
How To Marry The Right Girl: A Mathematical Solution - ColinWright
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2014/05/15/312537965/how-to-marry-the-right-girl-a-mathematical-solution
======
mdesq
_... the best way to proceed is to interview (or date) the first 36.8 percent
of the candidates. Don 't hire (or marry) any of them, but as soon as you meet
a candidate who's better than the best of that first group — that's the one
you choose! Yes, the Very Best Candidate might show up in that first 36.8
percent — in which case you'll be stuck with second best, but still, if you
like favorable odds, this is the best way to go._

Maybe I haven't had enough coffee this morning. Can someone explain how you
would get second best in this case? Wouldn't you never meet a candidate better
than the best of that first group and exhaust the rest of the candidates?

~~~
araes
Imagine you had 11 candidates like he described, and you interviewed them in
random orders. For ease, we will describe them by number, which will also
equate to their "goodness" by arbitrary criteria (known to the interviewer
only).

One of the worst possible cases would be that you interview them like:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

In this case, you would see them decreasing in "goodness" without ever
increasing. You would get to 11 and be stuck with the crappiest whatever
possible.

In the average version though, you might get something like:

7 3 4 6 5 8 11 1 10 9 2

Using their strategy, you would check the first 4 candidates (7 3 4 6) and
then you would stop when you hit better than max(7 3 4 6) = (3), which in this
case would equate to finding (1) at the 8th position.

 _You are correct_ that if the best is in the first block it screws everything
up. In the specific version you mention, a possible arrangement that triggers
could be:

3 9 8 1 5 10 2 6 4 7 11

You would interview the first set with a best of (1). All the rest would then
not compare, and you would get (11).

~~~
AdamTReineke
(FYI, the scale used in parent's is 1 is best, 11 is worst. Confused me for a
bit.)

[Edit - Ignore me. I guess you can't recall rejected candidates.] In your
final example though, because you had now interviewed all the candidates, you
could go back and offer jobs to the best candidates. The point of interviewing
four and then interviewing until you find a better one is that it should keep
you from wasting time interviewing the whole list. If you end up doing that
anyway, you know who the best was and can hire them.

------
feltmind
Immediately reminded me of this:

A store has just opened in New York City that offered free husbands. When
women go to choose a husband, they have to follow the instructions at the
entrance:

“You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are 6 floors to choose from. You
may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the
next floor, but you CANNOT go back down except to exit the building!

So, a woman goes to the store to find a husband. On the 1st floor the sign on
the door reads: Floor 1 - These men Have Jobs

The 2nd floor sign reads: Floor 2 - These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.

The 3rd floor sign reads: Floor 3 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids and are
extremely Good Looking.

“Wow,” she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going. She goes to the 4th
floor and sign reads: Floor 4 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead
Good Looking and Help With Housework.

“Oh, mercy me!” she exclaims. “I can hardly stand it!” Still, she goes to the
5th floor and sign reads: Floor 5 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-
dead Gorgeous, help with Housework and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.

She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the 6th floor and the Sign reads:
Floor 6 - You are visitor 71,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this
floor. This floor exists solely as proof that you are impossible to please.
Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.

------
smoyer
I married the first girl I dated because I waited to date someone I was truly
attracted to, that I felt was my mental equal and who could hold a real
discussion (plus she's beautiful). We've now been married 27 years ... I hope
it's not a fluke!

~~~
hangonhn
I've noticed a trend with computer people who married the first person they
dated and the marriage being very successful (in terms of longevity at least).
I haven't quite figured out why that is but I would say the vast majority of
my software engineering friends are like this.

I've been told by women who are in my other circle of friends that they
wouldn't want that because then they feel like they aren't the first choice
but whatever the guy can get. But then I think about the marriages that have
resulted and how happy those people are. Sometimes I wonder if people over
think these things.

Forget the Kepler strategy. Forget getting the "best", if there is such a
thing. If you click with the other person and both people care for and are
kind to each other, then go for it and enjoy love and life.

~~~
muuh-gnu
> married the first person they dated

> the marriage being very successful

> I haven't quite figured out why that is

It is not about software engineers, it is a general correlation to the
"numbers" of pre-marital dates.

