In today’s Times, David Brooks replies to yesterday’s article about the growing number of single women. He pulls out many of the points that we made in yesterday’s comment section. Since his article is limited to those with Times Select, I’m going to post his article below the fold.
Comment away.
The Elusive Altar
If all the world were south of 96th Street, what a happy place it would be! If all the world were south of 96th Street, then we could greet with unalloyed joy the news that after decades of social change, more American women are living without husbands than with them.
We could revel in the stories of women — from Riverside Drive all the way to TriBeCa! — liberated from constraining marriages and no longer smothered by self-absorbed spouses. We could celebrate with those — the ad executives as well as the law partners! — who now have the time and freedom to go back to school and travel abroad, and who are choosing not to get remarried.
But alas, there are people in this country who do not live within five miles of MoMA, and for them, the fact that many more people are getting divorced or never marrying at all is not such good news.
For voluminous research shows that further down the social scale there are millions of people who long to marry, but who are trapped just beyond the outskirts of matrimony. They have partners. They move in together. Often they have children with the people they love. But they never quite marry, or if they do, the marriage falls apart, with horrible consequences for their children. This is the real force behind the rise of women without men.
The research shows that far from rejecting traditional marriage, many people down the social scale revere it too highly. They put it on a pedestal, or as Andrew Cherlin of Johns Hopkins puts it, they regard marriage not as the foundation of adult life, but as the capstone.
They don’t want to marry until they are financially secure and emotionally mature. They don’t want to marry until they can afford a big white-dress wedding and have the time to plan it. They don’t want to marry until they are absolutely sure they can trust the person they are with.
Having seen the wreckage of divorce, they are risk averse, but this risk aversion keeps them trapped in a no man’s land between solitude and marriage. Often they slide into parenthood even though they consider themselves not ready for marriage. The Fragile Families study shows that nearly 90 percent of the people who are living together when their child is born plan to get married someday. But the vast majority never will.
In her essential new book, “Marriage and Caste in America,” Kay Hymowitz describes the often tortuous relations between unskilled, unmarried parents. Both are committed to their child, but in many cases they have ill-defined and conflicting expectations about their roles. The fathers often feel used, Hymowitz writes, “valued only for their not-so-deep pockets.” The mothers feel the fathers are unreliable. There are grandparents taking sides. The relationship ends, and the child is left with one parent not two.
It’s as if there are two invisible rivers of knowledge running through society, steering people subtly toward one form of relationship or another. These rivers consist of a million small habits, expectations, tacit understandings about how people should act and map out their lives.
Among those who are well educated and who are rewarded by the information-age economy, the invisible river reinforces the assumption that childbearing is more arduous and more elevated than marriage. One graduates from marriage to childbearing.
But among those who are less educated and less rewarded, there is an invisible river that encourages the anomalous idea that marriage is more arduous and more elevated than childbearing. One graduates from childbearing to matrimony.
The people in the first river are seeing their divorce rates drop and their children ever better prepared to compete. Only 10 percent of students at an elite college like Cornell are from divorced families, according to a study led by Dean Lillard and Jennifer Gerner.
The people in the second river are falling further behind, and their children face bad odds. For them, social facts like the rise of women without men cannot be greeted with equanimity. The main struggle of their lives is not against the patriarchy.
The first step toward a remedy, paradoxically, may be to persuade people in this second river to value marriage less, to see it less as a state of sacred bliss that cannot be approached until all the conditions are perfect, and more as a social machine, which, if accompanied with the right instruction manual, can be useful for achieving practical ends.
Apt. 11d 
Does that 10% figure toward the end (Lillard & Gerner’s finding that only 10% of the students at Cornell have divorced parents) sound strange to anyone else? I teach at another breeding ground of the plutocracy, and it’s nowhere near that here.
I gotta go find the original study and see if Brooks is misrepresenting it. With my copious spare time.
I’m all for mocking the NYT article in the way he does in the opening, but the rest of his piece seems to be promoting the class-warfare model, not trying to think beyond it.
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Lileks gave the Times the back of his hand, too: http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/07/0107/011707.html
My kids clearly like having two parents at home and think they are better off than their friends whose parents are divorced or single. They think about this, and have asked worried questions when my wife and I have quarrelled in front of them.
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Thanks for posting the Lileks bleat link, dave s. That was some good snark.
