....Aaaaand we're back.
This blog post has been brewing in my head
for months now. I have shown it to more
friends in rough draft form, fretted over it, and bothered my wife with it more
than any other idea I can remember. I
guess that sounds like I think what I have to say is a big deal. Maybe I do.
In reality, I think my thesis is blindingly self-evident; surprising for
only about 30 seconds.
I am going to make some observations and
analysis on the economics of marital dissatisfaction, divorce, and Mormonism.
Throughout the process of apostasy I have
concurrently worked my way through a reconception of happiness, relationships,
sex, marriage, and, of course, divorce.
I do not know of anyone who takes the prospect of divorce lightly,
especially when it is their own. One of
the hammers that hurt in Oaks'
October 2012 talk was the reminder that the Church teaches about the evil
of DIVORCE, not the evil of an unhappy marriage. Coming out of his sermon I found myself
concluding that there are essentially two competing perspectives on the
interplay of happiness and marriage.
Being
married is important (with or without attendant happiness).
Being
happy is important (with or without attendant marriage).
Let's make a couple of base presumptions.
First, I am acutely aware that happiness and marriage are strongly linked. I don’t want to make an argument of causation
or correlation, but rather to acknowledge that marriage
has something to do with life satisfaction in either direction. Second, if you find that the first half of my
marriage perspective dichotomy feels right to you, don't worry. I am not going to assert that you don't
prefer happy marriages as the dominant setting.
I won't argue that your prioritization of marriage eclipses your
prioritization of well-being. I am
simply observing a hierarchy of preference.
In observing that hierarchy, I feel comfortable making an argument that
the Brethren and Church doctrine is more aligned with the first observation and
that secularism is more aligned with the second.
Economics is the study of choice amid
restraints and frequently we describe those choices with supply and demand
curves.
A demand curve is drawn slanting down to
the right. The Y axis represents the
price of the good or service, and the X axis represents the quantity of that
good or service consumed at any given point.
The curve illustrates that at the highest possible price demand is
essentially zero, and that at a price of zero the demand is 100%.
A supply curve is drawn slanted up to the
right. At a price of zero, no one is
willing to supply the good or service, but as the price goes up, more and more
providers come into the marketplace until at a certain point, essentially
everyone would choose the profession in question over any other.
The intersection of the supply curve with
the demand curve is the point at which market equilibrium is achieved and the
number of people willing to pay X is exactly equal to the number of suppliers
willing to work for that amount.
(Reality is never this clean, as we shall see, but in the aggregate the theory
works out pretty well.)
Divorce can be thought of as a supply and
demand intersection. We'll talk about
cost here, but only part of the cost is financial. A large portion of the cost is to be found in
other areas. In divorce, the demand
curve describes marital dissatisfaction.
In terms of cost the demand curve says that if divorce costs everything
no one will want it and if it costs nothing everyone will choose it. The supply curve describes the cost of the
supply of divorce. On the supply side,
as the cost of divorce increases, fewer and fewer people will choose it. The intersection of the two curves represents
the decision point at which people choose to divorce. The intersection describes the point where
marital dissatisfaction justifies the cost.
It will describe the per capita divorce rate as well as a relative
description of the cost.
It turns out that divorce rates have been
studied across religions. The Barna
group ran a fairly well known survey of divorce within
a number of religious groups and found that divorce was highest among
Evangelical Christians, middle in other denominations (including Mormons at 24%)
and lowest among the Atheist/Agnostic/Secular crowd (21%).
Regarding the lower incidence of divorce
among Seculars, you may be inclined to point out that fewer Seculars marry,
that they marry after more consideration, and so it is reasonable that among
the smaller group that marry, there are fewer divorces. On this point I will agree with you and then
there will be a pregnant pause as the implications of this observation sink
in. Mormon family counselor
extraordinaire Brent Barlow was also inclined to point out some of these
factors in a blog
post he wrote responding to the study.
In particular, Dr. Barlow focused on three "non-religious"
factors for the higher divorce rates in the Bible Belt and Utah: Low income, marrying at a younger age, and
the (aforementioned) relative percentage of the population married compared to
more secular geographic regions. I am
mystified how he feels justified calling those factors non-religious, but, oh
well.
Back to the economic modeling.
In the platonic world imagined thus far,
this simple model would describe marital dissatisfaction and the likelihood of
divorce in a faceless population devoid of additional factors. But, of course, additional factors will allow
us to segment the population and observe the effects.
Let's imagine that subset 1 represent Seculars
and subset 2 represent Mormons.
What are the factors that will cause
divergence between these two cultures?
It seems to me that the most obvious is the observation that Mormon
doctrine, culture, ritual, covenants, etc. all raise the cost of divorce
substantially. Significantly, according
to Mormon doctrine, in order to ENTER HEAVEN, one must be sealed in the
Temple. The incredible emphasis on the
family (much lauded by the casual and active Mormon observer alike) in the
Church flows from this heavenly imperative.