The lower the number of partners before marriage, the more likely is the
marriage to succeed:

> [http://socialpathology.blogspot.com/2010/09/sexual-
> partner-d...](http://socialpathology.blogspot.com/2010/09/sexual-partner-
> divorce-risk.html)

~~~
sarah2079
Isn't this data very skewed by the fact that not believing in cohabitation and
not believing in divorce are highly correlated? This group includes lots of
marriages that I wouldn't consider good outcomes even though they don't end in
divorce.

~~~
samscully
> The most salient finding from this analysis is that women whose intimate
> premarital relationships are limited to their husbands—either premarital sex
> alone or premarital cohabitation—do not experience an increased risk of
> divorce. It is only women who have more than one intimate premarital
> relationship who have an elevated risk of marital disruption.

As far as I can see this suggests that believing in cohabitation is not a
strong factor when it comes to divorce.

------
kghose
The 38% sample allows you to build a model of the population distribution
based on which you take your decision.

But this does not mean you have to do this EVERY time. Say you have done a
round on interviews before and you are tasked with interviewing for a new
position: you might hire the first person you speak with because you know the
population model, and they are high up with respect to that.

In common parlance, this is called "being experienced"

~~~
netcan
This isn't literally about selecting wives.

~~~
svachalek
In that case the term is "divorced".

------
maurits
For those who are interested, this is a nice write-up: _Knowing when to stop_
[1]

[1]:[http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.5783,y.2009,no.2,...](http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.5783,y.2009,no.2,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx)

~~~
gone35
_Thank you_. This is a much better article since it actually lays out and
explains the reasoning behind the solution, as opposed to blandly stating "it
has something to do with _e_ " and padding up the rest of the note with
grotesque drawings and minutiae.

(Also I appreciate what seems to me the less stridently gendered tone of the
American Scientist article. Just a personal and subjective opinion though, so
please be tolerant and try not jump on the hate.)

------
oskarth
This formula is great for "good enough" problems. The way I use it is to mark
the first thing that is good enough, but then keep looking for something that
is better than that, then stop. Works great for apartments, books and ice
cream.

The key is to realize time and effort is finite, and that you can always keep
on looking if you don't have a stopping point.

~~~
beltex
Also, a normal distribution would help, so you don't encounter values way off
that would skew the results.

------
sarreph
This is great; however, I don't quite understand how you can 'be stuck with'
(i.e. choose) the _second-best_ option if the _very-best_ occurs in the first
37%... Surely you wouldn't be able to realise/decide that there is no one
better than the best from the first group, if that is the case, until the end
— by which point it's too late?

Am I missing something? Surely...

~~~
falcolas
If you follow the rules of the equation, if you get to the end, you're
marrying the last person you dated.

However, as noted in the article and by yourself, real life is never so
constricting as only allowing you one chance at any particular person.

On the other hand, once you've passed on someone, there's nothing to guarantee
that you'll be able to go back (they could be engaged, have moved away, hate
your guts for evaluating mates by a mathematical formula, etc).

~~~
bitJericho
Hating your guts is so often a dealbreaker in relationships :(

~~~
angersock
Have you ever dated/married Indian, Catholic, or in more conservative groups?

~~~
bitJericho
So _that 's_ how you can make someone love you!

~~~
angersock
What does love have to do with marriage?

------
dba7dba
Forget about finding the right girl only. You also need to pay as much
attention to her family and HER mother. Your wife will very much likely turn
out the way her mother did, in terms of how well she keeps the home in order,
raise kids, and AGE as time goes on.

IMHO, it's remarkable how a girl ages the way her mother aged. And some age
well while other don't (both in physical/emotional).

So, don't get hung up with the girl only. Think about her family in your
'equation' too.

~~~
ceejayoz
> Your wife will very much likely turn out the way her mother did, in terms of
> how well she keeps the home in order, raise kids, and AGE as time goes on.
> IMHO, it's remarkable how a girl ages the way her mother aged.

IMHO, it's remarkable how your primary measures of a woman's worth are
housework, childbearing, and physical beauty.

~~~
philwelch
A woman's worth as a human being and her suitability to marry some particular
man are two different things. Most men want attractive wives who are good
mothers, just as many women want attractive husbands who are good fathers.

~~~
lotharbot
moreover, those attributes can serve as proxy measures for others.

My mother-in-law's skill and dedication in keeping house is reflected in my
wife's skill and dedication in writing clean code.

