Romantic love as a basis of marriage is a new invention and doesn’t work well. I prefer to think of marriage as a contract to invest in each other and children (if any). If we make it a special kind of contract that can be breached without penalty, then duh, people will invest less in each other and children. But that doesn’t mean we want to invest less. It’d be better to have a system that let us invest more and fear less.
Why would people invest less except because they want to invest less? I realize you probably have some model involving coordination failure here and I don’t know what it is.
EDIT: to explain my confusion better: A village that makes sure its residents have the ability to leave easily whenever they want (e.g. by providing them with a payment when they move out) seems good to me, whereas a village that makes sure its residents have a hard time leaving (e.g. by forcing them to pay almost all their life savings upon entry, which get converted to “village bucks” only useful within the village) seems very yikes to me. I think this is partially because the first has a natural mechanism that ensures that residents stay only as long as the arrangement is working for them, whereas the second has gone out of its way to break the natural mechanism. I don’t actually expect the first village to have huge problems with people exiting; people will still form social bonds and have property in the village that makes it more convenient to stay, as long as the village is providing value.
I don’t think the first village is a strict improvement, but it seems far better, and I have similar intuitions about marriage.
It makes sense that exit costs would help in a centipede game. What is a resource created in marriage that is disproportionately held by one party at a time and has value outside the marriage? My first thought was finances, but sharing finances doesn’t require exit costs.
I was mostly thinking of one partner investing in the other’s human capital, e.g. by paying for their education, or taking on housework so the other can focus on career. Though this discussion is changing my mind—I no longer think it’s such a strong argument.
“Doesn’t work well” by what metric—having children? I don’t see why that should be the predominant consideration. I have many other goals when I go into relationships—enjoyment, companionship, self-improvement, security, signalling, etc. Now that people are much wealthier and have fewer children, the relative importance of hard-to-breach contracts has decreased, and it’s plausible that for many people, moving even further towards flexible contracts is better for most of their goals.
I don’t think there’s any alternative. The reason that these contracts used to be hard to breach was mainly because of social norms—otherwise you could just leave and live in sin with someone else any time you wanted. But weaker contracts are only possible because the relevant social norms have changed. (Although there are probably some communities which take marriage much more seriously, and you could live there if you wanted to).
Then there are changes re who gets child custody, but it seems to me that having consistent legal judgements based on what’s best for the kids is better than allowing some people to opt into more extreme contracts.
Another factor is laws around property ownership, but I think that even though the laws have weakened, opting in to prenups is a sufficient solution for anyone who wants stronger commitments. They have clauses changing property allocations depending on who’s “at fault” for the divorce, right? (Although I guess I’m against prenups which specify custody arrangements, except insofar as they turn out to be good for kids).
Romantic love as a basis of marriage is a new invention and doesn’t work well. I prefer to think of marriage as a contract to invest in each other and children (if any). If we make it a special kind of contract that can be breached without penalty, then duh, people will invest less in each other and children. But that doesn’t mean we want to invest less. It’d be better to have a system that let us invest more and fear less.
Why would people invest less except because they want to invest less? I realize you probably have some model involving coordination failure here and I don’t know what it is.
EDIT: to explain my confusion better: A village that makes sure its residents have the ability to leave easily whenever they want (e.g. by providing them with a payment when they move out) seems good to me, whereas a village that makes sure its residents have a hard time leaving (e.g. by forcing them to pay almost all their life savings upon entry, which get converted to “village bucks” only useful within the village) seems very yikes to me. I think this is partially because the first has a natural mechanism that ensures that residents stay only as long as the arrangement is working for them, whereas the second has gone out of its way to break the natural mechanism. I don’t actually expect the first village to have huge problems with people exiting; people will still form social bonds and have property in the village that makes it more convenient to stay, as long as the village is providing value.
I don’t think the first village is a strict improvement, but it seems far better, and I have similar intuitions about marriage.
My intuition about marriage is more like the centipede game, where preventing exit makes both players better off. Does that make sense?
It makes sense that exit costs would help in a centipede game. What is a resource created in marriage that is disproportionately held by one party at a time and has value outside the marriage? My first thought was finances, but sharing finances doesn’t require exit costs.
I was mostly thinking of one partner investing in the other’s human capital, e.g. by paying for their education, or taking on housework so the other can focus on career. Though this discussion is changing my mind—I no longer think it’s such a strong argument.
“Doesn’t work well” by what metric—having children? I don’t see why that should be the predominant consideration. I have many other goals when I go into relationships—enjoyment, companionship, self-improvement, security, signalling, etc. Now that people are much wealthier and have fewer children, the relative importance of hard-to-breach contracts has decreased, and it’s plausible that for many people, moving even further towards flexible contracts is better for most of their goals.
But the current trend is to ban hard-to-breach contracts for everyone, even those who want them...
I don’t think there’s any alternative. The reason that these contracts used to be hard to breach was mainly because of social norms—otherwise you could just leave and live in sin with someone else any time you wanted. But weaker contracts are only possible because the relevant social norms have changed. (Although there are probably some communities which take marriage much more seriously, and you could live there if you wanted to).
Then there are changes re who gets child custody, but it seems to me that having consistent legal judgements based on what’s best for the kids is better than allowing some people to opt into more extreme contracts.
Another factor is laws around property ownership, but I think that even though the laws have weakened, opting in to prenups is a sufficient solution for anyone who wants stronger commitments. They have clauses changing property allocations depending on who’s “at fault” for the divorce, right? (Although I guess I’m against prenups which specify custody arrangements, except insofar as they turn out to be good for kids).