Marriage Today

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As someone who did climb the ladder a bit, got a house, car, and some common household appliances (although I passed on the home cinema and hyperduperomatic dishwasher) before he got married, I cannot see how that was a poor choice. Heck, I didn't even MEET my wife until I was almost 28. One very real hardship that being married young and being a young parent is financial instability.

Kids cost money - lots of money. Sure, my wife and I could have started having kids as soon as we got married when she was 27 and I was 29. If we did that, since my salary at the time would have been insufficient to pay the bills, my wife would have needed to return to work shortly after having the baby to make ends meet. By waiting until my wife was 31 to have our first (I'm currently 32, but will be 33 by the time the baby arrives) it will allow my wife to take time off from work to raise our child, because on my salary we now CAN afford to do this. By delaying having kids until we hit our 30s, I would argue that it makes my wife and I better parents, not worse. What you seem to be advocating seems strange. Does anyone really think that teen parents are the best parents around?

Actually, men's reproductive capacity is not much different at 40 compared to 20, and testosterone production doesn't start to really drop off until men are in their 50s. Believe it or not chev, but you are probably producing almost the exact same amount of testosterone now as you were when you were in your late teens. Same thing with me. I will admit that younger men tend to be hyper-sexed, but I think that the reason young men tend to become fathers more frequently is that they have sex more frequently, not that things are not working as well now as they were before.

In that same study that indicated that men's reproductive capacity is pretty much the same from puberty through 50s also looked at women, with vastly different results. The way the study worked was they polled people who were trying to get pregnant, and what percentage of them actually did get pregnant at that age. The highest percentage by year for women was 27 - suggesting that age 27 was when most women reach peak fertility. So much for the "young parent" theory.

Another interesting part of the study involved the over 35 group. There was a large difference in fertility between women who were having their first child after age 35 campared to women who had at least one child prior to age 35 and were trying to have another child. Specifically, it showed that women who already had at least one child before age 35 had only slightly lower fertility in their late 30s as women who were significantly younger than them. However, for women who had no children prior to age 35 had a much harder time getting pregnant for the first time. That fact argues in favor of "young parent" theory.

Anyway, if you just want to go by fertility rates, it seems like it doesn't matter much for the men, provided you're not planning on becoming a father in your 60s, and that with women, your best shot is in your late 20s. Of course there is variability, and every person is different, but the typical woman has her fertility gradually increase until around the age of 27, and decreases after that. The rate at which it decreases seems largely dependent upon whether or not you have already had children. What this tells me is that while it probably does make sense that not everyone waits until they are over 35 to have children, there is no inherent advantage in getting started in your teens and early 20s.

EDIT:

Getting divorced aleady tends to be a rather expensive proposition, so I would need to know what is meant by a "large fine". Unless the fine is really high, I do not see why this would have much of an impact, except for people who are already really poor. Half of nothing is nothing, so the really poor usually do not get into terrible disputes over money during a divorce, but except for those people, if you're already shelling out hundreds, if not thousands on a divorce lawyer, what difference is a fine going to make if it's a few hundred bucks? I would think to seriously lower the divorce rate the fine would have to be immense for it to be a serious impediment.

[ April 04, 2007, 16:26: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

I heard someone say:

Marriage is grand. Divorce costs 200 grand...

 

@Carcaroth:

Uhm. But that's reputation as a Catholic country, as well as the statistics of those who have at least a formal connection. Now consider those who actually believe it. In my experience, as a rule, people who believe in exclusive and indissoluble marriage are happier in it.

Hmm? So, let's say, you can instead wait your whole life and then make some form of informal promise, or an unpronounced choice, to stick with one person? That would be more like marriage than like the lack of it. But in a normal situation, remember that if you simply live a life with one person as a circumstance of fact, it's not the same as making a choice. If you live with someone you aren't married to, you essentially live with someone to whom you haven't promised anything and are free to leave at any point. That hardly strikes me as similar to living in an indissoluble marriage.

@joacqin:

Eh, you could equally as well claim that it's a tool of female domination, making sure they get the protection and a father for the children they give birth to.

Basically, it's something that binds people together.

