{"id":21846,"date":"2019-01-12T12:35:38","date_gmt":"2019-01-12T17:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=21846"},"modified":"2019-01-12T07:52:01","modified_gmt":"2019-01-12T12:52:01","slug":"jeff-and-mackenzie-bezos-talk-about-how-much-they-value-each-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/01\/12\/jeff-and-mackenzie-bezos-talk-about-how-much-they-value-each-other\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos talk about how much they value each other…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

… but show that they don’t value marriage per se<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The jointly signed tweet<\/a> from the soon-to-be-divorced Amazon founder and wife is full of mutual praise. These two people say that they’re friends, so presumably they like each other. Mr. Bezos earned more than $130 billion that the two friends could spend during their years together, for which they say they are both “grateful.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation in which they found themselves, thus, was one where they had near-infinite spending power and were free of any forced disagreeable associations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They’re not divorcing because they were miserable, in short, due to poverty or arguing. They’re divorcing because one or both believe that yet greater life enjoyment can be achieved without the encumbrance of marriage to the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doesn’t that make their commitment to marriage contingent on “until I can find something at least slightly better”?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If someone says \u201cI love my Honda Odyssey, but the new Sienna has an extra cupholder so I am trading in the Honda,\u201d you wouldn\u2019t consider that person an example of brand loyalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A woman in our home suburb said that she was divorcing her husband because he was abusive and addicted to alcohol and\/or drugs (not so bad that he couldn’t go to work every day!). So she showed that she was committed to the idea of marriage, but had to escape this particular intolerable situation for the safety of her four children (who would, after she pulled the ripcord, be guaranteed to spend 4\/14 nights completely unsupervised with the addict). [Once the cash was flowing, though, it turned out that when she was busy with Tinder dates the addict was the go-to babysitter for the brood of four.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Readers: What do you think? Does the act of talking up the value of the to-be-ex have the effect of talking down the value of permanent marriage? (And what does \u201cmarriage\u201d mean in a jurisdiction offering no-fault on-demand divorce?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related:<\/p>\n\n\n\n