, since it determines the very structure of human societies from the most ancient prehistory to our times. Men compete with each other for ranks in hierarchies – political, administrative, formal and informal, in all venues of life. And these male hierarchies form the backbone of every historically known society. Social status is very important for men, it is the main point of their self-esteem and psychologic stability. And where it places those men who could not brag any honorable place in society?
    They also found some reason to respect themselves, even if completely illusionary. But one of these reasons which is not illusionary is to be married and have children, that is, be a master of his house, a bread-winner. This is enough for most men to feel themselves winners in the struggle for existence, and biologically this makes sense.

  75. Tatyana:

    You denigrate the importance of fathers and you want a man to want to have a relationship with you? No, better the Tatyana’s of the world die off or die old and alone.

  77. Brad: I’m not sure why you say Tatyana is denigrating the importance of fathers. I believe she is merely saying mothers have a different relationship to their children, having carried them in their bodies, given birth to them, and in many cases nursed them. If you ignore that, you are ignoring something rather large.

    I consider fathers hugely important, hugely, but I recognize those differences. And in Tatyana’s case, as I read her entries here, she is saying that in her particular family, she was the primary parent and her husband recognized her as such. I haven’t read every single word, and perhaps I’ve missed something, but that’s the message I got.

    I get weary when I see, on this blog and many others, so much rage between the sexes. I know there’s nothing I can do about it, and it does exist, but I actually don’t quite get it. Just because it’s a certain way in one case doesn’t mean you can generalize from it. I’ve written a couple of posts explaining that I believe that both men and women often are treated unfairly in divorce cases, and that it’s part and parcel of a divorce. I have personally known men who have been taken enormous advantage of during divorces, and I have personally known women who have, as well. Plenty of each, actually. The only good solution is when the divorce is amicable and the spouses agree on everything (that was the case in my divorce, fortunately). But it doesn’t happen too often, nor should we expect it to.

  78. Noo:

    She called my link “garbage”.

    And it’s rather pathetic that we even need such an organization in the first place. This is because of family law, which is in dire need of some major reforms.

    And you do know that a lot of this stuff could be avoided if “no fault” divorce was removed as an option when families had children, don’t you? I don’t think this is hardly chaining women to the kitchen in leg irons.

  79. >>she was the primary parent and her husband recognized her as such.>>

    >I worked all my life, too. In home and outside.>

    _Who_ was the primary parent?? How many hours a day spent working, and how many “parenting”??

    Such bitterness.

    Marriage is supposed to be a _partnership_, but if both votes are completely and totally equal, then if there is a difference of opinion, there can be no resolution. Someone has to be captain of the ship. That doesn’t mean that the other has to be “submissive” in the common parlance – because the fact is that usually one of the partners has more dominance in one area, and the other has other areas of expertise. Wisdom dictates that each dominates in the field in which s/he has greater skills.

  80. Brad: calling a link “garbage” isn’t quite the same as denigrating the contribution of fathers, nor is it quite the same as wishing that someone die old and alone (I believe that latter was what you wished on the Tatyanas of the world).

    Now, that’s bitterness.

    You forget that I am old enough to remember fault divorce. In fact, I am exceedingly familiar with it. It was a nightmare that encouraged, among other things, rampant lying.

  81. Yes, neo:

    And allowing people to divorce for any reason whatsoever and then as my link to family laws on DV shows: giving incentives for false allegations in terms of determinations of custody is better exactly how?

    Usually the “rampant lying” was by BOTH parties. If both parties were miserable in a marriage, they both put their heads together and arranged a “discovery” of an affair with a Mistress, or some such. One could actually go to court to DEFEND one’s marriage. Meanwhile you think “no fault” divorces where custody is often contested are devoid of lying?

    And yes, any woman that denigrates the importance of fathers I wish never reproduces. It’s not like she gave any substantive criticism of my link.Luckily with the wonderful family laws you seem perfectly fine with defending and the fact this stuff is being spread around from man to man there will be far fewer marriages in the future.

    As for bitterness, I’ll let the other commenters make up their own minds as to who is bitter.

  82. Good stuff, Sergey. I am a big fan of Steven Pinker and his boo, “THE BLANK SLATE, The Modern Denial of Human Nature.” He posits, as do you, that genetics cannot be ignored in human development. He provides pretty good evidence that the socialist utopian society so beloved of the left is not possible.

    More acceptance of the role of genetics in shaping human nature might provide a new foundation for understanding how to make marriage a preferred institution of society once again.

    As the number of young, unmarried women with children increases, as the number of children from such arrangements increase the crime statistics, and our Suplementary Security Income and Medicaid roles expand; our society may need to come to grips with the problem or gradually descend into a swidespreadtate of dysfunction.

  83. Drat, submitted as I was editing. The last is:
    “…….descend into a widespread state of dysfunction.”

  84. suek,

    you mixed something I said with a quote by someone else and then conclude “such bitterness”. Were you addressing me?

    Then why not do it openly?

