I want to add a concern that may be niche to the rationalist community but speaks to the general fear of failed marriage and is looming large in my decision whether or not to marry my life partner: what the promise of marriage should be. I don’t think marriage is or should actually be a promise to be together forever, but I also think a lot of the value of marriage is lost if you say something implying “maybe we’ll break up tho” in your vows. I think the commitment to the aspiration of being together for life is a lot of the added value of marriage, but it seems dishonest if you’re crossing your fingers behind your back as you say “til death do us part”, fully aware that there are plenty of circumstances in which you’d divorce.
My concerns about this are very similar to my feelings about the GWWC pledge, which I have taken and intend to keep my entire life, but I think is okay for people to break if it’s bad for them or not the best way for them to do good anymore. Many rationalists think this is community norm-corrupting dishonesty and doublethink. I might not take the pledge again today due to my greater awareness of all the unanticipated changes and circumstances that make it unrealistic to promise anything forever (I’m now divorced!), and I would prefer to have a concise pledge I could take today without reservation, but I feel something really valuable is lost when we can’t use aspirational vows. The point is to commit ourselves to living up to the vow, not to make the most accurate prediction of what will happen or leave ourselves plenty of room to fail.
This sounds super niche as I read it over, but I’m in your demographic and this is honestly my #1 obstacle to getting married again. I need a way to get what I want out of marriage (recognition of the paramount role we play in each other’s lives, being recognized as family, commitment device) without starting a marriage by making a promise that’s false on its face (divorce *is* an option but we want a ceremony and commitment that affirms forsaking all others and settling down).
My sense is that "marriage" is a broad category, and you and your partner get to decide exactly what it means to you; This question is top of mind for me because I'm getting married in October and writing my vows! Funnily enough, what marriage means to me has evolved since we got engaged a few months ago. It's like I didn't fully know what marriage meant until we committed to it (and maybe still don't).
Re: "I don’t think marriage is or should actually be a promise to be together forever, but I also think a lot of the value of marriage is lost if you say something implying “maybe we’ll break up tho” in your vows." We want kids, so for me the real commitment I'm making is something like "I promise to love you for the rest of my life, in service of our kids." This doesn't preclude breaking up if it comes to that, but it does mean we will be lifelong collaborators and friends. For some, that might defeat the purpose of a marriage. But for me, that seems like a pretty huge commitment. My longest friendships (with my best friends from middle school) have lasted 19 and 16 years respectively...with a commitment like this, I am promising 50+ years of friendship...that's kind of wild...
Thanks for writing this, Priya! I think it's a really interesting and important topic. Point no. 5 stood out to me: "They had trouble articulating to themselves and their partners why they valued getting legally married vs. staying in a long-term partnership without involving the state." I am in a committed LTR with a man and we have been engaged since early 2020. We both talk about getting married, but there is an anti-establishment part of me that wants to have kids without getting married at all. Somehow this feels more romantic?
I'm not opposed to getting married, but oftentimes it feels like this is something that I would do to check a box in order to avoid awkward conversations with more conservative family members on both sides of the aisle. And that just doesn't feel like a good enough reason! I want better, both practical & romantic reasons!
Agreed. Perhaps this calls for another article "Is getting married worth it?"
Fwiw, one of my best friend's parents never married, raised two kids, and are still very in love. I've heard that being married gives you many rights and tax breaks, but I've never actually looked into it myself.
Yes, "Is getting married worth it?" would be a great question to answer, and I'm sure it's different based on each couple's unique circumstances. I found this calculator that lets you create specific situations to see how much federal income tax two people might pay if they were to marry https://tpc-marriage-calculator.urban.org/. I do think the ability to make legal decisions on behalf of a spouse in the case of a sudden terminal illness or accident might be enough to make marriage make sense to me and I'm sure it makes things easier when we decide have kids.
At the risk of oversimplifying, it kind of feels like all 5 of those bullets boil down to "I can't find the right guy." - seems like solving #4 solves all the other ones (except maybe #2 - which feels like a different problem).
Focusing on these 2 sentences from #4:
> In general there was a wariness of men in New York City, and a general perception that many men don't want to settle down or have kids, creating a fundamental misalignment in values.
> A few women from conservative families had allowed their families to set them up on arranged dates, but found that though those men wanted marriage and kids, they were incompatible on most other axes.
I'm curious what the other axes are - if there were any patterns.
