Friday, April 03, 2009
Other way around.
Commenters on Dreher's blog bumped into an interesting question in the middle of a typically pointless discussion of "gay" "marriage".
The interesting question is this:
Divorce started to increase around 1970.
Income for working-class males started to drop (comparatively) around 1970.
The conventional conclusion, especially popular among conservatives, is that divorce leads to poverty.
But the opposite causation between these two trends actually makes more sense.
What men want more than anything else is to feel useful, to be the provider. As their providing ability started to decline, men found less reason to get into marriage and more reason to get out.
I suspect this causation can never be pried away from many other crucial trends that started around the same time. Feminism was turning young women into unattractive and useless appendages, unfit for the role of wife and mother; no-fault divorce began to remove the legal fence around the contract of marriage; Leninist saboteurs were pulling churches away from their historical role as helper and backstop for marriage; and television brought false visions of romance while it broke down neighborhood loyalty.
Nevertheless, this is a productive way to examine the specific connection between income and divorce. ¶ 12:54 PM
The interesting question is this:
Divorce started to increase around 1970.
Income for working-class males started to drop (comparatively) around 1970.
The conventional conclusion, especially popular among conservatives, is that divorce leads to poverty.
But the opposite causation between these two trends actually makes more sense.
What men want more than anything else is to feel useful, to be the provider. As their providing ability started to decline, men found less reason to get into marriage and more reason to get out.
I suspect this causation can never be pried away from many other crucial trends that started around the same time. Feminism was turning young women into unattractive and useless appendages, unfit for the role of wife and mother; no-fault divorce began to remove the legal fence around the contract of marriage; Leninist saboteurs were pulling churches away from their historical role as helper and backstop for marriage; and television brought false visions of romance while it broke down neighborhood loyalty.
Nevertheless, this is a productive way to examine the specific connection between income and divorce. ¶ 12:54 PM