    Since we are engaging in “giving diagnosis by comment signature”(c) I’ll reciprocate with a guess that you are the passive-aggressive one in your relationship.

  85. Brad,

    The bitterness is all yours, as well as “creative interpretation” of me, my life, my goals and everything else about me you have no clue to.

    If you pay a little more attention to what I actually said in my conversation with Occam’s Beard, may be it will register with you that he is the one (as well as several of commenters) who characterizing travails of divorced man talked first and foremost of “loss of MY assets”. It was he who offered that a woman says MY about the children.
    I only tied these two things together.

    Still don’t get it?
    I am the one who advocates marriage as partnership, meaning equal concern, contribution and care from both spouses. It doesn’t matter, who brings money and who does dishes – as long as both partners divide responsibilities and contribute eagerly, to the best of their ability -and as long as each appreciates contribution of the other. What majority of men on this thread (and I really, really hope a minority in real life) take a marriage for is a sort of a rental contract, where they rent a domestic servant slash sexual depository in exchange for certain regular payment so when the contract expires at divorce they expect to walk away free of any responsibility towards children or the woman who was serving them for years. On one hand they demand (yes, demand – see comments by OB, JJ and S) for woman to sacrifice her life, her professional development, her interests, her education to him and their children, to be submissive and to do all kinds of homework he takes for granted, does not participate in and doesn’t pay for. On the other, when it comes to divorce he immediately forgets about wife’s dedication, her work and her lost opportunities she sacrificed for his benefit and they are enraged, enraged that they have to compensate her! And when it comes to children…oh well; child support for some reason considered by ex-husbands as a legalized robbery – as if it’s not their children that need money for upkeep.

    I despise organizations like the one at the link. It IS garbage. I know what’s going on in reality, and how and what for these fathers fight. To put it mildly, I consider it unmanly, their “organizing” to use their children as pretext for their manipulation. I feel sorry for the kids.

    As to bitterness.. Brad, I don’t like to be pulled as a punchbag substitution for your imaginary screaming match with your ex-wife. I don’t appreciate your projections on me. Control yourself, be a man.

  86. Neo, I don’t know what primary parent means, I don’t recall saying anything about being a primary parent, here or elsewhere.
    In my family both parents were/are primary. Me and my ex-husband agreed to postpone filing for divorce until my son went to college; we kept familial routine for his sake for several years – so as not to traumatize him unnecessarily. Even if it was very difficult for me personally, I endured it. There was no judge-mandated custody agreement, still we both supported him through his college years.

    I never had any reason to think my ex-husband is a bad father or that he doesn’t love my son. We don’t love each other, but that’s whole other story…

    I don’t think NY is a no-fault divorce state. We were given 4 or 5 official reasons allowing us to file for no-contest amicable divorce; none was describing our situation, but we had to choose one reason, so we did. It saved us both a lot of time, money and nerves – and avoided humiliation for my son. It would give the proceeding much more dignity, to both parties, if we are in fact could resolve our marriage by reason of “no fault of either party”, since it is the truth. I hope NY State will some day change their law to that effect, it will help other couples.

  87. Tatyana:

    It’s obvious you never read a single thing on that website. or you’d be happy that military fathers and mothers in California now no longer have to worry about losing their children while they are overseas without being able to defend themselves in court. Unless I’m to take it that you support this?

    As for assumptions:

    In my first thread where I talked to you you assumed I had never done manual labor.
    That I never had to be re-trained.
    Apparently you thought I made some mad amount of money and that the only reason I was worrying about outsourcing and advanced AI automation was that I didn’t want to lose my presumably cushy job.
    Oh, and I took a subcontext from you in that you apparently thought I didn’t like blue collar workers.

    Now in this thread you assume I have an ex wife, even though in reality , I’ve never been married. I know what the laws are, and they will deter many men with a logical frame of mind.

    You’ve also ignored a few things in your rants about how all men want this or that.

    A. Despite the fact one needs no reason for divorce, it is overwhelmingly wives who initiate them. If all men were just itching to get away from the wifey and any rugrats you’d think we’d be jumping ship in record numbers. Instead it’s the women who don’t want to be pair bonded.
    B. There’s evidence that marital rates, particularly second marriages are taking big hits.
    C. I don’t think I’ve called you a single name yet. I haven’t brought up y our husband or your family, and when I said “women like you” , I meant just that, women like you. You’ve personalized everything with me. And no, I don’t intend to take the advice of a woman who can’t even bring herself to admit that maybe there’s a real problem with current family laws. Even Neo does that, to her credit.

    And while your tone is snooty and dismissive and angry you attack other men on this thread for the use of a term “my” as in “my children” which BOTH MEN and WOMEN tend to use.

    As far as I’m concerned there are two big things that need to be done to save marriage, and either one of them might be a game changer all by itsself:

    A. End no fault divorce where marriages involve children.
    AND/OR
    B. Establish a legal regime of presumptive joint legal custody.

    Either way, would restore marriage back to what it once was: a contract that enabled wealth to be passed down through generations and helped in the raising of children.