The sealing covenant is eternal, is the key to exaltation, and is a
covenant with God as much as it is a covenant with one's spouse.
There is simply a much higher cost of
divorce for Mormons than for their secular neighbors.
Economically, this would be represented by
the Mormon supply curve shifting to the left of the supply curve for
secularists who have (at the very least) no conception that earthly marriage is
among the prerequisites for eternal reward.
By shifting to the left we see that, at all levels, it costs more to get
divorced for Mormons than for Seculars.
The immediate effect of this is to create a
new intersection of the supply and demand curves for Mormons which is substantially
to the left of the earlier intersection.
The new intersection predicts that because of the higher cost of divorce
in Mormon culture there should be a substantially reduced quantity of divorces. The cost is so high that few would choose
it.
Presented with this analysis, if one
believes that it is better to be married (happy or no) than not married, then
the Mormon culture and doctrines that underlie this effect have some
coherence.
However, this isn't the end of the story.
However, the Barna survey actually tells a
different story than what we predict via the model. Mormons don't get divorced in reduced
quantities than seculars. They (and
their fundamentalist religious cohorts) get divorced at a substantially higher
rate.
Headed back to the model, there are only
two alternatives to consider. One is
that instead of being more expensive, the cost of divorce in Mormonism is
actually much lower than it is for Seculars.
One would have to argue that the cultural stigma and the metaphysical
pain for atheists at the prospect of the dissolution of marriage is
substantially higher than it is for Mormons.
Ummm, yeah.
So...
The other simple alternative to bring up
the predicted divorce rate is to shift the demand curve to the right, representing
a systemic increase in dissatisfaction.
In other words, if we accept the reasonable premise that divorce has a
higher social cost in Mormonism than it does in secularism, then in order to
predict the higher quantity of divorces in the Mormon population (that one
observes in reality), marital dissatisfaction must be generally higher in
Mormonism than in secularism. With the
new intersection, one also observes that the relative cost of those divorces
has ratcheted up even more compared to the secular population.
But wait.
Mormons place a huge emphasis on the family and home (Family, isn’t it
about time?). If it is the most
important thing in their lives, why would they have systemically worse
marriages?
This is the blindingly obvious part; counterintuitive
until you see it.
If a sociologist removed the religious
identification and simply observed Mormon marriage culture in action they
wouldn't be shocked at all to see high levels of marital dysfunction. According to the sociological predictors of
marital success, Mormons do almost the whole thing wrong. It's as if they are trying to have the most
terrible marriages possible. (One thing they do get right, shared faith is a
predictor of marital success. Go
Mormons!)
Packer has
taught, "True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. A study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve
behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior."
While it may be true that cultural
indoctrination can be counted on to produce indoctrinated behavior, this says
nothing about the effectiveness of that behavior for producing desirable
results. There are key areas where Mormon
doctrine and culture runs counter to predictors of marital happiness.
1.
The brethren encourage young
members to get married very early, with very short courtships, having little
consideration for long-term compatibility because they have been taught to
trust in the compatibility-making power of shared faith.
2.
Mormons are taught to have many
children and to have them early. For
decades leaders have praised young college students who make the decision to not
forestall a family while in school.
3.
While high levels of education
predict marital success, education disparity predicts strife. Mormon men are
among the most highly educated population in the United States, but Mormon
women frequently drop out of college to take care of young children as
stay-at-home mothers.
4.
Mormon sexuality is truly the
gift that keeps on giving as both Mormon men and women generally perpetuate
sexual thought patterns and behavior that contribute to marital
dissatisfaction. Explicitly, implicitly,
and via creative object lessons, girls are taught to fear sex and think of it
as their wifely duty, and boys are taught that if they can just make it to
marriage they will have access to as much as they need. This teaching takes place in a larger culture
where discomfort about the subject of sex is incredibly high and amid doctrine
that teach that sexual sins are next to MURDER in seriousness. Young people marry quickly out of fear that
they may "screw up" and cause irreversible damage to their
souls. As many are taught, the nails can
be pulled from the board, but the holes remain.
Entire books about
Mormon sexual dysfunction could (and should) be written, but I think among the
most illustrative cultural tidbits is the fact that morality, modesty, purity, and
virtue are essentially only taught
as sexual concepts in the Church.
5.
Mormon culture is also heavily
tied to gender roles that, in themselves, create unrealistic expectations for
both women and men. Men are expected to
shoulder the burden of providing well for a large family all alone. Women are told that they will find the
greatest life fulfillment as a caretaker and permanent domestic servant. The working father and the stay-at-home
mother is explicitly
taught as the ideal.
