The Decline of Marriage

https://medium.com/@keiyakukekkon/the-decline-of-marriage-62faeb8e64b1

93 110 9 years ago

Natural selection will take care of this eventually, either genetically or memeticly. I suspect the outcome will not be as happy as what the traditions we flouted provided. The birth rate is likely the most telling critique of western society.

Our revealed preference is our civilization is not worth perpetuating.

As of now only those who deliberately desire children and those unable to follow the instructions on the back of contraception packaging reproduce. It will be interesting to see how this works out long term.

JBReefer• 9 years ago

As a corollary, based on population growth rates/disparities between birth rates, people are going to be very surprised how quickly Mormonism rises. They're basically the only chunk of native born Americans that have a birth rates above replacement, and it's a LOT above replacement.

rainbowmverse• 9 years ago

Religion has a way of self-moderating as it grows. There's already a huge movement of ex-Mormons, and it's inevitable that pockets of Mormons with a different (and more open-minded) view will form as it spreads further from the source.

Think about how many variations on Christianity exist in the US. If Mormons hold to the trend of every other religion that's gotten distant from its origins, I don't mind it replacing the thousand variations on other stories about some guy having adventures in the desert.

greglindahl2• 9 years ago

How familiar are you with US religious groups? Because there are a lot of US religious groups and sub-groups with high birthrates. Examples include Orthodox Jews, the most conservative slice of US Catholics, several kinds of the most fundamentalist Protestants, etc etc.

antisthenes3• 9 years ago

Are you a fan of Ken Arrow? :)

I've found his accomplishments in theory of choice to be invaluable when studying the marriage/partnership systems.

ef44• 9 years ago

There's a fundamental flaw hiding under arguments like yours: the "civilization" you're circumscribing is an imaginary and arbitrary boundary. An ahistorical retcon. It's as unsupported as discredited racial theories that all humans fit into three tidy buckets ("caucasoid", "mongoloid", "negroid").

For example, maybe you're talking about "Christendom". But then it's not actually in decline -- hispanics are part of Christendom, and Christianity is growing in Africa, so on net it's growing, not shrinking.

Maybe you mean the population within the actual geographic boundaries of Europe and the former British colonies (including America). But if that's your definition, then you would accept immigration as a solution, and you would admit that America is already doing fine.

Maybe you're talking about people who live in societies with constitutions that ultimately derive from the ideas of the enlightenment. But again, not shrinking.

Maybe you're talking about a specific local cultural tradition -- but then it's not really "the West" that's in decline. "Western civilization" necessarily spans a huge range of cultures, otherwise you can't successfully take credit for everything from Socrates to Charlemagne to Descarte to Luther to Newton to Einstein. Consider the magnitude of the cultural turnover across that span!

Is South America part of "Western civilization"? It's literally in the western hemisphere and colonized by Spain and Portugal. If you're really talking about having a connection to European cultural history, it clearly fits. But if we include it, then again the decline disappears. Guatemalan immigrations to the US can't be a non-western invasion.

What it boils down to is, people use "western civilization" as a cover for "white people just like me". But there's no non-racist way to equate that with "civilization".

Our civilization -- the actual web of relationships and institutions that keep the lights on -- is clearly doing fine. That web is fundamentally global, as much as that annoys chauvinists. And globally, the world is getting richer and more equal at a rapid pace. Mortality is falling. The population is not in decline, although it has a good shot at plateauing in the coming decades, which will be a good thing.

remarkEon9• 9 years ago

Our civilization -- the actual web of relationships and institutions that keep the lights on -- is clearly doing fine.

Given even a passing look at just the last 2 decades, and the serious prospects for massive social unrest going forward both in the States and in Europe, which often get discussed here, how in the world can you say that. "The World" (since you apparently are one of those who think the term "Western Civilization" is racist), in my judgement, is looking at the most global security risk since the lead up to WWI. There's well documented demographic shifts in Europe that could lead to a fundamental cultural re-imaging of the continent. We might be careening into another financial crisis.

No, it is not "clearly doing fine."

defen2• 9 years ago

What it boils down to is, people use "western civilization" as a cover for "white people just like me". But there's no non-racist way to equate that with "civilization".