    You women certainly aren’t doing so good on y our own as any inner city ghetto or appalachian holler will show you.

  88. To all:

    it seems I have to clear misunderstanding here.

    What you stamp as a “bitterness” is objection to unfair treatment of women. Not me personally – but majority of stories I hear often and know a lot of concrete details of.

    It also is a little funny, the way you throw “bitterness” as if it’s something to be ashamed of, some sort of social pariah stamp. I was not born here, guys, your American obsession with perpetually smiley face and pretension of cheerfulness is rather silly. He who is not bitter after 40 hasn’t learn much of life lessons, I think. It’s how one finds an antidote in him/herself to life’s punches what counts.

  89. Brad, you never been married? Then what did women do to you to deserve such vitriol, hatred and frothing at the mouth? And what beef you have with divorce and custody laws? On a second thought -no, don’t tell me.

    I just love your “C” point. No, wishing someone to die off, die old and alone and/or never to be able to reproduce – no, that’s not “calling names”.

  90. Tatyana:

    Getting personal again? Do you know any other style of argument? And will you admit that some of the bills F&F pushed are to the good such as protecting parents rights when they are overseas serving our military?

    I’m not holding much hope because so far all you ever do is ignore substantive criticism and do personal attacks.

  91. Nasty thread. I see bitterness, anger, contempt, and probably a lot of other negative emotions we could name on display. Tatyana is quick to take offense, and to give it. Brad’s major points have been reasonably argued and without rancor, but certainly wishing that anyone should die off is way out of bounds, and for that Brad should apologize properly. (Come to think of it, Tatyana has been out of bounds herself in the same way, when she expressed a similar kind of sentiment about the fate of German women and children at the end of the Second World War. And Occam’s Beard said nothing to suggest he shared social values of an Old Believers’ village.)

    Men and women working at cross purposes or otherwise unable to get along is the oldest story of all. I know no reason to think that either men or women are more sinned against than sinning. I have met a few bums who have selfishly refused to take responsibility for their families either during or after their marriages. I have also known cold and predatory women who spend their time trying to entrap men or get more money from men, using every technique from Helen Gurley Brown-inspired light hooking to more sustained campaigns to dump their current husbands so that they can trade up. Men and women have told every lie imaginable to get what they want or to avoid responsibility they don’t want to take. And the Law? The Law is an ass, at least in the cases I have seen up close.

    I am luckily a non-participant in the War Between the Sexes, and I have had an alliance with Mrs. Oblio on this point for the past 28 years.

    Unnoticed in all this is Sergey’s wonderful statement about the importance of nature and in particular the force of the drive for status among males. This desires a great deal more attention, because it speaks to the War Between the Sexes, the social dangers of polygamy, AND the fundamental philosophical failure of Marxist theory.

  92. Tatyana: I used the word “primary” for your situation because you wrote of your husband that “he calls our son ‘my’, too.” When I read it (rather quickly, I must say), I interpreted it as you saying that your husband referred to the child as your child. That would make you the primary parent (meaning more hands-on, more involved).

    Looking back, I see that what you probably meant was that your ex-husband refers to the child as his child, too. I was confused by the pronoun “my” in that context.

  93. Brad: you seem to persist in this notion that returning to a fault basis for divorce would solve a lot of problems. But simply stating that does not make it so.

    In the days of fault divorce:

    (1) People who mutually wanted out of a marriage would often have to lie to get out of their marriage—for example, hiring a co-respondent to fake adultery, etc., and a photographer to document it, in order to be free of their marriages. It didn’t stop people from getting divorces, just made the process more difficult and quite mendacious.

    (2) Fault divorce often allowed the plaintiff (the “innocent” party) to deprive the defendant (the “guilty” party) of custody and even visitation as a punishment. Do you think men fared better under those rules? Think again. In fact, it was at the same point that no-fault divorce came into the picture that men started to have more rights in divorce regarding custody and visitation. Joint custody was exceedingly rare before that, almost unheard-of. Now it is far more common.

    (3) Rich people could always get a Mexican divorce, and they did. The poor man’s divorce was desertion, and that happened quite a bit, as well.

    Those are only a few problems with fault divorce. I could list quite a few more.

    Also, who initiates a no-fault divorce does not necessarily tell you what or who actually caused the divorce (ordinarily it is not one thing or one person in isolation, either). Women initiate more divorces, it is true. But that does not necessarily mean more women are walking away from blameless men.

  94. Brad: It is odd that you are imagining I’m saying things I’m not, and ignoring what I’ve actually said.

    I have written over and over again that divorce is inherently flawed and unfair, and that no legal system eliminates that. I have never mounted any particular defense of no-fault divorce as being somehow wonderful or fair or any of those great things. You, however, are the one advocating fault divorce as some sort of solution. It is most definitely not. My criticism of it was merely to point that out.

    And believe me, the sorts of things I describe here (lying, hiring people to fake adultery) were not necessarily in a mutual divorce only. They were certainly sometimes used when both spouses wanted the divorce. But they were also sometimes used when only one party wanted the divorce and the other didn’t.

