When considering emigration, the topic of marriage was entirely dismissed by me, as migration was considered a purely personal project. Now I want to contemplate how migration affects everything concerning marriage.

By “marriage” can be understood different degrees of rapprochement. For some, marriage boils down to primarily sexual rights, for others it implies more or less shared housekeeping, and for many it’s simply relationships formalized in a state-issued official document.

Institutional pressure encourages people toward increasingly officially-registered marriages. A constant partner enjoys greater neighborly goodwill than a constant change of partners. Standard apartments are usually designed for two adults, so living alone in them is disproportionately expensive, while cohabiting with three – considerably less convenient. Finally, having a marriage certificate can reduce aggressive government pressure or even give the government some benefits.

If a person has adapted to these factors and entered into marriage, his life becomes organized, easier, more predictable and calmer, until circumstances change. And here, the rigidity of such a structure as officially registered monogamous marriage with joint housekeeping inevitably leads to fragility, since under new conditions everything needs to be restructured. Circumstances can relate to the personal emotional sphere – for example, a more attractive potential partner appears. They can – to economic, for instance, one of the partners changes their field of activity and income level. And they can – to relationships with the state, for example, one of the partners is mobilized into the army or begins to be persecuted for unenthusiastic thoughts.

The latter category of changes most often leads to such a step as emigration, although, of course, economic factors and personal ones can also influence this. At this stage, marriage is easily able to collapse. One partner decides to bail out, the other has never thought about it before and doesn’t plan it further, which means they will have to break up. The more actively the state stimulates one of the partners to leave, the fewer opportunities there are to civilly divide what has been acquired, and the greater the likelihood that you will have to leave with one backpack and a cherished “seed phrase” instead of illiquid assets, children and livestock left behind by those who don’t go anywhere. Life completely starts from scratch. Some find this quite convenient, others it completely breaks them, but in any case, now it’s not about marriage.

If the marriage withstood this test, new dangers threaten it. In a foreign country, much will be exaggerated by partners, and quite possibly – differently. Economic roles in the family can readily change places. This often happens due to the fact that higher incomes usually correlate with more specialized skills. As a result, someone who earned more at their previous position will find themselves without demand for their specialization on the new one, their income will decrease, and the second partner will become the provider.

Moreover, various preferences in lifestyle may emerge. For example, the customs of one partner will seem pleasant in the new location, while to the other they’ll seem unattractive. As a result, one will enjoy the new society, while the other will isolate themselves, old network contacts and nostalgia for their homeland. In short, even if both partners agreed that emigration was necessary, it might turn out that different countries are more suitable for them.

To top it all off, the factor of state pressure won’t disappear and on a new place either. It’s quite possible that one partner will be unwelcome to the receiving country, and he will require a new emigration, while the second has just started to settle in and is determined not to repeat the traumatic experience of moving.

In general, marriages in emigration break up much more frequently than they do at home – and this is despite the fact that people in the unfamiliar environment should ostensibly hold onto each other even tighter. This also happens, and joint trials can only strengthen relations.

So, people often go to emigration as unanchored individuals, or they become such after arriving on a new place. Of course, they seek out new partners among the immigrant community and local residents. This is facilitated by the same institutional pressure, however it may take unusual forms. For example, in the Balkans, locals tend to acquire Russian brides more often, while in impoverished countries of Southeast Asia – Russian grooms.

Also, in emigration, an official marriage certificate usually has much greater significance, since it’s typically one of the grounds for obtaining a residence permit, and in the case of marriage with locals – also citizenship.

However, a loner may, on the contrary, decisively refuse to make strong personal connections again if, for example, emigration forced him to experience their painful breakup. In this case, he will be looking for something lighter and generally trying not to get involved in anything. This is also quite rational behavior, although, of course, if a person manages to find themselves a full new homeland, then over time everything else will come into play. Let’s wish these people that their new homeland does not disappoint them like the old one.

In conclusion, I want to recall the thesis from the previous article – that for a successful emigration, it’s useful to travel with a head start, arriving in an established community of ideologically like-minded people. Such a community will accelerate all processes related to your marriage. If your marriage proves unsuitable for the new country, then with a community present, it will break up faster. If you are worthy of each other, the community will even strengthen your bond further, giving you fertile ground for joint activity. Finally, if your marriage breaks up and you’re looking for a long-term or fleeting alliance, you’ll have more chances to find one in the community.

Anyway, whatever your fate turns out to be, remember that every voluntary decision you make is intended to change a less preferable state into a more preferable one. And if you understand anything about life, you’ll take more correct decisions than wrong ones, and therefore everything will be fine for you.

A Little Theory

In his time, the article by Savva Shanaev “Mathematics in Defense of Libertarianism” made a strong impression on me. It presented various models of agent behavior, exploring how they seek to minimize personal costs through democratic reforms, migration, or secession. The modeling results indicated that public costs decreased most rapidly when individuals exercised “vote with feet,” and that democratic mechanisms played only a supplementary role. Regarding secession – the formation of a new jurisdiction – it functioned effectively only with significant local self-sufficiency.

Naturally, this model’s effectiveness depends on minimizing the cost of status changes; therefore, the article framed it as an argument for extraterritorial contractual jurisdictions. However, analyzing how these three jurisdictional change options function in reality reveals that secession or a state transition via democratic means is incredibly expensive, lengthy, and requires coordinating numerous individuals. Migration, conversely, remains cheaper and effective even when it’s a purely individual undertaking.