Do you recognize that your argument can be applied to literally any culture that wants to ethnically preserve itself (just replace "white" with "Japanese" or "Chinese" or "Nigerian" or whatever)? You are arguing that any civilization that wants to preserve its ethnic character is fundamentally illegitimate, which is ironic because that view is at root a direct outgrowth of the European universalist enlightenment tradition. You think you are better than other cultures, and you are using that to self-righteously argue for their destruction.

My argument is contingent on the idea that behavior/personality is somewhat heritable, and that culture and ethnicity co-evolve to a certain extent - statistically, people are more likely to be better suited to their own culture. Finns are better at being Finns than they are at being Italians, and vice versa.

cmahler76• 9 years ago

What's your opinion on studies showing that people with lower intelligence reproduce at much higher rates? This would seem to lead to an Idiocracy like future. Do you think something should be done to prevent this?

Moshe_Silnorin5• 9 years ago

It's not pseudoscience and I suspect we'll have firm genetic proof that this has occurred. However, it is so slow it likely won't matter. Genetic engineering for increased IQ is looking like it will be easier than anticipated. Hell, even embryo selection would give us 8 points per generation. Should be possible as soon as we have about a million genomes tagged with their donor's IQ. This would make quick work of any dysgenic trend. However our civilization is so self-hating and in such denial of the biological realities around intelligence and reproduction that I suspect we'll be a generation behind Asian nations when it comes to widespread use of such technology.

rf15• 9 years ago

While I agree that we have a problem with population growth, the author has very traditional views on marriage and its requirements for a society/population to function - there's much more to it than that.

Also thanks for calling my existence "illegitimate" in 2017.

gervase• 9 years ago

Based on the perceptual bias the author let slip, I'm surprised that graph wasn't labeled "Bastardy".

kijin• 9 years ago

Since the blog is run by someone who uses Japanese in their name and profile, I'm considering whether I should be a little more charitable and maybe call it a result of poor translation.

Most of the stuff in the article that looks like bias to Western readers, in fact, could sound perfectly reasonable to Japanese readers for whom it might have originally been written. Japanese society is incredibly conservative when it comes to family norms.

gorkonsine8• 9 years ago

Wow, this article isn't scientific at all, in the least.

As mentioned in the previous essay, single parenthood correlates with a number of social maladies.
The best environment for these children is a home with their biological mother and father. Marriage is statistically the best way to ensure these environments for children. Healthy marriages create stable families. Stable families create strong and safe communities. Strong communities create prosperous cities. Prosperous cities create successful nations. Successful nations advance humanity.

Citations needed. There's no proof of any of this, it's just the social norm we've had for centuries. "We've always done it this way" isn't proof, and the way our society was before ~50 years ago was actively bad and oppressive for many members of society, particularly women who really were second-class citizens, unable to vote or hold most jobs.

Personally, I think it'd be better if people joined into polyamorous groupings; it's better for kids, and provides a more stable home life than only having 2 parents. Don't ask me for citations; you'll just have to take my word for it, just as the author of this article did.

debacle• 9 years ago

Citations needed

There are studies that show that single parent homes correlate with certain social outcomes. The next dozen leaps, however, are way out there or patently false.

Moshe_Silnorin5• 9 years ago

Yes, It is all confounded by the heritability of all mental traits. I suspect the offspring of single women who use sperm donors (who are screened heavily for proxies of genetic quality, such height, facial symmetry and educational attainment) are more successful then the offspring of married couples on average. I don't know if anyone has looked into it though.

mercutio26• 9 years ago

I’m with you on almost everything, I happen to agree communal and/or polyamorous parenting is great (no sarcasm, kids raised this way are great); but when do you think universal female suffrage happened in the U.S.? The 19th amendment was ratified in 1920.

Are you implying there was some kind of poll tax or equivalent suppression of the female vote until the 60s?

Djvacto2• 9 years ago

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/07/living/sixties-women-5-things/...

I think ~50 years ago referred more to this type of thing, while stuff like voting rights was just included since it's relevant to the struggle as a whole.

gorkonsine8• 9 years ago

Women couldn't hold most jobs until the 1960s or later; they could only be nurses, teachers, secretaries, etc. Suffrage was earlier, but just like black people (men) who got freedom and suffrage way back in the mid-1800s, they still weren't full members of society until significantly later.

