The article is a PR piece for "<i></i>Keiyaku Kekkon<i></i>", a japanese marriage partner startup.<p>I quickly read through the text - and wondered what I had learned. It does not present any interesting conclusions, or back its statements with data.<p>Here is the exec summary of the startup's business model:<p>"Keiyaku Kekkon is a marriage-focused dating website with a twist. The name is Japanese and literally means "Contract Marriage." Users create their ideal marriage agreement and match up with a suitable partner.<p>Unlike typical dating sites that match people based on personality, Keiyaku Kekkon matches people based on their marriage contracts. Users can spell out exactly what they want out of marriage and exactly what they have to offer."<p>[1] <a href="http://keiyakukekkon.com" rel="nofollow">http://keiyakukekkon.com</a>
Like I imagine many HN readers, I had a visceral negative reaction to a lot of this post, since it directly attacks a lot of the new cultural norms I grew up in (and cherish).<p>On the other hand, it does seem to raise some interesting points, so I hope it doesn't get flagged. Our new culture is relatively untested; a lot of our ideas about sex and relationships and children are only a couple generations old. I'm happily married with no children (maybe some to come in the future? Not sure). In this thread I've seen people propose polyamorous communes, and long term life partnerships with children but not marriage. These things <i>may</i> work out, but there's not much of a historical precedent for them, as far as I know.<p>I recently came back from a trip to Oman. I talked with a ton of people there, and their cultural perspective was very different (and interesting!). While a lot of the younger adults were wanting to get married and have children a little later, there was still a pretty sizeable contingent of the population my age that already had several children. And it was clear that Islam there was such a community-driving force, I could see how their traditions were pretty robust.<p>All this to say, I have my doubts that my concept of "prosperous, liberal, Western civilization" will live on for the long term. But if the people are fairly content and happy as it fades, is that such an issue? I'm not sure. My biggest regret if it dies is that we may never figure out all the secrets of the universe. But alas, thinking of all my highly educated PhD scientist friends in their 30s, there's only one child.<p>edit to add: I completely forgot to mention probably the most culturally interesting part (to me) of the Oman trip: it was for a wedding of a friend, but it was a mostly arranged marriage (the bride and groom had veto power, but their parents found the match and they only knew each other for a short while before deciding to marry).
Natural selection will take care of this eventually, either genetically or memeticly. I suspect the outcome will not be as happy as what the traditions we flouted provided. The birth rate is likely the most telling critique of western society.<p>Our revealed preference is our civilization is not worth perpetuating.<p>As of now only those who deliberately desire children and those unable to follow the instructions on the back of contraception packaging reproduce. It will be interesting to see how this works out long term.
Cool to see I got some comments! Thanks for the feedback everyone.<p>I'm an expat programmer living in Tokyo and Keiyaku Kekkon is a side project of mine. Got the idea from watching a Japanese drama actually. I'll probably do a "Show HN" eventually. It's still in alpha and kind of buggy. Making websites isn't really my specialty so this project was a cool learning experience.<p>It's like midnight here and I'm going to bed, but feel free to leave questions or contact me if you want to know more about anything. Peace!
> If people are voluntarily opting out of marriage and family<p>I'm not married, I'm in a long term committed relationship, I have kids. The article seems to think that being married and having kids is somehow the same. It's not.
While I agree that we have a problem with population growth, the author has very traditional views on marriage and its requirements for a society/population to function - there's much more to it than that.<p>Also thanks for calling my existence "illegitimate" in 2017.
If you're curious about actual data, and not just a bunch of unsupported claims, Pew has a nice little paper they published back in 2014 on this topic:<p><a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/09/24/record-share-of-americans-have-never-married/" rel="nofollow">http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/09/24/record-share-of-am...</a><p>To my eyes, this is purely a data driven analysis and doesn't spend a lot of time moralizing on the topic.
"As mentioned in the previous essay, single parenthood correlates with a number of social maladies."<p>This may be true historically, but does it have to be that way going forward?
My thoughts, not based on studies but based on people I know, is that the general interest in marriage has declined as there is a preference for greater autonomy amongst both men and women, not to mention economic independence.
Marriage was born out of economic need, and was given a religious stamp of approval. If the same economic need isn't there, and developed countries are becoming more secular in their beliefs, it would seem only natural that marriage rates would decline.<p>But that doesn't mean people don't want children, or can't have children. With the introduction of ivf, and both egg and sperm donors -known or unknown- its possible for the birth rate to be maintained. It may sound bizarre now just as putting ones profile up online in search of a mate was at one time, but it could be become the new norm. Search for gametes the same way you searched for a partner at one time.<p>As far as the maladies of single parenthood go, much of that may be attributed to the education levels of the single parent and/or their poor economic circumstances. It doesn't have to be that way though. Of our last 4 US Presidents, 2 pretty much grew up without having a reliable father around for most of their life. They seemed to both have had pretty smart moms.
Monogamy isn't dead as the author seems to imply by the falling marriage rates. Many people I know are not married but are in 10+ year long-term monogamous relationships (myself included). We don't ever plan to get married because I don't like the government telling me what to do and how our assets must be split in the case we decide to break up (though we never plan to). We also are vehemently anti-religious and would never support an institution like marriage for that reason either.<p>I personally don't want to have children because my life is fulfilling as it is and I don't want extra distractions when there is no void to fill, but I think this notion of "illegitimacy" is very outdated and should be retired.<p>I think a lot of the long term economic and population concerns will be solved by workplace automation and biotechnology revolutions in human lifespan respectively, so they are largely overblown. I also don't think a future child-raising industry where children are raised together in government sponsored and supervised systems would be as dystopian as depicted in Brave New World.
Wow, this article isn't scientific at all, in the least.<p>>As mentioned in the previous essay, single parenthood correlates with a number of social maladies.<p>>The best environment for these children is a home with their biological mother and father. Marriage is statistically the best way to ensure these environments for children. Healthy marriages create stable families. Stable families create strong and safe communities. Strong communities create prosperous cities. Prosperous cities create successful nations. Successful nations advance humanity.<p>Citations needed. There's no proof of any of this, it's just the social norm we've had for centuries. "We've always done it this way" isn't proof, and the way our society was before ~50 years ago was actively bad and oppressive for many members of society, particularly women who really were second-class citizens, unable to vote or hold most jobs.<p>Personally, I think it'd be better if people joined into polyamorous groupings; it's better for kids, and provides a more stable home life than only having 2 parents. Don't ask me for citations; you'll just have to take my word for it, just as the author of this article did.