Via Ezra, this paper (PDF) about how the link between cohabitation and higher divorce rates has dissolved and why is well worth reading. Social conservatives have harped constantly on the statistic that says couples who live together before marriage are more likely to divorce for a long time, with the suggestion that young couples considering moving in together should abstain and just get married instead. It’s a classic “correlation equals causation” fallacy—people who are making this argument might consider if there’s something else that raises both the cohabitation rate and the divorce rate. As the paper argues, persuasively, there was: economics. The further down the economic scale you are, the more likely you are to live together outside of marriage, and the more likely you are to get divorced. Or that used to be true, but now cohabitation has been normalized for the middle class, which means that the correlation between causes of cohabitation and causes of divorce has been broken, and sure enough, once the common cause disappeared, so did the correlation.
The cohabitation panic is just another reminder of the frustrations we were expressing on the panel Saturday. The media allows social conservatives to run rampant with bullshit concerns, and rarely do pundits point out how the people who are screaming about murdering babies are the very same people that think cohabitation is bad. Without those connections, it becomes easier for the public to become complacent about feminism, think that it’s a done deal, when it’s clearly not and we’re having to fight some of the same battles over and over. We get called feminists—which is fine, accurate labeling is critical—but social conservatives are rarely labeled accurately as “pro-patriarchy” or just plain “sexists”. And these sexists are allowed to present their various issues as if they were discrete issues with no relationship to each other. Cohabitation is bad because of the divorce rate! Abortion is bad because of “life”! Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Obviously, the real link here is not this overwhelming concern about preventing people from having bad marriages or unwanted pregnancies,* but a just general enthusiasm for the patriarchy. To be generous for a moment, though, I do think that many in the “yea, sexism!” crowd do sincerely think that people would be better off if subjected to a stifling patriarchy. The thinking, from what I gather, is something like this: Okay, the patriarchy is technically unfair. But hey, don’t blame me! Blame god/nature, who made women naturally inferior to men and put women here as men’s sidekicks/service workers/sex objects/baby machines. The patriarchy, while being unfair, is the only way we have to maintain civilization itself, and without it, we’ll descend into anarchy with people killing each other in the streets. It’s a tad unfortunate that women’s ambitions, rights, and very souls have to be destroyed to maintain the system, and that even men, no matter how unwilling, have to be forced to uphold this oppressive form of masculinity that can destroy the bodies and spirits of gender non-conforming men, but we all have to make sacrifices to keep society going, don’t we? And it’s just the Way Things Are that the sacrifices fall on some shoulders while others benefit wildly from the system. Of course, there are the true believers, then the cynical assholes who just parrot this argument but just really enjoy privilege and hate women and gay men, and a lot of people in between.
So the single, solitary argument against any move the culture takes that would free people from the miserable constraints of the patriarchy is greeted as an assault on civilization itself. The specific nature of the fallout becomes their official reason for concern. For instance, the impetus for anti-choice activism is this horror at the idea that women will reject their god-given position as subservient to our bodies, and specifically the way that pregnancy can be symbolically understood as a biological testament to male dominance over women’s bodies.** But in the “oh noes! civilization!” view, the baby “murder” accusation is tacked on—see what happens when women reject male dominance? Mothers turning on babies! Cats and dogs living together! Same thing with cohabitation. They were against it from the get-go, because as this paper makes it clear, it offers people, but especially women, more freedom. The divorce rate was just confirmation that we’re facing the egalitarian apocalypse.
Anyway, despite the doom and gloom predictions about cohabitation, it’s become a much more attractive option because it does give you a chance to assess compatibility before making a stronger commitment, for couples who do have marriage goals, and for others, it gives us an opportunity to get the benefits of living together without incurring unnecessary risks. And for a few of us radical feminists, it gives us an opportunity to feel like we’re rebelling against the patriarchy while still getting laid and sharing rent, so there’s that. It actually makes a rough sense that, all other things being equal, a couple that gives marriage a trial run before making the full commitment is likelier to make a good choice, and therefore less likely to divorce down the road. The problem—exploited by pro-patriarchy sorts—is that there hasn’t been an equal playing ground to study. That’s changing. If the current trends continue, and living together before marriage really becomes the expected norm across classes and education levels, then I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out that people who live together before marriage see lower divorce rates.
Then what will the doomsayers hide behind? I suppose we’ll see a shift in tactics to preserve the narrative even as the statistics defy it. The fact that women with their own jobs and better educations are more likely to get married and be happy in marriage than women who follow the traditional path set out for women championed by conservatives didn’t change the narrative. It’s still, “Put down that degree and career ambitions or no one will want you!” But now it’s moving to a personal narrative form, with women getting handsomely paid to talk about how their personal experiences fit this patriarchal model, without acknowledging that they might not be telling the whole truth, or even if they are, that they’re the exception to the rule. Guess it’s time for Atlantic Monthly and the NY Times to start publishing stories titled “I Lived With Him First, And Now I Can’t Stand To Look At Him Because Of It”.
*As you all know, the anti-choice movement is sanguine on the idea of increasing the unwanted pregnancy rate, since that means more sluts are having to pay the price (called, invariably, “consequences”) for having sex.
**You don’t have to see pregnancy this way. We’re perfectly able to view pregnancy as a woman’s act of creation where a man is a team player, instead of the boss of the show.
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It’s a tad unfortunate that women’s ambitions, rights, and very souls have to be destroyed to maintain the system, and that even men, no matter how unwilling, have to be forced to uphold this oppressive form of masculinity that can destroy the bodies and spirits of gender non-conforming men, but we all have to make sacrifices to keep society going, don’t we?
