Barky Posted January 28, 2010 Posted January 28, 2010 I am very old fashioned myself, and I expect my man to be able to provide for me, and take care of me, while I maintain the house and feed him. (I still want to work though). Best of luck with that! There are fewer and fewer men willing to "support" a woman these days. Because when the inevitable divorce comes, and the woman hasn't been working (or working much), then the man is on the hook for alimony. At least where I am (Calif), if the woman has always worked, then there is no alimony to be paid upon divorce. Alimony is strictly to allow the woman to "get back in the work force." However if she's been out of the work force for 20 years, the alimony payments can be quite steep for a long time. For that reason alone, it would behoove any man to insist that his wife stays employed during their marriage. Same goes for women, although courts making women pay alimony to men are rare.
Scottdmw Posted January 28, 2010 Posted January 28, 2010 Both my sets of grandparents were happily married their entire lives until they died. I don't think they stayed together because they had to, they gave every indication that they really loved each other until the day they died. My parents, and all six sets of aunts and uncles are also all still happily married. It is not an accident of statistics. Values matter, and yes I do tend to think the old values are better than the new ones, though neither are perfect. People say that it's better to wait for marriage until you find yourself, that it's better to try a bunch of different people including sexually and living together to find out what you want. Yet, the more that we do the higher the divorce rate goes. It seems like you could just as easily argue that what people are doing with all this trying out is training themselves for divorce. They get used to falling in love, feeling the rush, feeling it taper off, and breaking up. It becomes a way of life, something that they are experienced at. Then on the sixth or seventh relationship they finally get married, and what would you expect but that they would continue the same pattern? Scott
BG1985 Posted January 28, 2010 Posted January 28, 2010 It's not as though premarital sex is a brand-new concept. People stayed together because they had no options. I can think of a lot of people who allegedly waited until marriage to have sex, only to get divorced down the road. Once again, women didn't leave their husbands as often because they had no way to support themselves and their kids unless they were able to quickly find another husband.
OceanTropic Posted January 28, 2010 Posted January 28, 2010 Best of luck with that! There are fewer and fewer men willing to "support" a woman these days. Because when the inevitable divorce comes, and the woman hasn't been working (or working much), then the man is on the hook for alimony. At least where I am (Calif), if the woman has always worked, then there is no alimony to be paid upon divorce. Alimony is strictly to allow the woman to "get back in the work force." However if she's been out of the work force for 20 years, the alimony payments can be quite steep for a long time. For that reason alone, it would behoove any man to insist that his wife stays employed during their marriage. Same goes for women, although courts making women pay alimony to men are rare. That's why I am not going to marry an American, but a European man, where they are raised this way. In the west, men and women are not raised in the traditional sense. Besides, I am more attracted to European men anyways so it works both ways hehe
Scottdmw Posted January 28, 2010 Posted January 28, 2010 It's not as though premarital sex is a brand-new concept. But, rates of premarital sex are much greater now than they were 50 years ago. Before the advent of the semi-reliable contraception that we have now, it was not possible without a huge number of out of wedlock pregnancies, even more than we see now. People stayed together because they had no options. Maybe some people did, though few people truly have no options. I can think of a lot of people who allegedly waited until marriage to have sex, only to get divorced down the road. And, I can think of people that had sex before marriage, and their marriages ended in divorce. The question is, does it make it more or less likely to end in divorce? Once again, women didn't leave their husbands as often because they had no way to support themselves and their kids unless they were able to quickly find another husband. I don't deny that this happened in some cases. Saying it is the only reason, or even the main reason, that the divorce rate has increased is not supported by any evidence that I'm aware of. On the other hand, there is a lot of good sociological evidence that shows that divorce is correlated with cohabitation and premarital sex. The following article has some good stats on these things. http://www.ncfr.org/pdf/press_releases/PRESS%20RELEAS2.pdf To be fair, this particular study shows that premarital sex and cohabitation do not always increase the chance of divorce, but the only exception there is if a woman engages in premarital sex or cohabitation ONLY with the man she ends up marrying. Multiple partners and multiple cohabitation, according to the study, both increase the risk of divorce. If that turned out to be true, it would be taking quite a chance assuming that the person you think you're going to marry really is the one. Note especially from the study: “Marriages preceded by a spell of cohabitation are as much as 50% more likely to end in divorce at any marital duration than marriages not preceded by cohabitation.” I've seen a number of other studies show similar things. Scott
Woggle Posted January 28, 2010 Posted January 28, 2010 I don't believe in the whole provider/housewife type of thing so that is something I do not want to bring back but what we have today is no better. The cure is just as bad as the disease if you ask me.
BG1985 Posted January 28, 2010 Posted January 28, 2010 Scott, correlation does not always equal causation. I've seen too many guys get married to their high-school sweetheart or the girl they met early in college only to see them have a mid-life crisis and ditch their families. I see too many priests/preachers who are trying so hard to instill these same values you desire running around on their wives. If divorce court laws weren't as tough on men as they are today, fewer women would leave their husbands. Today if a woman is unhappy with her marriage in a no-fault divorce state, it could actually be financially beneficial for her to divorce her husband. Back then, a woman who's never worked a day in her life had no means of support unless she already had another husband lined up.
Scottdmw Posted January 29, 2010 Posted January 29, 2010 Scott, correlation does not always equal causation. I've seen too many guys get married to their high-school sweetheart or the girl they met early in college only to see them have a mid-life crisis and ditch their families. I see too many priests/preachers who are trying so hard to instill these same values you desire running around on their wives. If divorce court laws weren't as tough on men as they are today, fewer women would leave their husbands. Today if a woman is unhappy with her marriage in a no-fault divorce state, it could actually be financially beneficial for her to divorce her husband. Back then, a woman who's never worked a day in her life had no means of support unless she already had another husband lined up. I agree correlation is not causation, which is why I was careful not to claim causation. However, if you know enough to make that argument, I think you also know that it isn't possible to run an experiment that really proves causation of these kinds of things in practice--we can't divide people into control groups and tell half to get married for example. Therefore, correlation is the best evidence that is practically speaking available. Why should we then ignore strong correlations? You offer a number of non-specific anecdotes from your life to back up your views. Again, if you know what correlation is you must also know what confirmation bias is. Are you sure you don't pay extra attention to cases in your own life that confirm what you already believe? Scott
Barky Posted January 29, 2010 Posted January 29, 2010 Scott, correlation does not always equal causation. You beat me to it!! Didn't read the studies but I hope they correct for differences in socioeconomic status, race, familial history of divorce, stuff like that. There are lots of variables. To think there's one single cause is lolworthy
Scottdmw Posted January 29, 2010 Posted January 29, 2010 You beat me to it!! Didn't read the studies but I hope they correct for differences in socioeconomic status, race, familial history of divorce, stuff like that. There are lots of variables. To think there's one single cause is lolworthy I agree there's not one single cause, if you read my posts above you'll see that I made that statement earlier. Other than that. . . So you didn't read the study. You're still making the “correlation is not causation” argument, but did not address my point that it's not possible to prove causation so correlation is the best evidence available. Seems like all you're doing here is repeating that you're right in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Well, in the end it's up to you what you want to believe. But, it seems to me like an awful lot of people are getting burned by moving away from traditional values. Look at the breaking up section of this website sometime, and you will see dozens (hundreds?) of people who are heartbroken for years as a result of sexual relationships ending. People suffering real, lasting pain as a result of following the new values. Was it worth it for them, overall? It seems to me like it's worth it least reading a study in considering whether those new values might not be the best. Scott
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