In terms of practical interests, marriage is becoming redundant.
Folks, as the question goes, get married with caution because divorce is getting harder and harder.
During The New Year's Day, Shandong Gaofa was on the hot search for an article that "you cannot request a divorce only on the grounds of cheating", which said: "Cheating is not a cohabitation behavior, and you cannot ask for divorce based on this." ”
Although the Shandong Supreme People's Court quickly deleted this absurd article that was contrary to the current judicial interpretation after attracting criticism, it still vaguely flashed an intriguing fact: Over the years, China's judicial organs have been nagging at China's traditional values in a certain "motherly" posture: "It is better to demolish ten temples than to break a marriage." ”
The Civil Code, promulgated in 2020, has set up a "divorce cooling-off period" for people who want to divorce to calm down first and then make a decision (although the final decision has basically not changed).
Is this attitude of "if you can not judge the departure, you will not judge the departure"?
From a national perspective, there is.
The decline of marriage means that fertility rates are declining, and the relationship between fertility and the long-term interests of the country cannot be overemphasized.
But like the relationship between organisms and cancer cells, the "long-term interests of the nation" and the "personal interests of the moment" of young people are not always exactly the same. Over the past few years, the divorce rate in Our country has continued to rise, the marriage rate has continued to decline, and young people have become more and more hostile to marriage.
Why?
There is only one central reason: marriage is becoming redundant in terms of "practical interests."
First of all, it needs to be pointed out that love does not need marriage, how can love need marriage? Relationships that need to be secured by institutions and laws cannot be love.
In the eyes of "love idealists", that crimson marriage certificate is the biggest blasphemy against "love".
What is "love"? As the writer Xiong Yi put it: "It doesn't need certificates and lawyers, and it doesn't need any property distribution plan." You love me or not, I love you; you beat me and scold me, I love you; you betray me and fail me, I love you; you give me or don't give me fame, I love you; even if I let me deceive my teachers and destroy my ancestors, bring calamity to the country and the people, and let me violate all the morals and laws in the world, I will love you without hesitation. ”
This kind of love is extremely rare.
In fact, it is not just "this kind of love", in the long river of human history, "love" itself is very rare.
You know, most of the couples in human history who have been reduced to remains have no "love" (the extramarital affairs of aristocratic ladies during the Crusades made the word "love" popular), and some are just "birth communities", "economic cooperatives" and "legal life combinations".
In modern society, however, all three of these things have rapidly disintegrated.
First of all, the "birth community", in the era of material abundance, a person's income is enough to support the life of a child. Even those with meager incomes, the original genes of the "fertility community", have subconsciously planned their "divorce cycle" – why the "seven-year itch" instead of shorter or longer? Because after about seven years of marriage, the peak of childcare burden has passed, and the loveless marriage can be loosened.
The real fatal blow to the institution of marriage was the dissolution of the "economic cooperatives".
In fact, the main reason why most people are reluctant to get married is that they "did not find the right one", and the reason why you "did not find the right one" and live well is because of the collapse of the "economic cooperative" attribute in the traditional marriage relationship.
In China, where the mobile Internet flourishes, most of the functions of traditional marriage have been replaced by social divisions of labor — or various apps.
In an agrarian society, men will only cultivate the land, women will only weave cloth, if they do not get married, men will have no clothes to wear, and women will not have food to eat.
Now, food, clothing, shelter and transportation, one-click direct access. The improvement of social welfare mechanisms, nursing homes, insurance products, has also greatly resisted the risk of singleness.
The direct portrayal of the collapse of "economic cooperatives" is that women are becoming increasingly important in the workplace, no longer dependent on men, and they can also shine. For them, the old woman is single by her ability, why do she have to get married? Two people working together is not as good as living alone.
Finally, what makes marriage "redundant" is its separation from sex.
You get the idea. In traditional societies, there are few opportunities for sex without marriage, and premarital sex is suffocatingly costly.
During the 1983 crackdown, "female gangster" Zhai Manxia was sentenced to death for having relationships with more than a dozen men. Before the execution, Zhai Manxia said: "Sexual freedom is a right given to me by God, a way I chose, and now it seems that this kind of behavior may be ahead of its time, but in a few decades, people will no longer see it this way." ”
Now, decades later, Miss Zhai's prediction has come true. Today's society is about to reverse, many people's sexual behavior, mainly occurs before and outside marriage, even if married, couples rarely share a bed, which reminds me of a psychologist Jung's witty saying: "The main benefit of marriage is that people can enjoy the pleasure of stealing."
In short, all this confuses young people:
I have such a good life, why do I have to get married?
Or maybe I'm so upset, why should I get married?
Marriage economics believes that the purpose of marriage of a rational person is to maximize the benefits from marriage, and if the benefits of marriage exceed the benefits of singleness, people choose to get married, otherwise they would rather be single.
Li Yinhe once put forward a somewhat extreme view in the "Strange Flower Conference": "The marriage system will eventually die."
Is this true?
I don't know, I just know that in the foreseeable future, getting young people married will become increasingly difficult.
Of course, correspondingly, it will be more and more difficult to get married people to divorce.
If you really want to push the country into a hurry, "you can't just ask for a divorce on the grounds of cheating", maybe it will eventually come true.