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Marriage, A Modest Proposal

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Like many people, I got married with surprisingly little understanding that marriage is essentially a financial merger. Unfortunately, this became all too clear when my wife filed for divorce. Although I had made all the payments on the house and had far less debt, I had to buy “her” half of the house from her and ended up being financially broken (but not bankrupt) by this process. Based on my own experience, I agree with William Quiqley’s modest proposal that potential spouses receive a full disclosure of their legal and financial obligations before they have their merger.

His proposal makes excellent sense. After all, people should be aware of their responsibilities when entering into any legally binding arrangement-especially one that involves their entire financial life (or at least a large portion of it). While people are supposed to know about what they are getting into and everyone has heard the horror stories about divorces, it seems that most people do not fully understand the legal aspects of marriage and it is clearly remiss that the state grants licenses without providing such information.

Interestingly, Mexico  City law makers have proposed a bill intended to address the court clogging legal battles between divorcing couples. This bill would require couples to create a pre-nuptual  agreement that would create a contract specifying what would occur if the couple divorces. This would include financial matters as well as issues regarding children. The intent is, of course, to reduce the burden on the courts and allow divorces to be settled quickly. Since the divorce rate about 40%, this certainly makes sense. It also makes sense because the couple would know what their exact obligations will be and they will not be going into a serious financial contract blindly.

One rather controversial aspect of the proposal is that the marriages are supposed to have predicted timed of termination. Couples can, of course, use the traditional termination: “until death do us part” or they can opt for a shorter contract. Since other financial  contracts can have termination dates, this seems sensible enough. Not surprisingly, the Catholic Church in Mexico is outraged by this. However, they have little moral authority from which to argue and the reasons in favor of the bill seem far more compelling than the usual vague appeals to God and family values. After all, it hardly seems to enhance family values to have brutal legal battles over divorces.

The bill also requires couples to take classes about marriage. This also makes sense. After all, people are required to learn how to drive before getting a driver’s license because driving is dangerous. Marriage is also dangerous: as a friend of mine puts it, you have a 50% chance of losing 50% of your stuff. Hence, people should go into that potential disaster with all the preparation they can get.

At this point, someone will probably raise the matter of love and the subject of religion. After all, marriage is supposed to be about love and there is often a religious element.

In regards to love, love has as much to do with the legal aspects of marriage as it has to do with any financial contract: none at all. There is, as people point out, no love test or even a love requirement for marriage. There is often an assumption of love, but this has no bearing in terms of the license. This might seem heartless of me, but you can check into the matter yourself. Lest I be considered a cold beast, let it be known that I think love is great. Like running and friendship, it is one of the great goods in human life. However, people can marry without being in love and people can be in love in every meaningful way without being married.

But, one might say, does not marriage serve to show the ultimate commitment to love? My reply is that people do think this, but marriage is a legal contract that is primarily financial in nature. A person can commit in every emotional way without such a legal merger. But, one might say, how can couples express their love? Well, my obvious reply is that they can treat each other with love and do all those things that show love. In fact, I propose that their be a Love Oath or Union of Love created in which couples can make a (non-financial) bond of love. They can have a ceremony (with cake, of course) and it can even be recognized by the state with a certificate of love. However, it would have no financial or legal aspects to it-it would be pure love.

But, one might cry, what about all the legal rights of marriage? My modest proposal here is actually two proposals. The first is that couples could do the traditional legal marriage with all the legal obligations and rights. My second is that the various legal obligations and rights could be selected and put into a specific contract. It is absurd that the marriage merger is a one size fits all deal when any other contract can be custom made. As such, I propose that a Civil Contract of Union be created that would allow couples to specify the legal aspects of their legal contract. I also contend that many of the rights should be open to non-“married” people. For example, people should be able to designate the people who get to visit them in the hospital. This Civil Contract of Union would satisfy people who marry for the sake of the legal rights and obligations. Naturally, it can be combined with the Union of Love.

Lastly, a religious person might note that nothing has been said about religion and marriage. As I see it, God can sort this out. After all, He is omnipotent so He can make it so marriage works anyway He wants. For example, He could make it so that couples who are not marrying for love are unable to complete their vows or their rings shatter. He could make it so that when same sex couples try to get married, their clothes catch on fire and the wedding cake is consumed by locusts. So, until God says otherwise, we can go with my proposals.