Moshe_Silnorin5• 9 years ago

I'm almost certain widespread polyamory will degenerate into polygamy approximately instantaneously.

mercutio26• 9 years ago

Your “widespread” modifier gets you off the hook, who can say how social contract adjustments play out when they go mainstream.

But the polyamory community doesn’t look anything like polygamy. Like, not at all. More like polyandry, but most polyamorous folks I know have a single primary (and that primary lasts way longer than the average married couple, in my personal experience) and the rest of the business sees women finding multiple partners much more easily than men.

But it’s a complicated and open scene, YMMV.

netrap• 9 years ago

A Brave New World!

gorkonsine8• 9 years ago

Most modern polyamorous relations end up with the women having more partners than the men. Women have a far easier time finding sex partners than men do, on average.

alva• 9 years ago

Personally, I think it'd be better if people joined into polyamorous groupings

If you want to accelerate western societal collapse, this is the way to do it. What would likely occur is the richest will have a large number of wives and children causing huge amount of tension and unrest in a society.

The problems this causes are likely why monogamy is such a strong factor in the major world religions. Societies in which there is a massive imbalance in the opportunity to have offspring is ripe for turmoil.

pavel_lishin4• 9 years ago

Personally, I think it'd be better if people joined into polyamorous groupings; it's better for kids, and provides a more stable home life than only having 2 parents.

As an introvert, this is my idea of hell. I have one wife, one child, and two cats - and that's about the maximum I can currently handle, emotionally and... attentively? Adding more significant relationships in my life would be really, really, really taxing.

gorkonsine8• 9 years ago

It's simple: with a polyamorous relationship, your wife would have another boyfriend/husband to spend her time with, and also to help take care of the kid, leaving you alone more of the time with the cats.

There's no requirement in polyamory for everyone involved to have multiple partners.

remarkEon9• 9 years ago

Citations needed. There's no proof of any of this, it's just the social norm we've had for centuries.

More like millennia. You should ask yourself why/how the concept emerged independently across many cultures and civilizations what that signals for its usefulness in building social structures that are able to respond to negative external stimuli (war, disease, environmental catastrophe etc).

Personally, I think it'd be better if people joined into polyamorous groupings; it's better for kids, and provides a more stable home life than only having 2 parents. Don't ask me for citations; you'll just have to take my word for it, just as the author of this article did.

Okay, now I'm pretty sure you're being sarcastic, since the opposite is true.

wuschel• 9 years ago

The article is a PR piece for "Keiyaku Kekkon", a japanese marriage partner startup.

I quickly read through the text - and wondered what I had learned. It does not present any interesting conclusions, or back its statements with data.

Here is the exec summary of the startup's business model:

"Keiyaku Kekkon is a marriage-focused dating website with a twist. The name is Japanese and literally means "Contract Marriage." Users create their ideal marriage agreement and match up with a suitable partner.

Unlike typical dating sites that match people based on personality, Keiyaku Kekkon matches people based on their marriage contracts. Users can spell out exactly what they want out of marriage and exactly what they have to offer."

[1] http://keiyakukekkon.com

Brendinooo2• 9 years ago

The most important fact motivating this essay is simply that the vast majority of adults want to get married and have children. This suggests that the reduction in marriage rates reflects not a conscious choice but rather people running into various obstacles preventing them from finding a partner.

Thanks to the parent comment we know that this is self-serving to a certain extent since they they're selling a solution to the problem.

Nevertheless, this is an interesting point to make. It's one thing if people don't want marriage and reject it as such, something else if they do want to get married and don't/can't make it happen. Do they truly want marriage in the sense of what it's traditionally meant - exclusive and permanent, but externalities mentioned in the article hinder it from happening?

Or do people just want a big party when they're young and a friend when they're old, and attach "marriage" to the sentiment?

watwut5• 9 years ago

There does not seem to be any mention of big party nor being friends in later age in article. There is mention of career for women (that is not a party) and expectation of completely different lifestyle for married man and married women in the article. Men is supposed to work (in japan context means maybe Sunday afternoon off), so I don't think couple gets to know each other to be friends.

The only real externalities mentioned are that

1.) You cant keep up with Jones if Jones have two incomes and you have one (It kinda assumed that if we both have to work it counts as external obstacle to marriage. E.g. the assumption seems to be that people want 1960 middle or higher class marriage and don't bother when they cant get exactly that).

