Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are:
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Not so, and this is an outrageous reading of what I have said. People will still be able to get divorces, just they will have to pay compensation if they are the party at fault. I didn't irrevocably bind my future self when I rented my house, but if I break the lease I'll have to pay compensation to the landlord.
Your comments above suggest that perhaps you don't understand the state of law, at least in the UK.
No it isn't, at least in the UK. All I want is for marriage to be subject to normal limits on contracts, not the special limits on contracts that apply only in the case of marriage. I say "damages in the case of breach" and I am confronted with people suggesting I mean specific performance, dragging people off in chains, or slavery. It's so strange.
Look at the following graph of divorce over time.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/jan/28/divorce-rates-marriage-ons
Note the sharp discontinuity after 1969. What happened then? Oh yes, the Divorce Reform Act of 1969, meaning you no longer had to prove fault to get a divorce (and divorce settlements were also not based on fault).
Now look at the marriage rate:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/resources/gmr_tcm77-258471.png
Again, note the collapsing marriage rate from the early 1970s. Once people realised that marriage wasn't enforceable, the marriage rate collapsed.
I see that as evidence that marriage, as currently implemented, is not a particularly appealing contract to as many people as it once was. Whether this is because of no-fault divorce is irrelevant to whether this constitutes "widespread suffering."
I reject the a priori assumptions that are often made in these discussions and that you seem to be making, namely, that more marriage is good, more divorce is bad, and therefore that policy should strive to upregulate marriage and downregulate divorce. If this is simply a disparity of utility functions ... (read more)