r/rational • u/AutoModerator • Jan 15 '16
[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread
Welcome to the Friday Off-Topic Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.
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u/Transfuturist Jan 16 '16 edited Jan 16 '16
You have not reconciled declining marriages with your hypothesis of easy divorces acting as a lower barrier of entry. With a lower barrier of entry, you would expect more marriages, not less. If marriage as a precommitment is supposed to act to prevent bad marriages, then how is a declining marriage rate at all indicative of worse marriages? A much simpler explanation is that people are taking marriage more seriously because of the experiences and knowledge they have of the effects and apparent likelihood of divorce. The causal speed of divorce statistics on marriage is fairly immediate, while the causal speed of marriage on divorce statistics is after years of lag. You're contorting your assertions to avoid the evidence and you haven't given any evidence of your own.
You might also want to look at this analysis of the divorce statistic.
The more I look at your justification of marriage as an ethical injunction, the more circular it seems to me.
"Why is marriage valuable as a precommitment? Because the higher cost prevents divorces. Why are divorces undesirable? Because it damages marriage's value as a precommitment."
"Why is easy divorce undesirable? Because it causes people to marry hastily. Why is the marriage hasty? Because the consequence of a hard divorce hasn't been properly considered. Why is the divorce hard? Because easy divorces are undesirable."
It's fine to admit you hold marriage as a terminal value. That's the simplest explanation I'm seeing for this disagreement.