------
beejiu
I've always wondered if this is a sensible way to buy shares. Say I wanted to
buy Google shares in the next 30 days. I could monitor the price for the first
36.8%, and then choose the best price in the remainder. Does that make sense
as a strategy?

~~~
mseebach
No. This method assumes normally distributed potential wives. If a stock was
normally distributed (i.e. has volatility) around a stable average, then yes,
you could do that - but so can thousands of automated trading algorithms.

~~~
taejo
No, it doesn't assume that at all. It just assumes that they are i.i.d. (so
all permutations of ranks are equally likely). Still probably not a good model
of stock prices (which presumably are correlated more with the previous day
than ten days ago)

------
lesterbuck
The OP makes the rookie mistake of confusing the Marriage Problem and the
Secretary Problem. The Marriage Problem is the famous article by Gayle &
Shapely (1964), on optimal matching (two-sided), and is the basis for The
Match, used to place medical residents into hospitals. The Secretary Problem
is a problem of optimal choice (one-sided).

As an aside, the best thing about the Marriage Problem is that it shows that
it is much, much better to be the side making invitations instead of the side
awaiting invitations. So being a guy is a pain in (generally) having to invite
the woman, but that power translates into guys tending higher in their
ultimate stable matching range than women. (Surprise! Hospitals make
invitations to residents, not the other way around.)

------
dnc
Meticulously detailed account of Kepler's bride computing process can be found
in his letter to unknown nobleman (dated from Linz, 23 October 1613). I've
read just fragments of it from "The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing
Vision of the Universe", the book by Arthur Koestler.

Introductory paragraph (p. 399): "Kepler's first marriage had been engineered
by his well wishers when he was penniless young teacher. Before his second
marriage, friends and go-betweens again played a prominent part, but this time
Kepler had to choose between no less than 11 candidates for his hand...".

What follows could hardly IMHO put in any proper mathematical formula. In the
best case it has to be modeled by some stochastic process with exponentially
increasing number of random variables.

Anyways, the book is more important than that and I cannot recommend it
enough. There is nothing else to my knowledge that so convincingly describes
how process of scientific discovery can be arbitrary, fragile and random. The
mentioned 'choosing ideal bride' episode is merely anecdotal chapter in the
book that better explains Kepler's role and importance in the history of
science.

------
mirajshah
Interestingly enough, this is a topic that has been studied in behavioral
economics, where the described strategy is known as "satisficing" (as opposed
to "maximizing"). The model assumes that when humans try to make choices,
rather than trying to pick the "best" choice (the choice with the maximum
benefit), they attempt to find the first choice which meets or exceeds an
internally set "threshold" benefit and pick it. The relative optimality of the
two strategies has not been conclusively decided on, but "satisficing"
generally appears to be more in line with how humans naturally behave based on
experiments. The details have been given in a paper by Caplin, Dean, Martin
[1]

[1]
[http://www.econ.brown.edu/fac/mark_dean/Pub_Paper_6.pdf](http://www.econ.brown.edu/fac/mark_dean/Pub_Paper_6.pdf)

------
dahart
I like this article, and I love Krulwich & Radiolab. Its a lesson in
statistics and not in marriage though, just in case you weren't sure. So just
for fun, my inner monologue while reading...

Now that's love. "Honey, you were better than the 37% of women I was going to
try. It is statistically likely that you're probably the best, or at least
second best, of all my immediately available options. Will you marry me?"

I'm somewhat amused that the conclusion is to date (sample) for a while, then
start getting serious once you get an idea of what you want. Sounds a lot like
what everyone does already, at least the ones whose marriages aren't arranged
for them.

Kepler got what he wanted and sampled 100% of his options. He didn't get a
statistically likely "Right Girl", he got "The Right Girl", and he never
wondered whether or not he got the best one.

