Althouse: Increasing the odds of an enduring marriage.

October 16, 2014

Increasing the odds of an enduring marriage.

"You should date for three years before popping the question. Be wealthy, but don't be a gold-digger. Have a huge wedding, but make sure it's cheap. And whatever you do, don't skip the honeymoon." Also: be religious.

36 comments:

rhhardin said...: Being of good character might help.

I take it that skipping the honeymoon means you get bitched at, which would seem to have been prevented by the good character.; 10/16/14, 7:59 AM
Henry said...: Good god. Correlation is not causation.; 10/16/14, 8:09 AM
Expat(ish) said...: Marry the right person?

I think a little Toyota "Five Why" therapy might be in order here.

_XC; 10/16/14, 8:10 AM
MayBee said...: Weird.

I actually don't know that many people who dated three years before getting engaged, except for people who started dating at an age that would generally be too young to get married.; 10/16/14, 8:14 AM
Jaq said...: Correlation is not causation, but correlation often points out interesting places to look for causation.; 10/16/14, 8:15 AM
sparrow said...: What weird mix. This is just a list of proxies: factors that correlate with the outcome. Only the religious and financial factors provide likely causes. Wealth makes sense because poverty is stressful on a marriage, obviously. Religion makes sense because most faiths generally encourage working through problems rather than giving up. Again obvious. Beyond doubt the wedding size etc is just noise. Taking a honeymoon is likely just correlated with wealth. I expect many of these variables c-vary and are uncorrected. Weak data analysis; typical.; 10/16/14, 8:16 AM
Brando said...: "Be wealthy but not a golddigger". I think they mean "marry wealthy, but don't marry a gold digger" or "be wealthy, but don't marry a gold digger". Gold diggers aren't really wealthy before they marry.

I think the theme through all of these comes down to the biggest thing couples fight about--money. In which case it's important to not get into tough financial scrapes (hence, not an expensive wedding or ring, though the honeymoon skipping might be going too far?), and date long enough to make sure you and your spouse will know what to expect in terms of how they handle money.

I have known some friends who were in bad financial shape (credit card debt, plus car and school debt, and hey why not a mortgage too?) but still dropped money they couldn't afford on their wedding and rings (financed or borrowed from family, most likely). It's their lives, but an insane decision in my view--for a gift I just gave them cash as I figure they needed it more than a new set of teaware.; 10/16/14, 8:16 AM
sparrow said...: Meant to type "covary". In a serious study the socio-econmic factors would be normalized out Then if the other factors would be tested and included if significant in a multivariate model. Even then it's likely that all factors even if well measured and corrected will jointly only explain a fraction of the cases. Then, only if that fraction is substantial (an standards vary here), would you say you have a good handle on predicting success.; 10/16/14, 8:24 AM
Roger Sweeny said...: "Wealth makes sense because poverty is stressful on a marriage, obviously."

At the risk of sounding like Steve Sailer, many of the same things that cause a person to do poorly economically also cause a person to do poorly in a marriage. For some awful examples, watch a few episodes of Jerry Springer.; 10/16/14, 8:25 AM
Roger Sweeny said...: "Wealth makes sense because poverty is stressful on a marriage, obviously."

At the risk of sounding like Steve Sailer, many of the same things that cause a person to do poorly economically also cause a person to do poorly in a marriage. For some awful examples, watch a few episodes of Jerry Springer.; 10/16/14, 8:28 AM
tim maguire said...: Reminds me of the Instapundit's warnings about trying to expand the middle class by giving people middle class stuff instead of encouraging middle class values.; 10/16/14, 8:33 AM
traditionalguy said...: That list is about right. It is all about trusting the other person to be a safe person.

If a marriage does not create a safe place for both partners, than its worse that being single.; 10/16/14, 8:51 AM
Seeing Red said...: 25+ years of failure. I love skewing stats!; 10/16/14, 8:57 AM
Seeing Red said...: Roger, or Judge Judy.; 10/16/14, 8:57 AM
Fen said...: Why would men want to get married these days?; 10/16/14, 9:03 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Why would men want to get married these days?"

So they won't degenerate into crusty old boors like you.; 10/16/14, 9:18 AM
Renee said...: Yeah, that's me.

But...

Marriage takes work....

I could easily divorce my husband like everyone else.

It scares me, how fragile even the strongest of marriages can be.

-----

Why we're still married?

We're not jerks to one another.

We really are being patient and kind....
Were not passive aggressive about money or who didn't clean out the litter box.

---+--

Three years felt a little long. After two years, you need to figure out whether or not he's worth the emotional investment or move on.