    Fault divorce was part and parcel of a society that had a whole different attitude about divorce itself. Changing the law to a fault basis will not turn back the clock and make divorce rare.

  95. Neo:

    I already mentioned your first point, and you overlooked something:
    Both partners had to decide they wanted out.
    Right now it’s unilateral.
    I think fault should be restored in terms of marriages with children because as is shown in an overwhelming amount of studies children do better with two parents. You’ve continued to ignore that issue when praising “no fault” divorce.

    So there was lying. Would you really want to bet me there isn’t more overall lying today when every incentive in the world exists for all couples but those in a very narrow income bracket to break up and where child custody – a motner and father’s nightmare- is up for grabs? Perhaps you should look into the subject of restraining order abuse when it comes to determining child custody.

    You haven’t really said that you don’t believe what I’m saying, instead you’ve just ignored it.

    Here’s something personal. I’ve calculated based on my reading of stats over the years that if I get married I have an approximately 45 to 50 percent chance of divorce. Of all divorces around 12 to 30 pecent are high conflict. In most high conflict divorces the woman wins. High conflict divorces involve tons of money, lots of time, usually kids, and sometimes false allegations and etc. Basically a nightmare.

    Given all this if I marry I have anywhere between a 10 percent and 18 percent chance of coming out the other end wanting to blow my brains out due to the crap family courts can put non custodial parents through. Is this a bet you’d advise other men to take?
    I know I sure wouldn’t. And even in a “good divorce” often the man is financially devastated as well as relegated to being a weekend daddy or some such.

    And Neo? You talk about how “fault” divorce let courts sometimes deny parental rights to those who were found guilty of violating the fault terms. I ask you: how is this different from what domestic abuse and child abuse allegations do these days? They are still reasons (real or not) to deny someone custody or in rare cases even visitation with a child. And as for visitation is it is a COMMON complaint among non-custodial parents since I first started investigating this stuff in 1997 that courts do NOT enforce those orders. What good is a “right” that is not enforced. Unless you go “off the books” they certainly have no problem enforcing child support orders.

    Neo, in one of the links I was exploring just the other night on alimony in Massachusetts they were mentioning that ONE of the reform efforts had to be to deny or lower it in cases of cohabitation. Yes, Neo, the law allows your wife to cheat on you. There’s no “fault” here, so this plays no role in any custody decisions. Then, while you are busy paying child support and/or alimony the law in all states that I’m aware of lets her move in with someone else, and still retain all her rights to child support and in Massachusetts alimony. How can you defend this system? It outright rewards wrongdoing!

  96. Brad, the right response is better due diligence, for both parties. Mrs. Oblio says it should be harder to get married in the first place.

  97. Neo:

    I think we’ve talked past each other a bit. You noticed I mentioned 2 potential solutions to the problem that would go a long way to solving some of these problems:

    A. Remove no fault in marriages that involved children. I don’t know why you seem to think I’m saying remove it for all marriages. I’m just trying to make it harder to get out of when kids are involved.
    B. Custody often brings great rewards in the current system and next to no legal responsibilities. Remove this by making the default Joint Legal Custody.

    In your ideas about economics I’m sure you use the idea of incentives and disincentives. Same here. Make lying pay less or possibly be penalized and you’ll get less of it.

    I also don’t see the horror of a couple mutually lying to a court to get what they both want, versus these days when I’m sure much more overall lying goes on and no matter how good a father or mother and husband or wife you are your partner can throw you over for nothing. Courts used to punish lying. If you were found to have lied about “fault” in a fault based system you could lose the chance to divorce, heck you could even lose your freedom. I don’t see this as a problem, and I don’t see why you do either.

  98. Oblio:

    People change over time and the current system rewards misbehavior of a horrible sort. And I’ve hung out with lots of 20, 30, and 40 something men. They all have at least one horror story about this stuff, and yes, I’m aware the current system sometimes messes the ladies up as well, but nowhere near as often. Women still buy tons of bridal magazines, but what can you tell a young man today? Hey, if you divorce you’ll probably lose at least half your stuff esp if you make more than she does, and you’ll probably be blamed for the divorce as well. Marriage is dying, and personally considering the ridiculous pushback I get when I post links to actual laws that allow horrible abuses instead of offers to help, I will be glad when it is totally dead. At that Dalrock place, it was mentioned in one of the threads that something like 80 percent of all black people never marry and the percent of white never marrieds is going up, as is the percentage of white single moms. Oh well.

  99. Brad: once again, you are arguing at cross-purposes. You continue to think I’m praising no-fault divorce. I will say it one more time and then I’m finished explaining myself to someone who doesn’t seem to be listening: each system is inherently flawed. Each system has its strengths and its weaknesses. I have worked in the field of divorce and child custody, both in the legal arena, the therapy arena, and the mediation arena. I have come to the conclusion that fault divorce is no good solution. But that doesn’t mean I’m starry eyed or unrealistic about the flaws of no-fault divorce, which are considerable also.