Thank you for summing up Freud in one very long sentence.
I think the most interesting counterpoint to all the bullshit is to look back at that misty water colored memory of Patriarchy Realized that went on 1947-1965 or so and call bullshit on all of it using the very real informaiton from the time.
Sometimes the data are lacking, but there are clear patterns for inference seen in things like the age at first pregnancy versus age at first marriage, duration of marriage, lots of hidden “starter marriages” that ended early with one kid, etc. In short, there was a reason people fought hard for birth control and abortion rights - and a reason many people - including many men - were behind those willing to stick their necks out. It wasn’t all so perfect as it is painted to be.
There are hints of these problems in popular literature of the time, too. I don’t think certain works of fiction and music and film involving divorce were successful because of a titilation factor alone, but because they represented themes and situations people could actually relate to.
I think that’s part of it. It’s not so much that patriarchalists believe in this happy land of Father Knows Best, but that they want everybody to put up with all the heartache that comes with trying to live under an impossible system.
The difference between the 50’s and now isn’t that everything was perfect then, it’s that the chicks, queers, and coloreds knew their place.
Word, Ms. Kate. Every time someone trots out Ozzie and Harriet, I am sure to counter with one of the following, ‘gee, people in my family must have been a real exception since”:
-all my grandmothers and great grandmothers but one worked for wages (and she was an upaid farmer and nanny)
-my grandmother testified in her neighbor’s divorce trial (man abandoned wife for secretary, came to get stuff during own child’s birthday party - the guy was also my grandfather’s boss)
-both my parents were raised by single mothers after their hubsands were killed
-my mom got fired for being pregnant (fired on the spot)
-my grandmother was told she could not get a raise because she was not the head of a household (2 kids, dead husband)
-my grandmother and her sisters took care of my great grandmother until she died with no help from their brothers, who had inherited the family lands and sold them (all the sisters taught).
Yeah, it was just peachy and there was ALWAYS a man to step up to the plate and pay the rent. Just like on TEEVEE.
I was actually just discussing this with a fundigelical colleague of mine. I basically told him what this post says - correlation != causation - but that people who don’t live together before marriage are less likely to get divorced not because their marriages aren’t miserable, but because their belief system doesn’t allow divorce. It’s actually quite sad that I would have to explain correlation and causation to a fellow scientist. But I guess critical thinking skills aren’t exactly cultivated in conservative religious circles.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out that people who live together before marriage see lower divorce rates.
Then what will the doomsayers hide behind?”
Oh, that one is too easy. They’ll just conveniently drop the pre-marital part and show how, having “seen the light” and gotten married, they improved their relationship and its longevity.
They are already using a variant of this against gay people, remember. It is a common tactic to compare the break-up rate among straight people (the only convenient measure is divorce) against the break-up rate of all gay couples, regardless of whether the relationship was casual, exploratory, or fully committed.
They’ll compare the divorce rate of married people favorably to the break-up rate of unmarried people. They’ll drop the cohabitation issue (because, it “won’t be significant - after all, they did decide to get married, and that’s what matters) and compare all marriages to all non-marriages.
If they get better data, they can compare all marriages to all non-marriages that didn’t (yet) end in marriage - the ones that did, of course, drop out of the unmarried population - and get even more proof of how critical God’s Plan ™ is to happiness.
“To be generous for a moment, though, I do think that many in the “yea, sexism!” crowd do sincerely think that people would be better off if subjected to a stifling patriarchy. The thinking, from what I gather, is something like this: Okay, the patriarchy is technically unfair. But hey, don’t blame me!”
I think I would fall into the category you are trying to describe, but your description is wayyyy too simplistic. Some of us have come to a belief in a traditional marriage and family set up via experience, not preconceived ideas that could never withstand challenge.
I always assumed I would bring in half the dough, have kids in daycare, and bank some serious coin. Instead I married a woman who told me on our first date she intended to stay home with kids once she had them. That was never my idea of what my life would look like, but rather that of the person with whom I fell in love. The patriarchy, as you loike to describe it, was delivered to me. So I accepted a role as sole provider, one unfaimiliar to me as I had grown up a latch key kid with 2 working parents and one I was very uncomfortable with at first. However, I have grown to see that the model my wife introduced is superior to what I grew up in both for her and my 3 kids (including 2 daughers). My wife and my family are far happier than my mother and the family I grew up in ever was. Of course my small world and experiences are anecdotal - but that is the fount from which we all arrive at our opinions. I went to a very liberal East Coast college and was right in the men and women are the same mix - when I had no experience with human beings and was young and ignorant. 20 years later, with a life partner who has shared herself with me, and daughters whom I have known since birth, it is glaringly obvious that men and women are not even CLOSE to being the same. Any system that proposes they are provides a disservice to women just like a patriarchy does. It lies to them about what’s real and encourages life choices that have a high possibility of being unfulfilling because the underlying agenda must triumph. The truth is in the middle for women’s happiness - where they can choose whatever they want without gettign hammered for it from either side.
I’ve just started a new feminist blog and I have a couple of posts up about conservatives in the media hectoring us to “get married, you ignorant slut!”
See here:
http://thegspot.typepad.com/blog/2008/03/yet-another-jou.html
And here:
http://thegspot.typepad.com/blog/2008/03/addendum-to-the.html
The patriarchy, as you like to describe it, was delivered to me.
I don’t think anybody here is saying that everybody better find a way to be in some way ‘untraditional’, OR ELSE you are a TRAITOR to the feminist cause!
