Dennis Prager's Obsession With Marriage Clouds His Thinking

Dennis Prager is has an extremely strong emotional fixation on marriage. He's so worried that someone might have a great life without being married that he wants everyone to get married before that can happen, and if that marriage fails, to get married again, as soon as possible. Lather, rinse, repeat. He apparently dismisses or refuses to accept that there are valid reasons someone might not want to legally marry, much less marry at all. This is one reason he's in his third marriage.

He advocated for marrying again with his Wednesday, July 27, 2022 "Male/Female Hour," which he calls the most honest talk in media about the subject of men and women, even though he's never had a marriage striker on during that hour.

His advocacy for signing that terrible state contract was presented as a discussion about whether or not people who are dating each other rather than married or at least engaged can require the same level of fidelity as being married (or engaged). He thinks even if someone has been dating just one other person regularly for years (maybe even shacking up or with kids together - he never addressed that) there is no obligation to NOT date them as a new dating partner. Because, you know, the new love interest might marry them, and that's what REALLY matters to Dennis Prager, even though, quite obviously, the marriage might not last.

Now, I am of the mindset that nobody should assume monogamy, and I'd advise most men decline to agree to monogamy unless they're foolish enough to marry or raise children. But I must reply to some of Dennis Prager's statements.

High School Reunions and Keeping in Touch With Classmates

Does your high school class have reunions? Does your high school have general reunions or have an alumni association that does? Should you go to them?

With social media, we can keep in touch with any classmates or fellow alumni we want to. Still, there can be a social dynamic that happens with in-person mingling with a wider mix of classmates that can't happen on social media or meeting up with just a few classmates.

Obviously, if high school was hell for you because you had few friends or positive acquaintances, you don't have a good reason to go - other than to show off and rub it into the faces of those who mistreated you or rejected you that you're successful/happy now, if you are.

That brings me to three reasons why you might go, in no particular order.

1) To hook up

2) Business networking

3) To show off

If you'd have to travel, you have to think if it is worth it. Reunions, like Proms, have been given mythical status by Hollywood, but for most people they don't amount to much of anything.

Have a bunch of old friends you want to get together? You can set that up outside of an official reunion.

Whether wanting to hook up, get a job, or sell something, you can have an edge simply because you went to the same high school (which usually means, simply because of where your parents chose to live at that time).

Let's talk about hooking up.

Positions Dr. Laura Takes That Might Surprise Some

Both critics and supporters of Dr. Laura who think she's some religion-driven ultraconservative might be surprised if they listen to closely to her radio program. It helps to understand that she's coming from a position of what is best for children and makes a good society, not pushing a right-wing or Religious Right agenda.

Let's look at what might surprise some people.

You Can Be Right or You Can Be Married

Have you ever heard that saying I used as the title of this entry?

Have you seen the exchange written in the picture to the left, or anything like it? Or experienced something like it?

When I got engaged, someone gave me a graph depicting a man's chances winning and argument. It starts at 50%, then goes to 25% when he gets engaged, then to 0% when he married.

How many times have you heard men told that the key to a happy marriage is to learn to say "Yes, Dear."?

Consider this letter from a listener to Dr. Laura:

Winning Isn't Everything

I have been married for 27 years, and I have a few thoughts to share about working through arguments with your loved one.

1.You should listen enough to at least let the other person articulate their issue or point of view.

2.Do not force the other person to listen if they don't want to!

3.Listen to YOURSELF so that you are not ever speaking too loudly, with harshness or even a hints of sarcasm.

4.It doesn't matter who wins - it's how both parties feel afterwards.

Sometimes being a good loser makes you both winners.

The letter is really good right up to the underlined part.

I realize that letter is to be considered by both husbands and wives, but the bulk of these things are directed at husbands. We're told in many ways that we're supposed to simply accept and/or announce that we're wrong even when there hasn't been a logical explanation that even demonstrates the possibility that we are. We're supposed to cater to unjustified or even irrational hostility, demands for apologies, and her claim of control, except where she has inconsistently and temporarily (and often silently) ceded some power back to us.

Correlation Isn't Causation: Lower Risk of Divorce in Religious Young Marrieds

"A study shows that religious people who marry young and didn't shack up are less likely to divorce!"

The people who tout this want you to believe that if you're religious and marry young, without shacking up, you'll have a lasting, happy marriage.

Well, it might last legally.

There are other studies, though, that show that among all people who marry, people who marry in their late twenties are less likely to divorce than people who marry before then.

What gives?

There's a hint in the fact that people who marry really young don't have the time to cohabitate before they marry. It's a bit like saying that there's a low cancer rate among people killed in school shootings.

Here's what's going on.

People who are so religious that they get married young (this avoids unmarried sex) without having shacked up are also going to be so religious as to think that divorce is a terrible sin (also, they are probably living where - geographically and subculturally - there aren't a lot of options for other partners/spouses should they divorce). So they stay married.

Now, you might ask if these really are happy marriages.

The same people who want you to believe it's a good idea to marry young without shacking up also will tell you these people who've done that report that they are happy (with their marriage).

Of course they do! Because:

1. They see the alternative as being a terrible sinner, a pariah if they were divorced, looked upon with disapproval by the people who have been most important in their life. They aren't comparing their marriage to true freedom or another marriage. They are comparing it to having lawyers and courts and shaming and gossip and no sex or affection or company at all.

2. Admitting to researchers that they are miserable, or even just less than very happy, with their marriage is considered sin (such as ingratitude).

3. If they have picked up any of the "Word of Faith" type thinking, they would think it is a "negative confession" to say their marriage isn't great; they think it would make their marriage worse to admit it.

