Decline of Marriage

There has been an outcry amongst various moralists about the tragedy befalling America and the broader developed West. Declining birthrates, high divorce rates, the rise of hookup culture, all these sorts of things. Blame is often pointed to the decline of religious affiliations, a lack of solid morals, the sexual revolution, and so on. These explanations however often miss out on several key points and are fundamentally idealist. Ultimately, like all other social phenomenon, economics are at the root. The sole reason, the root cause, for these happenings is the development of productive power, as well as changes in wage levels.

In previous times, both men and women would labor to produce the means of subsistence due to the relatively low productivity of labor. Food, shelter, and clothing were still laborious processes that required collaboration, and a sort of codependence was developed. This lasted from prehistoric through ancient times, through feudalism and even up to the 1870s. Marriage was a necessity, to share the burdens of the labor required for survival and maintenance.

However, things changed during the interwar years. The presence of the USSR, the threat of the Revolution, was impossible to ignore. Labor uprisings had been nothing new and usually were simply put down with the army. But the possibility of a general uprising prompted the ruling class of America to implement reforms, concessions to the workers. This was mostly done by FDR, acts such as the National Labor Relations Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, and the Social Security Act. Measures meant to curtail the exploitation of the workers for a time, placate them to prevent a possible revolution. This, with other factors such as the Bretton-Woods Agreement, started the 'golden age' of America, when the middle class became strong and life was generally nice for the average person, at least compared to a few decades prior.

Many people would point to this as the beginning of the true housewife era. Labor was productive enough to create cheap and plentiful goods, and the concessions created high enough wages to where a single earner could support a household. The wife no longer needed to work.

Marriage then began to take on a prostitution-like form. The woman, rather than participating in labor and producing for society, instead 'sold' herself to her husband. In exchange for providing, on the one hand, domestic labor such as cooking and cleaning which is socially unproductive and she herself participates in consuming, and on the other hand, sexual favors in a socially acceptable form, the woman receives the means of subsistence without actually contributing to society. In other words, an idler class is formed. Women marrying into money to idle, to become labor-deserters, is nothing new, but with the prevalence of high-wages it became normalized and systematic. Many marriages in this era are merely advanced prostitution, women refusing to participate in productive labor but instead gaining their means of subsistence from sexual acts. It is legitimized prostitution.

The economy did begin to shift again. Once the threat of the USSR began to fade, the concessions were no longer necessary. The threat of revolution spreading from the USSR had passed. Reforms were rolled back, jobs began to be exported, and the general wage-rate began to stagnate. The middle-class golden age had ended, as it was no longer necessary to maintain it.

As a result, women had to return to work. However, the increase of productive power and innovations such as dishwashers, laundry machines, and prepared foods were now prevalent enough that codependence was no longer necessary. Women and men could earn enough to support themselves on a single income and maintaining a household no longer required the work of two. Marriage simply was no longer attractive economically, it was no longer necessary for survival nor did it offer the ability to idle.

As a result, women are more independent. Not being confined to a marriage for survival means that women often are now marrying as they please, rather than as they are compelled to, leading to marriages happening later in life. Meanwhile, a lack of marriage also means that sexual activity takes on a more short-term form, hookups and friends-with-benefits, rather than a committed marriage. This would explain the declining birth-rate as well, given that the increase in domestic labor that comes with children would require a marriage already existing before an intended pregnancy, but people are not getting into marriages due to a lack of incentive, leading to pregnancies often happening much later in life after marriage or a stable relationship has formed.

Many do point to circumstances like the decline of religion to explain the decline of marriage, but the general abundance of Capitalism is at the root of this as well. The two issues are not causing each other, but are caused by the same root. People become so absorbed with material life and various spectacles under capitalism that traditional religion feels unnecessary, and much of the basis for religion of "hope in a better next life" feels nonsensical and restrictive to many who already feel they have a good life.

Another common point is that the sexual revolution is what caused the decline in marriage. However, this is backwards. The sexual revolution itself IS the decline in marriage. This change from necessary to unnecessary made marriage less preferable, which is what the sexual revolution itself is denoting. The sexual revolution is not the cause of the decline of marriage, it is the embodiment of the shift in material conditions that made marriage obsolete for survival.

As for a decline in morals, this is quite silly. It isn't as if people suddenly stopped believing in marriage, but instead changes in material conditions resulted in changes in social relations. The idea that marriage rates are falling because people are just less moral now is a fundamentally idealist concept with no basis in actual real-world conditions of life.