But, one might yell, what about the religious fol? Am I not being a bit of a jerk about this? Surely I cannot be so cynical as to truly believe such things? In reply, I do admit the importance of religion to some people and this should be acknowledged. As such, I propose a third union, the Theological Union. This would be a ceremony designed and conducted by the relevant religious institutions to sanctify unions. It would have no legal status at all (that would require the Civil Contract of Union) but could be given whatever religious significance the religious authorities wished to put into it. They could even make a nifty certificate and there should, of course, be cake. I am sure God likes cake. The Theological Unions also have the advantage that the various religious groups and people who are very worried about traditional marriage can make their Theological Unions as traditional as they like. Since these unions would have no legal weight, those authorizing them can exclude whoever they want and presumably be free of any legal worries (or not, maybe people could sue if a church, for example,  banned white people from getting a Theological Union).

I believe that my proposal provides a rational solution to the marriage problem and one that can make everyone unhappy-which is a mark of a good compromise.

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Marriage Advice

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This past Saturday I went to see Mark Gungor speaking on how to laugh your way to a better marriage. Or, more accurately, I saw a video of him speaking to people about this. While I am good at many things, I freely admit that I am (or was) bad at marriage. After I was divorced, my ex-wife said that I was a good man and a good friend, but a lousy husband. In retrospect, I can see that she was quite right.

Like almost everyone who has been divorced, I have often thought about why my first marriage did not work out. While there are all sorts of specific reasons, one general problem that almost everyone faces is that people really have no idea what they are doing. Marriage, as the experts will tell you, is very different from dating. It is even different from living together. I do not just mean the legal difference (although that is a major factor). After all, the whole dynamic changes, leading to a clear distinction between BM (before marriage ) and AM (after marriage). Because of this, dating and even shacking up tend to be fairly poor preparation for marriage. As such, it is hardly a shock that experienced (and often young) people often fail at marriage-even when they are sincerely trying.

Not surprisingly, there are all sorts of experts pushing books, seminars and DVDs who purport to be able to give marriage advice. I’m generally skeptical of such products. First,I know that the entire field of psychology lacks a solid foundation and there is considerably disagreement even among those who claim to be experts. Hence, I have no real idea who to regard as credible (if anyone). Second,  these products tend to grossly oversimplify complicated matters, usually by presenting a gimmick method that defines the author’s product. Third, I am always suspicious of people who are trying to sell an idea. Of course, this does not mean that such products are useless. Rather, they should be approached properly: with skepticism and low-expectations. Just as a book on running a marathon won’t make you a top athlete, a book on marriage will not make you an awesome spouse. However, just as a book on running can provide some useful advice, so too can products on marriage.

Gungor’s approach, at least in the first hour, was a fairly stock approach. He noted that men and women generally have different behavior patterns that can lead to misunderstandings. For example, men are single-task creatures and women multi-task. As another example, men compartmentalize heavily and are weak on details  while women connect everything and store details. That men and women are generally different is obviously true. Obviously enough, not-failing at marriage requires being aware of these differences and being able to work with them. Maybe.

Gungor’s main focus was on sex. As he noted, a big chunk of marriage (at least in the West) is sex. He presented the standard view of men and women. Men, he noted, are generally more interested in sex than woman are. This seems to be true, although it is important to take into account cultural influences. Despite Sex & the City, there are still cultural elements that push the idea that men like sex more than women do. His specific take on the matter is that men and women are the reverse of each other when it comes to sex. As he sees it, a man has to go through the woman’s heart to get to her vagina. In the case of a man, a woman has to go through his penis in order to get to his heart. This, of course, is the old stereotype that women are interested in love and use sex to attract and keep men. The stereotype for men is, of course, that we are interested in sex and will sometimes be nice to women in order to get it. This all seems true-at least in many cases and in very general terms.

Gungor’s main advice here is that this is the way people are and making marriage work requires dealing with it. Women need to accept that men want sex and that this is essential to getting men to be concerned about women’s hearts. Men need to accept that women are concerned about their hearts and that the way to get sex is to “be nice to the girl.” This way everyone wins: the man gets sex and the woman has her emotional needs met.