Whatever works, works. I would love to someday get to stay home with my (future) children when they’re young. I’m not banking on it, though. Sure, maybe someday I’ll fall madly in love with a corporate lawyer or investment banker or maybe just the heir to a gigantic fortune, and I’ll get to make my career more of an occasional hobby and have as much family time as possible.
But in the meantime, or in the more likely scenario that my eventual partner is just a working stiff like me, I would like to be allowed to build a life without being forced to be miserable and/or ashamed.
“20 years later, with a life partner who has shared herself with me, and daughters whom I have known since birth, it is glaringly obvious that men and women are not even CLOSE to being the same. Any system that proposes they are provides a disservice to women just like a patriarchy does.”
Wow. How can two such incredibly unique and distinct alien species like men and women EVER have gotten along for the last few 100,000 years?…
20 years later, with a life partner who has shared herself with me, and daughters whom I have known since birth, it is glaringly obvious that men and women are not even CLOSE to being the same.
WTF does this even mean?
27 years as a sister, daughter, girlfriend, cousin, niece, aunt, and best buddy has taught me the exact opposite.
99 times out of 100, the only really significant difference between me and any guy you hold me up against is the fact that he has a dangly bit between his legs and i have more of a gently sloping mound.
And these sexists are allowed to present their various issues as if they were discreet issues with no relationship to each other.
A very good point you made there, only marred by “discreet” instead of “discrete.” Please fix, then delete this comment.
MikeEss: You call the preceding millenia of gender relations “getting along?”
“You call the preceding millenia of gender relations “getting along?””
I will acknowledge that sometimes the definition is stretched beyond recognition, but generally speaking, yes, I do believe we get along.
‘Course that could just be the Patriarchy in me speaking…
I posted this before but it didn’t go through. Anyway, I’ve just started a new feminist blog, and I have a couple of posts up about conservatives in the media hectoring single women to “get married, you ignorant sluts!”
See here:
http://thegspot.typepad.com/blog/2008/03/yet-another-jou.html
And here:
http://thegspot.typepad.com/blog/2008/03/addendum-to-the.html
Ent @5: I’d go a step further and add that I’m skeptical of the idea that people who live together first and then marry are less committed to the institution, and that feeds the divorce rate. I suspect it really has been an economic issue. As the paper indicates, incentive to marry is really an economic thing—people who marry without living together are much more likely to come from well-off families, and have a financial security blanket the reduces internal household tensions.
On a related not: Amanda, and everyone else, have you seen this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/magazine/30Chastity-t.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087&em&en=13ab4235900007b8&ex=1207108800
NY Times Magazine Section article on a pro-virginity group at Harvard. Which makes the EXACT same arguments you’re making fun of here, re: cohabitation and other things, only about virginity.
In it, I learned that oral sex is “disgusting and disrespectful” and that Elizabeth Anscombe gives us “logical” reasons why premarital sex is absolutely wrong.
Also, strong women are abstinent.
There are hints of these problems in popular literature of the time, too. I don’t think certain works of fiction and music and film involving divorce were successful because of a titilation factor alone, but because they represented themes and situations people could actually relate to.
Don’t forget that it was actually forbidden to show things like adultery, premarital sex, divorce, single motherhood, or abortion in films and on TV. Plays and novels had a little more license, but it wasn’t until 1964 that the Supreme Court ruled that novels could not be censored.
So the whole vision that we have of Mom+Dad+2.5 kids happily living in the suburbs with a station wagon and a dog during the 1950s is pretty much completely manufactured by the entertainment industry. That’s where The Feminine Mystique came from — women wondering why they hated their lives so much when every piece of popular culture around them said that their lives were perfect.
I feel very lucky that my parents pretty much *require* that I cohabitate before I get married. Because how else are you supposed to get to know a person???
Oh, but then it won’t be special when I get married! I would hardly call finding out that your loved one has some unlivable at-home habit “special”.
Dr. T indicates the first attempt to get around the facts: Throw out a bunch of strawmen and non sequiters and try to distract people from the facts. No feminist thinks men and women are exactly the same. But what we reject is the notion that the difference between men and women is that men are human and women are objects. We believe women are human beings, and that human beings have feelings, ambitions, intelligence, and an internal life and dignity of their own, as men do. Conservatives behave at least as if they think women are just very complex appliances.
And T? That some women embrace a second class citizen status because they individually gain from women’s larger oppression doesn’t make the system right or fair. It’s sadder to me that some women find it easier to give in than fight. That some woman volunteers to be second class doesn’t mean that they have a right to require it of me.
that misty water colored memory of Patriarchy Realized that went on 1947-1965
There’s a reason for this, and it has nothing to do with what things were like then and everything to do with who’s telling the story and how old they were at that time.
I found that living with Mr. Orange for a year or so before we got married was the healthiest preparation for marriage I could have had. We had a lot to negotiate about living together- we’re both of us strong, stubborn people who have our own ways of doing things, and figuring out how to live in a cooperative, productive harmony wasn’t always a piece of cake.
I adore him, and I’m certain it’s mutual; but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t times when, during a particularly difficult hurdle, I looked at the door and thought “we’re not married- if I chose to leave, I could, no legal strings.” Rather than making me feel fatalistic and negative about the relationship, that open possibility always encouraged me to work harder at understanding him and getting him to understand me, because I knew I was staying because I wanted to, not because I had to.
There are probably people out there with the same story. Of course the idea of a woman being free to leave and exercise her own judgements is a horrifying tale to the tools of the patriarchy.
