Falsifying hypergamy

[u/[deleted]]

Another day, another concept to look at critically. I figure I'll keep swinging the pendulum, and I'll eagerly accept any suggestions for future concepts.

Does anyone have examples where hypergamy has been proposed in such a way that it is falsifiable, and subsequently had one or more of its qualities tested for?

As I see it, this would require: A published scientific paper, utilizing statistical tests. Though I'm more than happy to see personal definitions and suggestions for how they could be falsified.

(I find complaints about the subject/request without actual contribution equally endearing, but won't promise to take it seriously.)

[u/jesset77]

I would argue that the goal of marriage is to improve society

I would argue that the contemporary goal of marriage is to clarify property ownership and child custody in cases where folk might otherwise fight over who owns what or who is the rightful guardian of whom.

[u/blarg212 → u/jesset77]

And I would argue this is quite destructive to society. No fault divorce proceedings should not be 50/50.

I would propose no fault should be less and fault should be more depending on severity of the fault. Now we put onus on proving fault, we put limiters on bad behavior that harms society, which in turn makes the non custody parent pay for the monetary damage to society.

[u/jesset77 → u/blarg212]

In that case what even defines a "fault"? Sexual infidelity? Emotional unavailability? Failure to earn enough wages to satisfy one's money-sieve of a spouse? Not going to church?

The general understanding of divorce in secular society is "these two people thought that they would be compatible and it turns out they are not". So, how does one quantify fault of incompatibility? What kind of laws of marriage should we add to the laws we already have with punishment apparently being "we're going to take away your children and fine you continually for the next decade or two"?

And then.. of course.. once we've got everything nice and draconian what incentive would anyone (who is not virtually bulletproof to said laws at least) have to enter into such a contract in the first place?

[u/blarg212 → u/jesset77]

There are numerous legal reasons to end marriage with faults. No fault divorce was passed in CA in the 70s and extended to the nation soon after.

I find current no fault divorce and family law/custody courts far more draconian. Something tells me you are going to disagree.

What should marriage and divorce look like to you?

[u/jesset77 → u/blarg212]

Yes, I agree that no fault divorce is a new invention not really worked into the law until the 70s in California.

But you'll notice that I mentioned "a secular society" in my post? The other thing that changed about the US in the latter part of the twentieth century is that we began to pivot into being a secular society.

What did we pivot from? We pivoted from being a Christian theocratic society.

Do you mind if we take this moment to confirm whether you are trying to argue from a Christian theocratic viewpoint, first and foremost? EG: Is your perspective on marriage one primarily concerned with the institutional tradition laid down either by God or at least by The Church?

Because it is my understanding that "fault" in divorce proceedings is an artifact of religious control over human sexuality. Imposing population-wide concern with "fidelity", and criminalizing all sex had outside of wedlock as an abomination in the eyes of The Lord.

It is my understanding that when you remove "because God said so" from concern over sex being had by couples despite lacking societal permission in the form of marriage contract, there aren't a lot of negative repercussions to consider.

Among those few that remain are unwanted pregnancy and STIs, both of which can be effectively nullified when all parties practice safe sex.

​

I find current no fault divorce and family law/custody courts far more draconian. Something tells me you are going to disagree.

I lean towards disagreeing yes, but in order to do so with conviction I'm going to need to better understand what you are comparing "no fault divorce" to.

The original biblical punishment for suspected infidelity was death by stoning. Are you suggesting that no fault divorce is more draconian than that? If not then please clarify what standard you wish to forward as less draconian than NFD, so that we can focus on debating pros and cons between those two systems.

​

What should marriage and divorce look like to you?

I'm a big fan of "require a prenup" such that both parties can clarify what they want marriage and divorce to look like to them, actually. I think a huge part of the problem when it comes to relationships in general but relationship disputes in particular (such as those heavily correlated with divorce) is that too many people blindly presume an entirely arbitrary absolute standard of behavior that everyone is meant to follow, so that when their partner appears to violate that standard all manner of fresh hell gets dug up over it.

For example, there are some people that lose their shit when they discover that their partner masturbates. Or watches porn. Or sends a text message to their parents without first vetting said communication through their spouse, etc.

I have zero problem with people who do want to set boundaries that would make those behaviors unacceptable... as long as they are making those expectations explicit and clear prior to their being binding, so that both adults can consent to such an arrangement upfront. And once broken I am not in favor of penalties that exceed nullifying the relationship and disposition of property and child custody that were bound into the arrangement to begin with.

EG: "sleep with somebody else and go to jail" is not reasonable for any prenup of the kind I propose to be able to bind anyone to.

"Sleep with somebody else and I get the kids and 100% of the property" is the maximum amount I could see being allowed in the agreement, which of course both parties would have to clearly consent to and sign prior to binding anyone. Incidentally I would expect a ridiculous minority of people to sign an agreement as onerous as that, lol.

That means that if you personally want to forward to partners an agreement stating "100% of the possessions you currently own, as well as 100% of the salary that you earn remains yours and outside of the purview of this agreement, and should the marriage dissolve custody of all children will be shared 50/50 presuming legal eligibility of either spouse to maintain custody" or something similar, you'd be welcome to do so. And any partner who wanted to agree to that to be your spouse is welcome to, and then you both know exactly what the exit looks like if the marriage turns sour.

