This is a very interesting perspective! I urge you to create a society or subculture which doesn't waste time on marriage. When it has lasted for at least one generation, come back and tell the rest of us about it.

The divorce rate is 50% in US and 40-50% in developed societies today. I would rather urge you to find a society that doesn't waste time on divorces and dysfunctional marriages today.

And yet the developed world is in turmoil, perhaps because we have abandoned the social contract involving marriage and the nuclear family for the good of our society.

I don't know the answer to this massively complex problem, but I don't think it's easy to reduce things to "marriage = dumb", especially with the world so divided and angry.

So the number of successful marriages outside the U.S. is around 60%? Given the complexity of humanity, that actually sounds pretty reasonable to me.

By all means, forgo marriage but many of us quite like being married. I love it. Most of the time!

> find a society

in that mythical utopia that all bitter saps long for?

Yes, let's not EVER lay an ounce of blame on other corrupt institutions in the culture or wack government policies designed to debase humans instituted over the past 60 years for the rise in divorce. Let's not blame drugs or pharma or fiat funny money or anything else for the stress and troubles that normal people endure. Marriage is clearly the problemo.

This boring demoralization effort bores me. If I didn't know insufferables IRL that talk just like you (I'm sure you're lovely IRL), I'd say you were astroturfing because this is so lazy and on the nose.

Someone is in a foul mood today. Did you just have a breakup or a divorce?

Cheer up, chief. Maybe divorces can be prevented by getting better at setting the terms of marriage. Like pre-marriage counselling.

No, just chuffing at the rapidly dying zeitgeist of yesterday.

We did some marriage counselling last year and it was great for us, highly recommended.

The failure rate for starting a business is much, much higher. Realistically, the failure rate for doing anything sufficiently ambitious or rewarding is going to be high. If your main goal is life is to avoid failure, enjoy your mediocrity.

Does staying single make it any better? If you check the stats on that, I think you'll find married people tend to be happier, both financially and socially. The fact many marriages don't survive should not necessarily dissuade you from rolling the dice. Just be pickier about who you marry. Pre-marriage counselling can help weed out the improabable marriages.

I think they mean something like Canada's "common law marriage" as an alternative.

You never actually marry. No institutional stuff. No expensive dress to fuss over and never wear again. No huge expensive party for a lot of people that you actually don't like but have to invite. No expensive "honeymoon" vacation that has to be super special and that everyone around you wants to fuss about. No other expensive big party for all those people at 25 years married etc.

Instead you just get the same tax benefits as a married couple for having lived together for a certain amount of time. You stay together as if you were married for however long it lasts. Which in lots of cases is the same 50+ years some people stay married. Or not. No need for a paper. If you guys work out long term you work out long term. If you don't, you don't.

I can see how that approach would be attractive, since it is more convenient. But there is a cultural significance to ritual that makes life events more meaningful, and hence, more durable. If you don't treat it as a life-ling treatment, there is less of a chance you will treat it as such for 50 years.

I can see how the corset of tradition, social pressure and law can make marriage "more durable" of course. If you're facing eternal damnation and being ousted from the only social circle you know unless you marry before ever having sex and everyone around you does the exact same thing then of course many if not most people will endure all but the very worst marriages.

I'm glad this is finally past us in at least some places in the world. Unfortunately not everywhere. Not even in Canada or the US and other such countries.

I think the 50+% divorce rate in itself isn't the bad thing. It's not the root cause. It's just a statistic that shows how unhappy a lot of marriages have always been. But until recently-ish (and still in some places) people couldn't get out of it and endured it all and you can't tell me that they were better off that way.

You can treat "it" as a life-long treatment without all the pressures and the paper and all the other stuff.

What's the fertility rate in these awesome modern societies?

At planet sustaining levels and way below the rabbit kind of fertility that we still see in places where women have no rights and are forced into marriages and prevented from access to higher education.

Its not just the "corset of tradition" or social pressure. I mean rituals themselves have a psychological value. Kind of like how membership in an organization is made more durable by initiation ceremonies. Without those ceremonies, members tend to float away because they percieve less value in belonging.

My ex would scream at me if I even hinted to anyone that I was unhappy because "I was trying to make them look bad". Emotional abuse and manipulation, power imbalances, etc, skews stats in any group.

There’s lies, damned lies, and statistics.

This is one of those often misrepresented statistics. The divorce rate for first time marriages is much lower - off the top of my head I think it might be sub-20%?

