Keeping a family together means committing to marriage

Iain Duncan Smith argues that cohabitation is associated with greater family breakdown. This morning I argued that he was correct.

But there are many who doubt the causality. Perhaps those couples more prone to break-up don't get married. If these less committed couples got betrothed it might increase the divorce rate, but it wouldn't reduce the rate of family breakdown.

I think this argument is wrong. There is every reason to believe that for couples of a given level of commitment, the average duration of the relationship would be increased by the act of marriage.

Why? Because of consistency and commitment.

On cereal packets, you will find competitions with a tie break answer. "I like Cereal X because..." Ever think why they do this?

The Chinese used to make prisoners of war write confessions and express support for the communist regime. Once prisoners had committed this thought to paper, they were highly likely to stick with it. Weight loss programmes use the same technique - getting clients to publicly announce their goal weight and their progress toward it.

The public announcement of commitment makes people more committed. It is one of the reasons that marriage works.

Comments

[Chris C]

I'd have thought the massive transaction cost of divorce was a good reason why 'marriage works'

A big issue with marriage incentives is that the best of the benefits (hedges on care, income etc) accrue lower down the scale.

Hence the incentives must be built into the benefit system rather than the tax system (since NI and ICT don't hit the bottom tenth and only graze the bottom fifth).

Married couples' allowances are a waste of cash.

[Adam]

I'm still not convinced on the causality. Publicly announcing your commitment to cohabitation isn't all that different to announcing your commitment to marriage.

Also, you say 'There is every reason to believe that for couples of a given level of commitment, the average duration of the relationship would be increased by the act of marriage', but do you have any evidence to support this? In fact, how do you test a hypothesis like this?

[Doug Bates]

Relationships are like most other things in life - the more commitment you put in the more chance you have of succeeding. If you remove any potential safety net this further increases your chance of success. This is pretty obvious stuff, are people really so dumb it needs to be spelt out?

[Stephen Buggy]

Whether the causality exists or not is irrelevant. Such policies are gross invasions into the privacy of family life.

[billy]

Publicly announcing your commitment to cohabitation isn't all that different to announcing your commitment to marriage.

Posted by: Adam | Wednesday, 13 December 2006 at 03:45 PM

And what is your evidence for that?
I made a promise when I married and I've kept it. if you're casual about your promises you may as well cohabit and you'll probably be casual about relationships, I'd guess.

[marty]

Let's have a transferable personal allowance - seems only fair if one partner gives up paid work to bring up children, or to look after other family members. Doing this only within the bounds of the marriage relationship - where there is already a contract - makes most sense in law and (gasp!) common sense. Have we forgotten about common sense? Are all social norms up for grabs? - I feel sorry that a 300,000 word report is deemed necessary in order to say things from empirical data that most people know in their heart of hearts anyway.

[billy]

"Whether the causality exists or not is irrelevant. Such policies are gross invasions into the privacy of family life."

Posted by: Stephen Buggy | Wednesday, 13 December 2006 at 09:28 PM

Surely the whole point is that many believe that without a marriage it isn't a family.