Category: Human Behavior and Cognitive Science

WHAT IF WE ARE RETURNING TO MOST MEN AND WOMEN LIVING SEPARATE LIVES – AND DURABLE MARRIAGE IS LIMITED TO UPPER CLASSES AGAIN?
Men and women living shared lives is not the norm in human history. It’s a product of agrarianism – and we’re a post-agrarian civilization. In the not-too-distant past men spent most of their time with men, and women with women. The irish only stopped serial marriage in the 1800s. The jews only in the 1500s. There are still populations in east asia where men visit at night and otherwise stay with their families. Today, in africa, there are still groups where men and women live in different buildings.
There is no longer a need for marriage for a woman to maintain self sufficiency. Even for her to have a child. There is no longer an incentive other than affection and sex for many people to maintain long term relationships.
So was farming an unnatural aberration and are we returning to hunter gatherer and early agrarian relationships?
On the other hand given the collapse of reproduction among such people, and less so among the traditional nuclear family, and even less so among the traditional extended family group, are we going to breed out those people from the polity? (It’s happening already).
My point here is that marriage is an extraordinary advantage for SOME – where the family is of higher value than individual freedom in its absence. But it is not for others. And moreover, if we restore liability for interference in a marriage, end child support, alimony, and common property leaving costs to the custodial parent, then incentives will do their work, the malincentives for divorce – largely to the detriment of men and children – will be suppressed again. The consequences would include a suppression of marriage for those unfit for it, and a preservation of marriage for those fit for it. And the resulting eugenic consequences of that policy.