That's a false alternative. You're assuming that the solution is either divorce or a very spiteful living together. That's incorrect. It starts from the idea that if it doesn't work out, we can divorce. Absent that idea, people actually work on their marriages and work on avoiding the spite. Why reconcile if we can look out for someone better... look out for number one because in fact, it's all about ourselves? But once it's established that marriage is once and for life and with no third parties, then there's incentive to work on it.

@Harbs:

The latter. I'm graduating in law this semester and I haven't heard of that at all. Besides, they can't make it a fine if it's not a misdemeanor. This means they basically can't fine for it even if they want to. They can only raise the tariffs for divorce in courts, sure, and certainly some idiotic leftist journalists will call it a fine, but that's about it. In fact, I don't even know of any plans to raise those tariffs.

@Aldeth:

No, I'm not saying that's a poor choice. Neither was I talking about people who simply didn't have any potential candidate before a later than normal age. My point was that people more and more often don't just think about establishing a stable household before having children, but they think about themselves first and foremost. Hence the littany of things they "need" to do or buy before having children or marrying even.

No, not really, maybe late teens in ages past or some warm-climate civilisations. These days people are not commonly suited to be parents before they're 30 perhaps, but it's delayed in our civilisation, not normal, doesn't really coincide with our biology, and often comes from selfish attitudes blocking people's development (e.g. the "have some fun before settling down" mentality).

Guess we'll need to look for some survey then.

I would disagree. It may be a matter of values, but it does seem to me that having younger parents is preferable for children. By this I mean just young, not partying and getting drunk and having a lot of sex and drugs and generally being irresponsible, but just young. Look at children's education. By the time latecomers' children are in college, they are often retired. In some countries, that's a drastic decrease in income. The way things were in Poland in the nineties, for example, that was a world of difference.

 

You quoted "Happier" (possibly too subjective to be argued) and "More Children", the figures I found meen you are certainly wrong on "more children" and apparently wrong on "Happiness" as the "Happiest" countries in the survey also appear to have the higher divorce rates.

It means that you are with them because you want to be, not because you HAVE to be. Besides, just because a marriage isn't dissolvable does not mean that people stay together, as the example I gave of my Uncle proves. Still married, but they have been separated and living with other people for the last 16 odd years.
You've said yourself that you would physically leave a partner under certain circumstances. Most people would be "happier" to be able to move on and form better relationships.

In my experience, people in good marriages are indeed happy, but those in bad marriages are not - and bad is not always one of the partners playing having an affair but for a host of other reasons.

I'm happy to concede that people going into marriage believing they will be with that person for the rest of their joint lives are less likely to stray, but then I would hope that the majority of people getting married come under this category.

What I find offensive is your view that relationships such as mine are somehow inferior to people who are married. I'm certainly not "Free" to leave whenever I chose but the strings that bind are my own conscience and beliefs, not a bit of paper and the opinions/beliefs of others.

And here is where we will forever disagree about this being "wrong". The only thing we know for certain is we get this life. For me, it is life to experience, not just to churn out the next generation for them to do the same thing - that is pointless in the extreme. My gf's parents are just reaching retirement having had 6 children. Whilst I am sure they don't regret having the kids, they do regret not having the financial support to do anything other than get-by. No holidays further than a caravan on the local beach for example. And they could not afford for their children to go to College/University (even though at the time the state paid much of the costs). If you have kids at an early age, the odds are against both parents being able to fulfill their pottential for career progression. If being the "Bread winner" falls to just one (usually the man) it is likely to reduce the amount of time he has spare to spend with his children (as happen in the case of my boss).

I don't think this is exactly an ideal situation either. Much better to wait for your career to get on track, experience life, get enough money behind you, and then make the active choice to be a parent.

[ April 05, 2007, 15:36: Message edited by: Carcaroth ]

 

Carcaroth while that happiness scale sure looks nice with Finland being sixth I can't help but feel that it's complete rubbish. We have one of the highest suicide rates in the world and I doubt people kill themselves because of happiness. I read somewhere that depression rates are also higher than the average European levels. So while I'm completely satisfied with living here it would seem that plenty of people are not.

