Large religious families

[carrotsinthepan]

I was watching something on YouTube and it struck me how many large families are religious families (especially Christian in the US and orthodox jewish in various places) I was just thinking that they seem to attract less criticism for the number of children they have opposed to non religious families .
I was also wondering why various religions promote large families as what I watched didn’t go into that ? I find it fascinating but have nobody in rl to discuss it with !

I have a large family and often get criticised and I was thinking - can this now be shut down if I say ‘it our religion ‘ when questioned even if it’s not !

Yes, that’s true up to a point. Though Africa still has a very high birth rate. African women have an average of four or five children. In fact, Africa’s birth rate is so high its population is going to double by 2050.

You are right, though, about people living longer. But surely that is yet another reason to bring down the birth rate. Pretty soon, we will have senolytic drugs and various other things to slow the ageing process. We may even be able to reverse ageing via regenerative medicine. Big money is being invested in this stuff, and serious people are working on it. Indeed, by the middle of the century the average lifespan could rise to 130 or even 150. If that happens, there will HAVE to be a law on how many kids you can have.

I would also like to know this

I don't think it is under attack per se, but certainly there is little incentive to ahdere to the conventional male/female nuclear family for lower income households in a secular context (given that most people live together before getting married). There is a lot of incentive for middle class people as inheritance tax threshold is doubled if you are a couple/women who take career breaks can claim 50% of the house even if they don't pay towards the mortgage . However you actually need to be a home owner to enjoy these 'perks' of marriage. Yet at the same time, i guess women who are independently wealthy may not benefit as much (esp if they have to give away a lot of their assets to their ex in the event of a divorce) so in a sense, outside of the religious/cultural motives, marriage makes less sense even for such women.

If your partner has zilch, there is zero incentive to stay with him if he has no assets and has a low wage.. You are better off on your own and may possibly get some limited state help.. Thats why the Mumsnet refrain of LTB makes a lot of sense in this context. Its why most low income households are single parent households.

Maybe thats what the poster means when they say heterosexual marriage is under threat. There is zero incentive for lower income earners to stay in unhappy relationships (or even to marry in the first place; it just makes breaking up more expensive and there is zero assets to fight over). So for the portion of the population who are lower income and irreligious, marriage is often just an abstract concept. Its different for religious people/people from culturally conservative backgrounds- they tend to marry because they are expected to.

Maybe thats what the poster means when they say heterosexual marriage is under threat.

I doubt it somehow. * *

I don’t think you will find too many Orthodox Jewish families in the UK who have six or seven kids. Not among the Jews I know anyway.

You write a load of nonsense frankly. We didn’t marry because we were expected to we married because we loved each other and we really wanted to! You really do make me laugh with your silly assumptions

Are you capable of posting without insulting people?

That is the case for you, but i am talking about all this as a social phenomenon so your individual choices have little bearing on my analysis.

Marriage rates for lower income individuals have been falling for years in the western world. archive.nytimes.com/economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/marriage-is-for-rich-people/?_r=0

'A new report, by Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney of the Hamilton Project, looked at the decline in marriage rates over the last 50 years and found a strong connection to income. Dwindling marriage rates are concentrated among the poor — the very people whose living standards would be most improved by having a second household income.'

This was not the case in the early part of the 20th century and even for our grandparents and it can be argued that society was a lot more religious (as well as socially conservative) then. Rich and poor both married. Now the poor overwhelmingly don't marry and often just cohabitate. Do the poor in 2022 love their partners less than their ancestors in 1920? I think not but its because the poor now don't get much benefit from marriage?

also are you saying that religious people/people from Asian backgrounds love each other more than people from low income irreligious backgrounds? Cos they definitely marry at a much higher rate!

I am married too; in fact I got married at 22 and yes I married for love, but I also know that a big part of why i got married is because DH and I are both from fairly social conservative backgrounds where it is just not the done thing to cohabit-ate for years and not marry. I don't think we love each other more than people who are from a different background but choose to just live together and not marry.

I’m very pleased you’re married for life so why did you just say people marry because they’re expected to? I actually know people from Asian backgrounds and who actually live in Asia and there’s is a different way of looking at it. It is cultural and not religious

I am Jewish and its quite common for the ultra orthodox. Less common for mainstream orthodox- it tends to be 3-5. DH went to an ultra orthodox primary school and his family was the smallest at 4 kids!

You wouldn't come into much contact with the ultra orthodox.

Yes lots of same sex couples get married for that reason too.

well perhaps it was badly phrased but what I meant is that people from culturally conservative/religious backgrounds marry not simply because they love each other, but because there is social pressure as well as an expectation to marry if you want to be with someone in the long term (and possibly have children). I believe that in the secular world, there is less of an expectation and plenty of people have kids out of wedlock esp in the UK.

I am actually from a country where you need to be married (or above the age of 35) to buy a government apartment (and 85% of the population live in owner occupied government apartment and the private condos are millions; so its basically get married, wait until 35 or be rich if you want to be a homeowner). Of course all my cousins have married (including the ones who buy their homes on the private market) and I know of no one in my home country who live together out of wedlock (probably some expats do it! but certainly rare for locals). So I can see that for myself and my cousins, it is definitely an expectation. We were raised with the mindset that marriage is the ultimate goal if you are in a serious relationship with someone. Simply living together with someone is not good enough. my DH was also raised that way despite growing up in the UK.

I don't see this mindset in the secular world in the UK, plenty of people are happy if their kids live together with their partners in the long term. people do acknowledge there are some perks of marriage (but like i explained above, these perks really only exist for the property owning middle class). I suppose everyone loves a wedding, but no one rational is going to be heartbroken if their DD/DS did not marry their long term partner.

@Kellie45 why are you accusing people of making assumptions when you are doing just that?

and also for the protection of marriage; for example, not having to pay inheritance tax when your spouse dies and being able to make important medical decisions on behalf of your spouse.

Also i guess its a relatively new novel thing- while the heterosexuals are falling out of love with marriage (as a whole), the gays are embracing it!

Depends on how religious they are. One of our friends in the community has 15 children

Now you are just making assumptions! 😀

No @Kellie45 Im just stating facts.

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@Kellie45

Are you the poster who was defending Margaret Court and trying to justify apartheid on the other thread?