I was in college when it clicked for me that pro-patriarchy conservatives care more for institutions than the well being of the people in them. I had to read an opinion piece by a woman who was arguing that divorce is in and of itself harmful to children and that parents should stay together no matter what, so that the children would grow up learning to do the same. The author didn’t even pretend to care about whether this was good for the parents. Her argument was basically to stay in a loveless, unhappy marriage so your children would learn that it’s important to get married and remain in an unhappy marriage for their children and so on and so on.
That isn’t “the middle”. That’s feminism. It’s the leftist argument, not the centrist one, despite the overwhelming number of people who ascribe to it without actually labeling themselves feminists.
Stephanie Coontz has written two really good books about this stuff: “The Way We Never Weren’t” and a book about marriage whose title escapes me.
It’s all myth.
“And T? That some women embrace a second class citizen status because they individually gain from women’s larger oppression doesn’t make the system right or fair.”
I agree completely with that statement. But I have no experience with women choosing to be second class citizens. I have lots of experience with very intelligent/college educated women who have heard both sides of the argument on how they should lead their lives, have worked and been very successful there, and eventually chosen to stay and home and raise a family. Still smart, still invoved in all kinds of organizations that benefit and drive society (just not business), and very happy. Does that make them a second class citizen?
“that misty water colored memory of Patriarchy Realized that went on 1947-1965″
I recommend The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio and Inventing the Abbotts to dispel this notion.
The former’s a true story and shows what it’s like to scrape by with 12 kids and an alcoholic husband and try to have your own pastime for some extra money. (I like how it throws in a reference on TV about what it would be like for a woman to run for President.)
The latter has class warfare on top of the dangers of regressive gender roles, and shows what it was like for even Rich Girls to be “sent away” when Jennifer Connelly’s character gets knocked up.
“That some woman volunteers to be second class doesn’t mean that they have a right to require it of me.”
- can I get this embroidered on a pillow or something?
Dr T, there are more than two ways that a woman can choose to live her life. Fortunately, we don’t all have to decide between (a) get married, stay at home and raise the kids or (b) get married, work outside the home and put the kids in daycare.
T — It looks to me like you’re missing a couple of the big points here. First: what works for you and your wife does not, will not, and has not worked for everyone out there. The point is that women should get to choose their life trajectories just as men do, and that has not been the case for the majority of human history. Second: it strikes me as very odd that you would describe as “patriarchy” a decision that was made by your wife, and specifically against your wishes. That sounds like a woman deciding on her own life path, which is probably one of the big reasons it works for the two of you. Now, if she were to come to you and say she’s ready to get a job or an education or what not, and you were to tell her that she can’t, that would be another story. Or if you were to instill in your daughters and son that man = breadwinner and woman = housewife, and that’s the only way people can be happy, then I think you would be doing a great disservice to them as well.
women who have heard both sides of the argument on how they should lead their lives
An argument that no one has about men. I guess one of the differences between men and women is that women ought to have their life choices decided by community consensus.
Still smart, still invoved in all kinds of organizations that benefit and drive society (just not business), and very happy. Does that make them a second class citizen?
Absolutely. Sexists don’t patronize to men about how happy they must be running church bake sales and book clubs and keeping their pretty little heads out of business. If some women want to do that, that’s fine, but their choices have nothing to do with how other women “should” live, and they don’t prove anything about how “different” men and women are.*
*Which they are, obviously, and I hate when sexists bring up that stupid red herring, because pretty much no one thinks men and women are exactly alike, and it distracts honest people from the conversation. Blurting out that “men and women are different” as a defense of the status quo highlights your desire to distract rather than argue, and it demonstrates that you’re possibly an idiot, or not paying attention to the argument in progress.
Well, if you accept the proposition that patriarchy = civilization, it obviously follows that any attempt to ameliorate patriarchy = the subversion of civilization.
Simple. Memorable. The stuff of which sound bytes are made.
If you are not allowed full participation in the public sphere, then yes, you are a second-class citizen.
Why, of course they do, silly! People are evanescent and imperfect. People have bad hair days and B.O. People get zits. Institutions don’t suffer from any of those drawbacks.
But the really salient point is that people only last for threescore and ten years or so while institutions can hump themselves along for millennia. Now suppose you’re smart, want something to love, but don’t want to risk heartbreak by loving something that might die on you. Which are you going to pick, a person or an institution?
Just asking…
Ginmar, Coontz’s other book is “Marriage, A History” How Love Conquered Marriage.” It’s rad.
Sorry, when I capitalized Rich Girls earlier I meant to use it as a reference to how people say “oh, without Roe the upper class will just go overseas for abortions” when it may not be the case. It wasn’t meant to be a mockery of the affluent themselves.
Yes! That’s it. I just got it and I swear the cats are reading it because I can’t find it anywhere.
It seems to me that deeply important, but rarely stated is the other big objection to “but men and women are different!”
There is something unstated in there somewhere - and it is that while men are different from women, all men are interchangeable with each other and all women are interchangeable with each other.
Over and over, someone says “But I am so different from my wife (or husband).” Okay so far. But to then extend that to “therefore all couples should be required to behave in this or that manner” implies that the differences between men and women far outweigh the differences AMONG men and women. And that’s just wrong.
Fine, a couple are deleriously happy with one stay at home spouse. SO? The next couple would find that a living hell
Marriage is between a man and a woman, because of the complimentarity of the sexes. The patriarchal model is the basis of society and must be maintained. Or in other words, their individuality is utterly immaterial. Go out and catch you a man, girls, any man, cause they’re all alike. No need to get to know her, boys, ‘cause you can just train her up right once you get her in the boat.