2.) No one arrange "suitable" marriage for you and there is no societal pressure to marry for you.

I would say, that if you need pressure to marry, then maybe you do not want to marry. I would also say, that both points are you making marriage decisions based on social status it brings to you, in which case I am quite happy you are not my partner.

antisthenes3• 9 years ago

AKA the non-starter business model.

In the unmarried pool, male and female strategies are incentive-incompatible. Both parties in that pool have unrealistic expectations for what they are able to offer (not making normative judgments here), hence the difficulty in finding partners in the first place.

Believe it or not, the culprit here, again, is wealth inequality.

bla2• 9 years ago

If people are voluntarily opting out of marriage and family

I'm not married, I'm in a long term committed relationship, I have kids. The article seems to think that being married and having kids is somehow the same. It's not.

caseysoftware2• 9 years ago

It doesn't say they're the same, just that they're correlated:

The decline of marriage correlates strongly with reduced fertility rates as well.

Further, it looks at the data in aggregate so there can be lots of "but I.." comments without invalidating the data or the affecting the analysis.

proactivesvcs• 9 years ago

I'd say the article is actually inferring that marriage is what makes a family happy and stable. That and their use of the term "illegitimate" left me unable to finish the article. I'm sure some of it is my strong anti-marriage bias but it reads like being bound by contract and law is what makes a relationship and a family stable.

OJFord• 9 years ago

their use of the term "illegitimate" left me unable to finish the article

That's a well established definition of the word; if you Google 'define illegitimate' you'll get:

    1. not authorized by the law; not in accordance with accepted standards or rules.

    2. (of a child) born of parents not lawfully married to each other.

I don't think it really does to be offended by such things, I didn't read it as coming with any judgement from the author.

ravenstine• 9 years ago

Nobody ever mentions birth control.

zzalpha• 9 years ago

If you're curious about actual data, and not just a bunch of unsupported claims, Pew has a nice little paper they published back in 2014 on this topic:

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/09/24/record-share-of-am...

To my eyes, this is purely a data driven analysis and doesn't spend a lot of time moralizing on the topic.

renegadesensei2• 9 years ago

Cool to see I got some comments! Thanks for the feedback everyone.

I'm an expat programmer living in Tokyo and Keiyaku Kekkon is a side project of mine. Got the idea from watching a Japanese drama actually. I'll probably do a "Show HN" eventually. It's still in alpha and kind of buggy. Making websites isn't really my specialty so this project was a cool learning experience.

It's like midnight here and I'm going to bed, but feel free to leave questions or contact me if you want to know more about anything. Peace!

gnicholas• 9 years ago

Are you targeting the Japanese market, which I understand to have one of the lowest fertility rates? Or are you going after the EU and US markets also?

My sense is that the US market for this is not very mature at this point. There is only a little talk of fertility rates, and in fact there are news stories floating around [1] that tout the environmental benefits of having fewer/no children.

1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-...

renegadesensei2• 9 years ago

Yeah it is mainly a Japanese product. I just do all of the copy in English first since that's my first language. Really the service can be used by anyone seeking a marriage partner. From my research I think Japan and east Asia in general is the bigger opportunity.

pyrrhotech• 9 years ago

Monogamy isn't dead as the author seems to imply by the falling marriage rates. Many people I know are not married but are in 10+ year long-term monogamous relationships (myself included). We don't ever plan to get married because I don't like the government telling me what to do and how our assets must be split in the case we decide to break up (though we never plan to). We also are vehemently anti-religious and would never support an institution like marriage for that reason either.

I personally don't want to have children because my life is fulfilling as it is and I don't want extra distractions when there is no void to fill, but I think this notion of "illegitimacy" is very outdated and should be retired.

I think a lot of the long term economic and population concerns will be solved by workplace automation and biotechnology revolutions in human lifespan respectively, so they are largely overblown. I also don't think a future child-raising industry where children are raised together in government sponsored and supervised systems would be as dystopian as depicted in Brave New World.

pavel_lishin4• 9 years ago

We don't ever plan to get married because I don't like the government telling me what to do

What about the government telling other people what to do about your relationship? If one of you were seriously hurt, would the hospital accept the other's instructions as a medical or legal proxy, etc?

abfan11273• 9 years ago

I have power of attorney over my dad, in the event a decisions needs to be made.

schwap• 9 years ago

We also are vehemently anti-religious and would never support an institution like marriage for that reason either.

