Does Capitalism Hate Single People?
From taxes to travel and milk cartons in bulk: If you’re single, you’re being penalized for it
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Singledom is appallingly expensive. Period. You pay more if you fly, sleep or eat by yourself. Not to mention if you’re carrying the full burden of a mortgage and insurance premiums, then it all adds up for us singletons. But why the penalties? Well, they are the high price one has to pay if one is not part of a couple.
Societies are purposely designed for married people. Around the world, a lot of people suffer from institutionalized singlism. The discrimination of individuals based on marital status seems to be the rule. Still today, in the western world, being married is considered a social good. But, why does capitalism and why do governments hate single people?
For example, the U.S. Federal code states that: “The President may prescribe rules which shall prohibit… discrimination because of marital status”. Yet, at the same time, there are more than 1,000 laws providing overt legal or financial incentives and benefits to married couples. Studies have shown that marital privileges marginalize around the 50 percent of Americans who choose to remain single. One reason these policies exist is to encourage people to get married. Regulations are rigged to encourage and reward a coupled lifestyle.
Studies have even found that society views unmarried people unfairly. In a paper written by Bella M. DePaulo and Wendy L. Morris and published in the Psychological Inquiry, 49% of participants described married people as “kind, caring, or giving” and only 2% of participants came up with the same characteristics for single people. Single people were however viewed as more “independent and open-minded.”
Governments are the main perpetrators, offering couples breaks on their income taxes, Social Security benefits, and IRA benefits, with private companies following the lead. Whenever you look there’s an offer for couples “only”: big supermarkets chains where bulk buying is the rule and cruises with all expenses paid designed exclusively for lovebirds. Let’s face it, capitalism puts those who are single under enormous financial pressure, I suppose with the aim that we marry and procreate, therefore spending more on having…
