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a former wife of Paul McCartney complaining about being married to him:
Although stating that they had a good sex life, Mills started complaining about the marriage to friends, saying that McCartney was "a boring old fart", and wondering why he had no social life, as well as saying "He has no friends and it's driving me mad". She did not like living at the remote McCartney home in Peasmarsh: "The only thing he [McCartney] ever does is occasionally go to the pub with his roadie. We never have parties or do fun things".
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Mills
Original source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/ar ... apped.html
The lesson I would take from this is that many women seem to have a deeply-felt need to have an active social life, so guys need to make sure their girlfriends/wives are having their needs met, just like women need to make sure their boyfriends/husbands are having their needs met. And men and women may get pleasure from different things! So you can't just rely on your internal feelings of what's important.
Q: How should I think about marriage?
It probably depends on what you mean by "marriage".
After having observed a lot of long-term relationships and having read a bit about the topic, my impression is that modern US-government-regulated marriage can be thought of kind of like the way men's neckties are thought of: it's a tradition that has passed down through many generations, it has evolved quite a bit from the way it was in the past, it doesn't seem to be necessary for everyone, but it seems like it can be very impressive / beneficial when done well. Whether or not you feel pressure to do it seems to depend heavily on the social groups you're influenced by.
The thing that people need to have forefront in their mind is that US-government-regulated marriage is a legal contract. It's exactly like when Mark Zuckerberg was raising money from angel investors and venture capitalists. It seems foolish to me when people sign a legal agreement that is widely known to frequently lead to big problems without considering the terms of the agreement, but that is exactly what most people nowadays do. They do it when getting loans for school, when getting loans for their house and car, and they do it when they get married without thinking hard about the terms.
Q: Should I get married?
At the moment I suspect John T. Reed had it right when he wrote something to the effect of, "Being in a good marriage is better than being single. But being single is better than being in a bad marriage." So basically, if you can figure out how to get into a good marriage, go get married! But make sure you know what you're doing! I see a lot of people rushing into marriages, and from having seen bad marriages firsthand I feel anxious with worry for what they have in store. I think it's especially dangerous to get married when either partner is feeling pressure to do it, whether they're conscious of it or not.
Q: How can we reduce the divorce rate?
A: To reduce the divorce rate you need to understand why people get divorced.
- Figure out how to get people into the right living area and the right job ASAP so that they don't end up switching later in life and tearing apart their relationship with the switch.
- Force/encourage more dating so people are less likely to idealize what life apart from their spouse would be like.
- You can use peer pressure to have people stay married (religious groups do this pretty well). The downside is that people could end up very unhappy with no way to fix it.
- One thought that I've had (but I'm not sure what to think of) is: if it became a cultural norm for women to marry men who were ~10-20 years older than them, might that reduce the divorce rate? I'm not sure. It seems like an empirical question that would need to get tested to be determined one way or the other.
A: Another answer is, "Should we be trying to reduce the divorce rate?" Maybe the best solution would be to make marriages dissolve automatically after 10-20 years. That would give the parents enough time to raise the kids. It seems that a lot of marriages dissolve after the parents have finished raising their children.
the best books I've read so far on this topic are "Marriage: A History" by Stephanie Coontz and John T Reed's "Succeeding".
John T. Reed's "Succeeding"
http://www.johntreed.com/succeeding.html
John T Reed is a smart guy; he went to West Point, Ranger School, and Harvard Business School, and has written football strategy books used by NFL coaches, but I think he's smart mainly b/c of the way he talks about things. Reed says he's had a fantastic marriage, and he thinks the reason for this is the way that he met his wife: he had a special dating system that allowed him to date "hundreds" (according to him) of women before he met his wife. Because he knew what the "market" looked like, he knew exactly how his wife compared to the other women out there, and he knew what he was missing by getting married (so it may not have been as bothersome for him to be committed to one person as it would be for someone who idealizes the thought of being in a relationship with some other person).
Also, dating so many people made it more likely for him to find someone who matched up with him on several key areas; he says it's extremely important to match up with your spouse on:
1. spending decisions (Do you want to earn a lot of money? Do you want to own lots of luxury items?)
2. children (some people want to have lots of children, others don't want ANY children)
3. religion (do you want to go to church? do you want to raise your children within a particular religious tradition?)
4. alcohol / cigarette / drug use (do you like to go to bars? do you smoke and want to live with another smoker?)
