Summary: This is a milestone post, giving a summary of the three-score posts about the evolution of marriage in America. See marriage and divorce as rational from the perspective of women. They are shaping a new American society. Also — the movers arrive today with our worldly goods, and the FM website resumes its normal publication activity.
After three score posts examining the evolution of marriage in America, a clear picture emerges why so many Generation X women marry and then divorce. And why divorce rates might rise for Millennial (aka Gen Y) women. Here is a brief description, explaining it in purely rational terms (there are, of course, many other social and psychological dimensions to this, among the most complex of institutions).
Why women marry
Marriage brings many benefits to women. Hence its continued popularity among women (their complaints concern men’s increasing disinterest). Marriage has prestige among women. Most women want children, and middle and upper class women are careful to not do so until they have a ring on their fingers (men’s assistance and money makes the first few years much easier).
And weddings have become the Party of a woman’s life, in which they are Queen for a Day. At the climax of the ceremony, the bride looks into the groom’s eyes and lies about “until death do us part.” As shown by the high rate of “discretionary” divorce.
Note: There are no equivalents for men, except celebrating the few that have great accomplishments. The huge wedding party is a change from tradition. Wedding for most women were modest — and did not feature Bridezillas. See this 1946 wedding in The Best Years of Our Lives
Women’s enthusiasm for marriage is rational and obvious. What happens next is more difficult to understand, but becomes visible if examined clearly and coldly.
Why do women divorce?
Women initiate most divorces (estimates run from 70% to 85%). Most have no obvious cause (e.g, infidelity, jail, addiction). In most cases a woman with children is poorer afterwards. So why do they do it?
The most obvious reason is that they can. Conservative saint Ronald Reagan abolished traditional marriage in 1970 by signing America’s first no fault divorce law. That, effective easy birth control, and women’s increased financial independence combined to largely liberate women from patriarchal marriage.
That made women able to divorce. Why would they do so?
Husbands are needed to father children. Husband’s work helps in their first few years. But once the youngest is in school, the calculus changes. Child support will extract money from husbands, so that women can pursue their separate destinies.
Women are raised to value their independence. We consider it commendable to put such values of mercenary considerations.
Women are often raised to see themselves as leaders (e.g., in school, in sports, in Girl Scouts). Most men grudgingly accept wives as equals; few accept wives as leaders in marriage. Divorce resolves this struggle for control.
There are indications that women rate most men (roughly 80%) as below average in physical attractiveness, and hence lower than them. It is another example of the Pareto principle. The best known is a study by the dating ap company OkCupid of their internal data. They deleted it (very un-PC), but fragments remain (e.g., here). The most detailed explanation is in Dataclysm: Love, Sex, Race, and Identity–What Our Online Lives Tell Us about Our Offline Selves
Conclusion
This is the world we live in. The women of Generation X came as close as humanly possible to having it all — careers, children, marriage on their terms, divorce on their terms. Since the incentives for divorce are so high, many wives divorced. People are rational.
The women of Generation Y are repeating this playbook. Most are succeeding, but they find fewer men are willing to marry. Men are condemned for this, as they are condemned for so many things these days. That does not make them more interested in marriage.
My guess is that Millennial women (Gen Y) will find far fewer men willing to marry. I believe that in the next ten or twenty years this evolution will pass a tipping point. Beyond that marriage will still exist, but not in its present form for most people. Nor will it serve the same function as it does in our society today. We will better understood what traditional marriage did for American when its gone.
For more about this see Starting World War G: the gender wars. Marriage linked men and women together. A post-marital America will be one of gender conflict, on many levels and in many ways. Understanding how we got here is essential to build a better future.
Dalrock’s insights about modern marriage
I recommend reading these posts about the dynamics of dating and marriage for young women. Clear insights that few dare to say.
- Intrasexual Competition and the Strong Independent Woman.
- Women’s morphing need for male investment.
For more information
Ideas! For shopping ideas see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about society and gender issues, about feminism, about marriage, and especially these …
- Do we want to bring back traditional marriage? What is traditional marriage?
- Why men are avoiding work and marriage.
- Will today’s young men marry? America’s future depends which of these answers is right.
- Classic films show what marriage was. Facts show its death.
- Cheap Sex is the Inconvenient Truth in the end of marriage.
- Men are going Galt. Marriage is dying. – Books from the cutting edge of the revolution.
- Marriage today – and its dystopian future.
- Red Pill knowledge is poison to marriage.
- The coming crash of marriage: why, and what’s next.
An important book about marriage in the 21st century
Men on Strike:
Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood,
and the American Dream – and Why It Matters.
By Helen Smith.
She is a psychologist specializing in “forensic issues” in Knoxville TN. She has a PhD and two MA’s in something or other. From the publisher about this book…
“American society has become anti-male. Men are sensing the backlash and are consciously and unconsciously going ‘on strike.’ They are dropping out of college, leaving the workforce and avoiding marriage and fatherhood at alarming rates. The trend is so pronounced that a number of books have been written about this “man-child” phenomenon, concluding that men have taken a vacation from responsibility simply because they can. But why should men participate in a system that seems to be increasingly stacked against them?
“As Men on Strike demonstrates, men aren’t dropping out because they are stuck in arrested development. They are instead acting rationally in response to the lack of incentives society offers them to be responsible fathers, husbands and providers. In addition, men are going on strike, either consciously or unconsciously, because they do not want to be injured by the myriad of laws, attitudes and hostility against them for the crime of happening to be male in the twenty-first century. Men are starting to fight back against the backlash. Men on Strike explains their battle cry.”