Applying Theory to Real Immigration

When considering relocating to another country, people often focus solely on the relationship between an individual and the state. Consequently, they select countries where the state is perceived as benevolent and offering superior conditions. This severely restricts their choices, often to nothing, leaving them in their current location. Some substitute the state with a corporation for which they intend to work, assuming it will provide immigrants with all necessary support. This is valid until a job offer arrives from a reputable company. However, according to Shanaev’s model, any local community with its own rules – including those pertaining to collaborative problem-solving – can function as a jurisdiction. Such communities provide far greater opportunities for actively voting with your feet in pursuit of a better life. A corporation might hire you today and lay you off tomorrow; the state may welcome you today and deport you tomorrow. Individuals whose values aligned with yours at the time of joining the community will only begin to irritate you if those values change within the community, or if your own evolve.

In principle, the community is completely unnecessary to relocate to a new country if it can instead geographically isolate itself and remain in an old one. But specifically in РФ, this would be a dubious decision. Firstly, the cost of relocating to another part of the country may not be lower than the price of moving to another state, simply due to the immense scale of Russian Russia. And secondly, the Russian state is extremely suspicious of organized communities and will pursue any cohesive group for the mere fact of cohesion, regardless of loyalty to the current course of the state.

Some Observations and Recommendations

I, of course, assume that the target audience for this article is libertarians. However, libertarianism may not be your primary identity. For example, you might primarily consider yourself a streamer. Or a chemist. Or a vegan. Basically, your wishes regarding the surrounding order can be quite specific, but whether they are sufficiently libertarian remains secondary to you compared to the width of the internet channel, the frequency of tournaments, or the availability of tofu.

Therefore, before deciding to go to a certain place, you can always first familiarize yourself with local public chats and similar resources to try to feel the vibe of that place. Of course, all legal restrictions are important, as even if there are ways to circumvent them, this still means additional hassle and risks. And of course, it’s best when there is an opportunity to first come for reconnaissance, sniff the air, get to know the local community, understand how they live, and how comfortable it would be to join them.

Of course, there are those whose activity is almost entirely focused on the network. Their income – online. Their friends and like-minded people – online. The entire context of their communication is also online. They require only an inexpensive, comfortable environment and fleeting acquaintances from the offline world. This approach greatly expands the choice of countries, and if income and temperament allow, you can freely roam the world based on the weather at the window, discounts on tickets, and fleeting whims.

It’s the most difficult thing for those with strong offline attachments. Usually this is elderly parents and various pets. Exactly for such people the choice between their interests and the interests of loved ones is usually unambiguous: of course, you have to sacrifice your own. If you are one of these, it will be difficult to convince you; I suspect that you are only hiding the interests of loved ones, while actually just fearing any changes. And therefore, changes will catch up with you right on the spot. Practice shows that people move in families and with pets; there would be a desire to.

And there’s another category you should say something about. It’s enthusiastic idealists. They have a clear idea of how things *should* be. They get infected with the idea of moving to a community of like-minded people, they throw everything away and go. And at the new place it turns out that everyone around is just down-to-earth, no circles are formed around them, no hymns are sung in the mornings. Disappointed, they return just as quickly, spending a huge amount of resources on their wanderings and harboring bitter resentment towards those they were so recently charmed by. If you recognize one of these on online resources of your community, ban him immediately, without waiting for him to arrive. It will be much easier for everyone. If you recognized yourself in this description (which is unlikely), then accept my sympathy: I don’t know how to help you. Try to practice stuffing your head with ideas, without putting everything on the line all at once.

Brief Conclusions

Emigration is a quite radical step that allows you to build a life in a new place, with new people, according to new principles. The more readily people are willing to emigrate, the better the world around them begins to conform to their values.

When emigrating “to the state,” a libertarian chooses from kinds of shit. It’s much more logical to emigrate “to a community,” presenting only minimal demands for the state so it doesn’t stink too much, while studying potential future friends and neighbors with much greater care.

The latter applies to those who have already formed an emigration community: don’t call everyone in indiscriminately. The person who is obviously not going to fit in can usually be recognized even at the stage of preliminary acquaintance. Even a totalitarian sect cannot cut out each neophyte, and libertarians all the more so.

Mishsha Oreshnikov, whom I happened to write about in connection with his experiments in anarchic law enforcement against government officials, asked me to comment on an article from a tiny channel that he runs among many others to create the appearance of mass support for ethnic separatism in Russia.

The article, however, has nothing to do with ethnic separatism, but is instead devoted to “traditional values.” In fact, it is part of the political program of the Bulgar Confederation.

The text, written in a simplistic style, lets the reader know that if anyone needs spiritual anchors and good demographics, they should look to the rugged rural libertarians, and that we Bulgars have no need for these megapolises, where breeding grounds for cultural Marxism naturally form.

Don’t think the worst; the author does not advocate for any forced eviction from cities—merely for a ban on the redistribution of taxes between locations. Let the size of a settlement be determined by the value it generates, not by how much value it is capable of looting. He discusses this in other chapters of the program.

In short, I invite those interested to get acquainted with the rugged Bulgar libertarian program. There were two libertarian parties in Russia, and now, it turns out, a third, local one has emerged. In any case, its formal status is exactly the same as that of the first two: as far as the state is concerned, none of them exist.