Just curious, do civil unions not exist where you are? I kind of assumed in my mind they were a pretty normal thing at this point.

rmrm2• 9 years ago

If you all did split and there was a dispute between you too, the government (courts) are still how things would get settled, no? Marriage I believe is just a form of contract. I believe you can write you own binding legal marriage contract that can specify whatever you would like. As a nonreligious married person, that's what I consider marriage to be. A legal framework for deciding these things. Not having one just means things won't be well defined, but the adjudication process is still similar it seems to me.

abfan11273• 9 years ago

marriage in a legal context is a very specific type of contract with terms that are not negotiable.

losvedir• 9 years ago

Like I imagine many HN readers, I had a visceral negative reaction to a lot of this post, since it directly attacks a lot of the new cultural norms I grew up in (and cherish).

On the other hand, it does seem to raise some interesting points, so I hope it doesn't get flagged. Our new culture is relatively untested; a lot of our ideas about sex and relationships and children are only a couple generations old. I'm happily married with no children (maybe some to come in the future? Not sure). In this thread I've seen people propose polyamorous communes, and long term life partnerships with children but not marriage. These things may work out, but there's not much of a historical precedent for them, as far as I know.

I recently came back from a trip to Oman. I talked with a ton of people there, and their cultural perspective was very different (and interesting!). While a lot of the younger adults were wanting to get married and have children a little later, there was still a pretty sizeable contingent of the population my age that already had several children. And it was clear that Islam there was such a community-driving force, I could see how their traditions were pretty robust.

All this to say, I have my doubts that my concept of "prosperous, liberal, Western civilization" will live on for the long term. But if the people are fairly content and happy as it fades, is that such an issue? I'm not sure. My biggest regret if it dies is that we may never figure out all the secrets of the universe. But alas, thinking of all my highly educated PhD scientist friends in their 30s, there's only one child.

edit to add: I completely forgot to mention probably the most culturally interesting part (to me) of the Oman trip: it was for a wedding of a friend, but it was a mostly arranged marriage (the bride and groom had veto power, but their parents found the match and they only knew each other for a short while before deciding to marry).

Moshe_Silnorin5• 9 years ago

But if the people are fairly content and happy as it fades, is that such an issue.

Yes, this is a horrible outcome. We must admit that we have something here that is worth preserving. If we continue to fail in this we are in a very sorry state indeed.

cmahler76• 9 years ago

People have been brainwashed to hate their own culture, demorilization is the first step of ideological subversion. Western Civilization might not be perfect but there's nothing else in human history that has come close to it.

Everybody should watch this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3EZCVj2XA

api3• 9 years ago

Your last sentence brings up something I've been thinking about for a long time, namely that secular philosophy seems completely blind to children or to the needs of family and child rearing.

It's a fairly massive shortcoming. Philosophy must address all of human life, not just the aspects that apply to early 20s single people and that subset of society that doesn't have kids.

Some secular communities actively seem to discourage children and belittle people who care about them. It's also common to see full time moms mocked, which I see as misogyny.

I usually get attacked in forums for bringing this whole topic up.

Needless to say if not believing in God means you don't want to reproduce, then the advent of birth control will guarantee a 100% religious future. Not only are ideas passed from parent to child through cultural mechanisms but if there is any biological basis for religiosity it is now being strongly selected for.

In an ultimate cosmic irony those who deny evolution on religious grounds seem to have higher fitness.

I have my own hypothesis about this. I think there may be a philosophical "uncanny valley" (fitness valley) between pre-rational superstitious thinking and true rational thought. IMHO this valley has not been crossed. A true fully formed rational worldview would manage to carry everything forward including fertility and spirituality. So far every attempt at conceiving such a thing has landed in New Age lala land but maybe we should not give up.

Danihan6• 9 years ago

How many agnostic / atheist people do you know that have four or more kids?

Atheists don't genuinely seem to believe in natural selection, it's ironic.

watwut5• 9 years ago

"It's also common to see full time moms mocked, which I see as misogyny."

