quote:
First, confounding the view of marriage as the female heaven and haven is the fact that marriage actually appears to benefit men more than it does women. Research has shown that the "marriage benefits"—the increases in health, wealth, and happiness that are often associated with the status—go disproportionately to men. Married men are better off than single men. Married women, on the other hand, are not better off than unmarried women.

Second, in contrast to the myth that marriage is a woman’s ultimate and sacred fulfillment is the reality that roughly two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women. This is true not only for the young and hip: A recent AARP survey of 1147 men and women ages 40-79 who experienced a divorce in their 40s, 50s, or 60s, found that 66% of women said they initiated the split.

quote:
According to Rosenfeld, these data suggest that the tendency for women to initiate breakups is not an inherent feature of male-female relationships. Rather, it is a feature of male-female marriage. This finding appears to provide support for the notion that women experience the institution of marriage as oppressive, in large part because it emerged from and still carries the imprint of a system of female subjugation.

keep on pushing the feminist myth devaluing women settling down in order to display their independence by being sexually promiscuous and you'll continue to see the "hookup culture" that TRULY devalues women. men evolved to have to pay a steep price for steady sex and quality breeding partners and if that cost is lowered, we gain a major advantage.

quote:
People’s expectations—a variable not measured in Rosenfeld’s data—may also play a role in relationship satisfaction. If the culture sets women’s expectations for marriage high and men’s low, then the reality of marriage, in which men benefit more, may elicit increased satisfaction in men—“This is much better than I expected"—and decreased satisfaction in women.

Moreover, while Rosenfeld’s work may shed light on the "push" side of the decision to leave, the equation he outlines is probably incomplete as it neglects the "pull" side. In general, life decisions are multiply determined. Internal states such as marital satisfaction are likely to be weighed in the decision-making process against external variables such as societal attitudes about divorce, or the ability to maintain contact with children and financial security after divorce. Indeed, existing data attests to the importance of such external pull factors in shaping decisions of both men and women.

these talking points, in contrast to the above, are actually quite brilliant and intriguing

one of the "pull" factors is that men are willing to suck it up in a bad relationship to maintain a close relationship/access to their children. the slanted judicial system has really created a penalty for marriage in this regard, so that's not shocking. on the flip side, the slanted system makes it MUCH more beneficial to women b/c they don't face the same sort of punishment for leaving (as they win custody and visitation the VAST majority of the time)

as another "pull", women are less likely to leave if they're UNemployed

This post was edited on 6/12/16 at 6:49 pm