Forbes has an interesting article on how the economics of American society make it financially difficult to get married:
Marriage has a way of making people grow up and think about the future. Nights out with friends and crawling stores for clothes are replaced by eating in together and saving for a house. But while that priority shift eventually creates more stable finances, in the short term, it puts a squeeze on your wallet.
On a month-to-month basis, marriage just doesn’t pay. At least not far beyond the honeymoon phase, after which the happy couple invariably decides to leverage their new status into better living quarters, nicer cars and more “mature” spending priorities like insurance and church donations.
Despite the end of the marriage penalty in the tax structure, the economics of marriage still aren’t all that good. Marriage is good for society. Healthy families are important in developing a healthy civil society and a strong democracy. Yet our current system of economics tends to create a disincentive towards family-building. Ultimately, it becomes a vicious cycle: the breakdown of the American family erodes society and causes more societal problems, which cause a further drain on national resources which then causes an increased demand for services and higher taxes which then makes it less beneficial to start a family. From a viewpoint of societal engineering, it makes sense for a society to want to promote stable marriages and strong familes – yet the economics just aren’t there.
That’s why (as loathe as I am to say it), Hillary Clinton’s “American Dream” schtick could be the right political message for the Democrats. Rightly or wrongly, the American middle class feel squeezed out. The rise in gas prices only cements that notion, and while the reality of the economy is that we’re much better off than we’ve been since the “boom” years of the 1990s, the perception is at odds with the reality. Even though unemployment is low, outsourcing is largely a phantom menace, and job growth is steady, people have been fed a steady diet of scaremongering and after so long those messages begin to stick. Clinton is just doing what the Clintons are good at doing: reading the political tea leaves.
Ultimately most of society’s problems are less about economics and more about personal choices, but that doesn’t mean that economics aren’t a factor at all. One of the strongest assets the GOP has is being known as the pro-family party, while the Democrats are viewed as being hostile to traditional family values. However, if the Democrats start getting smart about playing into the fears of the American middle class, that could threaten the GOP’s chances in 2006 and 2008. (Of course, given the way in which moderates are treated by the coastal, secular left, that may not be much of a threat afterall.)
If it doesn’t make economic sense to get married, stay married, and have children, then fewer people will do those things, and society as a whole will lose out. There are some costs associated with marriage that can’t be legislated away – a house will always be a significant investment, saving for retirement will always require sacrifices, and raising a child will always involve massive expenditures of energy, time, and money. However, if we value the American family, we need to do more to make raising a family a more economically attractive choice. The GOP needs to speak to the needs and fears of the middle class to keep their majority, and right now many in the middle class are wondering if our political leadership really cares about their situation. Letting those doubts fester isn’t sound politics, nor is it sound policy.
UPDATE: Hotline has a breakdown of some of Clinton’s “American Dream” initiatives. Some of it is typically giveaways that will cost more than Clinton says they will, but a lot of it could resonate with fiscal conservatives – like cutting wasteful programs, restoring PAYGO rules, and reducing corporate subsidies. Then again, it’s also packed with budget-busting and employment-killed rules about mandating that every business provide health care to its employees, which is a phenomenally bad idea. Still, there’s enough meat there that GOP strategists should be worried.
The “economics” of marriage are definitely not the only thing wrong with that institution. Ever since women realized basic levels of equal rights and ceased to become property, the institution of marriage has been in freefall….because, like communism, marriage is antithetical to human nature. For most people, the only way the institution can be maintained is through the patriarchal domination of the past or the don’t ask, don’t tell “openness” of most of today’s marriages.
With that said, marriage remains romanticized beyond belief and will continue to suck alot of happy people in only to befall decades of subsequent unhappiness on most married couples and their offspring. I fully expect the “party of smaller government” will continue its efforts to “promote” marriage through whatever means they can dream up, inevitably producing a continued decline in the number of successful marriages in a post-suffrage era where the institution isn’t artifically propped up by the subordination of the punching bag female that gave marriage a mirage of “success” in centuries past.
Regarding your economics lesson, there are two conflicting messages from the GOP. The first is the need to consume as much as possible to keep the engines of free enterprise churning at a blistering pace. The second is a scolding lecture on the need to be more fiscally responsible and realize “how dang good you have it.” You can’t have it both ways. The only reason our economy has stayed as strong as it has for most of the last 15 years is the explosive growth of personal debt accrued by a superficial culture on a seemingly infinite consumer binge on plastic. If the consumer binge slows or ends, which it almost has to eventually, so will our fragile economy, and the reality of stagnant wages, outsourcing, diminishing health care coverage, and pension theft will only become more oppressive.
Our very biology speaks otherwise. Monogamous family relationships almost certainly predate all of human society.
The idea that marriage is an institution designed to oppress women only proves my point about how anti-family many Democrats really are. The reality of the situation is that marriage exists to benefit the female – it takes a huge amount of resources to raise a child, and single parents are orders of magnitude more likely to fall into poverty than two-parent families.
It’s this kind of attitude that keeps millions mired in poverty and stuck in a permanent underclass – another example of how liberalism creates the very poverty it professes to oppose.
“The idea that marriage is an institution designed to oppress women only proves my point about how anti-family many Democrats really are.”
It isn’t “designed” to oppress women, but throughout most of human history, the female has been the submissive party that has given artificial credence to the institution’s “success”. In marriages that are successful, the institution is good for families, and even women. Nevertheless, the soaring rate of divorce and infidelity in modern marriages, where both participants have equal rights, is indicative of the institution’s fundamental dysfunction.
“The idea that marriage is an institution designed to oppress women only proves my point about how anti-family many Democrats really are.”
Name one elected Democrat who has made comments of this nature. This is my personal feeling regarding marriage and it has nothing to do with partisanship. Trying to indict the Democratic Party based on my cynical feelings towards marriage is meritless.
“It’s this kind of attitude that keeps millions mired in poverty and stuck in a permanent underclass – another example of how liberalism creates the very poverty it professes to oppose. ”
The first comment is a fair point. Single parenthood is not affordable, and certainly leads to higher rates of poverty. Whether that means children are better off living in homes with married parents who don’t love each other and are unfaithful to one another is another story. And again, my views are probably shared by fewer than 5% of liberals. Don’t be an idiot and indict an entire political ideology based on the views of one irrelevant guy from the Midwest.
That assumes that it’s marriage that’s dysfunctional, rather than the way people treat marriage. I don’t see that at all. There’s nothing inherently wrong with marriage as an institution, it’s that our society has stopped propagating the values that make it (and the rest of society work).
Again, politics is about perception. Because of the close ties between radical feminist groups like NOW and the Democratic Party, Democrats are associated with the views of feminist radicals like Caherine McKinnon, et al.
I know that this is not exactly relevant, but I still want to stress the point that I “got hitched.” While Mark won’t care (he doesn’t know me), Jay probably does. So have a beer on me, and if you ever make it to Europe, make sure to let me know; there is a beer or two waiting for you 🙂
Be warned, though. While I am left-leaning (to German standards), my wife is left-toppling (to German standards).
Cheers and Yay!
Congratulations!
And one of these days, I am going to have to take you up on that offer of good German beer… 🙂