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Unless the ex-husband was an ogre who kept his law firm public policy adviser wife locked up when she wasn’t at the office, what on earth was keeping a woman in her late fifties from going to as many museums and cultural events as she jolly well pleased?
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Romantic trips to Kenton, Delaware??
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/57311?utm_source=onion_rss_daily
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The 10% factoid also strikes me as odd. I’d like to see more data on that.
But it does mesh with what appears to be a new view of divorce: it’s not morally wrong, it’s not objectionable on religious grounds … it’s just tacky. You know, a path chosen by [poor] people with no style.
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I found Lileks’ utter lack of sympathy for middle-aged divorcees pretty cold-hearted — the kind of iciness that suggests to me that he doesn’t actually know any of them. It’s easy (and perfectly fine) to dish out the snark, but blending it into serious social criticism is irresponsible.
We all know that marriage requires compromises — in other words, some closed doors. Lileks’ decides that the only reason the divorcee couldn’t go see an exhibit of Salvadoran textiles while married was the unbearable weight of her anger over her husband not sharing her interests, but life is way more complex than that. I humbly submit that no one can decide for someone else which compromises are acceptable and which aren’t.
Sign me,
Happily (mostly) compromising since 1987
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Why the assumption that the 51% statistic is due to divorce? I live on a block where I’m surrounded by single women. One has never married and lives alone; one has never married, but her boyfriend moved in; the other six are widows.
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Re: a new view on divorce
I would add that I think part of what’s going on is that (at least in the upper middle class) the lightbulbs have turned on and people are realizing that they just can’t afford divorce if they want to maintain anything like the same lifestyle. Beyond making you tacky, divorce will make you broke (The Two Income trap talks about this, I think–the newly divorced go through a lot of bankruptcies). All things being equal, two households are more expensive than one. Imagine, for a moment, adding the cost of even a small apartment to your family budget, not to mention utilities, phone, etc! The problem is getting this insight out to those outside the upper middle class.
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meg — I went to this study
Getting to the Ivy League: How Family Composition Affects College Choice
Dean Lillard, Jennifer Gerner
The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 70, No. 6 (Nov. – Dec., 1999)
and read it super-fast. If this is the relevant study he is certainly misrepresenting it. But a very quick google search get you to the CHE page which introduces it’s piece as follows:
*When Jennifer L. Gerner started teaching a course on family policy at Cornell University in 1992, she asked her students to write short autobiographies. While reading those essays, she was struck by a puzzling pattern: Mom and Dad were almost always together.
Though the divorce rate in this country hovers around 50 per cent, only about 10 per cent of the 120 students she taught in three semesters said their parents had divorced.
“I thought maybe I had a weird group of kids,” says Ms. Gerner.*
Then it goes behind a paywall, and I couldn’t be bothered etc…
The paper in the Journal of Higher Education certainly shows some effect (it would be amaxing if there were none, in my opinion, given other findings on the effects of having single/divorced parents). The data, btw, comes from 1980 (kids born in the late 60’s), and even the Chronicle piece refers back to 91 (kids born in the early 70s).
Ok, maybe I should go behind the Chronicle paywall.
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Ok, I’ve gone behind the Chronicle paywall, and the article pre-reports the findings of the Journal study. Indeed, the 1992 data showed that only 13% of Cornell students came from non-intact families. But they didn’t do any more investigation of other super-elite colleges, or of Cornell over time. The findings are more modest — that divorce does have a substantial and measurable correlation with whether kids go to college, and on whether they go to selective colleges (which is a much broader category than the super-elite colleges). Presumably causation is at work, but they admit that they cannot disentangle to effects of divorce as such from the effects of the drop in wealth that comes with divorce. (consistently with what Amy P says, in a funny sort of way). My guess, from knowing the lit moderately well is that there is an independent effect, but its not huge. But that’s just an amateurish guess.
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Going from 35% to 51% in 57 years is pretty remarkable, but Brooks is probably wrong to think that the change happened north of 96th street. I’d want to find statistics breaking down how much of the single-parent growth has been among poorer cohorts, because my guess is that the 35% figure in 1950 was almost ALL “unmarriageable,” and that the growth has been almost entirely among women choosing not to marry by choice.
The divorce piece complicates things. Do we know who initiates divorce? Anecdotally, most of the parents I know who’ve divorced ended up that way because the wives couldn’t take it anymore….