This statistic gets skewed because some people go through multiple marriages. And I think it’s one of those things where it’s common that people have only been married once or like 3+ times. I’d imagine if you leave when one marriage gets tough you’ve opened the door to that being a viable option.

I mean, monasteries have existed for hundreds of years.

Thousands. And a phd program is pretty similar to a modern monastery.

Monasteries were a system for sustaining unwanted children, and those children united became a very powerful institution in the world. Before monasteries unwanted children were generally "exposed", meaning left in the wilderness as infants to be devoured by animals or freeze to death. Birth control is why you only see old monks or nuns today.

Still, monasteries didn't produce any children.

> the failure rate is too high

The rate dramatically changes with demographic, for example many of those were married young and did not complete education.

> who you pick to marry

The quote doesn't say whether :) Married men also tend to make more money and work for longer periods of time. There is a cynical view of whether that's good or not, but 40-50 year old single men don't seem to be a particularly successful demographic.

Married men live longer, but the last years are mostly garbage anyway. If you’re co-dependent or really need that companionship, autonomy and agency might not be what you’re optimizing for. Cashflow and wealth doesn’t buy love or happiness, only choices and freedom. Optimize accordingly.

Your comment cautioned against marriage for its "cost". Now you are talking about lifestyle preferences.

My apologies, sometimes I forget connecting the dots must be more explicit. Tell me the lifestyle of someone who has their assets split in half and having to provide alimony/maintenance for (possibly) the rest of their partner’s life. I can only speak for my circle of social acquaintances, many divorced, all living terrible lifestyles because of the financial burden of divorce. Some got away with only losing half their assets and having to provide $3k-$5k/month post tax to their ex partners. Some, worse. One expects to have to work to death, and can never retire.

I’m just working back to first principals. You can be happy without the legal Russian Roulette of marriage is my overarching thesis, and I apologize again it took so many words to arrive at my point.

Now you're talking about financial burden again. I don't wish the situation you are describing on anyone, and I am sympathetic to making choices to avoid that happening. I don't think that is inconsistent with my other comments.

Just to add, here are a few other things that also limit your day to day freedom and add some risk of legal nightmares:

- operating a business

- owning a home or other building

- running for political office

- raising a child

- using a professional license (medical, law, civil engineer, etc)

>The rate dramatically changes with demographic, for example many of those were married young and did not complete education.

So OP, a 28 year old male still in the process of completing education?

I agree with ianai and toomuchtodo, marriage can wait (assuming one is even interested in it) until you've made your place in the world and have time and room to think about such things.

Conversely when i was in a similar situation, my marriage was the thing that helped carry me through. She was a rock and gave me the kind of support i wasnt really getting anywhere else. But we also shared the journey (hers and mine) and that experience in itself is more valuable than my degree (which i neither use nor rarely reference).

IMHO the reality is a marriage os neither something required nor something to avoid, it lies along side professional life and again IMHO, recommending one to get married or not doesnt deserve a place alongside how one should pursue their career goals. They should be equally pursued in a balanced fashion suited to the individual.

Or marry a good person, raise happy kids and live a good life together.

If you are not married and one partner makes significantly more than the other, what's to stop the wealthy partner just deciding 20 years into the relationship that they want a newer model and just leaving the former partner destitute? It creates a massive power discrepancy in the relationship. "Do what I want or I'll leave you in the street."

Married people work towards the same goal as a unit. Do whatever you want it's your life but marriage has very much been a net positive in my and my kids lives. I'm the primary earner in my relationship.

Losing half of their wealth and honestly rolling the dice on whether a new relationship would be with someone who would be with them through thick and thin or just another “fair weather friend.”

If you are in a relationship with someone where the concern is losing half your wealth after 20 years together then I would advise not marrying that person. I make about double what my wife makes. If tomorrow she said, I want a divorce, then she can take half of what we saved over the 20+ years together without any issue from me (assuming infidelity was not involved, if it was I would go scorched earth). Anything I earned was done with her support. She was there to look after the kids on the nights and weekends I worked late. When I was working until 2am she would often get up to check on me. We earned the money together. When I left software development for 5 years and took a 65% paycut, she was the one that suggested it, indeed she made more than me during that time. When I came back to software she wanted to be sure it was not going to burn me out again.

I very much understand that I sound like a guy that started a business, beat the odss and was wildly successful telling you to open your own business while ignoring the reality that most businesses fail. America stands on the shoulders of those that tried and succeeded though.