If we go with my oversimplification, then the question is: is it a supply problem or a demand problem? Do the men all suck nowadays, or are women too picky?
Maybe it's both? Maybe
--> less good men (hence "they were incompatible on most other axes")
--> more competition for the good men
--> the good men get choosy / non-commital (hence "general perception that many men don't want to settle down")
I suppose a good way to measure how much of it is a supply issue is to find a sample of "eligible" single men and ask them what their funnel looks like (how many messages vs how many replies vs how many first dates vs how many second dates and so on). If it's sharp drops at each step then I guess women are too picky. If it's fairly narrow I suppose it's a supply problem?
1. Some of it relates to which subcultures you're a part of or attracted to. One woman was an artist, and tended to date other artists -- but in general the hipster Brooklyn artist scene doesn't seem to marry?
2. My sense from dating app data is that women are much pickier than men.
3. I wonder if we could improve supply? I'm sure this is insensitive but: sometimes when I hear incels complaining, I don't understand why they don't just lift and dive into self-improvement.
4. Re: #4 I wouldn't be surprised if a part of the problem is that in their 20s, people have taste that doesn't match their real needs. Most people I know (including myself) chose the wrong people early on, and then you develop a better intuition for these things over time.
1. Hmm. To what extent does she decline the interest of men outside of that domain (e.g. artists in Brooklyn)? Seems like a needless narrowing of your market, but then again that could be a rational decision for reasons that aren't obvious to me.
2 & 3:
I think it's about the conditionality of it all.
For example, women hate being told "marry while you're young so you can lock in a good guy while you're hot". A natural response would be "well screw that, if it's so important that I be young, I'm obviously just going to get dumped when I get older for a younger woman, so why bother?"
I think it's the same thing with incels. They're being told get fit get rich etc, and in their mind it's like "so basically I'm an object and the moment I jump off the treadmill of working out / grinding / making money, I'm going to get dumped? No thanks."
You might say "well, by self-improvement I was thinking more along the lines of therapy" - to which they would respond "attractive men get plenty of women, regardless of if they're assholes, they have emotional issues, etc - so why bother?"
Which kind of gets to the root of the issue and your point #2:
You can think of getting in a relationship as having 2 steps:
step 1: get someone attracted to you
step 2: get someone to commit to you
Women have far more trouble with step 2.
Incels (and men in general) have far more trouble with step 1.
"Go to therapy" is advice to help with step 2, which is a problem men don't have (or at least, they don't think they have)
So going back to what you said:
> 3. I wonder if we could improve supply? I'm sure this is insensitive but: sometimes when I hear incels complaining, I don't understand why they don't just lift and dive into self-improvement.
Because
- the self-improvement that helps with step 1 specifically (getting fit, rich, etc) is hard
- a lot of the stuff that would really move the needle on supply is stuff that men can't change (facial attractiveness, height, race) - to your point 4)
- the advice they get (it's not about being fit or rich, just go to therapy) shows that nobody understands that their problem is "customer acquisition" and not "retention".
In short: increasing supply feels like an uphill battle. It can feel incredibly depressing to hear women complain that there's no good men, do a lot of hard work to get in shape, etc, and then get left swiped because... your face looks weird, you're too short, you're asian, you're a finance guy and the last guy I dated was a finance guy and I didn't like him - or any of the other random reasons women have (e.g. going back to your point 1).
Hmm interesting. My main advice to yuppie men is to move to a better dating market -- all my friends who were down bad in SF are doing great in NYC, even with attributes they can't change (i.e. being short). But obviously that's not an option available to everyone.
So maybe I should give the same advice to NYC women -- move to SF 😂
Otherwise I see what you're saying -- that sometimes it might be fruitless for someone who is conventionally unattractive 🤔
The first one was doomed to fail and I knew it when I got into it. I got married anyway because I had never been alone, was afraid to be alone, and I knew that marriage was what was expected. That marriage reinforced my arrested development.
The second one... Well maybe I rushed into it. Maybe I was infatuated. I was in love and admired her endlessly and thought surely "how could we as a team not win". Four years later, our chosen life paths are irreconcilably diverging.
Please forgive if my sharing here is inappropriate.
I guess I'll wonder out loud and this could provide food for the conversation.
