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Konkvistador comments on Open Thread, February 15-29, 2012 - Less Wrong
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Comments (194)
Why would anyone want to get engaged? But I do second the request for this data.
Edit: Removed "in the world "
"Why in the world would anyone [X]?" comes off as starting with a strong opinion that [X] is a bad idea, rather than actually asking for information about motives.
Better?
In any case, as we discussed below, my original interpretation was that this is about the general desirability of [X]. I also obviously implied I've heard strong reasons against [X] but few convincing ones in its favour.
This whole conversation was such a cliché.
Woman: Yay I want to get married with the man I love! Does anyone have any advice?
Man: Marriage is a bad idea. I can't see why anyone would want that.
Woman: I'm allowed to want things! You are being mean.
Man: Don't try and chain the poor guy with whom I suddenly identify!
Woman: I hate you and my fear of instability and falling out of love that you now represent! I want to wear a wedding dress and a pretty ring on my hand!
Man: I'm sorry.
Woman: Apology accepted.
Now I'm wondering what would've happened if my boyfriend had made the post.
I find this sexist! But true.
In any case it was sweet sweet drama.(^_^)
It's better.
I would say that "I'm surprised that you're planning on [X], considering [list of drawbacks]" would work at least as well.
I was surprised at Alicorn (who's generally a calm poster) saying that she was allowed to want things. It seemed weirdly out of line with the discussion. When I saw the beginning of the thread again, "why in the world" jumped out at me as aggressive.
Something that's showing more clearly to me on another reread is that you genuinely didn't see what you might have done that was problematic.
I'm wondering if there's something odd going on at your end-- I don't think you usually misread things the way you misread Alicorn's original request.
It could be a cultural or language barrier, the same phrase "why in the world would you X" has a literal Slovenian equivalent that I now however think seems to carry very different connotations. Much more surprise and much less disapproval than in English.
This phrase might have set of the conversation on the wrong foot, since later on seemingly unprovoked hostility and evasiveness may have caused me to respond by hardening up and even escalating.
It is also possible that since I have recently had irl discussions regarding marriage I may have just thrown out some arguments at Alicorn that where originality crafted for someone else. If that was the case then we both became pretty emotional in the discussion because of its relevance to our personal lives. :/
No.
Taking out "in the world" tones it down, in the same way that taking the spikes out of a club tones it down. "Why would anyone..." is still a rhetorical question asserting that anyone who does is a dolt. You do the same in another comment: "Why would anyone make a lifetime commitment?"
Clearly, many people do get engaged, do get married, do make lifetime commitments. A majority of people, even, at least here in the West; I do not know how it is in Slovenia. (The disadvantageous tax regime you have in Slovenia was done away with long ago in the UK: married couples can elect to be taxed as separate individuals.) But saying "Why would anyone do such a thing" does not invite discussion, it shuts it off. If you actually wanted to know people's reasons, you would actually ask them, and listen to the answers.
Ok fair enough, can you propose a better way to ask?
I was interested in the following:
Why do so few people who want to get married question the wisdom of such a step considering its high costs and dubious benefits (in comparison to say cohabitation)?
Why do people in general want to get married? (this is different from the question of whether it is rational to marry)
Is it rational for most people who marry to do so?
I was not specifically interested in why Alicorn wanted to get married. I did want to provoke, maybe even shock people into thinking about it beyond cached thoughts.
When I got married, I thought about this a little, and I concluded that marriage (but not cohabitation) would:
Create a partner with a non-betrayal stance towards me (i.e. would not defect against me in a one-shot Prisoner's dilemma game).
Signal to others that I and partner had a non-betrayal stance towards each other.
It's an interesting question why marriage is able to create that first effect, and I don't have a good answer. I do think that many people go into marriage without thinking of these considerations, and I think that is a mistake. In other words, I think that the answer to your third question is no. But that depends on society's tolerance of cohabitation, which wasn't always society's attitude.
I can think this is because it is an act that is supposed to entail the following:
To me, those things are implied by the "non-betrayal" stance. Agreement on childbearing, shared financial interest, and pair bonding (i.e. shared emotional interest) are consequences of the fundamental agreement not to betray. As you note, each of those could be achieved without marriage - but most people act as if this were not possible. I'm just as confused as you.
That is different from noting the incidental benefits of legal marriage - if I die without a will, my wife gets my property. To achieve the same effect without marriage, I'd have to actually create a will. And so on for all the legal rights I want my wife to have (e.g. de facto legal guardian if I am incapacitated). But I want my wife to have those rights because of the non-betrayal stance, and if that wasn't our relationship, I wouldn't want her to have those rights.
Ask as if you did not already have a presumption about what the answer should be. Telling people they're idiots unless they agree with you will only convince them you are someone they do not want to talk to.