I think at the time Inventing The Abbotts takes place, A) going overseas was way more expensive and time consuming than it is today, and B) it may not even have been an option, because until the 60’s only a few European countries had legalized abortion.
I don’t remember exactly how rich Jennifer Connelly’s family was in the film, but I doubt they were wealthy enough to send her off to Sweden to have an abortion, circa 1950 or whatever.
Anyway, despite the doom and gloom predictions about cohabitation, it’s become a much more attractive option because it does give you a chance to assess compatibility before making a stronger commitment, for couples who do have marriage goals, and for others, it gives us an opportunity to get the benefits of living together without incurring unnecessary risks.
I think you’re being too breezy about cohabitation. I’m sure there are people who do because they’re self-actualized, and as you say - it gives the the oportunity to deepen their relationship and test the waters before committing to marriage. economic reasons. But I’m sure many more do it for financial reasons, and if they had other options they wouldn’t. I wouldn’t praise it too much.
@ James 40 - Granted I’m as entitled-white-girl-middle-class as they come, but everyone I know who cohabits does it as a potential test-drive of marriage, not necessarily because they can’t afford to get married. And I would say that more than half of my friends who are in serious romantic relationships cohabit.
I can’t talk about the economic aspects (in fact, I’m so entitled I actually can’t think of an economic reason marriage would be off the table), but there are definitely plenty of people who are doing it for the exact reasons Amanda mentions.
To no ill effect, I might add. I don’t really get what’s to be “breezy” about.
Men and women are different in their physiologic reproductive roles.
This means their options in life and their human rights should be different how?
To #19:
Same here. My mother sat me down and told me that before I consider any relationship serious, that I live with the person for at least a year.
My mother has never been married, and in fact had to beat the crap out of my (biological only) dad after he thought it ok to hit her in an argument. He went bye bye, and eventually she found my (real to me) dad and they have been together for some 20 years now.
She never married.
Not ever.
I too am in a committed relationship with my love of 11 years now.
We have no plan to marry, as we feel no need for a piece of paper to tell us we love each other.
We might if taxes and health care requires it though. But otherwise, we have no need.
I think I grew up quite nicely all things considered
opoponax, I interpreted James’ comment to mean that people live together because it’s cheaper, not that they don’t get married because it’s too expensive. The first time I lived with a boyfriend, it wasn’t because I was thinking about marrying him (or even spending the rest of my life with him, unmarried), it was because he was pretty much living with me already, so I figured we might as well save money by officially moving in together. Turned out to be a big mistake (I was young and stupid, when it came to relationships), because while it is true that it’s easier to get out of a cohabiting relationship than a marriage, it’s much harder to get out of a cohabiting relationship than a non-cohabiting one. Anyway, that’s what I thought James meant by “financial reasons.”
Every few years, there’s some article coming out of Harvard about virginity.
I attended for two years, and I remember the dating pool.
Staying a virgin at Harvard is not a problem.
people live together because it’s cheaper, not that they don’t get married because it’s too expensive
Yeah, there is that dimension. And I know a lot of people who’ve initially moved in together to save money, or because they were having roommate problems, landlord problems, etc.
But even then, there was a ‘test-drive’ aspect too, of course.
I think the “cannot afford to marry” argument for the very poor is that the income requirements are so low for many government programs that if the couple were to marry, their combined income would disqualify them, even if neither earns very much money.
But beyond that, I think marrying, in its conventional form, is a statement of optimism about the future. While some people don’t marry because they think it’s unnecessary or even harmful to their relationship or because they’re radical feminists, most people still hold marriage up as some sort of ideal. It signals your arrival as a self-sufficient adult and carries all sorts of social signifying to it. In a weird inverse, if you can’t meet that ideal - if you think you’ll never be able to afford your own place or you fight a lot with your SO (and if you have money problems, chances are much higher that you will) or fill-in-the-blank pessimistic vision of the future - you may even think that you shouldn’t marry or can’t marry or don’t deserve to marry.
I think there is a weird thing going on where the over-idealization of marriage into something it’s never been is contributing to its declining popularity. No one can meet that ideal, so why bother?
In terms of misrepresenting statistics and cause-and-effect, I keep getting surprised that the divorce rate is declining. I’ve seen this several places, but the meme that the divorce rate is through the ceiling (and often that feminism is to blame) and that this indicates the collapse of civilization is so strong that I forget and am re-surprised to learn it again.
So what exactly is that nasty, greasy, tuxedo’d pederast planning to do with that cigarette?
Or mebbe just ho`s wit holes.
But God bless ‘em , anyways.
Why, he’s planning to violate the sanctity of…
I’ll let you fill in the rest yourself.
Actually, to me it looks like he’s thinking “hey, what is this funny burning stick in my hand? Who’s this girl? What am I doing here? OMIGOD, I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHO I AM!!!!”
james, if you meant what raging red says, then I feel that my breeziness is doubly important. It would be terrible if people married under the money-saving circumstances that drive a lot of people to live together, because they felt obligated to make it official. If you’re going to find yourself drifting into a cohabitation lifestyle, it’s probably even more important that you have an easy escape than if you openly chose it.
But it’s rarely that simple. I think it’s like how the unplanned pregnancy often compels the marriage. A lot of the time, I’ve known couples who basically planned to have an unplanned pregnancy so that they didn’t have to figure out how to go through the bizarre proposal ritual to get married. If that makes any sense. Like, grown adults who just happen to quit using birth control? I’ve seen it happen—and it’s a mutual thing, not someone trying to trap the other.
