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> It was a deliberate choice Americans made as a society. In Bangladesh, we have strong norms in favor of marriage and strong taboos against divorce The argume

> It was a deliberate choice Americans made as a society. In Bangladesh, we have strong norms in favor of marriage and strong taboos against divorce The argument about shame based "norms" keeping people together aside, it was in many places, quite literally the law that forced women to stay with their husbands. Up until the 70s and later, in many US states it was: * Legal to rape your spouse * Legal to restrict a woman's access to contraceptives * Illegal for a woman to abort an unwanted pregnancy, even due to rape or incest (the previous two combined with the first essentially stripping a women's autonomy to decide when and how many children to have) * Illegal for women to work in certain careers/legal to discriminate on whether a woman was pregnant or had children * Legal to prevent a woman from opening a bank account or line of credit without their husband's consent This was more the case in some places vs others, but talk to an older women in the US what the culture was like for women then. The women's liberation movement happened in reaction to severe oppression and we absolutely should not consider reverting to a society before then. EDIT: Yikes. I was curious about the norms in Bangladesh. I don't think Bangladesh should be held as an example for anything related to marriage. https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/child-marriage/bangladesh/ https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/child-marriage/bangladesh/ > 59% of girls in Bangladesh are married before their 18th birthday and 22% are married before the age of 15. > Bangladesh has the third highest prevalence of child marriage in the world, and the second highest absolute number of women married or in a union before the age of 18 globally – 4,382,000. > 4% of boys are married before the age of 18.

yters 6y ago
It seems there could be a middle way where marriage is strongly supported by society with provisions to protect against abuse. Our current extreme is no better as it destroys the lives of many children.
rayiner 6y ago
> The argument about shame based "norms" keeping people together aside, it was in many places, quite literally the law that forced women to stay with their husbands. So you wave aside my actual argument, about norms, then proceed to refute a straw man? Let’s posit that laws against spousal rape and gender discrimination are good things. Are those the only things that have changed in our culture and in the laws? Can we have laws allowing people to escape abusive marriages, while discouraging the vastly larger number of divorces that don’t involve those things? More than half of Americans, including over 40% of Democrats, disagree with the proposition that “changing gender roles have made it easier for women to live satisfying lives.” https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/10/18/wide-partisan-gaps-in-u-s-over-how-far-the-country-has-come-on-gender-equality/psdt_10-18-17_gender-00-01 https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/10/18/wide-partisan-gap.... By contrast, just 10% think that contraceptives should be banned. There is clearly a significant number of people who think the changes you list are good things, while disagreeing that all of the social changes that have happened are good. There is in fact widespread discontentment about the status quo among women. Women report wanting more kids than they end up having. Women report wanting to get married but being unable to do so. Many women aren’t super thrilled about a culture where people call them “crazy” for wanting normal things like a marriage and kids at the biologically normal ages (20s) for having those things. (This is completely unsurprising, because women disproportionately bear the burdens of our social changes that have freed men from the responsibilities of fatherhood.) As to Bangladesh—it’s a poor agrarian society that suffers from the problems endemic to poor agrarian societies. In particular, strong economic incentives to marry off girls. My dad, in fact, works on public health programs to discourage child marriage in Bangladesh. But there’s a pretty big gap between child marriage (something most Bangladeshis agree we should eradicate) on one hand, and normalizing and enabling pervasive divorce and out of wedlock childbirth on the other. But on the flip side of all that, Bangladeshi society is at least somewhat functional despite crushing poverty. What would Bangladeshi villages be like if men could decide, like in America, that they don’t want the responsibilities of fatherhood and it was socially acceptable for them to abandon their families? The society would break down completely. Death and calamity would result, because unlike in America the government can’t afford to throw money at the social ills that would result.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  What would Bangladeshi villages be like if men could decide, like in America, that they don’t want the responsibilities of fatherhood and it was socially acceptable for them to abandon their families? The society would break down completely. Death and calamity would result, because unlike in America the government can’t afford to throw money at the social ills that would result. And that’s exactly what we see in places like Chicago, but nobody who is allowed to speak can put 2 and 2 together. Except when Barack Obama mentioned it that one time, which was promptly forgotten.
- xref 6y ago
  > So you wave aside my actual argument, about norms, then proceed to refute a straw man? He eviscerated your actual argument that Bangladeshi marriage norms are something to aspire, considering how they treat 60% of their under age 18 girls (but 4% of their boys).
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  Try being an Ahmedi in Bangladesh and get back to me.
- watwut 6y ago
  Another thing that changed is that American women are less likely to be murdered by their partners - as in proportion of those murders went down. That is while murders went down. Ability to leave verbally abusive partner that is like that in private without being reduced to powerty is a big thing. It is possible to prove violence, but super hard to prove verbal abuse. And verbal abuse can be even worse. As of Bangladeshi, look up their domestic violence reports and juvenile deliquency reports. The domestic violence is basically normal and accepted part of life. And we are taking about pretty severe stuff - murders, acid attacks, serious beatings. Juvenile deliquency is huge problem. Death and calamity are Bangladeshi life pretty often, in particular if you are woman. And kids get to watch all that and are affected by all of that, creating cycle of trauma and violence. It is not better for children to be with violent parent nor is ot good for them to see one parent attack the other. Yes, out of wedlock or divorce is better for them then domestic violence situation.

yters 6y ago

It seems there could be a middle way where marriage is strongly supported by society with provisions to protect against abuse. Our current extreme is no better as it destroys the lives of many children.

rayiner 6y ago

> The argument about shame based "norms" keeping people together aside, it was in many places, quite literally the law that forced women to stay with their husbands. So you wave aside my actual argument, about norms, then proceed to refute a straw man? Let’s posit that laws against spousal rape and gender discrimination are good things. Are those the only things that have changed in our culture and in the laws? Can we have laws allowing people to escape abusive marriages, while discouraging the vastly larger number of divorces that don’t involve those things? More than half of Americans, including over 40% of Democrats, disagree with the proposition that “changing gender roles have made it easier for women to live satisfying lives.” https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/10/18/wide-partisan-gaps-in-u-s-over-how-far-the-country-has-come-on-gender-equality/psdt_10-18-17_gender-00-01 https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/10/18/wide-partisan-gap.... By contrast, just 10% think that contraceptives should be banned. There is clearly a significant number of people who think the changes you list are good things, while disagreeing that all of the social changes that have happened are good. There is in fact widespread discontentment about the status quo among women. Women report wanting more kids than they end up having. Women report wanting to get married but being unable to do so. Many women aren’t super thrilled about a culture where people call them “crazy” for wanting normal things like a marriage and kids at the biologically normal ages (20s) for having those things. (This is completely unsurprising, because women disproportionately bear the burdens of our social changes that have freed men from the responsibilities of fatherhood.) As to Bangladesh—it’s a poor agrarian society that suffers from the problems endemic to poor agrarian societies. In particular, strong economic incentives to marry off girls. My dad, in fact, works on public health programs to discourage child marriage in Bangladesh. But there’s a pretty big gap between child marriage (something most Bangladeshis agree we should eradicate) on one hand, and normalizing and enabling pervasive divorce and out of wedlock childbirth on the other. But on the flip side of all that, Bangladeshi society is at least somewhat functional despite crushing poverty. What would Bangladeshi villages be like if men could decide, like in America, that they don’t want the responsibilities of fatherhood and it was socially acceptable for them to abandon their families? The society would break down completely. Death and calamity would result, because unlike in America the government can’t afford to throw money at the social ills that would result.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
What would Bangladeshi villages be like if men could decide, like in America, that they don’t want the responsibilities of fatherhood and it was socially acceptable for them to abandon their families? The society would break down completely. Death and calamity would result, because unlike in America the government can’t afford to throw money at the social ills that would result. And that’s exactly what we see in places like Chicago, but nobody who is allowed to speak can put 2 and 2 together. Except when Barack Obama mentioned it that one time, which was promptly forgotten.
xref 6y ago
> So you wave aside my actual argument, about norms, then proceed to refute a straw man? He eviscerated your actual argument that Bangladeshi marriage norms are something to aspire, considering how they treat 60% of their under age 18 girls (but 4% of their boys).
selimthegrim 6y ago
Try being an Ahmedi in Bangladesh and get back to me.
watwut 6y ago
Another thing that changed is that American women are less likely to be murdered by their partners - as in proportion of those murders went down. That is while murders went down. Ability to leave verbally abusive partner that is like that in private without being reduced to powerty is a big thing. It is possible to prove violence, but super hard to prove verbal abuse. And verbal abuse can be even worse. As of Bangladeshi, look up their domestic violence reports and juvenile deliquency reports. The domestic violence is basically normal and accepted part of life. And we are taking about pretty severe stuff - murders, acid attacks, serious beatings. Juvenile deliquency is huge problem. Death and calamity are Bangladeshi life pretty often, in particular if you are woman. And kids get to watch all that and are affected by all of that, creating cycle of trauma and violence. It is not better for children to be with violent parent nor is ot good for them to see one parent attack the other. Yes, out of wedlock or divorce is better for them then domestic violence situation.