Being a minister, Gungor approaches this from a religious viewpoint. Not surprisingly, he asserts that women who have sex before marriage are being idiots, since they are giving up sex without getting what they really need (the heart). However, Gungor does not actually argue for his view, he merely asserts this.

It is worth noting that he does have a reasonable point here. While humans do like sex, we also have emotional needs (even us men). If a woman is simply having sex and not getting any emotional satisfaction because she “gives it up” without expecting any emotional effort from the men, then she is probably making bad choices. After all, healthy and rewarding human relationships require more than mere fornication. Even for us men. Really.

However, as Gungor presents it, a woman is an idiot if she is having sex outside of marriage. On the one hand, this does have some merit. After all, sex outside of marriage does put the woman at greater risk for STDs and pregnancy will generally be more of a problem. Also, from a purely practical standpoint, an unmarried man can simply leave with all his stuff, rather than having to leave behind half.

On the other hand, most of these safety features of marriage can also be had via monogamy and having a good partner. After all, the lowered risk of STDs does not arise because of marriage magic, but because of monogamy. That, of course, does not require marriage (and marriage is no guarantee of monogamy). Also, while marriage does lock a couple into a legally binding economic contract, it does not automatically make either person better or more responsible.  What is missing is, of course, the legally binding economic contract. Even though the divorce rate is 50%, this no doubt encourages some people to stick with a relationship because ending it would be more costly. As such, it can be a useful means of providing an extra safety “hook” as well as providing some greater degree of financial security. After all, as noted above, an unmarried man (or woman) can leave at anytime and legally keep all his (or her) stuff. However, a married person has to consider that if he (or she) packs it in, he (she) has to leave behind at least half of his (or her) stuff.

As a final point, it might be thought that Gungor is advocating a form of prostitution. After all, he advises women to marry and get the heart stuff from the man rather than just giving it away without getting that ring. Of course, he is not telling women to hold out for cash for sex. Rather, he is giving women sound economic advice: do not give away a good or service without getting something of equal or greater value in return.

Looked at less cynically, his advice is basically good: in order for a relationship to work, those involved need to believe that their needs are being fairly met. Of course, this does not seem to entail that marriage is a necessity-unless, of course, that legal economic contract is a necessity for a specific woman.

So, here is my simple marriage advice: know what you need, know what the other person needs. Put effort into meeting those needs, provided that you regard them as legitimate and fair. Repeat until you get divorced or die.

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Email Privacy

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A recent case raises questions about the ethics of reading a spouse’s email. The gist of the situation is that Leon Walker of Michigan  faces the possibility of up to five years in prison for allegedly “hacking” into his wife’s email account (they are now divorced) and learning that she was having an affair with her second ex-husband.  Michigan does have a law against “hacking” computers, programs or networks to get property “without authorization.” Applying this law to accessing a spouse’s email is seen by some legal experts as a stretch, but Leon Walker might very well face trial under this law.

Walker has offered two main defenses for his actions.

His first defense is that his wife had asked him to read her emails before and had given him the password.

If this is true, then it would certainly seem that she had granted him authorization to access her email. As such, he would seem to have acted neither illegally nor wrongly.

Of course, there is the question of whether or not he was acting under her authorization when he learned of her affair. While it is possible, it seems somewhat unlikely that she would be sending and receiving emails related to the affair while still authorizing her husband to read her email. If she did, in fact, remove her authorization, then a case could be made that he did break the law. Ethically, it could also be seen as an incorrect act. After all, being married does not grant a spouse carte blanche access to the other person’s private matters and this would seem to include email. To use an analogy, if someone allowed her husband to open a bill addressed to her, this would not grant him a right to open all her letters and read through them without her explicit permission.

While it seems reasonable to accept a presumption of privacy even with spouses, there is still the question of whether the right to privacy gives spouses a right to hide misdeeds (such as having an affair). This leads to Walker’s second argument.

After getting the emails, Walker passed on the information with his ex-wife’s first ex-husband. This man used the information to justify filing an emergency motion to get custody of his son (whom he had with Clara Walker, the woman in question). The second ex-husband was apparently once arrested on a charge of domestic violence and since Clara Walker was apparently having an affair with him, Leon Walker saw this as a matter of significant concern.

Walker likened his reading his ex-wife’s email to kicking down a door during a house fire. While this would be breaking in, it would be breaking in with the intent of saving people from harm.