    When you write, “the law allows your wife to cheat on you,” I find that a curious concept. As it the law could stop her! And as if the law only “allows” wives to cheat, but not husbands. It used to be, under fault divorce, that parents were punished for infidelity in many cases by not being allowed to see their children much. Mothers often lost custody, fathers lost visitation. It was very punitive—but it did not stop cheating.

    The law was changed not because of fault divorce vs. no-fault divorce, but because it was determined (and I think that in most cases this still holds up) that whether or not a parent (wife or husband) is faithful to the spouse, the child still is better off with both parents in his/her life. So the law no longer punishes the unfaithful spouse (wife or husband) with loss of custody or visitation, ordinarily. Going back to the old way would not be an advance.

    And what makes you think I’m giving men any advice whatsoever about whether they should get married or not? Have I ever for a single moment done so? Get married or don’t get married, as you wish. It’s a very personal decision.

  100. Neo:

    If you give a crap about marriage as an institution or believe that children or better off with two parents in their lives instead of one, then the latest stuff out on marriage should scare you.

    Regardless, you continually overlook something I’ve said again and again: current laws REWARD bad behavior. I was speaking from a male point of view but it doesn’t matter which sex you are when your mate can be rewarded financially for cheating on you. You continually point out we didn’t have a perfect world under “fault” divorce. So? There is no perfect world. The real question is this: which is better for children and marital stability in the long run? I think the disaster your “no fault” regime has spawned has truly answered that question, you disagree. But you’ve never denied incentives matter. Now if you carea bout the future of marriage what I would like to know from you is what aspects of family law need reformed and what would you do to reform them?

  101. A small remark about Old Believers village: I find their social values excellent. What a pity they never could be practiced universally – only in small, tightly-knitted community of people of faith in the neck of the woods, far away from all temptations and sins of decadent modern civilization. They are simply too good for be universally adopted. These people are the only true libertarians in Russia, who want and can completely keep state out of their lives. There is no police, but also no crime. They do not use alcohol or tobacco, but are fully satisfied with their life. They need not government schools, but are the most literate, clerky segment of Russian population. They have in their log cabins libraries of vintage books which are better than exclusive collections in museums of Moscow and Petersburg. All of these books are read, copied by hand and known by heart. In short, this is utopia realised, only on a very small scale, for strictly chosen ones, not for everybody. This is the only way to implement utopia: without coercion, without government, with conscience and faith as the only motivation, with ardent emotional support of brothers and sisters as the only reward.

  102. I find hostility and derision toward Old Believers from Russian immigrant to USA rather strange. They fled to uninhabited North and Siberia for the same reason people fled to America in the past and now: to save themselves from government tyranny, religious and political prosecution. They are the closest Russian analogue of the first American colonists: Pilgrims and Puritans. They are Protestants and have the same social values as Plymouth Rock community. If you have some sympathy for Mayflower passengers, you should have the same sympathy for Russian Old Believers.

  103. A historical irony: the pet idea of modern liberals, non-violent civil disobedience, was first invented by founding father of Old Believers, High Priest Avvakum. It was forwarded in his book “Confession”, adored by Leo Tolstoy, picked up from the later by Gandhi and popularised by him in the West. It is still the leading moral principle of Old Believers, who respond to persecution by voluntary martyrdom.

  104. Tatyana has been out of bounds herself in the same way, when she expressed a similar kind of sentiment about the fate of German women and children at the end of the Second World War.

    WTF?

    Oblio: those wonderful and deep thoughts you admire of your soviet friend are very popular in the most primitive, regressive, patriarchal religious-tyrannical chauvinistic male-supremacist thinking in Russia. OB shares his views: he proposed the scoundrel for President of this country. As we say, “there is a bit of a joke in every joke”. OB didn’t answer to my question how his beloved wife would like to be reminded that she should kiss her husband’ feet and love it – even so he permitted himself highly personal and offensive questions about my family.

    I am appalled at how many regulars here showed themselves to be sharing the most vile, disgusting exploitative towards women, chauvinistic views of the russian peasantry I thought I could never encounter anymore after I moved in this beautiful country of equal opportunities and respect for individual.

    Plague on your house.

  105. Neo, what do you personally think of Sergey’s “natural submissivness and dependency” theory about women?

    I am asking, because this is your blog.

    If you agree with it, I have no business coming here.

  106. I am not..

    But I wonder why, there are so many reasons to distract from the core point of being manipulated!!!

    Why Jewish women, I don’t know, for the same reason that so many Jewish men are behind the soviet revolution the German bs, and the progressives..

    SMART PEOPLE tend to be where smart people are needed to be exploited..

    Would you accept the history if Jewish women instead decided to bow out and not participate leaving it clear and not so confusing?

    The point your making is the same point trained sheeple make.

    You CANT bring up the history without bringing up the people who are a part of it
    And you CANT erase or eradicate the sources and beliefs of those who did what they did
    And so, ANY GROUP that would be more intelligent would be over represented.

    So use to the feminsits/communist/nazi idea of disparate impact and equality, you have internalized how to use unequal outcomes and peoples points who are not equal, as a way to negate their missives and ideas.