Your latest reformulation is better -- the key substitution is "do" instead of "would". The second and third bullet points are absolutely fine, but in the first and in the final paragraph you're still sticking your own oar in with "considering its high costs and dubious benefits" and "shock people into thinking about it beyond cached thoughts". There are, as it happens, people who have thought carefully about what arrangement they want to make on these matters, and without having to be told about cached thoughts either, but you will never hear them with that approach.
The high cost of divorce can make a lifetime commitment more robust. It also helps with taxes, visas and health care.
Why would anyone make a lifetime commitment?
Committing a crime together and vowing to remain silent produces high costs. Exchanging embarrassing pictures or other blackmailing material can also produce high costs. I don't know this seems like a fake reason, I mean if you wanted to optimize for robustness of long range commitment and set out to optimize for it would you really end up with anything like marriage? Especially since more than 50% of all marriages end in divorce it dosen't seem to be, as it is practised currently, very good at its supposed function.
In addition unlike other imaginable mechanism, this one isn't symmetric unless it is a same sex marriage. The penalties are on average significantly higher for the male participant. This just seems plain unfair and bad signalling though I admit asymmetric arrangements can be a feature not a bug.
Also I seem to be able to maintain long term relationships with friends and family members without state enforced contracts. Why should a particular kind of relationship between two people require it? And even further why a contract that can't be much customized, that (irrational) voters feel strongly about and the rules of which the government via law or legal practice changes in unpredictable ways every few years?
This is very Amerocentric. When it comes to income and taxes in Slovenia it is much better not to be married than married, because the welfare state (which is used by almost everyone - lower, middle and even middle upper class to some extent) generally calculates most benefits according to income per family member and many benefits are tied to children and teens. It is nearly always better for the couple not to marry. I have friends from several other countries in Europe who have stated it is much like this in their countries as well.
Visas and generally facilitating immigration sound like good reasons to get married. Edit: This last line wasn't sarcasm, as hard as it may seem to believe. I was still thinking of marriage as a legal category not a traditional ritual.
Note: 50% of all marriages, not 50% of all married people. The people who get married (and divorced) several times drag down the overall success rate.
Googling around revealed various claims of the success rate for first marriage: more than 70 percent, 50 to 60 percent, 70 to 90 percent, etc.
I find Stevenson-Wolfers (alt alt) a credible source. It says that 50% of first marriages in the US from the 70s lasted 25 years. Marriages from the 80s look slightly more stable. The best graph is Figure 2 on page 37.
I'm white and educated. Those stats don't apply to me.
There is much more cash and property shared in a typical long-term romantic relationship than a typical platonic. I wouldn't share an apartment with my brother unless he signed a state-enforced contract.
Can you explain to me what disadvantages marriage has for a person who would wants to raise children with the help of a long-term romantic partner?
Can you explain what advantages it has that are exclusive to it?
Considering the ceremony itself is often a major financial burden, shouldn't we seek good reasons in its favour rather than responses to "why not!"? But to proceed on this line anyway, from anecdotal evidence in my circle of acquaintances custody battles seem to be much more nasty and hard on the children among those who are married. The relationships between men and their children is also much more damaged and strained.
I'm not trying to debate you, I'm trying to optimize my life. I want to reproduce with a partner who will stick around for decades, at least. If you have a compelling case for why my life would be better without marriage, I'd love to hear it.
Is there any legal precedent that gives a never-married man better access to his children than a divorced man?
Why do you need to marry someone to live with them for decades and raise children? Are millions of people living happily in such arrangements doing something wrong or sub-optimally? If you think different arrangements are better for different people, why do you think you are a particular kind of person?
Can we taboo the word "marriage"?
No. But neither do married men have much better chances of such an outcome.
There is still a difference between "not much better" and "not better". I do not know the exact number, but if contact with your children is an important part of your utility function, then even increasing the chance by say 5% is worth doing, and could justify the costs of marriage.
(Even if the family law is strongly biased against males, it may still be rational for males to seek marriage.)
I shall call this the "loving, consensual model" of a relationship:
Given that you should be indifferent between cohabitation and marriage, and marriage has non-zero costs, why would you prefer marriage?
The reason is insidious, cloaked in the positive connotations of marriage and love, but nevertheless incontrovertible.
You don't prefer to be with someone if and only if they prefer to be with you.
You prefer to be with someone.
Of course, it's illegal to directly enforce this preference. Unlawful imprisonment, and all that. So you'd go with the consensual model, but raise the costs of them preferring to be separate as much as legally possible. Like, say, requiring a contract that is costly and messy to break.
Yes, if I have various kinds of entanglement and dependence on someone, such as living together, sharing finances and expensive objects like a car, sharing large parts of our social lives, and possibly having children, I don't want them to be able to leave at a moment's notice. This doesn't make be feel especially evil.
Really? I'd suggest you don't want them to have a positive expected value on leaving at a moment's notice rather than wanting them restricted, but in any case... the solution is to structure your entanglements and dependence in such a way that this opportunity is available to them if they desire it, not to try to force contracts and obligations onto them in order to restrict them.