If/when someone else finds their way into my life, why not just be long term partners? I'm not likely to have kids, getting close to the edge biologically, and I've always been on the fence about them anyway, so biology is likely to just make that decision for me. The coward's mode of avoiding fatherhood.
But, children strike me as the number one reason to marry.
Here's a more pointed question, forgive the other musings, I needed then to find my way to this question.
Why would two older adults, who don't have children and won't be trying for children, get married. What is the function/benefit/purpose of marriage for people in their late thirties, forties, and beyond?
At the risk of oversimplifying, it kind of feels like all 5 of those bullets boil down to "I can't find the right guy." - seems like solving #4 solves all the other ones (except maybe #2 - which feels like a different problem).
Focusing on these 2 sentences from #4:
> In general there was a wariness of men in New York City, and a general perception that many men don't want to settle down or have kids, creating a fundamental misalignment in values.
> A few women from conservative families had allowed their families to set them up on arranged dates, but found that though those men wanted marriage and kids, they were incompatible on most other axes.
I'm curious what the other axes are - if there were any patterns.
If we go with my oversimplification, then the question is: is it a supply problem or a demand problem? Do the men all suck nowadays, or are women too picky?
Maybe it's both? Maybe
--> less good men (hence "they were incompatible on most other axes")
--> more competition for the good men
--> the good men get choosy / non-commital (hence "general perception that many men don't want to settle down")
I suppose a good way to measure how much of it is a supply issue is to find a sample of "eligible" single men and ask them what their funnel looks like (how many messages vs how many replies vs how many first dates vs how many second dates and so on). If it's sharp drops at each step then I guess women are too picky. If it's fairly narrow I suppose it's a supply problem?
Point against this hypothesis: Priya spoke at several points about people deciding whether or not to marry people they were already in committed relationships with
I'm currently deciding whether legal marriage, social marriage, or not being married is the way to proceed with my committed life partner, and it's a pretty pragmatic call. We aren't deciding whether to be together. More like we're deciding how many external obstacles we create to leaving, how the community will regard our relationship, and how the state will view us.
I want to add a concern that may be niche to the rationalist community but speaks to the general fear of failed marriage and is looming large in my decision whether or not to marry my life partner: what the promise of marriage should be. I don’t think marriage is or should actually be a promise to be together forever, but I also think a lot of the value of marriage is lost if you say something implying “maybe we’ll break up tho” in your vows. I think the commitment to the aspiration of being together for life is a lot of the added value of marriage, but it seems dishonest if you’re crossing your fingers behind your back as you say “til death do us part”, fully aware that there are plenty of circumstances in which you’d divorce.
My concerns about this are very similar to my feelings about the GWWC pledge, which I have taken and intend to keep my entire life, but I think is okay for people to break if it’s bad for them or not the best way for them to do good anymore. Many rationalists think this is community norm-corrupting dishonesty and doublethink. I might not take the pledge again today due to my greater awareness of all the unanticipated changes and circumstances that make it unrealistic to promise anything forever (I’m now divorced!), and I would prefer to have a concise pledge I could take today without reservation, but I feel something really valuable is lost when we can’t use aspirational vows. The point is to commit ourselves to living up to the vow, not to make the most accurate prediction of what will happen or leave ourselves plenty of room to fail.
This sounds super niche as I read it over, but I’m in your demographic and this is honestly my #1 obstacle to getting married again. I need a way to get what I want out of marriage (recognition of the paramount role we play in each other’s lives, being recognized as family, commitment device) without starting a marriage by making a promise that’s false on its face (divorce *is* an option but we want a ceremony and commitment that affirms forsaking all others and settling down).
I know some rationalists write their own vows like these: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PySEyxTKh5hzDeK9y/my-marriage-vows
My sense is that "marriage" is a broad category, and you and your partner get to decide exactly what it means to you; This question is top of mind for me because I'm getting married in October and writing my vows! Funnily enough, what marriage means to me has evolved since we got engaged a few months ago. It's like I didn't fully know what marriage meant until we committed to it (and maybe still don't).
Re: "I don’t think marriage is or should actually be a promise to be together forever, but I also think a lot of the value of marriage is lost if you say something implying “maybe we’ll break up tho” in your vows." We want kids, so for me the real commitment I'm making is something like "I promise to love you for the rest of my life, in service of our kids." This doesn't preclude breaking up if it comes to that, but it does mean we will be lifelong collaborators and friends. For some, that might defeat the purpose of a marriage. But for me, that seems like a pretty huge commitment. My longest friendships (with my best friends from middle school) have lasted 19 and 16 years respectively...with a commitment like this, I am promising 50+ years of friendship...that's kind of wild...