This analogy does have a certain degree of appeal. After all, just breaking down someone’s door to steal their stuff would be a criminal (and most likely immoral) action. This would be analogous to hacking into a computer to, for example, steal credit card numbers. In contrast, kicking down a locked door when a house is on fire so as to save people would not be a criminal act nor a wrongful action. If Walker is right, then his reading his ex-wife’s email should not be considered criminal or unethical.

Of course, when a person kicks down the door of a burning house they know that it is on fire and they have to gain access to actually help people. In the case of the email, Walker would need to have clear signs of a “fire” and would need to have reason to believe that he had to “kick down the door” in order to help people.  This is, of course, a factual matter. It could be the case that Walker had reason to believe that his wife was having an affair and that crucial information relating to the safety of others was locked behind the password (and could not be acquired via other non-intrusive means).

If this is the case, then Walker would seem to have acted in an acceptable manner. After all, a right to privacy does not seem to give a person a shield behind which they can conceal misdeeds or  hide information relating to a possible danger to, for example, a child. In such a case, the person’s right to privacy would be violated and in this they would be wronged. However, the violation could be justified based on the nature of what was being concealed. After all, it would seem odd to say that a married person has  right to conceal evidence of her affair from her husband. He would certainly seem to have a moral right to know that.

In response, it could be argued that the right of a spouse (or ex-spouse) to know about such things does not extend to intruding into certain privacy rights, such as email. After all, while there is a certain appeal to thinking it was okay to get into someone’s email when they were having an affair, one must also consider all the cases in which the spouse is not having an affair. It would be odd to say that spouses should have the right to get into each other’s email, mail, and so on all the time because people have affairs.

Some legal experts and Leon Walker’s attorney are, of course, focusing on the legal aspect of the case. The law in question seems to have been intended to deal with cases in which someone has actually hacked into a computer or network and done damage or has stolen something.

While reading someone else’s email is an intrusion into that person’s privacy, it does not seem to fall under the law, at least as it is worded. After all, nothing seems to have been stolen from the woman and she can hardly claim that she was the damaged party when her affair was exposed.

It will be interesting to see how the case develops and what impact it has on legality of the no doubt common practice of spousal snooping.

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Ethics of Newt

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While I am careful to distinguish between a person and her claims, I do tend to collect stories of inconsistencies. Not surprisingly, many of these tales involve politicians-they tend to be masters of saying one thing and doing the opposite.This is truly a bipartisan trait, but my current focus is on Newt Gingrich.

While Newt is well known for pushing traditional family values, his own behavior does not exactly match his professed values. He famously proposed to Marianne, who is now is second ex-wife,  while his first wife was hospitalized for cancer treatment. Newt later divorced Marianne and is now married to his third wife.

Marianne Gingrich recently revealed some things about Newt, including providing a rather interesting quote. According to Marianne, Newt  said “It doesn’t matter what I do.  People need to hear what I have to say.  There is no one else who can say what I say.  It doesn’t matter what I live.”

While to profess a set of values and violate them does seem an act of hypocrisy, Newt is correct to point out that it does not matter what he does. This assumes, of course, that Newt is asserting that his behavior is not relevant to the truth of his claims. If so, he is quite right. To infer that a person’s claim is false because his actions are inconsistent with the claim is to commit the ad hominem tu quoque (more popularly known as the “you, too” fallacy. For example, when I was in grade school one of the teachers told us that smoking was unhealthy and showed us (before lunch) those classic pictures of healthy lungs and a smoker’s lungs. After class ended, she ran to the teacher’s room and chain smoked as many cigarettes as she could before the next class. As I recall, another kid said (in effect) that she must be wrong because she smoked. However, she was obviously right. She merely failed to act on her own very good advice.

In another sense, Newt is also right. To be specific, he seems to be quite correct that how he actually lives seems to have little impact on those who believe what he says. While Newt is not unique in this ability, it does seem rather uncommon. It is certainly an interesting phenomenon when someone can act in ways that seem to clearly violate their own professed principles and still be regarded as a moral leader. Perhaps those who believe in him simply refuse to believe that he has actually done such things. Or perhaps they agree that people need to hear what he has to say and hence it does not matter what he does. Or, the more cynical might claim, perhaps those who heed his words are also hypocritical.