I understand that marriages fail and that people get screwed over. I know I have been incredibly lucky with my marriage to my wife. There is really no way to know and I always recommend dating and living together for years before thinking about getting married. We roll the dice when we cross the street. Everything is a risk with no guarantee of a happy ending. For me the gamble was worth it and has paid massive returns far outstripping any financial concerns.

With that said some people get shafted and I really do feel bad for those people. Dedicating your life to someone to discover they are not who you thought must be a devastating experience.

> if it was I would go scorched earth

Out of curiosity, why is that particular situation a red line for you?

Infidelity? For me its the ultimate betrayal. I can understand a drunken one night stand where the person that cheated immediately admitted to doing it. Anything else and you are essentially stealing choice from your partner. They are living a life based on an assumption of loyalty and you are allowing them to do so knowing that its a lie. Its choice theft and betrayal. On top of that, all trust would be dead. I don't want to have to spend my whole life worrying what my wife is doing if she is running an hour late from work or going out with friends. I am naturally a loner so could adapt to being alone and be quite happy relatively quickly. This is not a knock on my wife, she is amazing and I very much prefer her company to that of my own.

If someone does not confess or cheats multiple times or even worse has an affair I believe that is one of the worst things you can do to a person short of the obvious things like murder, violence, etc.

For me personally there can be no forgiveness. I'm not the moral police though, everyone is free to forgive as they want. If someone is cheated on and feels that its not a show stopper then that's their choice, I'm not them. This is very much just a personal thing, for which there can be no forgiveness. Divorce and separate lives is the only option. I would of course still co-parent my kids with them and be civil (similar to how I interact with my kids teachers) but any emotional attachment would die. I would tell the kids why we are divorcing when they are old enough. This may just be a me thing its very easy for me to do the whole "dead to me" thing and just move on.

Great comment. Indeed it's not black and white.

And yes... live together for 3-5 years or so and then get married if you want. I wouldn't rush it.

> When I left software development for 5 years What did you do? Freelancing or left software dev in those years?

Was it easy to get back into it?

I left software completely. I had to get out. Every software job I have ever had results in me working 60+ hours a week, often more. I took a random office job at my wife's very large company. I was able to leverage my tech skills and excel. Got promoted very quickly. The main difference at least fore is when you leave the non tech job for the day or the weekend, it's gone. No need to think about it. Software is different, always some stupid deadline which requires nights and weekends. I eventually went back to software and have been here for many years now. I definitely feel like leaving again but the golden handcuffs and having kids makes it harder.

It was relatively easy to get another job. It was an entry level job making 55k but I only kept it for a couple years. Which is really a shame because it was the best software job I've ever had but it was a small company and I had kids to provide for.

Those damn golden handcuffs ;) … lucky to have that problem, but still… burnout / boreout is no fun.

I’m in a similar position as you, thinking about pivoting to something else for a while, but hesitant to make the jump because of economic uncertainty.

Thanks for the insight.

This isn't really how it works though. She would take AT LEAST half of what you currently have, including stuff you had before you met. You would also have some responsibility for providing for her and your children in the future at a similar standard of living to her current one. You would have pension liability and could lose part of your business if you have one. This could likely be the case even if she was unfaithful. Not meaning to preach, just some things that I found out after the fact, that I never thought about when "young and in love".

And you get to take her stuff. If those are your fears marry for risk aversion. Marry someone who makes more money and has more stuff. You have to support your kids regardless if you are with someone or not. What does unfaithfulness matter in terms when dividing property. The unfaithfulness led to the divorce isn't that enough?

Marrying "a good person" can also mitigate all those concerns you have. If two "good people" co-habitate then neither one will just leave after 20 years. Overall, advice about "good people" isn't really actionable.

The fear of someone being destitute after 20 years of marriage has been somewhat alleviated with divorce laws. Usually, the assets gained in mariage are split 50/50. This could also be set with a pre-nup. On the other hand, if neither party makes a good salary, you can't squeeze blood from a turnip.

"The fear of someone being destitute after 20 years of marriage has been somewhat alleviated with divorce laws" That's exactly my point. If they are not married then if the primary earner just up and left the other would be severely hurt financially.

Marriage isn’t really a solution to any of the problems you state.

Divorce is a very real outcome of marriage, as are prenups.

Many countries also have rules around care for a previous partner by means of common law partnership etc…

Married people often don’t work towards the same goals anymore than unmarried couples.

Marriage can also be a form of entrapment for abused individuals, a means for political gain or forced on people. Even in countries that don’t think those issues are common like the USA where child marriage is more common than people think.

Imho you have a very idealized perception of marriage that doesn’t line up with the various shades of grey in reality.

