Item — HN Reader

I think we should ask ourselves what we hope to find in (or do with) statistical happiness scores across interpersonal relationships. Especially at such a superficial "men vs women" level.

Do we have good data that one demographic is disadvantaged and we trying build a case for societal change in or laws, norms, and customs to correct the imbalance? Awesome!

Are we trying to justify, defend, or promote one decision (marry, stay single, cohabitate) over another? In that case, I say ignore the noise. If you've met one married couple... you've met one married couple. How you'll do in your relationship depends on two things surveys can't answer: you and your partner.

3 comments

The goal of the state (and the church) in promoting and supporting good marriages has historically and traditionally been to foster stable societies, strong homes, and obviously, population growth and replacement for the aging, infirm and dying.

A society that encourages folks to marry, and to bear children, is a well-functioning society with a bright future. So what happens when marriage is no longer oriented toward child-bearing, marriage is ephemeral and easy to escape, and an increasing number of married people can't even physically conceive children? What happens when children can't count on a mother and father being at home for them, even before their adulthood? What happens when a child reaches maturity without any marriage prospect but must definitely become self-sufficient and enter the workforce, regardless of their sex or abilities, because there's no supportive family structure and they don't even know how to raise a child? What happens when men and women find they've reached adulthood without acquiring skills to run a household, cook and clean and do chores, and it's futile to support a spouse or depend on one, because they'll be divorcing you soon anyway, children or not?

> A society that encourages folks to marry, and to bear children, is a well-functioning society with a bright future

That works in the long term only if you regularly have massive wars, famines and plagues, since Earth can't sustain exponential growth forever. As far as I'm concerned, this fertility crisis is a last-minute bail-out. Having an aging (and slowly decreasing) population is preferable to an overpopulation and ots consequences.

Bearing children does not mean bearing greater than replacement rate children. Very, very few women will choose to have more than 2 or 3 kids.

The comment I replied to explicitly mentions "and obviously, population growth" and making many babies is rather typical for the kinds of societies the poster apparently prefers.

> Very, very few women will choose to have more than 2 or 3 kids.

Exactly. The drop in fertility rates is strongly correlated with women emancipation - it's kinda telling how the poster rails against the divorce in several places. They won't say that explicitly, but their way to higher fertility rates is through reducing women's say in the matter. Both directly (outlawing abortion) and indirectly (pushing women into a financially dependent role again).

I think the societies are now undergoing a dramatic shift which results in very low fertility rates. But I believe things will stabilize in several decades / few centuries and the fertility rate will return to ~replacement rate. And as mentioned before, this (IMHO temporary) drop is very much needed at the moment.

The United States leaned so far into support of marriage from both the church and state that we've entirely isolated ourselves into nuclear families and in the process lost the support of the "village". We are raising children in these "strong homes" (fortresses?) as you say and not in strong communities.

You ask what happens when children can't count on a mother and father being at home for them? Well I might also ask what happens when abuse perpetuates because societal pressures make marriage difficult to escape?

Marriage has also been for the joining of two families, not merely two people. For the families to forge an alliance, to increase their mutual support, to pool their resources, to exchange ideas and enjoy fellowship.

So if marriage is impermanent and a private, exclusive agreement between two parties, then they are indeed isolated. Indeed, abuse and infidelity are among the things which can ruin a marriage, whether or not escape is possible. A bad marriage ruins lives. And so does divorce prevent or undo the damage? How often do children benefit from parents' divorces? If a child gains step-parents then that may increase the love, attention, and wealth they receive. If divorce is a solution to abuse, then should the abuser stop trying, or go back "on the market"? Divorce can free abusers from their responsibilities just as it frees the victims, I suppose.

If spouses divorce, what are the ramifications for aging in-laws? Do mature children still have a responsibility to support their parents? Or is this also handed over to commercial and state interests? Put all our elders into a facility, hire a caregiver, that's what insurance is for? A man divorces two wives and he's on a third; who can rely on his support now? Is he capable to stretch his resources among three families or do all his responsibilities cease with divorce? He's certainly gonna get stuck for child support and alimony to the fullest extent of the law, and his custody is sure gonna be imperiled because the courts rule in favor of mothers, and the law supports them so much better.

A modern civilization that doesn’t have a mechanism for supporting the elderly beyond their children isn’t sustainable.

True, there is plenty of community support for the elderly and I've seen really good programs already (I'm technically a senior citizen here; the threshold is 50)

Are community supports a drop-in replacement for families? Is it the same when Grandpa hops in a commercial van to visit the senior center instead of being dropped off by his son and daughter-in-law? Does a Meals on Wheels participant have the same quality of life as someone whose relative prepares meals for the whole family?

