This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The issue of modern divorce was discussed here last week in the context of yet another round of wider discussion about the Sexual Revolution. (It's pretty much becoming tiresome at this point, but anyway.) Everyone who bothered to chime in seemed to agree with the notion that divorce is usually a net negative for the wife, both romantically and economically. It appeared to me that there's mostly a consensus about that here.
Fair enough. However, I've seen online data indicating that a) roughly 40% of all marriages end in divorce b) roughly 80% of divorces are initiated by the wives c) in cases where the wife is college-educated, that figure is 90%. In other words, in cases of marriages that fail, modern women are more likely than not to voluntarily put themselves in a disadvantageous life situation.
So...what gives? Are modern women just that impulsive when feeling unhappy in a marriage? Or misled? Do they have illusions about singlehood?
It might be useful to look at the reasons people give when they get divorced. The top reason (75% of couples cite) is lack of commitment, followed by infidelity (60%). A substantial number also cite substance abuse (35%) and domestic violence (25%). If your husband is cheating on you or beating you maybe you don't care that getting divorced is economically bad for you.
60% infidelity seems insanely high. Figures from the UK* show adultery given as the reason for divorce by 7.5% of men and 8.7% of women. Crime victimhood figures show 5% of adults being victims of domestic violence. Either Americans are far worse than I thought or those figures are wrong. My money is on the latter.
*It's worth noting that until 2022, the divorcing partner was forced by law to given a reason for divorce. Hence most divorces were either codifying separations that had already happened (one of the reasons allowed) or recorded as 'unreasonable behaviour', which was the essentially the dump stat for amicable divorces.
If 5% of adults are domestic victims, and 25% of divorcees report domestic violence, that only requires 5% / 25% = 20% of adults get divorced at some point. Which is quite achievable. There’s a lot of ways these proportions could be screwy, but it passes the sniff test.
As for infidelity, well, it’s 8% that seems low to me. The UK has similar rates to the US. It’s hard for me to imagine divorcees having a lower adultery rate than the national average. I’d have guessed a comorbidity—adulterers usually also being “unreasonable” or commiting violence—but the UK data specifically has a “combination” category, and it’s nearly empty. Maybe a reporting stigma, where giving adultery as the reason has some legal effect or just is embarrassing?
IIRC in the US before no-fault divorce, if you could prove your spouse knew about the affair and slept with you anyways you could get the divorce denied by spousal reconciliation(no idea how often it happened), and it wouldn’t surprise me if something like that really affected division of assets in the UK. It might also have just been easier to check ‘unreasonable behavior’ than to include evidence of an affair if such is required.
Notoriously, there was a period between the late 1980's and the final legislative adoption of no-fault divorce in 2022 when the "law in lawyers' heads" was that even trivial unreasonable behaviour was grounds for divorce if the filing party's subjective opinion was that it was intolerable. So you could file for divorce on the grounds that "he leaves the toilet seat up and I find it intolerable to continue living with him as a result" and the husband's lawyer would advise him that he had no chance of defending the divorce, and should accordingly concede to avoid legal costs.
So the vast majority of divorces were filed on grounds of unreasonable behaviour because it was a de facto no fault divorce. Whereas if you alleged adultery the respondent could demand that you prove it. Even if you could prove adultery, your lawyer would advise you to file on grounds of trivial unreasonable behaviour to avoid unnecessary costs and acrimony. So the only people who filed on grounds of adultery were the people who wanted an acrimonous divorce and were willing to ignore their lawyer's advice to get one.
The Major government attempted to fix the problem in the 1990s by moving to no-fault divorce but only after compulsory mediation and a one-year waiting period. The law was never brought into force - I am not sure why.
I remember reading a while back that China saw the divorce rate go down after requiring a mere thirty days cooling-off period before you could proceed.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/18/china-divorces-drop-70-after-controversial-cooling-off-law
But of course marriage rates are down too so it's all a big muddle of cause and (maybe) effect.
Fundamentally I think the big factor that even gov't can't easily control is the perception that there are more options out there than ever which is to say someone who is contemplating divorce and looks around to see what they could (in theory) get instead find it more appealing even if that is an unrealistic expectation.
This goes for prettymuch every major life decision, though. People are prone to inertia and frequently the straw that breaks the Camel's back only does so for a short while.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link