5. other things I can't remember
Summary of Marriage: A History
http://www.amazon.com/Marriage-History- ... 067003407X
The basic lesson of this book is that the idea of choosing your spouse based on "love" has only become widespread in the 20th century; before that, marriage was a pragmatic issue. Farmers chose their spouses based on how likely it was the spouse would die in childbirth, and how useful the spouse would be on the farm (eg they didn't want a weakling). Richer people often had their spouses chosen for them by their parents, and marriage was used as a way of creating or cementing bonds between two rich families.
I remember that after I finished reading this book I was convinced that every high school student should read it.
Misc stuff:
You need to imagine what could happen if your relationship with your partner turned sour:
Cohen's former wife, Patricia, sued him in U.S. District Court in New York in December, alleging that Cohen lied about his net worth during their 1988 divorce. In her suit, which she has since dropped, she said that in 1986 Cohen, then a trader at investment firm Gruntal & Co., told her that he had received inside information concerning the purchase of RCA by GE. She also says that he was questioned by the SEC and invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. No charges were brought.
Source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 802_4.html
[Nicolas Sarkozy's] estranged wife, Charlotte, has hired a hard-hitting American divorce lawyer known as "The Pitbull", and is fighting to overrule their prenuptial agreement and claim a larger share of their multi-million dollar estate. The arrangement, made before they were married, was allegedly designed to protect her substantial wealth. Now after more than a decade of his considerable professional success, it appears the tables have turned - and sticking to the French deal would be to her disadvantage.
Source:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... tbull.html
- I think a lot of these unpleasant divorces / break-ups are caused by the pain the less-wealthy spouse feels when they switch to a less-wealthy lifestyle.
- Examples
- You see men who act aggressively towards their ex-girlfriend / ex-wife.
- It seems plausible that this behavior may be caused by pain the man is feeling from having lost a major source of pleasure.
- In the man's case, the pleasure is typically sexual / emotional.
- The aggression I've heard the most about is physical aggression (eg slashing tires, shooting the ex-wife).
- It seems plausible that this behavior may be caused by pain the man is feeling from having lost a major source of pleasure.
- You see women who act aggressively towards their ex-boyfriend / ex-husband.
- In the woman's case, the pleasure they've lost often seems to come from the money the man has.
- The aggression I've heard the most about is hiring divorce attorneys to try to get as much money as possible.
- You see men who act aggressively towards their ex-girlfriend / ex-wife.
- Examples
- One way to reduce the frequency of these situations, then, would be to make sure that both the man and the woman are always able to live a similar lifestyle alone that they enjoy when they're with their partner.
- Examples
- In the man's case, the man should be able to find another girlfriend / wife who will make him feel similarly-happy as his current girlfriend / wife.
- In the woman's case, she should have some way to live a lifestyle similarly-extravagant as whatever her current boyfriend / husband is letting her enjoy.
- One way to do this would make sure that both people always have a back-up plan in case things go sour.
- Examples
Controversial business idea:
Many people have gotten burned by getting into marriages that they should not have gotten into and not having their spouses sign prenuptial agreements. Since the divorce rate is so high for these types of marriages, it seems obvious to ask, "Why are these people not having their spouses sign prenuptial agreements?" I would imagine that the reason is that by the time the time comes around to raise the issue, the richer spouse will be under a great deal of psychological pressure to avoid raising the issue of a prenuptial agreement. One solution to this problem would be to have these rich people enter contracts before they've met their future spouse that would prohibit them from getting married without a prenuptial agreement.
I asked an experienced attorney (but a personal injury attorney, not a marriage attorney) if it would work to have a person enter a contract with some third party (like a company) that would prevent the person from marrying without a prenuptial agreement, and he said it wouldn't because the contract would lack consideration (where each party is exchanging something of value with the other). He said you'd also need to be careful to make sure that the parties couldn't agree to end (abrogate) the contract. He said he also had seen a situation in which a woman [his sister] pressured a well-off guy to get married, the guy tried to get her to sign a prenuptial agreement, and she blew off their relationship as a result.
A proposal for a potentially-better form of marriage
- Please note that this is speculative. I'm just brainstorming here.
Problems with the current form of marriage that should be fixed
- People's expectations for marriage are too high.
- Divorces are very common.
- Divorces can be psychologically / financially damaging to both people and to the children.
The way the marriage would work
- The concept of two people having been together for a long time could be separated from the concept of two people raising a child together.
- Those two things could be celebrated separately. They could have separate terms for them.
Child-rearing marriage
- The essence of this would be the triangle-relationship between the father, mother, and child.
- The relation between the child and each parent would be described by the terms "child", "father", and "mother".
- Examples
- "He is my father."
