[manyoso]

> "These people are often fighting these feelings for years: weighing their natural biological impulses against higher-level rational thought. Rational thought that has been crafted from the narratives of a culture, encouraging marriage as a virtue."

Ah, but I think this concedes too much! The thrust of your argument is basically that we can boil down this very complex web of variables that make up the decision tree to seek a divorce to a cold calculation of, "Can I do better?" Were you to model this behavior in some simulation you would see people exiting and entering relationships very quickly based upon the speed of calculation.

But the actual calculation of whether to seek a divorce is not so simple. It is a complex web of interacting considerations and "rationalizations" that do battle with the impulse you would boil it all down to.

Does this impulse exist? Absolutely. Does it win out in many circumstances? Absolutely. Is every divorce ultimately a simple case of this impulse winning out over other considerations? I think that goes too far. And what about all those cases where the impulse does not win out? Would you reduce all of those to the calculation returning, "No, I don't think I could do better!?"

Regardless, the story of why people divorce is much more complicated and rich than this simple impulse to look around and see greener grass.

[zxcvvcxz]

> The thrust of your argument is basically that we can boil down this very complex web of variables that make up the decision tree to seek a divorce to a cold calculation of, "Can I do better?" Were you to model this behavior in some simulation you would see people exiting and entering relationships very quickly based upon the speed of calculation.

Liquidity, my friend. It's not easy to end and start new contracts in this manner. Well, things like Tinder are making it easier. But remember why we have so much societal pressure not to bounce around from relationship to relationship. It would be chaos. It would create a terrible society where all human energy would be directed towards mate optimization.

That's why certain types of societies thrive and succeed: they stabilize these things, through marriage. Marriage is the ultimate destroyer of relationship liquidity.

Again, I must reference Unwin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Unwin

> And what about all those cases where the impulse does not win out? Would you reduce all of those to the calculation returning, "No, I don't think I could do better!?"

Correct.

> Regardless, the story of why people divorce is much more complicated and rich than this simple impulse to look around and see greener grass.

It's about optimization: getting what's best for you, given constraints. We come up with social constructs, like marriage and church and behavior shaming (constraints), to reduce chaos and direct our energies to building a better society.

Don't get me wrong, I really do like the idea of marriage. But let's be clear about what it is, what the trade-offs are, and what happens when such constraints start to erode. Hint: more women start initiating divorces, because constraints are lifted ("no fault divorce"). Then more children start growing up in single-mother families, an excellent predictor of poor academic achievement and crime involvement for the child.

Fascinating topic.