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More on this phenomenon in "Coming Apart: The State of White America". My 2c: A guy or gal making $350K is not commended for reducing income inequality by marr
by cheez 11y ago
More on this phenomenon in "Coming Apart: The State of White America".
My 2c: A guy or gal making $350K is not commended for reducing income inequality by marrying someone making $60K. Indeed, if things fall apart, the "equity courts" will divide the earnings spouse nicely between them. While I can understand you don't want someone on the street, these things just penalize people for being successful. So it is not a surprise that people are practicing self-preservation and selecting those spouses who have nothing to gain from a separation (besides their freedom.) Additionally, as alluded to in the book above, people who have university degrees have only a 20% chance of divorce and usually, higher income earners have said university degrees.
- alistairSH 11y agoWow, that's seriously jaded stuff... Selecting mates based on lowering the cost of eventual divorce! I'd bet it has more to do with maintaining current (or expected) lifestyle. If you're used to a top-5% income, with the lifestyle that income enables, marrying "down" has a real impact. The effect would be even more noticeable in an expensive metropolitan area like NorCal, NYC, etc.
- cheez 11y agoRead the book. Marrying down financially has no impact (financially) on lifestyle but when there is that much of an implied difference intellectually, it's going to cause problems. It's not jaded to be pragmatic. Marriage is a contract. Recently, you can even hear young people, men mostly, talk about ways to avoid being considered common law which I found hilarious and would never have been a topic of discussion when I was their age.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y agoIt's not too dissimilar from standard MRA talking points.
- landryraccoon 11y agoIt's very common to have divorced parents. If you saw your parents go through a divorce the fear is far from academic.
- superuser2 11y agoAn event with >10% probability that will cut your quality of life by at least half forever, and guarantee that extended unemployment carries a prison sentence, is a pretty big deal. We generally carry home/car/life/health insurance to manage risks that are drastically lower probability and consequence, yet no one calls that jaded.