    Can I help that Naomi Goldstein was Jewish? Would I care if she was serbo Croation?
    In a way, the involvement of what is mostly secular Jews, is from one side a reason to remove them
    And from the other side a reason to erase their history in fear that the rest would be removed.

    But the point is NEVER to actually be valid in merit

    Which would completely understand that the faith of jews has very little to do with the behavior of secular non practicing jews and what is often their own self hatred (or do you see soros being cuddly to his own people?)

    the statistics are clear that it’s Jewish men who are marrying non-Jewish women in greater numbers than Jewish women marrying non-Jewish men. It’s a great deal like the statistics with black men and women.

    Well, THANKS for making my point for me..
    But not GETTING it, you made it.

    IE. the point of feminism is to make the women who adopt it or who are victims of its do gooders not fit for mating!!!

    And THAT’S where being so inverted to women only and men don’t count gets you…

    Ie… the men are finding that the women who are so hip and progressive are not fit to marry!
    So they don’t marry.

    I keep saying that these people don’t give a crap about MEANS.. and you do
    And so you keep thinking MEANS is a clue

    No..

    They don’t care whether you abort your kid
    Whether you damage your kid so that next generation they don’t mate
    Whether the man wants the woman
    Or whether the woman wants the man
    And promote interspecies mixing for homogenization

    So all your doing is trying to use examples of the process working to tell us its not working.
    The Cantor line, which is unique genetically, dies if the men don’t marry the women
    It also dies if the women don’t marry the men.

    And man as a collection of individuals loses its uniqueness…
    Becomes interchangeable bricks and cattle.

    more Asian women marrying non-Asian men than the other way around.

    Yup!!!

    I should know as I nearly married an American fully conversant in the war, and fully opposed to her mate
    And completely sociopathic and vengeful as feminism says she should be, and manipulative as it teaches..

    [edited for length by n-n]

  107. Artfldgr: the imbalance in Jewish intermarriage, with men marrying out far more often than women, preceded feminism, if you look at the link:

    …[T]he rate of interfaith marriage for Jewish women was, until the decade of the 1970s, always considerably lower than that of Jewish men.

    The advent of feminism has actually coincided (although we can’t infer causation) with more of an equalization of the intermarriage rates between the sexes among Jews. In recent years, the differential has more or less disappeared among young people, with intermarriage rates reaching a high figure.

  108. Jesus H. Christ, Artfl, get your own blog or something! I’ve gotten to the point where I scroll past everything you write – and now it takes too long to scroll past!

    Trimegistus, you CAN help me out by actually reading all that history and so I can then refer to it in a sentence, rather than having to type it out!

    I too would LIKE to be short, and brevity can only happen in COMMON knowledge. I

    If I refer to a episode in Seinfeld, my missive is a lot shorter if you have seen Seinfeld.

    But if you haven’t, then not only do I have to describe that show, but the characters, their habits, and what then makes things funny in that show. An endeavor that is actually longer than the script for the show!!!

    And then you complain that all that is needed for you to UNDERSTAND… and so the point here is that you don’t WANT to understand and all I am doing is getting in your way of expressing how great you are… you certainly cant be judging the material on its content, value, connection to things as you said you took one racist type surface look and scrolled away. After all, we know that a 30 second advertising spot is a lot more informative than a dry 2 hour documentary.. And we all know that the purpose of life is materialism, and hedonistic pleasure, and the 30 second ad that makes you to be a fool is a better expression of your state of mind than the 2 hour documentary…

    Got it!

    By the way, if every student in math class already did the work before they came into class, the only time you would spend on something in class would be to go over it in 5 minutes, not 5 months, and 500 a credit later. seems that it takes your sacrificing 500 dollars to keep you in your seat and valuing whats being said.

    If you get your detailed education for free, wahts the worth in that?
    Its worth nothing, since you didn’t pay for it.
    But one way or another, you ARE going to pay for the lesson!!!!!!!!!!!

    Trimegistus, Tatyana, M J R, Mr. Frank, colagirl, and others…

    If you already know all this information that you scroll through, then doing so makes sense.

    Though how you would know if you know it by not reading it is an interesting conundrum.

    It definitely illustrates clearly whether you like cargo cult pretend intelligence which is happy with made up stuff, or real intelligence which has to keep referring back to prior knowledge!

    You want to be smart like Obama… not smart like Maria Vos Savant..

    If you don’t know the history, writing, and information, and you are complaining as to its size, then all you’re doing is attacking someone who is showing you up and presenting your ignorance on a platter, and that your missives only serve to cut down a tall poppy.

    [edited for length by n-n]

  109. Marriage is a bondage, both for men and women, and there is no way around it. But selfish hedonism and loneliness it even worse bondage. Reasonable people chose lesser evil and found creative ways to make this bondage sweet and rewarding, and became more whole and free in this process. Comically how the vile cliche of Soviet propaganda about Russian peasants and religious people in general are hat in hand reproduced by today American liberals. I met these peasants in the most godforsaken villages on White See shores and found them the most free, independent thinking and sober-minded people in the country.

