Marriage and tribal distinctiveness

Steve Sailer:

But, what Noah overlooks is the mechanism for maintaining tribal distinctiveness: loveless marriage. The Middle East is full of ancient groups like the Samaritans, the Yezidis, the Druzes, etc. because it is taken for granted that elders will arrange the marriages of the young, and will do it more to insure the ethnic identity and separateness of the tribe than the romantic fulfillment of the couple.

But that mechanism has been under cultural assault for at least 700 years in Western Europe, since the origin of "courtly romances" about true love.

Americans may be more likely to marry for love but that doesn't mean that those marriages will last longer:

Although the divorce rate in the United States has leveled off in recent years, it remains the highest in the industrialized world. In 1997, 4.3 divorces took place for every 1,000 people in the United States. This is the lowest figure since the late 1970s. The median duration of marriage in the United States has increased since 1970, rising from 6.7 years to 7.2 years in 1990. In Canada, each year 2.2 divorces take place for every 1,000 people. Remarriage after divorce has also been common in the United States, with a majority of both men and women remarrying within ten years. Since the 1970s the rate of remarriage has dropped in the United States and Canada. However, cohabitation has become widespread.

This reminds me of that old joke about the difference between herpes and true love is that herpes lasts forever.

Biocentric yuppiedom versus the West