------
3pt14159
I'm surprised that utility doesn't come in here anywhere. Imagine a bimodal
distribution, one set of matches that you hate, and a much smaller set of
matches that you love. Why try to wait for the best after the first 1/e? Why
not just pair off with someone that is 99% as good as #1?

~~~
judk
Sadly, correct answers are too complicated to be fluff blog posts.

------
netcan
_it does give you a 36.8 percent chance_

My understanding is that this also give you 36.8% of not finding a wife at all
because the best one is in the learning set. So 36.8% chance of success
(picking the best one), 36.8% chance of no wife and 26.4% chance of picking
the wrong one. I suppose there are different algorithms for different types of
bachelors. Bachelors working under marry-or-lo-your-inheritance conditions are
better off using different algorithms.

Using this method on a population of 100 prospective wives, what are the
probabilities that: (1) you will pick the best wife (2) you will pick a wife
in the top 3.

Thinking of this problem and eating a fun-blog level understanding of them is
one of those things that give you "mental thinking models" of the Charlie
Munger kind. Very useful.

EDIT: clarity

~~~
JoeAltmaier
For endless sample groups there is no chance of failure - there are always
more individuals in every category including 'better than the first set of
samples'.

Also - I met my wife and continued to date but returned to her, because
obviously it would have been futile to try to beat what she had going on. So
you don't have to be a slave to the algorithm.

~~~
netcan
You must ask her immediately or she won't marry you.

------
andrewstuart
For most "computer guys" the real question is "how to be the guy worth
marrying."

------
brador
This solution only applies if you have a finite number of secretaries that is
known at the start to interview. Anything else and the equations get freaky.
You can also add probability distributions for how many interviewies you
expect.

------
adamzerner
The title is link bait and inaccurate. It's not about "how to marry the right
girl". It's about "how to marry the right girl, given an unrealistic set of
constraints".

------
kpga
Another version of this is "the last torpedo problem": A submarine with only
one torpedo left is hiding in a cave. In front of it an enemy convoy is
passing. The number of ships in the convoy is known in advance, but not the
individual ships, and through the opening of the cave the submarine can see
only one ship passing each time. So the question is how to decide in which
ship to fire its last, unique torpedo?

------
gburt
This doesn't work in the event higher quality participants are pairing off
earlier (i.e., attractive partners get committed earlier in their lives) or in
the event attractiveness isn't life static. The Secretary Problem provides a
lot of great insight, but you need to be very careful applying stylized
stories to real problems.

------
Justsignedup
this also assumes every candidate is fully willing to accept the offer. what
if your first best candidate accepted the offer but was in the 36%. Then the
2nd best candidate after 36% rejected the offer, leaving you with potentially
a bad choice in candidates. This seems highly probable too...

If everyone did this, you have to assume the other candidate is doing the
same, thus your choice after 36% may end with you being insider their 36%
bracket. This works only at a selfish scale and dubious at best.

This only really works for a gameshow situation. You have 20 boxes with money
inside. You don't know what is the minimum or maximum amount, you get to look
at a box and determine yes/no. So you do the 36%. Then the very next box that
is close enough or above the maximum of the first 36% is what you chose.

------
marriedlong
A bayesian approach. If you know what you real aspirations are act according
to it, if you haven't the fanciest idea then use the first 25% as a sample and
from that sample estimate the mean and the variance, make a chi-square test to
see if the population is normal, now you can compute and estimate for the
probability of finding a candidate in the rest of the sample according to your
valuation. The length of this interval is related to the risk of your
election. If you are not very picky you have a long interval and a high
probability to succeed, if you put high stakes then you can get the best girl
for you, but you are risking to live alone or to miss good opportunities.
(Sorry for the English).

~~~
marriedlong
I must apologize because I didn't read the post, but I know that the reasoning
is based in permutations and here is the flaw in the argument. Anyone of us
could rapidly recognize that a girl is wonderful and without second thoughts
promise her eternal love, this kind of knowledge is not encoded in the
permutation of numbers. Bayesian reasoning give you this advice: use your
knowledge girls are not numbers.

~~~
marriedlong
My last comment. Just suppose that you know there is one or more girls that
are wonderful for you but you also know that there are a lot that are no way
for you. In my case I should without second thoughts get the first wonderful
girl. I am risk averse and I don't want to miss this one in a life
opportunity. This reasoning takes into account the kind of people you are.

------
squeakynick
I wrote a blog article about this (contains a bit more math)
[http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december32012/index.html](http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december32012/index.html)

A slightly different variant, is how to make it totally random selection
[http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/june52013/index.html](http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/june52013/index.html)

------
mherrmann
Couldn't this be applied to startup ideas? Say you have savings to last you 12
months. Try one startup idea (/MVP) every month for 12/e = 4 months. Then keep
going producing 1 MVP per month until you find one that looks more promising
than the best of the first four. If the article is right then with a
probability of 36.8% you will have found the best idea with some time to spare
in your 12 months to make some money with it. No?