In a societal
bubble this would exact its own inevitable damage, but (non-polygamous) Mormons
live almost entirely integrated into the secular world. Consequently, Mormons are constantly present
to the conflicting evidence that the narrative they have been taught does not
work. Cognitive dissonance forces the
creation of explanatory narratives or cherry picking evidence with religious
zeal in order to support the (false) notion that this Leave it to Beaver
lifestyle is divinely appointed, as opposed to a relic of, well, the era of
Leave it to Beaver.
6.
Finally, echoing Brent Barlow's
earlier observation on finances, Mormons across the board have at least 10%
less financial resources than their secular neighbors. Because tithing is usually paid on gross
income, its impact on net disposable funds as a percentage is actually much
higher. Luckily, Thomas
Monson came to the rescue in the April 2011 Conference and counselled young
men to not put off marriage because of concerns about financial stress. He then went on to talk about how sad it is
when he has to handle sealing cancellation requests from divorcves that came
about because of financial problems and lack of communication as well as other
problems. Hmmm....
This list could go on and on. If you are an active, believing member, I
could offend you even worse than I'm sure I already have. But sociologists and psychologists would
agree, with this list or a longer one, the ultimate results are damaging to the
health and well-being of individuals and marriages.
I wanted to find out what happens to these
couples after faith crisis. Among our
circle of friends there is plenty of evidence for divorce coming out of faith
crisis. I've also been impressed with
the (apparent) level of marital happiness among my post-crisis friends. If I take the strong position that Mormonism
is damaging to marriages, what happens after a faith crisis? Not wanting to be subject to my own biases
and availability heuristics, I decided to issue a survey to try and get some
reliable numbers.
I suppose I must disclaim that my survey is
subject to a number of potential problems.
The sample is self-selecting. The
wording may be (most certainly is, in fact) biased. And I could have asked for different
information; better information. I also
don’t think the results here can be compared with results from other
studies. Divorce statistics are
complicated. I wouldn’t recommend making
a comparison of my divorce statistics against baseline from another study.
Nevertheless, in a few days I collected
about 600 responses. The qualifier to
take the survey was participation in a marriage in which one or both of the
spouses had undergone a Mormon faith crisis.
I asked a few background questions which turned out to be interesting in
their consistency. Almost no one among
my respondents joined the church "for" their spouse/spouse to
be. 83% of the respondents were born to
an active family, and almost 80% of the spouses of respondents were. 82.6% were married in the temple and 88.5%
reported that at the peak of faithfulness as a couple both were active,
believing members. In 47% of the cases both spouses went through a faith
crisis, and in 49% only the respondent went through crisis. 73% of the respondents became
atheist/agnostic/secular following faith crisis. 10% still described themselves as Christian
(non-Mormon). Of the spouses that
underwent faith crisis 66% became atheist/agnostic/secular, and 15% still
claimed Christianity.
But the thing I found particularly
fascinating about the survey results were the descriptions of marital status
among the two groups. Among those where
only the respondent had disaffected from the faith, 26% reported that they had
divorced, were divorcing, or were separated.
An additional 40% reported that they were still married with
tension. In other words, roughly 2/3 of
respondents reported less-than-optimal marriage status post faith crisis. (Actually, I did find these results a little
surprising. It was surprising that the
numbers were not higher for both divorces and tension.)
Among the responses where both spouses
experienced faith crisis, however, it was a totally different story. The divorce rate for this group was only 7%
and only an additional 13% reported married with tension. There was nearly a 4x reduction in divorce
and a 3x reduction in marital tension when both spouses had a faith
crisis.
This result blew me away, and I don't want
to speculate as to what it all means, but I'm having a hard time not coming to
the conclusion that one of the best things you can do for your marriage is for
both of you to lose faith.
And so here we are at the end of this
little analysis. I will admit it makes
me sad. It makes me sad that the
cultural framework I grew up with, that advertised itself as being the basis of
happy family life, actually produces the opposite in marriage. It makes me sad that the people who still
believe in that framework will almost universally reject this kind of analysis. It makes me sad that they are (that I was)
conditioned to believe uncritically in the inherent good of that system.
I guess this is my pulpit pounding
moment. People speak generally of the
good the Church does in their life all the time, but I believe it less and
less. They claim that for any specific
harm, the good vastly outweighs it. I
don't believe it any more. I don't think
the evidence supports it.
Sure, I believe that the Church fills a
need for social structure and meaning, but I don't believe that its achievement
in that regard is anything more or less than the natural consequence of being a
socially binding organization. As time
goes on, I find more and more evidence that the tangible net effect of
Mormonism is harm; that where it does good, it provides the kind of generic
good that many, many social organizations can fill. But when it reflects the specific traits that
make it "Mormon", harm is usually the result.
The conclusion of this economic exercise
and the follow-up survey were actually both a real surprise to me. But once I got over the shock, they made me
think that there is a real need for more dispassionate analysis of the
tangible, measurable effects of Mormonism in people's lives. If it does good, we need to figure out where
the specific good is and do a much better job of rationally and calmly exposing
the bad.