Sure, everyone can survive without their families or friends. You can pretty much hire people to perform any type of service a caregiver could do. The state can fund all those programs and entirely obviate the need for children.

Is that a Utopian vision for the future, then?

That mechanism is always birthing more children (or importing from somewhere that is).

Or creating robots that sufficiently replace human labor.

> The goal of the state (and the church) in promoting and supporting good marriages has historically and traditionally been to foster stable societies, strong homes, and obviously, population growth and replacement for the aging, infirm and dying.

The goal for whom? When the benefits of a vast pool of human labor are concentrated to a teeny group of people on top of the pyramid (whether they be kings, aristocrats, bishops, or billionaires), it's not surprising that leaders want to foster "strong societies". Leaders want to foster systems that maintain their power.

But it's appropriate to look at history for cases where this hasn't happened. Many historians argue that the Black Death, while obviously horrible in human terms, lead to a fundamental (and I'd argue beneficial) restructuring of European society. Labor was tight with fewer people, so peasant income went up in real terms. The power of the church went down drastically as people questioned why the church wasn't able to protect them from so much death.

My point is that societies favor systems that maintain existing power structures, but that doesn't mean those power structures are inherently good (or, for that matter, bad).

“Well functioning” for whom? The purpose of the system is what it does. If people are not happy in an entrenched system, it is clearly within their interest to find ways and means to escape said system.

Society has proven it wishes to optimize for metrics somewhat orthogonal to those of the individual, so operate accordingly (treating society adversarially; aggressively affirming reproductive freedoms and the ability to support one’s self without a partner or org driven by a belief system).

(Religions are cults to attempt to enforce conformity and monogamy, while producing as many kids as possible; capitalism ran with this to extract from the cattle in the name of aggregate productivity; it has now started to fall apart with women robustly empowered; 43% of first marriages fail, so avoiding marriage is simply prudent risk management; 64% of young women say they just don't want children, compared to 50% of men)

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2024/07/25/the-exp...

https://www.axios.com/2024/07/25/adults-no-children-why-pew-...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41245199

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/0...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/2...

https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-...

If a 43% failure rate is an unacceptable risk, and ceasing attempts is preferable to failing a second time, what does that say about taking tests in school, filling out job applications, scientific research and advancements, or compiling that code your boss told you to write?

It suggests you are mismatching risk assessments and appetites, either unintentionally through a lack of understanding of the failure scenario, or intentionally in support of a traditionalist belief system.

Marriage has a material cost, love and relationships less so. You can love freely without being bound by the liability marriage encumbers inherently; I encourage others to love, date, and otherwise seek, explore, and maintain romantic and emotional relationships as much as they wish to for as long as they wish to, but from a place of security and with a robust foundation for themselves. You’re putting work in regardless (as most relationships require), but the paperwork making it official ain’t gonna make you any more happy nor does it make the relationship any more “real.” The work and mutual respect is what makes it real. Also, keeping people married who don’t want to be married serves no one.

When something is hard to measure and benchmark (similar to happiness as it relates to success), we default to suboptimal measures instead (such as wealth, power, and status) because it is easier to observe. Important to recognize this and recalibrate accordingly to encourage improved outcomes.

Sure, but I can love best when I have a commitment and a strong sense of responsibility. The object of my affection feels loved when they feel secure and supported, when they can plan for the future without hedging their bets.

I signed a 12-mo lease with my landlady, but they included a clause to let me out easily. Yet, my commitment to them runs deeper than that, and my community ties are strong. I realized how little I would gain by packing up and moving somewhere else, and how much would be lost, not only me but all my neighbors. Why wouldn't I sign a 5-year lease?

All that paperwork we signed does indeed make us happy, because it signifies our commitment to each other, and the regulation and laws that make this a safe and secure living arrangement. Without a lease, I'd be a squatter and the constable shows up. Without the lease, they have no responsibility to fix my appliances or respond to a damage report. The legal technicalities make a lot of difference here!

If a love relationship costs you nothing and has no commitment or responsibilities, then it's worth exactly as much as you paid for it.

Even before reading the article, the inability to quantify happiness led me to assume the result will be garbage in, garbage out, which seems to be the conclusion.

And there’s also the huge confounding variable that people with good financial trajectories are likelier to get married, and it’s been that way for many years.

Yes, these sorts of "studies" that draw insane headline conclusions from horrible data really make me embarrassed to see social science together as a word pairing.

This happens all the time. People take statistical data about a population and then try to apply it to individual members of that population. If 30% of men are less happy in a marriage, that doesn’t mean you’ll be 30% less happy or even that you will have a 30% chance of being less happy. Because you are not an “average man” (no one is).