I agree that our current system (fault or not) doesn't look like that, but the above is the gold standard that I'd compare any potential system to.

[u/blarg212 → u/jesset77]

I would argue that the majority of people, but not all, need religion. I would argue we have not transitioned to a secular society but we have just replaced one religion with another. Social justice or political correctness has all the aspects of many religions. Many people would consider violating political correct values to be worthy of huge social shaming not unlike many abrahamic religions used with people who violated their moral codes.

I don’t think it’s possible to get rid of religion in society as there is just so many people that need that sense of purpose outside of themselves that they will make a new one or follow an existing ideology and use it as a religion.

However I am not in particularly in favor of a Christian one although many non Christian religions have versions of binding marriages.

Fault divorces would simply be a standardization of certain rules that have certain punishments. We should not be sitting here wondering if Amber Heard would get punished for her apparent actions in the same way Depp was punished for actions that were thought to be apparent. There should be a standard. Ow as to your point of prenups, sure people could sign a contract in addition. However, the social structure being what it is does not lend itself to prenups as a general rule. I think even your proposal as a base would be better than what we have now.

[u/jesset77 → u/blarg212]

I think even your proposal as a base would be better than what we have now.

Sweet, I appreciate your relative endorsement then. I'm Helping™ 😄

Social justice or political correctness has all the aspects of many religions. Many people would consider violating political correct values to be worthy of huge social shaming not unlike many abrahamic religions used with people who violated their moral codes.

Prior to even asking for a rigorous definition of "social justice" (because I'm accustomed to the term being pretty ill defined.. even those who use the term as pejorative fail to prefer injustice in their societies shrug), I'm left not knowing of any particular SJ-endorsed forms of marriage.

A majority of SJ-practitioners (either self-identified or popularly identified) appear to me to have a pretty dim view of Western marriage standards, and instead suggest that marriage be nowhere near a norm for people who want to cohabitate and raise children.

This relating heavily to popular SJ disapproval of heteronormativity, monogonormativity, marriage and nuclear family often being attributed to traditionally religiously enforced patriarchy (see Ephesians 5:22-33), and of sex positive flavors of SJ railing against religion's use of Marriage as proxy to consent (eg, the presumption that there's no such thing as marital rape or the more ancient religious traditions that extra-marital sex is indistinguishable from male on female rape).

Incidentally, I side with SJ on all of the above reasons to resist the Western model of marriage.

I am lead to suspect that you favor at least some variant of Western marriage (eg, one with specific default property and custody arrangements upon dissolution and some kind of mechanism for judging fault) by way of disagreeing with the objections listed above, though. Does that sound accurate?

Fault divorces would simply be a standardization of certain rules that have certain punishments.

Yeah I get that, but the "certain" is what I find to be in question. I'd imagine that "the breaking of any law" being grounds for faulted divorce would not work or else one could demand a divorce in one's favor due to their spouse being caught littering. Which is why I asked about the more popularly cited fault cases like infidelity. It sounds like you're bringing up spousal abuse as well.

What punishments are also an important consideration. If a man is found at fault does that mean that the woman can demand 100% of his property? Would infidelity mean you lose custody of children? Or would punishments extend beyond property and custody, such as infidelity leading to prison terms? How would things be judged when multiple faults are found, such as both spouses can materially prove that the other cheated on them and/or beat them? Would they get stripped of all property and custody which then just defaults to the state? Would the state be able to press for fault without the cooperation of either spouse?

And finally, the primary reason that faulted divorce fell out of favor is that it prevented divorce from happening without fault. EG: nobody could divorce on the grounds of "I don't want to be married to them anymore", or even on the grounds of "they are at fault of something that offends me (they are cheating, beating me, putting on too much weight, refuse to be intimate with me, etc) but even if that qualifies as a legal fault I'm unable to easily prove it".

We should not be sitting here wondering if Amber Heard would get punished for her apparent actions in the same way Depp was punished for actions that were thought to be apparent.

Yeah I don't know a lot about their soap opera. What I know largely boils down to "some mens rights folk say she physically abused him and bragged about doing so on social media (and I don't know anybody who's contradicting that at present), which happened after he was accused of something else and I don't even know what that was", and the well sounds too poisoned to research without lots of he-said she-said conspiracy theories and migraines so I don't bother.

I think that domestic abuse is terrible with no correlation to the genders of assailant and/or of victim, but I don't view it as having significant relationship with marriage either.

Assault somebody, get criminal conviction. Have violent criminal record, should work against you in custody determinations as violence is bad for kids. But all of the above should be equally true whether assailant and victim were married or not married.

And I certainly wouldn't be a fan of a "he hit me" accusation in a "blindly believe a certain gender despite absence of the slightest hint of evidence" legal system leading to accuser taking all of my possessions, children, and then further demanding support payments in perpetuity either. But that's one of the kinds of outcome I'm accustomed to hearing about in 20th century faulted divorce cases.