- "She is my child."
- Examples
- The relation between the parents would be described by the terms "husband" and "wife".
- Examples:
- "He is my husband."
- "She is my wife."
- Right now this relationship seems to be typically described by the terms "father of my child" and "mother of my child".
- Examples:
- The relation between the child and each parent would be described by the terms "child", "father", and "mother".
- Society may not need to require that people be legally married in order to say they are married.
- Two people could be able to say they are husband and wife when they agree to raise a child together.
- This is different from just having a child together.
- If a man impregnates a woman and then leaves her, and doesn't help raise the child, the man and woman would not be considered husband and wife.
- This also means that neither person needs to be genetically related to the child.
- This also means that the two parents don't need to live with each other or raise the child at the same time.
- This is different from just having a child together.
- The marriage itself could be sort-of an open relationship. It should allow the two people to relate to each other the same way that two people who are bf/gf do.
- The mother could have primary responsibility for the child for the first ten years (age 0-9).
- Her parents could be the primary care-takers (so the kids are being raised by the grandparents; this is partially how Obama was raised IIRC).
- I agree with the idea that young people may tend not to do as good a job of teaching kids good manners etc. as older people.
- The main things she could focus on doing are:
- Making sure the child has excellent manners / good character.
- This doesn't mean the child should be a stiff. It just means they should be very good at putting themselves in the shoes of the people they interact with.
- There was a guy who wrote a book about early education and he said that after all his research he would focus on making sure the child has good character.
- The child could get exposed to / develop a love of w/e skills seem to be most important in the job market.
- Interacting well with others
- Being comfortable in a variety of environments
- Reading / Learning
- Writing
- Programming
- Deductive reasoning
- Making sure the child has excellent manners / good character.
- The father could have primary responsibility for the child for the next ten years (age 10-19).
- The main things he could focus on are:
- Giving the child the depth of skill necessary in a particular trade to make the child an attractive employee.
- Examples
- Having the child serve as an apprentice at a start-up and slowly learn to program.
- Have the child try out a bunch of different jobs at a company, starting at the bottom.
- This is what Ted Turner's father did with Ted.
- Examples
- Continuing to build character, perhaps focusing more on characteristics that require certain other characteristics to already be in-place.
- Giving the child the depth of skill necessary in a particular trade to make the child an attractive employee.
- The main things he could focus on are:
Companionship marriage
- asdf
Arranged marriage
2015.10.14 - NYT Op-Ed - Fraidy Reiss - America’s Child-Marriage Problem
2014.10.17 - CUNY TV - Interview with Freidy Reiss
2015.03 No Ceilings - The Full Participation Report: Highlights
Child marriage undermines girls’ health, education, and economic opportunities, and increases their risk of experiencing violence. The practice of child marriage is deeply embedded and endemic. While prevalence of this practice is declining, change remains far too slow. In 2010, there were more
than 67 million women aged 20 to 24 years old worldwide who had been married when they were under the age of 18.26 Although legal protections against child marriage have increased since 1995, significant loopholes remain. About one-third of countries allow girls to be married younger than boys with parental permission.27
2012 - United Nations Population Fund - Marrying Too Young
2014 - World Policy Analysis Center - Legal Protections Against Child Marriage Around the World
Divorce
Is marriage good for people?
2015.10.26 - NYT - The Ambivalent Marriage Takes a Toll on Health
Every marriage has highs and lows from time to time, but some relationships are both good and bad on a regular basis. Call it the ambivalent marriage — not always terrible, but not always great, either.
While many couples can no doubt relate to this not bad, but not good, state of affairs, new research shows that ambivalence in a relationship — the feeling that a partner may be unpredictable with his or her support or negativity — can take a quiet toll on the health of an individual.
The findings, published this month by researchers at Brigham Young University, are part of a growing body of research that attempts to parse the so-called marriage benefit, the well-established notion that married people are, over all, far healthier and live longer than the unmarried. But increasingly, researchers are trying to understand the more nuanced effects of marriage on health. To reap the health benefits of marriage, is it enough to just be married? Or how much does the quality of the marriage, such as the level of support, warmth, negativity or controlling behavior, affect the health of seemingly stable couples?
(...)
James A. Coan, the University of Virginia professor who conducted the hand-holding studies, said couples who find they have an ambivalent relationship should not panic about the study findings, but should feel motivated to work on the relationship and seek counseling before their problems become intractable.
“I think about relationships like the stock market,” he said. “There are bull markets and bear markets in any short period of time, but if you take the long view, the investment almost always pays off.”