~~~
dsr_
No, because you can go back to a better idea anytime you want to do so. If you
estimated that you have 12 months of savings and that it takes you a month to
build an MVP and six months to take an MVP to ramen profit, you should spend
the first six months building six MVPs, then evaluate them and pick the best
to work on for another six months.

~~~
mherrmann
Ah yes, of course.

------
agrealish
Optimal stopping theory can be applied to many things where you need to make a
decision without full information, like finding a job for example ...
[http://www.roletroll.com/blog/the-plight-of-the-long-term-
un...](http://www.roletroll.com/blog/the-plight-of-the-long-term-unemployed-
and-how-to-possibly-avoid-it/)

------
adiM
For anyone interested in how the solution is derived, one alternative is to
use dynamic programming. For example, see these lecture notes:
[http://www.cim.mcgill.ca/~decinfo/courses/ecse506/winter-201...](http://www.cim.mcgill.ca/~decinfo/courses/ecse506/winter-2014/notes/MDP-
structure.pdf)

------
peterkelly
Now I have another alternative to "It's not you, it's me"

------
hexscrews
This formula doesn't account for non-monogamous configurations. I'd be
interested in seeing a mathematical representation of the maximum bonding
pairs a person could reasonably handle.

------
erikb
The problem is that in real life the number of applicants is unknown and might
change drastically depending on your luck and behaviour over the years.

------
Swizec
So how do you select 36.8% of an infinite pool? (3.5 billion is an infinite
pool for all intents and purposes)

~~~
tirant
The pool is way lower:

\- Girls in your range (age, available, and close geographically)

\- Average time you need to 'learn' a girl (it is, to know the best/cons, and
to take a decision if dropping her or not). On some it will take 2 hours,
others will take 6 months or even years in some cases.

\- Time when you start dating.

\- Time when you plan to marry.

\- Average time between dates.

So if living in a city big enough, and you start dating at around 18 and plan
to marry at around 30, while being skillful enough to get a new date in less
than 2 months, you can expect to date around _24 girls._ That means you can
discard the first 9 dates, and wait until you are almost 22 (3.75 years later)
to take things seriously.

~~~
Swizec
I've been on dates with about 20 girls in the last 6 to 7 months alone ...
only two different cities. Tinder is a magnificent thing.

But maybe the difference is that I never plan to actually marry. Makes things
easier.

~~~
justathrow2k
Nice tinder plug. From their website it looks like an application to connect
smiling people with dogs on beaches.

------
api
Sounds like some of the girls were practicing some form of queueing theory.

------
applecore
Are there any companies using this strategy for hiring?

------
contingencies
Ahh yes, the constant magic of _e_. More concisely, it can be explained as
thus: _If you 're both on e, you're guaranteed to find the right partner...
straight away._

------
ssw1n
I am sobbing mathematically out of sheer joy !

------
jgrahamc
This is a good way of choosing a song on your iPod while shuffling. Assume you
have a tolerance of shuffling through 40 songs before picking one.

You should click through the first 40/e (roughly 15). Then start clicking
until you come across a song better then the best one in the first 15.

Listen to that one.

~~~
cJ0th
do you actually do that? it sounds interesting _in theory_ but i find it
actually quite impossible to "remember" the satisfaction my favorite gives me
so that i can reference it against every other track.

~~~
jgrahamc
Yes. This is my 'walking to and from the gym' strategy.

But then again I'm a giant nerd.

~~~
crusso
Automatically disqualified as a "giant nerd" by going to a gym.

~~~
skizm
No way. Going to the gym is one of the nerdiest things you can do if you
approach it the right way. I mean it is basically the real life equivalent of
grinding levels in an rpg:

You choose a class (endurance, strength, or something in between). You have
items and skills which you have to skill up individually (barbells, dumb
bells, gymnastics equipment, running, cycling, etc.). The same dilemma exists
for leveling up: skill points added to one category are skill points you can't
add to another category. Thus if you split your time between strength and
endurance you will never achieve as much as someone who exclusively trains one
of the two.