  110. Tatyana: One of the things I’ve noted on this blog and many others is that there’s almost no topic that causes as much anger and bitterness as anything involving marriage, divorce, and the supposed unfairness of it for men vs. for women or for women vs. for men. I have been astounded over and over at the bile that spews forth from people who often are otherwise quite reasonable.

    I find it sad and troubling, although it does not surprise me.

    As for sergey’s remarks, I could go through his comments and say which ones I agree with and which ones I disagree with, but that would take too long. Suffice to say I agree with some and disagree with some. I didn’t find the exact phrase you wrote, but I found this:

    They forget that independence is an yoke, and that leadership is even more so, and that voluntary submission can be a very rewarding and fair price to pay for being led, protected and cared for. Here the insane and utopian strife for equality – the scourge of our times – destroys everything it touch. Any society and each societal institution is built on inequality, on hierarhy, on leadership and followship. Men are hierarhycal beings by nature, and every man wants to be master of his own house at the very least. Men are evolutionary hardwired for this. And women are evolutionary hardwired for submission, do they understand this or not. And when this natural order of things is disturbed and undermined, nothing good will follow.

    I assume that’s what you’re referring to.

    I could write a treatise in response, and have neither the time nor the inclination to do so, but this will be my quick answer. I think that he is harking back to a supposedly better/clearer time when a hierarchy existed in the family in which everyone knew his/her place, where society was far more homogeneous and rules-bound, and those were the general rules (partly based on Biblical teachings).

    Even then, however, rules were rules and people were people, and there have always been dominant wives and henpecked husbands, and everyone knew it. Our society has always been more egalitarian (the frontier spirit, those frontier women), but others were less so.

    I believe that sergey is correct in two ways, however. The first is that such societies were more stable; ours is presently more chaotic and unstable, and it is not necessarily better for children. The second is that there are biological differences, and many women (not all, but many) are attracted to the so-called Alpha males who are dominant types. That seems to be biologically driven, and can cause conflict, because those same women do not see themselves as needing to be submissive in their marriages.

    That’s one of the reasons “nice guys” lament the fact that they often finish last among the women. There is a certain truth to that, at least in many cases (certainly not all). It is one of the problems inherent in the man-woman relationship—we are governed by feelings rather than reason, and a lot of our impulses can be contradictory.

    That doesn’t mean I think we should go back to the traditional marriage model where the wife submits to the husband, the one sergey is promoting. It’s fine if people choose to do that for religious reasons or otherwise, and it’s mutually agreed-on. But it would not be my choice.

    That said, I certainly don’t believe everything in a marriage should be equal. In my marriage, we carved out domains of influence, as it were. We each had specialties, and in many cases they fell along traditional male-female lines. No problem. I believe in flexibility and compromise on both parts. And I think marriage often entails sacrifice of personal wishes in favor of the wishes of the other. In good marriages, it happens on both sides. And in good marriages, no one keeps exact score.

  111. OB, here we go again:”half of his assets”.

    Why do you consider the assets exclusively property of a husband, anyway?

    so your saying that after only two or so years of marraige the ex wife of paul mccartney deserves over 100 million?

    why does she deserve anything if she is equal? he doesnt get hers and they are equal, no?

    THATS why…

    that if women who earned more ALWAYS paid alimony to men, and then didnt complain when the men decided to have endless strings of girlfriends and a non union so that they can keep getting the alimony..

    then men might think that equal means equal ratehr than equal meanign wahts yours is mine whats mine is mine and have a nice day .

    A unanimous Court of Appeals panel determined that Montgomery County Circuit Judge Michael D. Mason appropriately consulted the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers’ guidelines in awarding Cynthia Seixas $3,000 per month in indefinite alimony.

    The court added in a footnote that the court may also use the Kaufman Alimony Guidelines, a project of the Women’s Law Center of Maryland Inc., and any other “legitimate and neutral guidelines, helpful to judges making alimony awards in Maryland.”

    so Cynthia, gets a prize that is higher than some of the lottery offerings..

    and all she had to do, was walk the isle, and crap on the mans memory regardless of any validity.

    mine faked her murder..
    hows that for extreme but unpunishable?

    why did Mr Golf have to pay more for infidelity when women don’t have to? oh yes. his dipping his wick is selfish pleasure and her jumping the pole is love.

    by the way… US GUYS think its wrong for guy richie to get 50 million from maddona…

    ie… we think its morally wrong if either side does it
    and women think is morally wrong only if guys get it and assume that we are like them and like it when women dont and guys do!

    wrong.. but then again, women tell women what men think… why listen to a man?

    personally i am pretty much done describing the OUTCOME… as the inputs are more important.

    So Tatyana… you can tell us how the soviet union turned out doing the SAME NO FAULT DIVORVE AND FAMILY DESTRUCTION PLANS WE HAVE IMPLREMENTED

    go ahead…

    [edited for length by n-n]

  113. JTW: links, please, to the source of the assertions you make.

    For example, regarding lifetime alimony, it is exceedingly rare.