Thanks for writing this, Priya! I think it's a really interesting and important topic. Point no. 5 stood out to me: "They had trouble articulating to themselves and their partners why they valued getting legally married vs. staying in a long-term partnership without involving the state." I am in a committed LTR with a man and we have been engaged since early 2020. We both talk about getting married, but there is an anti-establishment part of me that wants to have kids without getting married at all. Somehow this feels more romantic?
I'm not opposed to getting married, but oftentimes it feels like this is something that I would do to check a box in order to avoid awkward conversations with more conservative family members on both sides of the aisle. And that just doesn't feel like a good enough reason! I want better, both practical & romantic reasons!
Hi Samantha,
Agreed. Perhaps this calls for another article "Is getting married worth it?"
Fwiw, one of my best friend's parents never married, raised two kids, and are still very in love. I've heard that being married gives you many rights and tax breaks, but I've never actually looked into it myself.
Yes, "Is getting married worth it?" would be a great question to answer, and I'm sure it's different based on each couple's unique circumstances. I found this calculator that lets you create specific situations to see how much federal income tax two people might pay if they were to marry https://tpc-marriage-calculator.urban.org/. I do think the ability to make legal decisions on behalf of a spouse in the case of a sudden terminal illness or accident might be enough to make marriage make sense to me and I'm sure it makes things easier when we decide have kids.
At the risk of oversimplifying, it kind of feels like all 5 of those bullets boil down to "I can't find the right guy." - seems like solving #4 solves all the other ones (except maybe #2 - which feels like a different problem).
Focusing on these 2 sentences from #4:
> In general there was a wariness of men in New York City, and a general perception that many men don't want to settle down or have kids, creating a fundamental misalignment in values.
> A few women from conservative families had allowed their families to set them up on arranged dates, but found that though those men wanted marriage and kids, they were incompatible on most other axes.
I'm curious what the other axes are - if there were any patterns.
If we go with my oversimplification, then the question is: is it a supply problem or a demand problem? Do the men all suck nowadays, or are women too picky?
Maybe it's both? Maybe
--> less good men (hence "they were incompatible on most other axes")
--> more competition for the good men
--> the good men get choosy / non-commital (hence "general perception that many men don't want to settle down")
I suppose a good way to measure how much of it is a supply issue is to find a sample of "eligible" single men and ask them what their funnel looks like (how many messages vs how many replies vs how many first dates vs how many second dates and so on). If it's sharp drops at each step then I guess women are too picky. If it's fairly narrow I suppose it's a supply problem?
1. Some of it relates to which subcultures you're a part of or attracted to. One woman was an artist, and tended to date other artists -- but in general the hipster Brooklyn artist scene doesn't seem to marry?
2. My sense from dating app data is that women are much pickier than men.
3. I wonder if we could improve supply? I'm sure this is insensitive but: sometimes when I hear incels complaining, I don't understand why they don't just lift and dive into self-improvement.
4. Re: #4 I wouldn't be surprised if a part of the problem is that in their 20s, people have taste that doesn't match their real needs. Most people I know (including myself) chose the wrong people early on, and then you develop a better intuition for these things over time.
1. Hmm. To what extent does she decline the interest of men outside of that domain (e.g. artists in Brooklyn)? Seems like a needless narrowing of your market, but then again that could be a rational decision for reasons that aren't obvious to me.
2 & 3:
I think it's about the conditionality of it all.
For example, women hate being told "marry while you're young so you can lock in a good guy while you're hot". A natural response would be "well screw that, if it's so important that I be young, I'm obviously just going to get dumped when I get older for a younger woman, so why bother?"
I think it's the same thing with incels. They're being told get fit get rich etc, and in their mind it's like "so basically I'm an object and the moment I jump off the treadmill of working out / grinding / making money, I'm going to get dumped? No thanks."
You might say "well, by self-improvement I was thinking more along the lines of therapy" - to which they would respond "attractive men get plenty of women, regardless of if they're assholes, they have emotional issues, etc - so why bother?"
Which kind of gets to the root of the issue and your point #2:
You can think of getting in a relationship as having 2 steps:
step 1: get someone attracted to you
step 2: get someone to commit to you
Women have far more trouble with step 2.