With moving in together, it’s often about, “Well, my lease is up, it would save money.” But that doesn’t mean you’re less in love or you didn’t think it through. Shit, I know as many people married for the insurance and moved in together to save on rent.
lol chingona
“…because they’re radical feminists.”
Shifts awkwardly in seat, hem.
Anyway, I would like to add one nitpick to that. I think that radical feminists are probably right in there with the pessimists. Have you ever heard of a radical feminist who was an optimist?
Point taken. I guess I was trying to distinguish between people who don’t marry for ideological reasons and those who would like to marry but don’t, but yeah, pessimism (or realism) about your ability to enter a patriarchal cultural institution and change it to meet your own needs rather than be changed by it kind of blurs the distinction, doesn’t it?
I’m an optimistic radical feminist. I feel that, on the whole, we’ve won a shocking number of battles. I think we’ve won the conceptual battle, too. That people have to pay lip service to women’s equality and argue, when arguing for the patriarchy, that it’s either not going to damage women’s equality or that women are the real cause of the patriarchy (Dr. T’s bullshit) or that their pet cause (fetuses, divorce) is so important that it trumps women’s equality, well, they’re showing they’ve surrendered the biggest fight of all, which is admitting that women’s equality is a good thing.
Since cohabitation is so obviously good, we ought to have vows for cohabiting couples, just like married couples do. Here is what I propose:
I, John, take you, Mary, to be my cohabitant, to have sex with, and to share the bills with. I’ll be around while things are good, but i probably won’t be if things get tough. As the saying goes, when the going gets tough, seek greener pastures. After all, the grass frequently IS greener on the other side of the fence. If you should get a cold, I’ll run to the drugstore for some medicine–but if you get sick to the point where you take more than a day or two off work, don’t count on me. And, forsaking many others, I will be more or less faithful to you for as long as it feels good to me. If you should ever catch me screwing around on you, remember it doesn’t necessarily mean that I no longer care for you. I will still probably want to share bed and bills with you. So help me, me!
Since cohabitation is so obviously good, we ought to have vows for cohabiting couples, just like married couples do. Here is what I propose:
I, John, take you, Mary, to be my cohabitant, to have sex with, and to share the bills with. I’ll be around while things are good, but i probably won’t be if things get tough. As the saying goes, when the going gets tough, seek greener pastures. After all, the grass frequently IS greener on the other side of the fence. If you should get a cold, I’ll run to the drugstore for some medicine–but if you get sick to the point where you take more than a day or two off work, don’t count on me. And, forsaking many others, I will be more or less faithful to you for as long as it feels good to me. If you should ever catch me screwing around on you, remember it doesn’t necessarily mean that I no longer care for you. I will still probably want to share bed and bills with you. So help me, me!
I think the “cannot afford to marry” argument for the very poor is that the income requirements are so low for many government programs that if the couple were to marry, their combined income would disqualify them, even if neither earns very much money.
This isn’t just an issue for “the very poor”, either. I personally know three different long-standing married couples who were essentially forced into divorce by catastrophic illness. In each case, one partner developed a long-term, debilitating illness, and the other parther couldn’t afford to provide medical care even though they made too much money for their spouse to qualify for MedicAid.
I suspect many elderly cohabitants are experiencing the same essential dilemma: can’t get married or their benefits get cut in half.
Hahahaha, sorry, just LOL. Lots of those marriages held because the divorce was the greater evil. Given the choice, many women voted with their feet. Nothing like the elders telling us to get an education and a career so we don’t have to get married.
Just like political statements under any censorship, the truth was hidden. Watch those old movies again and see how the writers tried to speak but not be blacklisted.
I moved in with my boyfriend about a year ago for financial reasons … and since then we moved to a place together because we actually enjoy living together! I’ve grown up with four brothers, lived with three girls and lived by myself, and this is by far the best living arrangement I’ve ever had.
And I don’t consider it a pre-marriage trial period or anything. We just happen to make good companions, in a relationship and as roommates.
Sidequestion to some above responses: Why is feminism considered radical???
It’s very amusing to me that the 1970s and 1980s have become “a more innocent time” for some people. WTF was so “innocent” about Watergate, the SLA, and crack?
I strongly suspect this is what happened to my cousin — her husband had MS (or some other neuromuscular problem, I forget) and she took care of him right up to the point where it became obvious that he would be able to get more and better care if they divorced than if they stayed married.
Yet another reason our healthcare system sucks ass.
When Charlie and I made plans to start living together, my 80+ year old grandmother was the only one who told me that she wished SHE could have done that first!
I have lots of experience with very intelligent/college educated women who have heard both sides of the argument on how they should lead their lives, have worked and been very successful there, and eventually chosen to stay and home and raise a family. Still smart, still invoved in all kinds of organizations that benefit and drive society (just not business), and very happy. Does that make them a second class citizen?”
Ah, Dr. T,
These smart, intelligent, involved women are leaving themselves vulnerable to poverty for themselves and their families. Deaths happen. Disability happens. Lay-offs happen. Divorce, even amoung those who thought everything was fine, happens. Unless that keeping involved includes keeping up job skills or they are independantly wealthy on their own, they are sunk when one of the Big Bad happens.
And what are they supposed to do with themselves after the last little one leaves the nest?
I would have gone insane as a stay at home mom and likely ended up miserable, divorced or both. Instead, I’ve made it to 25 years this summer. We have two gainfully employed, self sufficient adult children. My own parents were miserable when my Mom stayed home and when she worked; it made no difference. My husband and I were not when I worked, when we both worked, when we went to school, when he stayed home (though he went a bit stir crazy). The short period I was home with the kids, I went nuts and went out after a month to get a “mother’s hours” receptionist job to see me until my residency kicked in for school.
