I think both JQ’s comment and yours are pretty much non sequitur. The post has one complaint about falling marriage rates; JQ provides defense against a different complaint; and you provide yet a third complaint. All three of you can be correct.
Scandinavia shows that nuclear family formation can occur without formal marriage. But it seems to show that such families do not last as long. The standard complaint is that without pressure towards nuclear families: (1) children will not be raised by fathers; (2) polygyny; (3) destructive tournaments. That is what people (I think including the link) often mean by “underclass,” but that definition is after the fact, so it didn’t allow one to predict that Scandinavia would be different. Anyhow, the complaint of the OP is a completely different one, that men are dropping out of production and procreation in non-destructive (non-underclass) ways.
That’s a fair point. Though I had assumed a different popular meaning for “underclass”: poverty and joblessness. That would allow you to predict that Scandinavia would be different. It also seems related to the OP, which mentions “slacking off”, though I’m still stuck figuring out which points relate to which...
I think both JQ’s comment and yours are pretty much non sequitur. The post has one complaint about falling marriage rates; JQ provides defense against a different complaint; and you provide yet a third complaint. All three of you can be correct.
Scandinavia shows that nuclear family formation can occur without formal marriage. But it seems to show that such families do not last as long. The standard complaint is that without pressure towards nuclear families: (1) children will not be raised by fathers; (2) polygyny; (3) destructive tournaments. That is what people (I think including the link) often mean by “underclass,” but that definition is after the fact, so it didn’t allow one to predict that Scandinavia would be different. Anyhow, the complaint of the OP is a completely different one, that men are dropping out of production and procreation in non-destructive (non-underclass) ways.
That’s a fair point. Though I had assumed a different popular meaning for “underclass”: poverty and joblessness. That would allow you to predict that Scandinavia would be different. It also seems related to the OP, which mentions “slacking off”, though I’m still stuck figuring out which points relate to which...