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I’m not sure how a couple who lives together, has children, and then separates is different from a couple who marries, has children, and divorces, at least from the viewpoint of the children. Brooks seems to think that if such a couple did get married before having children, they would see their roles differently and tend to stay together instead. Okay, but the data from the Fragile Families study he cites seems to contradict that: such parents value marriage too much, not too little. They already know they can’t live up to their vision of it. As others have pointed out, marriage (and two-parent families) are really class issues, so Brooks’s “encourage marriage” stance would likely do nothing to change the rate of singleness (whether or not that’s a desirable change – which is the real question lurking behind his column, isn’t it?).
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Jody — I recently read some stuff about this. The one study that seems good is reported in a somewhat polemical but smart book called “Divorced Dads” and it shows that about 60% of divorces are initiated by women. I don’t know how robust that is over time (the data is more than a decade old). But, I have a question for you. “Initiated” means “filed for”. DO your acquaintances file for divorce before, or after, they feel that their spouses have already abandoned the marriage (but not bothered to file for the divorce)? I’m close to one half of a currently divorcing couple; she filed, but only after he convinced her that it was all over and that there was no point at all in her continuing to try and save the marriage (which she would have done anything to do). So, I don’t entirely trust the filing statistic as an indicator of “true” initiation of the end of the relationship.
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I’m with harry b. Who files the papers doesn’t tell you who was maintaining a second family, nursing an addiction, impulse buying expensive toys, etc. In one family I know of, although everyone was living under one roof, the husband had long ago stopped putting his paycheck into the family account, meanwhile building up an impressive motorcycle collection. After a long spell paying family expenses out of her own small salary, the wife finally divorced her husband. Since the divorce, she has continued to struggle financially. The three kids are all grown now. Despite having a father who is a teacher, none of them has made it through a four year college.
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Sorry, I couldn’t moderate debate here yesterday. A trip to a neurologist threw me off. More later.
OK, first of all, Lileks and Brooks poo-poo the happy unmarried types, which is not fair. One of my good friends falls into that camp and actually lives north of 96th Street. She enjoys solitude and has no stomach for compromising with a spouse. She has chosen a lifestyle that works very well for her personality. Despite occasional whiny phone calls from her mother, she little social pressure to marry. More opportunities to socialize with other single people. This is a good thing.
For women with grown children and thriving careers, divorce from a stinker husband probably has few side effects financially.
However, the problem that everyone has mentioned is the single motherhood and young children. It’s damn tough to raise kids on your own. The expense, the juggling, the stress. I have a friend who’s going through a divorce. Her husband was verbally abusive and she finally had enough. But I think she might take him back. She’s in deep deep poverty. She can’t work. She’s needs a hip replacement and walks with a cane. Her previous profession involved a pole and a thong, so she’s not really cut out for the business world. She’s got three kids. He’s not making enough to provide for two separate households — he’s a semi-employed electrician. They’re probably going to have to sell their house in order to pay for the divorce lawyers. She already hocked her engagement ring. She cries all the time. Her oldest is flunking school. She’s willing to live with a guy who calls her bad names, because she doesn’t want to keep going to the town food pantry in order to make sure that her kids have dinner.
Women, choose your husbands wisely.
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Very interesting comment thread. Thinking about the right-on comments about the difficulty and added financial pressure of raising kids after divorce, I wonder if the (possibly) lower rate of divorced parents among students at elite schools reflects not an overall lower divorce rate, but parents who put off the inevitable divorce until after the kids are raised and gone. I was a student at one such university, and arrived with an intact family but had divorced parents within a couple of years of graduation. Lots of my friends had parents who divorced in their 40’s and 50’s as well. Maybe just another example of the much heralded upper middle class ability to delay gratification.
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Laura, I would add to the “choose your husbands wisely” advice “be sure to have an education and marketable skills.” If your friend had business skills (or teaching, or graphic design, or…) she could use, sure it would be a struggle for her raising kids alone, and they wouldn’t have much money. But she wouldn’t have to choose between staying in an abusive marriage, or eating at a food pantry.
And, might I add, a woman who can get a decent job is a much more attractive prospect for remarriage than one who, along with the kids, will have to be supported 100% by her new husband. A lot of really good men who would make wonderful husbands don’t want that kind of burden and who can blame them?
Education and skills give women so much freedom. Freedom to stay single if that is what they want. Freedom to leave an abusive marriage. Freedom to marry a wonderful man who earns a modest salary, or who wants to be a stay-home dad.