Of course, Newt is also wrong. It does matter what he does. It certainly mattered to his first wife and his second wife. Also, it should matter to him. While a person can speak of what is right and still act contrary to that, it is a man’s actions and not his words that make him the man he is. While a man’s words can be true and yet contrary to his actions, a man who consistently does wrong would surely become corrupted and have his moral judgment impaired. As such, one would be justified in being suspicious of any moral judgments issued by such a person.

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Second Marriage

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As I mentioned in my previous blog, I’ve been reading Chapman’s The Five Love Languages. As a professional philosopher, I’m generally very skeptical of all self-help and love advice books. After all, they tend to be vague generalities, wishful thinking and obvious truisms wrapped in a gimmick or two. However, such books can help in that they can serve to get a person thinking about the relevant subject.

Reading the book got me thinking, as I posted yesterday, about my chances of success in a second marriage. Of course, what counts as success is a difficult thing to define. The easiest and most obvious view of success would be that it would not terminate in divorce. Of course, that is like saying that a successful vacation is one that doesn’t end in your horrible death (like being trampled into paste by dirty goats): more is obviously wanted. For now, I’ll lay aside the analysis of success and just consider how to avoid failing. In this case, failing would be having such a defective marriage that divorce is preferable.

The two main reasons that marriages fail are the husband and the wife. As such avoiding failure in a second marriage involves determining three things. First, you need to figure out what it is about you that contributed to the failure. Second, you need to figure out what it is about the other person that contributed to the failure. Third, you need to sort out what it was about your interactions that contributed to the failure. This is so obvious, I should write a self help book based on it. I just need the gimmick.

Obviously, there are many factors that can lead to failure. Personality traits, relative sanity (or insanity), interests, political views, religious views, hobbies, addictions, needs, wants, desires and so on.

Some of these factors might be harmless or even good by themselves, but when combined with factors that the other person possesses, they can lead to failure. For example, one person might be highly motivated in terms of career while the other person is very relaxed about it. This can lead to conflict if the motivated person expects the other person to keep up in his/her earning potential and career success.

It can be very hard to identify these factors. People tend to overlook their own flaws while easily seeing and magnifying the flaws of their former partner. As such, an unusual degree of honesty and objectivity is required in sorting these things out. To simplify things quite a bit, here is what to ask:

What aspects of failure did I contribute to and what did I contribute?

Can I change these things about myself?

What aspects of failure did the other person contribute to and what did s/he contribute?

What should I look for in a potential second spouse?

How did our actions and traits interact in ways that contributed to the failure?

What can I do to avoid this the next time?

These are tough questions to answer honestly.  What can be even tougher is to act on the answers. What is a bit scary is that even if you do both, you can still fail in new and awful ways. But, you can also succeed in new and wonderful ways.

40/60/75

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I received a copy of The Five Love Languages for Valentine’s Day and have been reading it. One interesting fact that the book presented (without any source being cited, my academic side noted) is that the divorce rate for first time marriages is 40%, that of second marriages 60%, and that for third marriages a scary 75%.

Since my first marriage ended in divorce, this got me wondering a bit about my chances of success at a second marriage. Since I teach critical thinking, I know that I cannot infer that my chance of success in a second marriage is a mere 40%. After all, even if the number given in the book is correct, that is a general statistic and it is perilous to reason from statistics to what is or will be the case with a specific individual. After all, there are factors that make a marriage more or less likely to succeed and my chances will depend on such factors.

Of course, one general “factor” that is present in a second marriage is that the first marriage did not succeed (laying aside cases involve a person being a widow/widower) for at least one person. As such, the person in question might very well have qualities and traits that lead to the failure of the first marriage. As such, they are likely to fail once again. In the case of the third marriage, the set includes people who have (probably) failed twice before. Hence, they are even more prone to failure.

So, one reasonable explanation for the increased failure rate in marriages is not that there is failure built in to second or third marriages. Rather, the people who are involved in them will  include people who have already showed a tendency to fail in marriage. And, the set of people in each successive marriage (2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.) will contain more and more repeat failures.

In my own case, I think I can avoid or prevent what caused my first marriage to fail. Obviously, most people think that-otherwise there wouldn’t be any second or third marriages. 🙂

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