So, what happens? They stay together, miserable, and deal with it by eating, drinking, antidepressants, golfing, watching football all weekend, maybe beating each other up, having affairs, suicide, etc.

I know these people. I've been around a lot of them. A lot of them will claim to be ever so happy in their marriage right up until the moment they file for divorce, or kill themselves, or admit to an affair, or worse. Yes, some of them will divorce, just later.

I discourage most men from legally marrying or from shacking up, but if you're going to marry, DO NOT DO IT until you've achieved your dream. Don't believe these misleading reports. Yes, it would be nice to have a wife who "doesn't believe in divorce" but not if it means misery.

Time

 
Time is limited.

Life goes by fast.

Memento mori.

I knew this from an early age. Unlike many other people my age when I was a kid, I wasn't always looking forward to being older. I knew that I was only going to be 11, 12, 13, etc. once. I knew that time moves in one direction. I suppose part of it is that I had a generally good childhood. My parents, for the most part, were really great parents. It wasn't all a bed or roses. But I look back on it mostly fondly, and I think my parents generally gave me a better childhood than my kids are getting.

Ask any lucid old person who isn't in constant unbearable pain, even someone on their death bed, and they'll tell you that life is short.

I'm at the age where I most likely have fewer years ahead of me than behind me.

I bring this up because it is one reason I encourage men (and women!) to be, stay, and enjoy independence. Enjoy life. Stay free. Don't waste your time.

There are things we must do even if we don't want. Others, not so much. For most men, what we now call marriage isn't what they really want to do, and they shouldn't. But this doesn't have to be about marriage. It can be about staying in a job when you are able to survive without it. Or putting up with a "friend" who brings more bad than good to our life, or trying to keep a relationship with a relative who isn't a good person, or continuing an activity that has lost overall benefit to you.

It's why you shouldn't put give scam calls/texts/emails or door-knocking salespeople or a movie you find lacking in purpose to you a second more time than absolutely necessary.

Time is slipping by. Each of us has less time in this life every second that goes by.

Life is short. Time is precious. Don't waste your time.

One Difference Between My Wife and Me

One of many differences between my wife and me is that if I had a spouse who enjoyed giving enthusiastic oral sex that culminated in orgasms, I'd let them do that daily, or at least every other day, rather than once every three-to-six weeks.

Sigh.

Dennis Prager Looks At Marriage Like a Job

Dennis Prager looks at marriage like a job. He has said so on multiple occasions. As with actual jobs, he thinks everyone should get married and to do so as soon as they can, they should leave the marriage (fire their spouse) if the spouse doesn't do their duties, and then get married again to someone else. Thus, it isn't hypocritical for him to be in his third marriage.

Most people need actual jobs because they need the compensation (money, benefits, etc.) Most men don't need to be married. Certainly, the compensation provided doesn't warrant the "labor."

Men like Dennis Prager and his former fellow Salem host Michael Medved like to portray men as hapless without a wife. Maybe they were hapless without a wife. Plenty of men can do just fine without one. It's never been easier! I was doing GREAT without a wife. Also the solution to men having difficulty thriving as unmarried is to teach them how to thrive while unmarried, not tell them to sign a terrible state contract.

Dennis Prager and those who think like him on this subject will say men have an obligation to marry, because it does things like tames them, makes them grow, and it is the best way to raise children (and they also see raising children as an obligation). But men can be tamed and can grow without marriage. They also see it as man's obligation to pay a woman's way through life so she won't be dependent on government, or at least pay her for sex, and they see marriage as facilitating that. Again, how about teaching women how to be independent? You can still pay women for sex without a terrible state contract. These things have been addressed at length on this blog before.

Dennis Prager sees marriage as a tool to get people to behave how he wants them to behave. I say there are better ways to handle that, including persuasion.

He is emotionally tied into the idea that being a husband makes a man better, going back to when he'd see the married men in his childhood religious congregation wearing shawls that the unmarried men didn't. It is so ingrained in his emotions and memories that he is unlikely to accept the present day realities for most men.

Author of Men on Strike Interviewed at NRO

[This entry is an interesting time capsule from September 2013. I'm bumping it up because it is interesting to me to go back and see what my observations and thinking were, and what was in media, at the time.]

* * * * * * *

I've heard two interviews with Helen Smith about her book Men on Strike, one by Tom Leykis and one by Michael Medved, who have very different goals and perspectives than each other. Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review Online interviewed Smith and the interview is up.

Most men who are consciously on a marriage strike are also going to avoid having (more) children and they will try to influence other men boys to do the same.

Obviously, if this idea catches on and sticks, it means fewer thinking, responsible, productive men getting married and raising children. That's a problem for governments, churches, and all of the people who depend on such men, especially dependent or lazy women, or women desperate to have children who do not want to raise them without a man. So some people have a bit of a panic about this.

Of course, the marriage strike can be ended if there is a successful effort to mitigate the concerns of the strikers. But how likely is that to happen?

Yes, I'm a Christian and I believe the Bible. The most persuasive Biblical argument I've heard that men are required to marry, if possible, and have children, is that we are told to go forth and multiply to spread God's image (that's people) all over the world. However, hasn't that been done? Mission accomplished in that regard. Taking the Bible as a whole, there simply is no requirement that men today marry and have children. What many Christian leaders will say is that men can't control themselves and since fornication is so awful, they should marry. A lot of these same people would tell me I got married with the wrong attitude because I married because I wanted to have sex (and because I wanted to be a father who gave his children the best circumstances I could.)

Some marriage strikers are Christian. Some are atheists, or have some other worldview. Some swear off women entirely, others indulge in fornication. Some have never had a desire to marry. Some have a desire to marry and have children, but that desire is trumped by their concerns about the legal system and culture. