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> Cohabitation has become a popular alternative; living together is a less complicated relationship model that comes with an easy escape hatch (compared with ma
by emodendroket 3y ago
> Cohabitation has become a popular alternative; living together is a less complicated relationship model that comes with an easy escape hatch (compared with marriage) if the relationship fails
This seems like a bit of a false promise... Once you commingle finances, own a house together, have children, and so on, there's no "easy escape hatch." Plus thinking of having an "easy escape hatch" probably does not do wonders for the relationship.
- shadowgovt 3y agoChildren? In this economy?
- emodendroket 3y agoSo you say and yet not having children or doing it later is correlated with more income and wealth rather than less. E: Consider https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/01/15/for-most-highly-educated-women-motherhood-doesnt-start-until-the-30s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/01/15/for-most-...
- ameminator 3y agoBe careful not to fall into the correlation=causation trap. It's entirely possible that only the wealthy are able to get married and stay married.
- emodendroket 3y agoThat's possible but I don't see what it has to do with wealthier people having children later in life.
- nine_k 3y agoNo. Children, in your one and only life which is going to end soon enough. Economy will never be perfect.
- shadowgovt 3y agoMy parents' generation could raise two kids on one full time job. No way I'd try raising even one on a single income any more. So my wife and I can have a much nicer quality of life with zero kids.
- emodendroket 3y agoWhen was it not true that you could live larger without needing to support children? Eventually I didn’t feel like being able to afford more baubles was my most important value anymore.
- shadowgovt 3y ago> When was it not true that you could live larger without needing to support children? When most of society was agrarian and labor-oriented, more people meant more hands to do the heavy hand-work of maintaining the city. Modern automation and standardization has largely removed those benefits; a single person can operate a tractor that maintains acres of crops on an almost semi-autonomous basis, with the driver there mostly to handle breakdowns and deal with the unexpected. Having a family of eight kids means you've got one tractor driver and then what?
- emodendroket 3y agoFair enough but you clearly weren’t talking about preindustrial society before.
- shadowgovt 3y agoIndeed. And the change to post-industrial is one of the factors leading to fewer children.
- JenrHywy 3y agoDINKs have been a thing for a very long time, and of course they have the highest disposable income of any group. But that only matters if disposable income is your objective function.
- JenrHywy 3y agoYou are the last in an extremely long lineage of people who had children in circumstances far worse that the current economy.
- shadowgovt 3y agoTo paraphrase xkcd, "On the one hand, every one of my ancestors did it, so how hard could it be? On the other hand, that's the mother of all confirmation biases."
- prng2021 3y agoIt says compared to marriage. And why in the world would cohabitation without marriage automatically include having children??
- emodendroket 3y agoIt wouldn't; it is one example of many circumstances that tend to arise in a long-term relationship that make it difficult to unwind regardless of legal status. The legal protections inherent in marriage can actually be desirable when unwinding a relationship.
- dabluecaboose 3y agoCompared to marriage that sounds even worse. "I'd much rather have absolutely no legal rights if this shit goes tits up, I'd hate to have any sort of legal framework around dividing our assets!"
- emodendroket 3y agoI suppose it is favorable if you have a cohabitating partner who is a homemaker since you can pretty much leave them high and dry with only conscience to stop you.
- dabluecaboose 3y agoThat's probably a better way to frame it than my overly-snarky quip.
- patmcc 3y agoMarriage doesn't automatically include children either. As for the easy escape hatch...a marriage is as simple to dissolve as the parties make it. An acrimonious common-law relationship (if your jurisdiction has such things) is easily as complicated to end as a traditional marriage.
- bourneavent 3y ago[dead]
- adam_arthur 3y agoWhy commingle finances at all? A large percentage of divorces are due to financial disagreements... joint accounts have proven to be a failed model at scale. If you want to share money, have separate accounts and transfer money between them as needed/on a schedule. No room for impropriety/mistrust. Everybody has autonomy. If we choose to be realistic, rather than idealistic, we would recognize that a large percentages of marriages fail, and people should not structure their lives in such a way that the end of a relationship is catastrophic (beyond the obvious emotional burden).
- orangepurple 3y ago> Why commingle finances at all? Stay at home moms which take care of multiple children full time typically do not earn an income
- emodendroket 3y agoEven failing that I think you’d get into a lot of ticky-tack calculations about who pays for shoes or school supplies or whatever.
- BobbyJo 3y agoThen work out a way to divide income ahead of time rather than quibble after the fact? That's what me and my wife do.
- emodendroket 3y agoMy wife and I have just had joint accounts forever and it’s worked out great for us. There must be more than anecdote to go with if we want to have this argument “rationally.” Though if I’m being honest, it has more to do with my ideal of what a committed relationship is about than rational considerations.
- adam_arthur 3y agoThen they have their own account that you transfer $X/month into. If you can't agree as a couple on what each person should be spending, then the relationship is on bad footing to begin with.
- Xenoamorphous 3y ago> Plus thinking of having an "easy escape hatch" probably does not do wonders for the relationship Well if the only (or main) reason to stay together is because someone is married and that makes things complicated then the relationship is already in trouble.
- emodendroket 3y agoYeah but that’s not what I’m saying. If you think “well I’m going to do this this way because it’s easier to back out,” it will encourage you to treat the relationship in a way that makes it less likely to last.
- Llamamoe 3y agoStill a healthier alternative to broken relationships continuing for years because of the high bar to leaving it that are the de facto norm for our civilization. Commitment encourages treating the relationship as a sealed deal and not putting effort into its maintenance.
- emodendroket 3y agoNot in my experience.
- inkcapmushroom 3y agoCommitment just as often encourages treating the relationship as a sealed deal and thus putting much more effort into its maintenance. If you're being rational about it being in a failed marriage is a miserable experience that nobody enjoys living, so it makes more sense to put in effort to avoid that situation. If you're in a failed long-term relationship with an easy escape hatch you might not put in effort to fix things before they get really bad, because worst case you can just leave. In both cases if you aren't willing to put in work to fix the relationship there won't be any fixing it, so if you think you're that kind of person then yeah I would say you should avoid long term commitments to other people, marriage or no.
- nunez 3y agoWe've been married for five years and have been living together for ten. We have separate bank accounts and don't plan on changing that.
- unsupp0rted 3y agoThe easy escape hatch is that you're less likely (in the USA but not Ontario) to face prison if you try to leave the relationship. https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/television/2011/03/11/comedian_dave_foley_fears_arrest_owes_500000_in_childsupport.html https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/television/2011/03/11/...
- emodendroket 3y agoUnfortunately for the world’s deadbeat dads, you can still owe child support without being married. Even in the United States.
- cmcaleer 3y ago> thinking of having an "easy escape hatch" probably does not do wonders for the relationship I actually totally disagree with this. The difference between “I’m in this relationship because I love this person but also I have to be for my visa/finances/friendships” and “I’m in this relationship because I love this person and I can leave tomorrow if I want to” for me has been night and day. Neither my partner nor I is reliant on our relationship for good quality of life. There’s nothing stopping one of us from leaving, and I feel that this actually raises the stakes in a healthy way. It doesn’t mean that when challenges come up we bail on the other, if anything it makes them less stressful because we know the other clearly has a vested interest in sorting the problem since they could just bail. Of course children would change this dynamic. Think of it this way: would you be more comfortable in a good job but one which you could be laid off and lose your visa sponsorship and have to upend your life suddenly or scramble for any job, or one in a country where you have the right to live and could find a similar job if you get laid off but take the time to find the right role? If compensation and conditions are similar, I imagine most would prefer the latter.
- emodendroket 3y agoI guess I don’t quite see how your analogy fits. If we’re going for a job analogy it’s like being on a permanent “probation period.”
- patrakov 3y agoThis might be dependent on the country. This may be a choice between "no escape hatch at all" and "no easy escape hatch". In the Philippines, a divorce is legally impossible, but it is not a crime for a man and a woman to live together and have children without marrying. So why bother?
- emodendroket 3y agoWell, I certainly wouldn’t agree with instituting a no-divorce policy… I’m talking about this in more of a psychological sense.
- KenArrari 3y agoIt means you can gradually slide into that level of commitment without having to explicitly think about and decide to make that level of commitment.