    But but, if I put references, you will cut them down!!!!!!!!!!!!

    And we will illustrate how women perceive reality through the missives of other women and the ether not facts..

    Lets see how RARE it is, and if it has parity

    Lets start with this one way trick…

    Massachusetts Appeals Court has held that a probate court judge may consider the income or assets of a second spouse where the income of such spouse contributes to the support of the household, giving the obligated spouse more or his own money with which to satisfy alimony . Cooper v. Cooper, 43 Mass.App.Ct. 55, 55 (1997).

    ah… so, if he is stupid enough to remarry before the court sets lifetime alimony (Which is NOT RARE, but common), then they can use the new wife’s assets to take more from the man!!!!!!!!!!!

    if its in the letter of the law, its NOT RARE…

    Read the case..
    Carniece Pierce, the ex-wife, quit her $95,000 job just before the trial!!!
    Yes, women who earn 95k a year need alimony, right?

    For the two years prior to the trial on the modification complaint, the [first] Wife was employed as a development officer where she last earned $95,000 a year, more than double her salary at the time of the divorce. [PY 32, 33; RA 95, 1463 On the first day of trial the Husband learned that the Wife unexpectedly quit that job about six weeks before the trial because of work demands that she felt were too tiring at her age (64 years old).

    By the way, want to know HOW I know these things?
    Well the men cant talk since the judges make it illegal to do so (bet you didn’t know that)

    But the NEW WIVES can, and they are about the only ones fighting this injustice
    As well as SISTERS and MOTHERS… but not because of any sense of real right or wrong or justice, because they didn’t oppose it until after they wre married or had felt the outcomes.

    FLORIDA’S ALIMONY LAW §61.08 allows permanent alimony

    The New Art of Alimony
    Long viewed as payment for life, divorce settlements are facing strict new limits as some ex-spouses–primarily men–protest the endless support of a former partner. For richer, for poorer, forever?
    online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703399204574505700448957522.html

    RARE wouldn’t be printed…

    In 1982, when they got divorced, the split was amicable. She got the family home; he got the second home. Both agreed “to waive any right to past, present or future alimony.”
    But recently, more than two decades after the divorce, Ms. Taylor, 64, told a Massachusetts judge she had no job, retirement savings or health insurance. Earlier this year, the judge ordered Mr. Taylor, now 68 and remarried, to pay $400 per week to support his ex-wife.

    Hows that for a ruling..
    They break up amicably… she goes her way, he goes his
    She doesn’t save for a future, he does
    Now he has to pay her

    onspiracy of oppression against women.

    [edited for length by n-n]

  114. Artfldgr: I use the word “rare” to mean just that: rare. Not unheard of, not never happens, not fair. Just unusual and rare in terms of percentages, and ordinarily limited to those who have been in long-term marriages and have little or no work history, or who have health problems.

    That does not mean there are not exceptions. Nor does it mean the law is always applied fairly. I have no doubt it is not. As I’ve said many times, I have known many men and many women who have been treated unfairly by divorce courts.

    And I already said Massachusetts is an outlier in terms of alimony. I have asked someone to give me actual statistics on what percentage of cases award lifetime alimony even in the state of Massachusetts, where all reports are that it is less rare. But I have yet to see any; I could not find any myself when I looked.

    I like to deal in facts, not speculation.

  115. It seems to me that the present “war of sexes” ravages because men and women in general have rather different and conflicting expectations, different ideas of marriage. Feminist propaganda targeted women, not men, and since it was to large part hostile to men, they, naturally, mostly rejected it. Their views of marriage on the average are more traditional and patriarchal. But many women took the bite and now are finding hard way that this was not the best choice to do.

  116. Neo:

    I’ve tried to find those stats and failed. All I came up with was national rates of 15 percent claimed by the ABA. The other useful thing I found out and this was on the Mass Reform site where they have a link to an Excel of IRS data is that nationally alimony varies among income groups being awarded over 20 percent of the time in some cases. That’s it. Other than that, no information. Based on what I’m reading I would tend to think that alimony is ordered in more than the national average of cases in MA due to the fact that the law is written so broadly, but I have no idea if that intuition is true.

  117. Brad: I would certainly be interested in the information if you ever locate some. My guess is that it is somewhat more common in Massachusetts, but we don’t even know how common it is in other states (except that site after site says lifetime alimony is “rare,” but doesn’t define that with numbers). My guess is also that it’s still not all that common even in Massachusetts, or wouldn’t the websites pushing reform of the law be citing the statistics? I would like the numbers, though; I think it’s odd that the information is so hard to obtain. You’d think someone would be compiling it.

  118. Neo:

    Just remember the stats I’ve pulled up only apply to regular alimony, which isn’t all that rare as they show. What I SUSPECT is that “lifetime” alimony is as prevalent in MA as “normal” alimony is in most states, meaning probably 10 to 15 percent, varying by income bracket.

    But that’s all I got right now.

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