The skill curve is even similar to that of a well designed RPG: in the
beginning you make a lot of gains quickly but eventually you slow to a halt
and it takes months to even gain a few skill points in one item/skill.

The gym in real life is like hardcore mode: If you don't play for a while,
your skills degrade as a penalty. However, the skill lost as a penalty is
easier to reattain then skill you never had.

There are even boss fights and co-op mode if you decide to compete.

There are too many parallels to list them all here, but I think you get the
idea.

~~~
justathrow2k
Going to the gym in itself is still not a 'nerdy' activity. All you did was
describe going to a gym in a very nerdy way by comparing it to an RPG - you
could most likely apply this practice to just about any activity one could do.

edit: I do disagree with that statement of the poster to whom you replied, you
can still be a pretty big nerd and go to a gym.

~~~
skizm
> Going to the gym in itself is still not a 'nerdy' activity.

Neither is moving pieces on a chess board until you start to obsess over it,
read about it in your free time, track your progress as a player, and
constantly try and improved yourself as a chess player. No activity is really
"intrinsically nerdy" (whatever that means), that's why I said "if you
approach it the right way".

~~~
justathrow2k
Still, society generally views playing chess as being nerdy, no matter how
involved you are with it. They don't make these distinctions you're making.
Whether or not they're accurate in their description is another discussion
entirely, but I think we can all understand this in the context of the
conversation.

------
marincounty
Advise from an old man--I have no reason to lie: Don't ever tell "the one" you
love her. If you are somewhat good looking don't marry the first girl who
gives it up. She will change mentally and physically. Never tell them you have
money, or have the potential to make money. Keep a large portion of your money
buried--she might leave you. Twice about having spawn--you have a say these
days. If she loves you after you have a nervous breakdown she's a keeper--do
anything for her.(Make sure she's not using your bad luck to feel better about
herself. Charles Bukowski,'She loved me when I was broke, and humble.' Or
disregard this "advise", I spent my twenties looking for the perfect person,
and never found her, or was too stupid to know I found the right one? I think
the latter. I used to say, "But she's too nice, and conventional?" Yea--I
screwed up, but I'm still glad I didn't get married. oh yea, make sure to
listen to her talk to her friends and mother; that's the real girl you are
living with a long time.

------
epx
The only way to win this game is not to play

~~~
arzugula
Exactly. Modern marriage is like a game of Russian Roulette for men. The
difference is that your odds are worse, and the gun has financial incentive to
destroy you.

Divorce rates are over 50%, divorce is initiated by women over 70% of the
time, women get custody of children 90% of the time.

Laws like VAWA and the Duluth Model give women a surefire way to have you
arrested and charged with zero evidence. Now you have a criminal record and no
access to your children - 100% legal! Guess what happens to the suicide and
addiction rates of men in these situations?

Enjoy your archaic life-long alimony payments, 'supervised visitation' with
your children, drug testing, mandatory psychological evaluations, dumping
thousands into a custody battle to end up with 4 days/month with your kids,
and a child support system that rewards the payee for alienating your children
from you.

Hey, your lawyer's kids will have no problem paying college tuition! Don't
worry about yours.

Do you like the things you've earned over your life? Hold on to them by
avoiding marriage like the plague its become.

~~~
lotharbot
> _" Divorce rates are over 50%"_

"Divorce rate" is a misleading statistic. It compares marriages in year X to
divorces in year X, but divorces in year X can come from marriages in many
prior years -- so it's not exactly a direct comparison.

People often mistake it for "the chances of an average marriage ending in
divorce", which is a bit lower (the data I've looked at puts it in the 30-40%
range.)

But wait, there's more! There are ways to determine, beforehand, which
marriages are more or less likely to end in divorce. There are mathematical
models based on behavior (James Murray, John Gottman). There are statistics
related to various life decisions and behaviors and shared interests. You can
dig through all sorts of interesting statistics and figure out your own risk
profile if you so desire (see, for example, the General Social Survey at
[http://sda.berkeley.edu/cgi-
bin/hsda?harcsda+gss10](http://sda.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/hsda?harcsda+gss10) ).
People like to act like divorce is just a thing that randomly happens through
no fault of your own, and on occasion that's true, but there are a lot of
choices you can make to reduce the chances it'll happen to you. (Making
choices like my grandparents seems to work out -- one pair celebrated 65 years
last month, the other celebrates 67 years this weekend. And yes, the
statistics bear out that making similar choices to them results in lifelong
marriage a very high percentage of the time.)

