The Future of Marriage

Stephanie Coontz writes:

Marriages used to depend upon a clear division of labor and authority, and couples who rejected those rules had less stable marriages than those who abided by them. In the 1950s, a woman’s best bet for a lasting marriage was to marry a man who believed firmly in the male breadwinner ideal. Women who wanted a “MRS degree” were often advised to avoid the “bachelor’s” degree, since as late as 1967 men told pollsters they valued a woman’s cooking and housekeeping skills above her intelligence or education. ... When a wife took a job outside the home, this raised the risk of marital dissolution. All that has changed today. Today, men rank intelligence and education way above cooking and housekeeping as a desirable trait in a partner.  ... Educated and high-earning women are now less likely to divorce than other women. When a wife takes a job today, it works to stabilize the marriage. Couples who share housework and productive work have more stable marriages than couples who do not ...

Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers add:

So what drives modern marriage? We believe that the answer lies in a shift from the family as a forum for shared production, to shared consumption. In case the language of economic lacks romance, let’s be clearer: modern marriage is about love and companionship. Most things in life are simply better shared with another person: this ranges from the simple pleasures such as enjoying a movie or a hobby together, to shared social ties such as attending the same church, and finally, to the joint project of bringing up children. Returning to the language of economics, the key today is consumption complementarities — activities that are not only enjoyable, but are more enjoyable when shared with a spouse. We call this new model of sharing our lives “hedonic marriage”.

So is marriage doomed? Marriage in which one person specializes in the home while the other person specializes in the market is indeed doomed.  ... Yet while the changing marketplace may have made marriage a bit more fragile, it is also key to its survival. Rising productivity has given all Americans more leisure time while simultaneously raising standards of living. As consumption increases, so too will the demand to have someone with whom to share these pleasures.

Much more here. Arnold Kling says this looks to be a big new idea. I agree. But I actually think it is both: marriage is complementary in production and consumption.  Iconic if controversial case: Jack and Suzy Welch. I would have said Bill and Hillary Clinton but I am not certain about the whole hedonic thing with them. The most successful married couples seem to both enjoy things together immensely and bring complementary skills to the table. I'm also guessing that location matters a whole lot more to the success of these hedonically-oriented partners and power couples than most people might think.

Comments

[Zoe B]

Back in the 1960s, my dad said that the divorce rate was going up because Americans had become so mobile. When people mostly stayed in the same area for most of their lives, they didn't have to rely upon a spouse for emotional intimacy. They could share their souls with parents, grown children, relatives and lifelong friends. If they had a quarrel in one intimate relationship they could put it on the back burner for a decade or so. Marriage could (and for centuries did) function as a business partnership; love was lagniappe. But when you move every 5 years (on average) you move away from your parents, your kids move away from you, you make friends in a town and then move on to another. The only person with whom you can expect to share daily life for an entire lifetime is your spouse. That puts a huge burden on a single relationship. Given that people change over a lifetime, no wonder so many marriages break up.

I would be careful about making big generalizations about the division of labor in a marriage. Today both husbands and wives go in and out of the workplace over a lifetime. Someone stays home with small kids. Someone gets laid off. One person gets a great opportunity in a new town, and it might take awhile for the partner to find work. Some couples work together in a family business, blurring the boundaries between work and home. Some couples get wealthy enough to hire out the housework. Others live in squalor that would appall a previous generation. Some parents devote free time to the children's extracurricular activities. Some kids grow up with keys around their necks and do the housework while parents are at work (or in the bar).

Maybe marriage becomes purely hedonic after retirement, when kids are grown and there is no work but housework. But some marriages succeed only because the demands of work limit the occasions for companionship. And some retired couples stay together because they can't afford separate households.

The only generalization I can make about the difference between modern and traditional marriage is that today it is harder to make generalizations.