Well, it is not like really conservative christians would seen women as equally capable as men - it just seen as natural that women cant naturally compete and thus is better off at home. (And dont tell me no, I read local conservative christians journals, have friends in that community and occasionally visit catholic church with conservative priest.)

The only real difference is that one group see moms as throwing away skills while the other as never having them in the first place.

caseysoftware2• 9 years ago

It's also common to see full time moms mocked, which I see as misogyny.

My wife stays at home with our boys and I've heard her mocked and derided directly to her face. The interesting thing that it's been exclusively by women (even family members). I've never heard a man question it and some seem jealous that we don't need that second income.

greglindahl2• 9 years ago

Wait, have you been listening to the people who say that atheists have no morals, because all morals come from religious teaching?

The middle-aged atheists I know are mostly in families with children. And they seem to have similar beliefs as religious people when it comes to the amount of care they take raising their children.

If you bring up generalizations like this with no backup details, are you surprised that you "get attacked" for bringing it up?

dr_2• 9 years ago

"As mentioned in the previous essay, single parenthood correlates with a number of social maladies."

This may be true historically, but does it have to be that way going forward? My thoughts, not based on studies but based on people I know, is that the general interest in marriage has declined as there is a preference for greater autonomy amongst both men and women, not to mention economic independence. Marriage was born out of economic need, and was given a religious stamp of approval. If the same economic need isn't there, and developed countries are becoming more secular in their beliefs, it would seem only natural that marriage rates would decline.

But that doesn't mean people don't want children, or can't have children. With the introduction of ivf, and both egg and sperm donors -known or unknown- its possible for the birth rate to be maintained. It may sound bizarre now just as putting ones profile up online in search of a mate was at one time, but it could be become the new norm. Search for gametes the same way you searched for a partner at one time.

As far as the maladies of single parenthood go, much of that may be attributed to the education levels of the single parent and/or their poor economic circumstances. It doesn't have to be that way though. Of our last 4 US Presidents, 2 pretty much grew up without having a reliable father around for most of their life. They seemed to both have had pretty smart moms.

cmahler76• 9 years ago

Your method would destroy society. Women would make the choice for who the father would be and would choose only top tier traits, leaving out a vast majority of males. Men would either have no reason to be productive members of society or would become violent.

Marriage came to be as a way to essentially harness productivity by eliminating most conflict over mates.

I'm agnostic but I still think religion as an institution is important because it binds a society together under shared beliefs. People are different colors, genders, etc but religion can be used to bind it together.

washadjeffmad• 9 years ago

You're conflating your personal experience with modern courtship and kinship rituals in a particular society with some sort of universality of human nature. That's a nice way of saying you're wrong.

You and all other humans exist because of what you say you believe would "destroy society".

Sex wasn't even associated with pregnancy, let alone progeny until fairly recent history. There are existing kinship models where the "husband" is the father of all of his wives' children, even if he's 80 years old and has ED. Native American courtship rituals placed women in control of their relationships with multiple partners. There's more than one way, and humans have done them all for millennia.

The fact that US vernacular doesn't have common terms to distinguish between the people who raise you (your parents) and the people whose genes you posses (your genitor/genetrix) speaks volumes about it's dimness in the face of modern understanding.

Just because you don't think you or the other products of your society could handle it doesn't mean an entire species is de facto incapable.

Bbowen100• 9 years ago

Women would make the choice for who the father would be and would choose only top tier traits.

Is the implication here that this is not already the case? I think you are marginalizing the many variable preferences that people have when choosing partners. There is no general set of optimal human traits.

...leaving out a vast majority of males. Men would either have no reason to be productive members of society or would become violent.

This is very perplexing. Men do a lot more than just make babies, so why then would their productivity disappear if they cant make babies anymore. "Uh, hey ma,n we cant have kids anymore so lets go rioting?"

Marriage came to be as a way to essentially harness productivity by eliminating most conflict over mates.

Uhh I guess, sure I can concede that.

I still think religion as an institution is important because it binds a society together under shared beliefs.

I am also agnostic and I agree that religion is important however not for the same reason you do. Yes religions bind societies but only to a certain extent and for only so long. See the conflicts between early Christians and Jews, or the conflicts between Protestants and Catholics. Or current extremist Muslims, hell extremists of every religion. As much as religion binds people together it even more so tears people apart.

The Decline of Marriage

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