~~~
arzugula
The difference is that your grandmother didn't have a guaranteed payday and a
"strong independent single-mother's movement" awaiting her if she decided she
was tired of your grandfather.

The quickly disappearing stigma against single-motherhood combined with the
demonization of men as deadbeats and child molesters, when paired with massive
amounts of state handouts to single mothers (wic, welfare, child support,
alimony, state medical insurance, housing subsidy, single-mother scholarships,
affirmative action jobs, etc.) has made divorce as inconsequential as possible
for women while dramatically raising the consequences for men.

Marriage is broken and men who go into it without understanding the disparity
of legal, psychological, and economic outcomes between the genders are in for
a rude awakening.

~~~
lotharbot
... yes, I'm sure you've identified the _only_ relevant difference.

Which _totally_ explains why my parents and my wife's parents, both married in
the 1970s when those social movements were in full bloom, also have wonderful
and happy marriages going on 40 and 38 years, respectively.

~~~
arzugula
Are you arguing that our social environment hasn't changed since the 1970's or
that our obviously dramatically changed social environment has had no effect
on male-female relationships?

Either way, your advice is more of the same feel-good nonsense that we feed
our young men, hand-waving away the outcomes of divorce and custody law, and
pushing them towards a statistically likely devastating outcome.

It may feel good to preach the traditional loving family of your grandparents,
but the data shows that they are the outlier. A much more likely outcome is a
split family and emotional and financial devastation for the husband.

~~~
lotharbot
I am arguing neither of those things.

I am also not giving "feel-good nonsense" advice, nor hand-waving. I'm
suggesting avenues of research that require a level of effort commensurate
with the task at hand, namely, creating a long-term stable relationship.

Statistically, relationships with the same attributes as my grandparents'
relationships _don 't_ fall apart. Statistically, the most likely outcome _in
that case_ is "til death do us part". (You really should read some of JD
Murray's books/papers. We can predict with a fairly high likelihood which
relationships are going to lead to a split family and emotional/financial
devastation for the husband, and which are not. But it takes a level of
introspection and a level of honesty from friends and observers that most
people don't have.)

~~~
arzugula
Again - is it your assertion that our drastically changed social environment
has had no effect on the stability of relationships?

I whole-heartedly agree with you that there are many factors that can help
predict the success of a marriage. This is somewhat besides the point.

It's shortsighted and a case of "ignoring the elephant in the room" to pretend
that a dramatic shift in our social environment is having no effect on the
stability marriage or that factors which contributed to past-generation's
successful marriages have been unaffected by this shift.

~~~
lotharbot
> _" is it your assertion that our drastically changed social environment has
> had no effect on the stability of relationships?"_

I have already said explicitly that it is not. Please don't be obtuse.

> _" there are many factors that can help predict the success of a marriage.
> This is somewhat besides the point."_

No; it's exactly the point. Your initial comment used misleading statistics to
argue that marriage is a "plague" that should be avoided, and you later hinted
that my grandfather would have been a victim of this plague if my grandparents
had lived in a different era.

I've countered that those statistics don't apply to every situation, and that
in fact marriage remains quite a worthwhile pursuit especially for those whose
circumstances and life choices put them in the "very high probability of
success" category. My grandparents, my parents, and my wife and I are all in
this category.

Repeating your assertion that current marriages lead "towards a statistically
likely devastating outcome" is useless. The assertion, while true for many
couples, ignores the reality that _some_ couples are statistically likely to
enjoy the benefits of marriage for their entire lives.

------
WorldWideWayne
This seems like it works on the same principle of the Monty Hall problem,
where statistically you win more often by always throwing away your first
choice -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem)

~~~
danparsonson
Sounds similar but the Monty Hall problem isn't just about throwing away your
first choice - it's about throwing away your first choice after you've been
given more information about the remaining two choices.

~~~
WorldWideWayne
Ahh, thank you - that is a very important distinction.

------
judk
Yay, sexist and inaccurate metaphorical framings for math problems.

~~~
ander_son
How much of your day would you say you spend thinking about how oppressed you
feel?

------
RRRA
Is there a "you should never get married" solution? ;)