Just because it worked for you doesn’t mean it is for everyone, nor even wise in general.
Amanda
I won’t get into this too much right now, as it is neither the right thread nor my blog. Plus I am a die-hard pessimist, so we could be saying the same things, but just with a different interpretation.
I think if conservatives use ‘equality’ as a cover to say something like ‘but didn’t you know it’s all for the women that I don’t think they should drive,’ or some such bs, and then someone buys that when it’s that weak of an argument, that it reveals how far we have to go.
It’s a little bit like two of your friends are talking about you behind your back. One of them says “She thinks she’s a cool person, and I’ll agree when I need to make it through the conversation or I need something from her.*” The other friend lets it slide.
There is only an acknowledgment of the *concept* of your
‘coolness’ or equality, and only because you brought it up.
*like votes or church attendance or money or a continuing desire for her to sleep with them or have their baybiez
o I accepted a role as sole provider, one unfaimiliar to me as I had grown up a latch key kid with 2 working parents and one I was very uncomfortable with at first. However, I have grown to see that the model my wife introduced is superior to what I grew up in both for her and my 3 kids (including 2 daughers). My wife and my family are far happier than my mother and the family I grew up in ever was.
Funny, but my experience is almost exactly the opposite. My mother chose to be a stay-at-home mom over my dad’s protests (although in reality I think he would have been upset if he’d had to cook and clean for himself), and I grew up knowing I wanted a career outside the home and a partner who split the housework. It’s almost like my mother and I are entirely different people, and women are not in fact interchangeable robots who arrive from the factory preprogrammed with a single Perfect Life Plan.
I hate these arguments based on the assumption that a woman’s life is limited to two options, one of which is wise and holy and admirable, the other of which is bad and foolish and wrong (which choice is which depends, of course, on whom you ask). It leads to women freaking out over whether they made the “right” choice and feeling guilty about whatever they do, which does no one any good.
The married, single-breadwinner model works best when the breadwinner is self employed and/or has some kind of small business that the stay-at-home spouse collaborates with and can take over in the event of a death or divorce.
If the breadwinner is just a wage-slave, then the dependent partner is setting herself up for a world of hurt.
A proper, fully self-actualized patriarch, however, would not acknowledge that the patriarchy is unfair. To them, even this claim is false.
However we rarely encounter such outrageous (if consistent) types today, at least in so-called respectable discourse. They have been driven into hypocritical inconsistency by the degree of success feminism has achieved, which puts the facts that contradict the bland assertion patriarchy is the best system for everyone in plain and undisputable sight.
It is much like the way that our mainstream political culture is really Hamiltonian in its view of the proper economic order of society, but has pretended to be Jeffersonian ever since the Andrew Jackson admin.
Oh, my SO has often said that the wedding was so expensive, the next one will be with a JP and no more than five family. The rest of the money goes to the house.
Oh, but it does the patriarchy a world of good. After all, if we’re so busy worrying about if we made the right decision to stay home/keep working, it’s harder for us to get together and start agitating for things like workplace childcare and paid parental (not just maternal) leave. Not to mention that little matter of smaller paychecks.
Something like this happened to Sally Blackmun, the daughter of Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who authored the Roe opinion.
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1732/context/cover/
Ding! Ding! Ding! For those who don’t believe in evolution, the primary justification for the patriarchy is very Darwinian. Women must breed so they can produce more sons who will be forced to fight and destroy other peoples. If our culture does not do this, other cultures will. All in all, it is a very bleak view of humanity.
The other thing I have noticed is that cultural conservatives rarely discuss the truth of their social and religious claims, but commonly discuss the utility of them. For example, I have read many articles about how Christianity is necessary to maintain civilization, however, I have read considerably fewer articles about whether Christianity is true. Perhaps this is because they don’t want to acknowledge that the god of the Bible is going the way of Zeus in the hearts and minds of the western world?
“And for a few of us radical feminists, it gives us an opportunity to feel like we’re rebelling against the patriarchy while still getting laid and sharing rent, so there’s that.”
Yes, ma’am. I have zero desire to get married (just thinking about it makes my skin crawl–if I can avoid being associated with a creepy institution that originated as human property exchange, I will do so), but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be committed to and live with my partner. We get the financial and emotional benefits of living together without having to worry about divorce and how much his income is going to affect my grants for grad school. Everybody wins!
For example, I have read many articles about how Christianity is necessary to maintain civilization, however, I have read considerably fewer articles about whether Christianity is true. Perhaps this is because they don’t want to acknowledge that the god of the Bible is going the way of Zeus in the hearts and minds of the western world?
It’s probably more likely that most people who believe this sort of thing don’t really grasp that Christianity might not be true, or even that there might be a significant number of people out there who would dispute the truth of Christianity.
I’m not a Christian, though I am a theist, and I have to say that the absolute TRUTH of a particular religious claim isn’t really important to me. In fact, one of the things that annoys me about the more conservative strains of Christianity is that they seem so hung up on how their religion is TRUE!!!!! while all others are just silly fairy stories. Which is half the reason the more annoying strains of atheism are all freaked out about the same stuff — they grew up in a Christian hegemony and do not even know enough about religious belief in general to understand that Christianity is pretty much the only religion that tries to pass off its core beliefs as a set of black-and-white Facts.
I agree with Raging Red and James. Of my friends who cohabitate it is for financial reasons, i.e. paying one rent instead of two, but doesn’t have much to do with testing the relationship for marriage. I don’t know what their plans for the future are, but the immediate thinking is “we like each other so why don’t we save ourselves some money.” My own experience with living with a boyfriend was much the same.
