From John Ray's shorter notes
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October 16, 2017
Married Americans Are More Unhappy Than Ever
And why would that be? An obvious culprit would be feminism and the gradual breakdown of traditional sex roles. We have evolved to be sexual specialists. At it simplest men did the hunting and women looked after the babies. And evolution is slow to change. We are still born with those old cavemen specialisms. That is who we are and how we feel.That all that specialization has become of little importance to survival in the last half century will have had no impact on our genetic propensities whatever. We will still be most comfortable in traditional roles. But women in particular have had ferociously preached at them that such roles are now WRONG.And that can only result in discomfort and dissatisfaction for all concerned. Expectations will continuously be at odds with natural inclinations. Human beings are very flexible so some degree of accommodation to modern reality is possible but all flexibility has its limits
It’s logical, isn’t it? People who choose to stay married should be happier in their relationships. After all, it’s easier than ever to exit a miserable union, people tend to wait longer before making the jump and many just don’t get married at all.
Despite that, the number of Americans who say they’re “very happy” in their marriages has fallen from 68 percent in the early 1970s to 60 percent.There are four types of people who tend to be happiest with the quality of their marriage: those who spend more time at religious centers, people with extreme political views (skewing to either spectrum), those who describe themselves as upper class—and men.
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