Can you rephrase? I'm thinking things like "If we have a kid, we shouldn't split up even if we're a little unhappy" and "If I've quit my job to be a homemaker, don't stop giving me money without warning". Are you saying to avoid getting in such situations in the first place? Or are you saying not to marry jerks who will leave you and the kids in the dust?
There are lots of situations where precommitting to doing something at some future time, and honoring that precommittment at that time regardless of whether I desire to do that thing at that time, leaves me better off than doing at every moment what I prefer to do at that moment.
"Marriage" as you've formulated it here -- namely, a precommitment to remain "with" someone (whatever that actually means) even during periods of my life when I don't actually desire to be "with" them at that moment -- might be one of those situations.
It's not clear to me that the connotations of "insidious" would apply to marriage in that scenario, nor that the implication that marriage is not loving and consensual would be justified in that scenario.
I am legally married because I need the legal and financial benefits that marriage provides in my country. However, in an ideal fantasy world, I wouldn't need those benefits and I wouldn't be legally married. But I would still be married! Just without government involvement. (BTW I have no interest in raising kids.)
It's normal for people to hear "marriage" and think "legal marriage" but I hate that.
Can you clarify what you mean by "need," here? In particular, does it mean something different than "benefit from"?
Um, I dunno. I'm just referring to that fact that I don't have my own source of health insurance, so I need to be on his, but in an ideal world I would have my own.
Again in the interests of teaching you to communicate more efficiently: Whenever you say "Why would anyone" when you already know that some people do this (and it's not just some bizarre hypothetical/fictional world you're discussing), this signals that it's mainly a rhetorical question and that you believe these people to be just insane/irrational/not thinking clearly.
So, a question that signals an actual request for information better is "Why do some people make lifetime committments?"
As opposed to what percentage of non-marriage relationships?
Good catch. I guess considering the context of the debate with MileyCyrus a good enough comparison would be the stability of relationships by people who choose cohabitation with children.
Watching the stars burn down won't be as much fun without him.
ETA: We're American, so Amerocentric advice is likely to be useful to us.
I'm sorry this is a nice sounding and romantic, but useless answer. It was Valentines day yesterday, I was bombarded with enough relationship related cached thoughts as it is.
Or are you saying the other person will literally die or refuse to ever interact with you if you don't "marry" them? Also do you expect US government granted 21st century marriages to remain enforced then? Indeed do you have any evidence whatsoever that a stable relationship can last that long or is likley to without significant self-modification? In addition why this crazy notion of honouring exactly one person with such a honour? Isn't it better to wait until group marriages are legalized?
If you don't feel like discussing the issue please acknowledge it directly.
You're being kind of a jerk. Your questions aren't relevant to the information I wanted; you're just picking on me because I brought up something vaguely related.
That having been said:
Yeah, I know about Valentine's day. That's why this was on my mind.
I don't think singlehood will kill my partner or cause him to shun me. (Although if I didn't poke him about cryo, he might cryocrastinate himself to room-temperatureness.) I'm not hoping that anyone will "enforce" anything about my prospective marriage.
My culture encourages permanent and public-facing relationships to be solidified with a party and thereafter called by a different name. In particular, it has caused me to assign value to producing children in this context rather than outside of it. I believe that getting married will affect my primate brain and the primate brains of my and my partner's families and friends in various ways, mostly positive. It will entitle me to use different words, which I want, and entitle me to wear certain jewelry, which I want, and allow me to summarize my inextricability from my partner very concisely to people in general, which I want. It will also allow me to get on my partner's health insurance.
Edit in response to edit: I'm poly, but my style of poly involves a primary relationship (this one). It doesn't seem at all unreasonable to go ahead and promote it to a new set of terms.
It seems cultural and perhaps even value differences are the root of how this conversation proceeded. Ok I think I understand now. I should have suspected this earlier, I was way too stuck in my local cultural context where among the young basically only the religious still marry and it is generally seen as an "old fashioned" thing to do.
As I said I didn't mean to be. I am genuinely curious why in the world someone would do this because I haven't heard any good reasons in favour of it except that it is "tradition" or that else they'd be living in sin and fear of punishment by a supernatural entity.
But I do apologize for any personal offence I may have inadvertently caused. I did not meant to imply either you or your partner (about whom I know nothing!) where particularly unsuited for this arrangement. I was questioning its necessity or desirability in general. I generally have been pretty consistent at questioning the value of this particular legally binding institution so it seems unlikely that I wouldn't have posed the exact same question in response to anyone else making such a request.
I will not apologize for posing uncomfortable questions. I don't want other people respecting my own ugh fields so I generally on LessWrong don't bother avoiding poking into those of others.
Picking on you? You responded to him. You're going out of your way to be offended. You can feel free to not explain your viewpoints, but when someone poses a question don't respond with a throw-away comment and then get annoyed it gets responded to.
It seems nicer than eloping.
I didn't mean to be rude, I was genuinely curious about the answer.