Marriage can be a societal contract and/or it can be a vow of love. The former is archaic

"Imho you have a very idealized perception of marriage that doesn’t line up with the various shades of grey in reality."

I appreciate you letting me know about reality as I have led a sheltered life with no real world experience.

I've been alive and married (20+ years) for longer than I was alive and single. Its been pretty ideal.

How long were you married for before you learned these things and formed your real world marriage experience that I am unaware of? If you were married and it failed then I can understand your negative view of it. I'm sorry it did not work out for you, the end of a marriage / relationship can be hard.

"Divorce is a very real outcome of marriage, as are prenups." lets change that to "Divorce is a very real possible outcome of marriage". prenups are a before marriage thing. So is a long happy life together.

My sister is going through a divorce because they married for reasons other than love and it was clear that it was not a marriage of 2 good people in it for the other.

My brother has also been married for longer than he has been single. Been through some incredibly tough family issues (deaths) that if they were not married would have probably broken them up. Years on they are very happy.

Marriage if done right and again entered into by people that care about each other is an incredible bond and one I feel has contributed strongly to society.

There are negatives to everything but again if its a good match the positives far out weigh it.

Marriage can be a wonderful thing, If its not for you then more power to you, there is no reason to knock the institution that has worked for so many others. Its been around and working for many people for tens of thousands of years. Maybe be open to the fact that there may be some good things that you are missing rather than that through all of human history people have been dumb.

You’re takin this far too personally to have any sort of productive discussion but here it goes against my better judgement.

Saying that marriage is not as important to society has no bearing on what value marriage should mean to you. I also never said that marriage is bad, or not for me. I’m married myself, but like I said, i saw it as a vow of love not a societal contract, unlike your statements that were all matters of societal contract that are neither solved by marriage but are also provided for by common law partnerships.

You inferred something because you took things too personally and saw things in the argument that weren’t there because you clearly took it as a personal attack.

In fact, your marriage is largely irrelevant to the discussion altogether since it’s purely anecdotal and doesn’t expand to the entirety of the human population, let alone the population of a single country like the USA where 1/5 of first time wed couples end in divorce, and who knows what percent of the remaining 4/5 include forced marriage or abuse.

Like I said, I’m married and I don’t think marriage is bad. But I’m also not so arrogant or narcissistic to extend my own life choices and extrapolate them to being integral to society.

I’m also not so narcissistic as to ascribe the success of marriage to the value of the people in the marriage. People change with time. Circumstances change. Marriage shouldn’t be a chain holding people together for eternity to the detriment of each person.

Also to be clear, I’m not saying you’re being a narcissist, though I do think your world view is clearly projected from your life choices based on your response but that’s not enough to judge someone online. Im saying that if I extrapolated my choices to others I’d consider myself a narcissist. Before you reply saying that I’m calling people names.

Marriage as a societal contract is archaic. I didn’t say it was dumb historically (marriage has a long and varied history, where love was often never a factor but made sense for the time), but it is archaic. Those aren’t synonyms.

"Imho you have a very idealized perception of marriage that doesn’t line up with the various shades of grey in reality." Let's ignore you calling me naive. Besides that friend I'm not taking this personally at all no matter how many times you want to insist I am. I'm working on a Saturday and killing some time on HN responding to a post with my opinion and some anecdotal experiences. It's generally called conversation. If you would prefer single sentence responses, so be it. I'm going to go weep into my coffee now since you emotionally devastated me. All the best :)

The point is that your anecdotes are meaningless to the veracity of the point at hand. That’s why they’re anecdotes.

Please stop, there is only so much I can take. ;)

> If you are not married and one partner makes significantly more than the other, what's to stop the wealthy partner just deciding 20 years into the relationship that they want a newer model and just leaving the former partner destitute?

So you like to force your spouse to stay in an otherwise unhappy marriage by putting a ring on their finger and have them sign a paper? So romantic!

Kidding aside, among the many reasons people like to marry, this is one of the worse ones.

> Or marry a good person, raise happy kids and live a good life together.

You might as well be telling someone to just be very lucky.

Or simply don’t marry someone you have just met! (And by “just met” I mean someone you haven’t been in a relationship with for at least 5 years)

"Marriage is an unnecessary burden and construct in modern times."

Too early to say. It is possible (though by no means certain) that by 2200, the Earth will be inhabited by a mix of the Amish, the Haredim and various Salafist creeds which, while distinctly non-modern, never stopped reproducing themselves, while all the modernized groups did.