Why? It is, to this day, even in the U.S., the dominant arrangement between men and women, especially in the context of relationships that result in children.
> The need to demonstrate your social standing to other people is the result of low self-esteem.
That are very pragmatic reasons to invest in signals of social standing. It minimizes the cultural friction between yourself and the people who can help you get ahead, who are overwhelmingly people of high social standing themselves.
Because I advocate relationships where contributions are granulated and distributed according to participant interest, not participant gender. Monolithic roles like "provider" (and the concomitant role of "consumer/sex object") of are inherently coercive. Because they're monolithic and tied to gender. I think that kind of coercion is perverse.
> That are very pragmatic reasons to invest in signals of social standing
I don't think those signals are meaningfully connected to anything real, they're just signals of standing. They are power begetting power, and I think willfully engaging that system is perverse.
Okay how do you distribute child-bearing according to participant interest? How do you distribute child-rearing according to participant interest, bearing in mind that an infant just wants to suck on a breast and doesn't care about your views on gender roles.
Adoption.
> How do you distribute child-rearing according to participant interest, bearing in mind that an infant just wants to suck on a breast and doesn't care about your views on gender roles.
There are some limits to what can be shared. I advocate going right up to that line. A woman who wants to raise a baby at some point has to make tough choices about formula, breast pumping, bonding, and her other priorities in life. There is a qualitative difference between the handful of hard limits imposed by biology, and the many limits imposed by compulsory monolithic gender roles.
The IQ of children is highly correlated with the IQ of parents. Adoption is not, for educated couples, an alternative to having their own children.
> A woman who wants to raise a baby at some point has to make tough choices about formula, breast pumping, bonding, and her other priorities in life.
You can make things as equal as possible, but no more. My wife and I have almost identical educational backgrounds. We accepted very similar jobs out of school (she will technically be making more money than me considering benefits). We had our baby her last year of school so she wouldn't have to take maternity leave, with the negative stigma associated with that. I'm taking a couple of years off from working at a large law firm so I can work a 9-5 with a judge and take more baby responsibilities and allow her to focus on her career. We're trying extremely hard to make things as equitable as possible between the two of us.
But at the end of the day if my wife had suffered a complication in child birth (it is still the most dangerous thing most people do), it would have fallen to me to provide for her and the child. I was not the one who had to take that bodily risk, therefore I assumed by default the "provider" role, or at least had to be fully prepared to assume that role. Therefore, it was totally rational for her to have been concerned, pre-marriage, about my ability to do so.
That's some useful education.
This is the most depressing thing I read in this whole thread. The idea that one should view raising "highly successful" children as some kind of outcome they can control or influence through "high IQ tigerness" and cold economic analysis is humorous and sad all at once. Coupled with encouragement to not buck a pointless social tradition because it may make (shallow, deplorable) people judge you as less worthy and thus may negatively impact your future prospects of becoming more like them seems like a rather sad way to live life, but I guess we all have our own goals. The fact that after thousands of years our species is still mesmerized by shiny rocks we dug out of the ground is also odd to me, but apparently not others.
Like BBC radio 4 has a leftie, public-services-union-member audience and a rightwing traditionalist audience who are largely unaware of each other, HN has an ivy league educated randian-hero readership and a more old-school, "just give me an ounce of weed and a hex editor and I'm happy forever" readership, and both is convinced the other is intruding on their community.
There is plenty of research to suggest that socio-economic (SES) status is the driving factor behind IQ, not genetics. An adopted child's IQ will tend to be higher if adopting parents have high SES
Translation: I have shitty friends and assume everyone else does too.
This doesn't make it right, but there are numerous human psychology reasons why this tradition endures and so many people take part in it. Writing off people who want or provide a diamond ring as mentally ill (as many people in this thread seem to be doing) is silly.
What do you consider mental illness to be? And what is therapy in your view?
The term 'mentally ill' in my view has been stigmatized quite a bit, and being 'unwell' mentally does not mean you are crazy, but that you have issues you feel you need to deal with. Isn't that the point of seeing a therapist?
An interesting blog on this topic here:
http://www.theage.com.au/executive-style/culture/blogs/all-m...
Just about anything people may have talked to priests about in the past they can now talk to therapists about.
Now, if you want to define mental illness such that it covers all of these things, and all the other reasons to see a therapist, that is fine. Words are just what you make of them; you can, of course, define them as you see fit.
However, if you redefine mental illness in such a way then I can see really no justification for using the negative connotations that mental illness normally holds to facilitate mock outrage ("Writing off people who want or provide a diamond ring as mentally ill (as many people in this thread seem to be doing) is silly.") Instead of criticizing erikpukinskis for "writing off those people as mentally ill", perhaps you should instead explain why you do not agree with his suggestion that low self-esteem could be a factor.
Enjoy your stay. Good luck and have fun!
No, wasting money on a valueless shiny rock is silly. But let's just keep advocating people 'keep up the tradition' instead.
1) Your wife can measure how much you can provide just as well by having you actually provide valuable things. Like a house.
2) Your wife can measure your unselfishness by having you buy something that is actually valuable to her but useless to you. Like daycations with her friends. There's no sense in buying something which is valuable to neither party.
3) The need to demonstrate your social standing to other people is the result of low self-esteem. Maybe your wife needs therapy, not a diamond.