Marriage Delay

Over at Biblical Manhood, you can find a substantial argument by Anakin Niceguy that men are not primarily to blame for delaying marriage - or not getting married at all. The rising average age that couples marry worries some advocates of early marriage and "marriage mandaters".

As I commented on the blog entry, I think the delay also has to do with how the workplace climate/job market has changed in recent decades.

Regardless of the faults of women or men, one reason for a delay in marriage is that it generally takes longer now for a man to become established to the point where he can financially provide for a family. These Early Marriage Mandaters think it is unrealistic that men will maintain purity if they marry later (and just who is interacting with men in these cases, hmmmmmm?) or not at all, but they don't think it is unrealistic for a man to marry, be a good husband and father (meaning, to them, always doing all of the things his wife wants him to do, cleaning up around the house, playing with the kids and changing their diapers, being there for breakfast and dinner) while AT THE SAME TIME completing his education... while already working in a job that earns enough income to provide for his family AND being active in church activities... and climb up the professional ladder while not "disrespecting his wife" by networking with female professionals.

Sorry... most of us do not live on isolated family farms anymore. Unlike our fathers and grandfathers, we are competing with women for seats in university/grad school classes and job openings and for payroll dollars. Getting professionally established often involves evening events or working late, working weekends, business trips, and relocations. It is also taking men (and probably women, too) longer to figure out who they are and what they want in life, especially with more choices than ever.

But getting back to what AN wrote...

I'm really hard pressed to argue to any childless guy who has been able to live well on his own or shacking up, has no desire to be a father, and has no qualm about sex outside of marriage (or, a low sex drive) why he should get married at all - and that seems to be a growing number of men.

As for men who are followers of Christ, I would still advise them (if they were to ask me) to be single and celibate and only marry only if a set of narrow circumstances are persistent. Those would include, among another things:

1) a desire on his part (not his family’s or anyone else's) that he be a husband
2) that he be in good standing to be a husband
3) he has found a woman he strongly desires with whom he is compatible and who likewise has a desire to be his wife and is in good standing to be a wife.

... but it seems like a confluence of those conditions seems to be more and more rare.

Yes, our grandparents were happily married for life starting at early ages, but grandma wasn't conditioned from an early age to disrespect and disparage men and normal masculinity. She didn't expect her husband to be just like one of her girlfriends, only with the ability to lift heavy objects, scare off some would-be predators, and open jars. She wasn't conditioned to expect she would have it all. She wasn't bed hopping. She didn't have old crushes and new smooth-talkers contacting her via online communications. She didn't have "no fault" divorce and all of the other family law elements that encourage nasty divorces and the spouse earning less income to file for divorce. Our grandparents usually didn't start out their adult lives facing many more years of school and massive debts. Grandpa could earn enough to support a family, even without college.

Our culture has changed, and marriage is not immune to those changes. An old-fashioned guy and an old-fashioned girl can get married young and have a happy and lasting marriage, but it is more difficult than ever for that to be the case.

I suppose men can be blamed for letting things get this way, because supposedly we once controlled everything with an iron-fist patriarchy, and if that is the case our fathers must have consented to these cultural shifts, presumably by letting their libidos overcome other internal influences and listening too much to the wrong women. Because now, the system definitely favors women in general, and when it comes to men, in general, it seems to reward the hedonist jerks and and punish the marriage-and-family-minded nice guys.

So if you are happily married to a godly wife or a godly man, thank God you have beaten the odds. That's the way I feel.