Incels (and men in general) have far more trouble with step 1.
"Go to therapy" is advice to help with step 2, which is a problem men don't have (or at least, they don't think they have)
So going back to what you said:
> 3. I wonder if we could improve supply? I'm sure this is insensitive but: sometimes when I hear incels complaining, I don't understand why they don't just lift and dive into self-improvement.
Because
- the self-improvement that helps with step 1 specifically (getting fit, rich, etc) is hard
- a lot of the stuff that would really move the needle on supply is stuff that men can't change (facial attractiveness, height, race) - to your point 4)
- the advice they get (it's not about being fit or rich, just go to therapy) shows that nobody understands that their problem is "customer acquisition" and not "retention".
In short: increasing supply feels like an uphill battle. It can feel incredibly depressing to hear women complain that there's no good men, do a lot of hard work to get in shape, etc, and then get left swiped because... your face looks weird, you're too short, you're asian, you're a finance guy and the last guy I dated was a finance guy and I didn't like him - or any of the other random reasons women have (e.g. going back to your point 1).
Hmm interesting. My main advice to yuppie men is to move to a better dating market -- all my friends who were down bad in SF are doing great in NYC, even with attributes they can't change (i.e. being short). But obviously that's not an option available to everyone.
So maybe I should give the same advice to NYC women -- move to SF 😂
Otherwise I see what you're saying -- that sometimes it might be fruitless for someone who is conventionally unattractive 🤔
I am working through my second divorce right now.
The first one was doomed to fail and I knew it when I got into it. I got married anyway because I had never been alone, was afraid to be alone, and I knew that marriage was what was expected. That marriage reinforced my arrested development.
The second one... Well maybe I rushed into it. Maybe I was infatuated. I was in love and admired her endlessly and thought surely "how could we as a team not win". Four years later, our chosen life paths are irreconcilably diverging.
Please forgive if my sharing here is inappropriate.
I guess I'll wonder out loud and this could provide food for the conversation.
If/when someone else finds their way into my life, why not just be long term partners? I'm not likely to have kids, getting close to the edge biologically, and I've always been on the fence about them anyway, so biology is likely to just make that decision for me. The coward's mode of avoiding fatherhood.
But, children strike me as the number one reason to marry.
Here's a more pointed question, forgive the other musings, I needed then to find my way to this question.
Why would two older adults, who don't have children and won't be trying for children, get married. What is the function/benefit/purpose of marriage for people in their late thirties, forties, and beyond?
Lovely, insightful essay, Priya. Thank you.
At the risk of oversimplifying, it kind of feels like all 5 of those bullets boil down to "I can't find the right guy." - seems like solving #4 solves all the other ones (except maybe #2 - which feels like a different problem).
Focusing on these 2 sentences from #4:
> In general there was a wariness of men in New York City, and a general perception that many men don't want to settle down or have kids, creating a fundamental misalignment in values.
> A few women from conservative families had allowed their families to set them up on arranged dates, but found that though those men wanted marriage and kids, they were incompatible on most other axes.
I'm curious what the other axes are - if there were any patterns.
If we go with my oversimplification, then the question is: is it a supply problem or a demand problem? Do the men all suck nowadays, or are women too picky?
Maybe it's both? Maybe
--> less good men (hence "they were incompatible on most other axes")
--> more competition for the good men
--> the good men get choosy / non-commital (hence "general perception that many men don't want to settle down")
I suppose a good way to measure how much of it is a supply issue is to find a sample of "eligible" single men and ask them what their funnel looks like (how many messages vs how many replies vs how many first dates vs how many second dates and so on). If it's sharp drops at each step then I guess women are too picky. If it's fairly narrow I suppose it's a supply problem?
Point against this hypothesis: Priya spoke at several points about people deciding whether or not to marry people they were already in committed relationships with
Fair. I don’t know, I view it as the same problem. If I’m with the right person, there is no “deciding”. If I’m trying to decide that means it’s a no.
Which is also oversimplified. That hypothesis can break down when you consider psychological/emotional issues eg “it’s not you it’s me”
I'm currently deciding whether legal marriage, social marriage, or not being married is the way to proceed with my committed life partner, and it's a pretty pragmatic call. We aren't deciding whether to be together. More like we're deciding how many external obstacles we create to leaving, how the community will regard our relationship, and how the state will view us.