Ladies, get edjamacated! Learn some practical skills! Even just knowing Word, Excel and PowerPoint gets a foot in the door.
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“For women with grown children and thriving careers, divorce from a stinker husband probably has few side effects financially.”
If this were true, we’d expect to see *more* divorce among successful working women than among un- or under-employed women, but in fact the opposite is true. This is probably because successful working women tend to be married to even more successful working men, whereas under-employed women tend to be married to under-employed men. Thus the opportunity cost of divorce is much higher for a successful working woman, even if she avoids financial ruin: it’s very difficult, psychologically, at least, to go from a, say, 300K lifestyle to a 75K lifestyle. The opportunity cost of a divorce for a woman married to a man who brings home 40K is much less—though the real effects can, of course, be devastating.
By the way, Lileks made some fun at the divorcees’ expense, but it’s hard to fault him given the deeply fatuous nature of the quotes included in the NYT piece. Were those really the most serious subjects the authors could find? One certainly hopes not.
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Here’s another thought — could it be that something else is going which leads the successful working women into better (or at least more suitable) marriages?
One thing I’ve always found interesting is the correlation between age at marriage and divorce rates. If you get married after age 26 I think it is your chances of divorcing are much smaller. So what’s going on there? Is it because you’re older and wiser? Is it because you delayed marriage for education … and it’s actually the *education* that gives you better odds? Is it because when you get older you’ve learned to ignore the societal pressure and are less likely to get married for “the wrong reasons”?
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“Women, choose your husband’s well” struck a raw nerve for me. Yes, we all need to do that, but that choice can’t be the way we survive. For me, feminism has always been about women having sufficient power that their ability to survive (and hopefully thrive) don’t depend on their choice of a man. Through the ages, women have always succeeded, by having chosen their man well (or luckily). We need that to stop being true.
I really wonder how many of the marriages of folks in their 30’s now are going to end in divorce when the children are grown & out of the home? and how many women in their 30’s didn’t choose as well as they thought?
bj
ps: i’m a 18 year marriage vet, in my late 30’s. I think I’ve chosen well, but would never bet my life on it.
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Yes, of course, education would have helped my friend the pole dancer. It would mean she wouldn’t be faced with that horrible choice of abusive man vs. the food pantry. But my other friend, the doctor, also chose a stinker husband and has other sorts of hardships. She isn’t facing poverty with her doctor salary, but she is facing an early death from exhaustion. She works like hell all day, then races home to pick up two boisterous boys from daycare, feeds them, bathes them, does homework, and then passes out from exhaustion at around 9:30. She has had to deal with divorce lawyers and all sorts of crap from the stinker. The kids are messed up from the head games he plays with them on his weekends. Sorry, but husband choice, which does involve a major amount of luck, is still really important.
I think we can reduce the negatives from choosing a stinker husband by having a good education, putting off marriage, keeping skills honed, etc.. But even if you do all those things, you still pay a major penalty for choosing badly. This probably explains the expanding group of women who decide to go it alone.
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one more example why husband choice is still important. Britney Spears.
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Can I put in a vote for Britney Spears as an example of why wife choice matters, too?
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I do agree that having backup plans doesn’t make one immune to the problems that result from a failed parenting partnership. That’s why you shouldn’t marry loosers, if that’s your preference for relationships, and you certainly shouldn’t reproduce with them.
But, of course, I say this as one who never understood the appeal of the ne’er do well, or the captain of the football team.
bj
PS: Laura — from what I can tell the Gates men seem to make pretty good husbands (in spite of the money). Can you tell I’m a regular reader? (really not stalker, though :-0).
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Divorce Man Why Woman
DISCUSSION TOPICS – Marriage, family, divorce , infidelity, abortion, Now when a couple gets a di
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More Unmarried Women
There are now more unmarried women in the U.S. than married (51%). And for African American women, the portion is even higher (70%). What is fueling the trend? And are single women happy about it? Sam Louie has our story.
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It’s natural for some people to become afraid of marriage because of the risk of going through divorce, but this evasion also deprives them of the other facets of making their relationship law-bound. I think it’s in the perspective of the woman and which reason outweighs the other. Is she willing to face the risk to experience being married or does she believe in the saying “prevention is better than cure”? Indeed, our fates are determined by the choices we make.
– Mike Clark
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Thank you for sharing your opinion. I really appreciate it.
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