It's all about a mutual decision, not a comfortable slide.; 10/16/14, 10:08 AM
Rumpletweezer said...: Only two rules in my 25 year marriage: We don't have to have an opinion about everything; the person who cares the most about a thing gets to make the decision...

AND, we don't criticize anything said to the children in front of the children.

I didn't marry until I was 35. It was our first marriage. We like to say we skipped our first, unsuccessful, marriages.; 10/16/14, 10:23 AM
madAsHell said...: I guess I broke all the rules.; 10/16/14, 10:31 AM
DKWalser said...: The most important phrase for a husband to learn: "I'm sorry. You were right; I was wrong." Learn to say that and simply give up the notion that it matters who was really right, and you'll have a better than decent chance of an enduring marriage. From your wife's perspective, it's not about right and wrong. It's about whether you care enough about her to listen and value her thoughts and opinions.; 10/16/14, 10:51 AM
Kirk Parker said...: Fen: "Why would men want to get married these days?"

Althouse: "So they won't degenerate into crusty old boors like you."

Me: Althouse, you need to get out more. See, for example, the admirable and honest Renee's statement: "I could easily divorce my husband like everyone else. It scares me, how fragile even the strongest of marriages can be."; 10/16/14, 10:54 AM
n.n said...: Yes, a moral character is a prerequisite for both liberty and relationships. And what is morality, really? It is self-moderating, responsible behavior.; 10/16/14, 12:23 PM
SteveR said...: Looks like I followed the script pretty close and we are 28+ years in. Its not easy, and really I just married the right person.; 10/16/14, 12:32 PM
Joe said...: Don't marry a crazy person.; 10/16/14, 12:45 PM
Dave Schumann said...: Why do we have to keep repeating "correlation vs. causation" to seemingly intelligent people, over and over and over, hundreds of thousands of times?; 10/16/14, 12:49 PM
sparrow said...: "Why do we have to keep repeating "correlation vs. causation" to seemingly intelligent people, over and over and over, hundreds of thousands of times?"

Because the real cause(s) is often within the pool of correlated events> correlation is insufficient to establish causation but it a necessary condition ore feature of the authentic cause. Don't dismiss the process out of hand, it's helpful if incomplete.; 10/16/14, 12:57 PM
Renee said...: @Joe

But in many cases, you're already living with that person and may have a child with 'crazy'.

Problem with marriage prep in Church, we need marriage prep... Prior to dating not to engaged couples.; 10/16/14, 1:00 PM
Dave Schumann said...: "Because the real cause(s) is often within the pool of correlated events"

Uh, no. "The pool of correlated events" is whatever the authors chose to study. Obviously that has no particular relationship to the actual cause, but to the constellation of influences affecting the authors' thinking.

There may be no cause at all -- there's a lot of literature on how the practice of only publishing positive results has skewed the statistical concept of "significance" and much published literature is the manifestation of chance. The cause may be any of the literally infinite factors that were not considered for whatever reason. Or the cause may be any combination of studied factors with non-studied factors.

And your use of the word "often" implies a scope of knowledge that simply doesn't exist.

Eventually, perhaps near the end of my lifetime in 30 or so years, or shortly thereafter, we'll see social science thoroughly discredited. It's starting now, but academic inertia is extremely strong. It's going to eventually be recognized that the scientific method, as applied in the social sciences, has rendered them useless.

In cases like this -- "Increasing the odds of an enduring marriage" -- we'll see published material that focuses more on reasoning from first principles, and from personal anecdotes, because that carries as much probative value as stupid spreadsheet correlations without the baggage of being provably worthless.; 10/16/14, 2:19 PM
Dave Schumann said...: Less apocalyptically -- there is never any justification for smart people, or people who aspire to be smart, or people who just want to ape the habits of smart people, to look at a spreadsheet correlation and say "such-and-such increases the odds of X." That implies a path dependency that is literally orders of magnitude more complicated to illustrate than formulaic correlation.; 10/16/14, 2:21 PM
rehajm said...: Increasing the odds of an enduring marriage

Government subsidized housing; 10/16/14, 3:32 PM
rehajm said...: Indifference to your husband's physical dalliances with interns, campaign staffers, and random political groupies; 10/16/14, 3:33 PM
rehajm said...: An unfortunate encounter with a political rival that delays your inevitability.; 10/16/14, 3:36 PM
rehajm said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/16/14, 3:39 PM
rehajm said...: An understanding between you and your husband and the DNC.; 10/16/14, 3:53 PM
rehajm said...: Humor. No...Huma; 10/16/14, 3:57 PM
Pianoman said...: The wife and I are 5 for 5 ... and been married 29 years.

Just another datapoint.; 10/17/14, 3:05 AM