Well I'm no lawyer but I'm pretty sure that around here the 50/50 is a locked rate which applies under all circumstances unless the divorced couple makes an agreement under different terms. Also I haven't heard of anyone sawing the house in two around here so I'm going to assume that it's illegal.

 

Umm, are we talking about the same thing? I said that I thought it was a good idea if most people didn't wait until their late 30s, but there was no serious disadvantage in waiting until your late 20s. I cannot see how having kids in your late 20s or early 30s would place you at retirement age by the time they are ready for college.

I'll use myself as an example. I'll be 33 when Mini-Fop arrives, which means I'll be 51 when he turns 18 and is ready to go to college. All I can say is I can only hope that I am financially secure enough to be able to retire at 51, but I seriously doubt it. The current retirement age in the US is 65, and it will likely be 70 by the time my generation gets up in years. However, even if it remains at 65, the only way I would be of retirement age by the time one of my kids would be entering college is if I had a child born when I was 47 years old.

I would like to think it goes without saying, but I hope to be done having children LONG before I'm 47. In fact, I would prefer to be done having kinds prior to being 40-anything. I do not know how many children my wife and I will have, but I would like to think that regardless what the final number is, the first digit in my age will be a "3" at the time of all of my children's birth.

I also find it somewhat surprising that you feel that having children later in life is a relatively recent phenomenon. I would assert that the opposite is true, and that in fact fewer people are having children later in life now than in the past. As recently as 50 years ago, people started having kids at a younger age than they do now, but they also continued having kids to a much later age. People don't just stop having sex when they turn 40, and prior to birth control it was quite common for people to have a great many children, some of whom were born when they were of advancing years. Keep in mind that this was also at a time when people did not live as long as they do now, meaning they would be around for even less of their children's lives.

It was not uncommon at all, if you go back to the first half of the 20th century, for people to have a whole bunch of kids. It also wasn't unusual for the oldest child to grow up, get married and have kids of their own prior to the (now grandparents) having their last child. That very thing happened on my wife's side of the family. My father-in-law has an aunt and uncle that are younger than he is. And a situation like that wasn't uncommon at all.

 

That's associated with the farming (and similar) community and child labor, though. I doubt many royal women had kids in their late 30's, while they may well have had them in their teens. Also please realize that birth control of some kind or another is really nothing new. Numerous herbs have been atributed to and used for decreased fertility over the millenia (accurate or not) and condoms in the form of animal skin have been around for well over 2,000 years (if I remember correctly).

 

Ummm.... no. Neither my father-in-law, nor his parents or grandparents lived on a farm. My father-in-law actually grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey, about 50 miles outside of New York City. His family was middle class, and he went to college after signing up with the Navy. Despite being middle class, not living on a farm, and not having their children working in factories, sweat-shops and the like, my father-in-law's mother was one of ten children. I think the biggest contributing factor to them having ten kids was that they were Italian, Catholic, and did not use birth control of any kind.

In addition to being one of ten kids with my father-in-law, my mother-in-law is one of six, and my wife is the youngest of seven children.

On my side of the family it's a little different. My father only has one sibling, but that's because his mother wasn't able to have any other children - not through choice. However his mother was one of seven kids, and his father was one of six kids. My mother was one of only four kids, but her father was one of eight kids, and her mother was one of seven kids. My family is actually considered "small" as I am one of only three children my parents had.

Sorry for the Foppish geneology, but the point is that none of us lived on farms, and none of us were sent to the local factory before we finished high school. In fact, all of my grandparents were in high school during the Great Depression, so they ended up staying in school and graduating because there were no jobs to get even if they left school. What's the point of all this? Big families were a heck of a lot more common in the past than the present, even in the absense of situations were big families were useful (farms and child labor as you correctly pointed out).

Regardless of the causes of large families, I think two facts are self-evident when you have boat-loads of kids: 1.) You aren't using birth control (the availability of such is moot as it obviously wasn't used) and 2.) Some of your boat-load of kids had to be born when the parents were older (it's pretty tough to have 6-10 kids prior to the age of 30, although I suppose it's biologically possible if you start early enough).

 

The increasing liquidity of wealth is an important factor in the easing of divorce.

Since wealth has become digitized, it is much safer to 'transport' away.