After the relationship ended I realized I didn’t like the idea of sharing a home when marriage wasn’t even on the table. When the relationship went sour it was a lot harder to end it. My husband and I didn’t live together before marrying because we didn’t feel like we needed to “test it out” since we had no hesitations regarding our relationship. But, to each their own….
If marriage (and I mean marriage, not a wedding) is important to a couple I don’t see an economic reason not to do it. In fact, in addition to saving on living expenses, you also get breaks on insurance and taxes.
(i haven’t read the whole thread yet, so forgive if someone’s brought this up already)
An argument that no one has about men. I guess one of the differences between men and women is that women ought to have their life choices decided by community consensus.
Junk Science, unless you know a whole lot of househusbands or stay-at-home-dads, I’d guess that the difference is a whole lot less than you think. Personally, I’ve known all sorts of couples but I’ve never known any where only the mom worked while the dad took care of the home and kids. I’m sure it happens; I’ve just never actually seen it.
No one has that argument about men because it’s assumed that, regardless of whether their partner works or not, men must work. It’s not a subject for discussion; there is no choice to consider. That’s the community consensus.
I remember that during a discussion of feminism in a political science class I took a couple of years ago, the prof asked the men in the class if they’d be willing to accept a househusband/full-time parenting role with our wives as sole breadwinners. Half of the 8 guys (including me) said we would. Then she asked the women in the class if they’d be interested in such an arrangement. 2 of the 12 women in the class said they would. Most were pretty intensely turned off by the idea.
Does this have anything to do with the creepy “Marriage Works” ad campaign I’ve been seeing all around DC???
it’s assumed that, regardless of whether their partner works or not, men must work. It’s not a subject for discussion; there is no choice to consider. That’s the community consensus.
If a man decides to be the primary childcare provider because his wife has a great career that she loves and which can easily pay all the bills, he is considered a SAINT. If he decides to keep working, that’s OK too.
If a women does the same thing, nobody even notices. And if she doesn’t, she is considered a selfish bitch who cares more about her own cold ambition than the welfare of her children.
I live and work in Whitest Dumf*ckistan. I have seen 20 somethings leaving their home phone number and a “call me” with a fat, balding, nearly 50 guy at work. Best I can figure is that a man with teeth, basic hygiene, and a job is worth chatting up. Of them, job seemed the most important. You can forgive the lack of teeth, body odor, stained clothes, cig habit, and all….but you better have a job.
Hahahaha, sorry, just LOL. Lots of those marriages held because the divorce was the greater evil. Given the choice, many women voted with their feet.
Indeed. Life would be so much easier for us males if we still lived in a time where our relationships involved essentially arranged marriages to subservient women who didn’t divorce us.
And by “easier”, I mean in the same sense my degree would be so much easier if I got it by writing to an address off the back of a matchbox.
Rob W,
My husband stayed home with the kids for our son’s first 18 months. I had a job and hadn’t finished my degree yet. He did not have a job and had finished his 1st degree.
I would be turned off by someone who had as a life goal being a stay at home parent, either male or female. Kids are in school 6-8 hours a day starting at 6 throughout most of the US. Adults should be able to support themselves, if not themselves and their families. Homemaking will not accomplish this, though many home businesses will.
I know not every one agrees with me on this, but really, why would anyone want someone as a partner who wasn’t willing to at least try to meet a share of both home and out-in-the-world work? For at least the majority of their shared lifetime? Note that I consider multiple small children being taken care of by whichever partner does not earn enough to cover daycare for same is an extremely rational option, especially for infants with the dirth of good infant care, as is one partner taking time out to focus on young children because of personal and/or family preference and needs.
Ginmar, Coontz’s other book is “Marriage, A History” How Love Conquered Marriage.” It’s rad.
The advantage of going through the RSS feed at work…
“Life in capitalist America : private profit and social decay” Stephanie Coontz … [et al.] (New York: Pathfinder Press, [1975]).
“Women’s work, men’s property : the origins of gender and class” edited by Stephanie Coontz and Peta Henderson (London: Verso, 1986).
“The social origins of private life : a history of American families, 1600-1900″ Stephanie Coontz (London: Verso, 1988).
“The way we never were : American families and the nostalgia trap” Stephanie Coontz (New York: BasicBooks, 1992).
“The way we really are : coming to terms with America’s changing families” Stephanie Coontz (New York: BasicBooks, 1997).
“American families : a multicultural reader” edited by Stephanie Coontz with Maya Parson and Gabrielle Raley (New York: Routledge, 1999).
“Marriage, a history : from obedience to intimacy, or, How love conquered marriage” Stephanie Coontz (New York: Viking, 2005).
Also
“Values and the traditional family [videorecording]” Learning Seed (Marrickville, N.S.W.: Science Press, c1994).
why would anyone want someone as a partner who wasn’t willing to at least try to meet a share of both home and out-in-the-world work?
I was once seriously involved with an artist who could not make a living on her work and thus always had a day job. This made her miserable, and rightly so. Had the relationship otherwise worked out, I would have financially supported both of us in a heartbeat.
I think everybody ought to be able to support themselves just in case they ever really need to, but there’s something to be said for loving someone so much that you’re willing to make their path in life more bearable.
It’s a status thing. I makes so much, my wife can be an adjunct. Kind of why The City buys into visible status objects…..who’s the Bigger Dog.
Klein is right on target. That finding is of a piece with this one from January ‘07 about income and marriage.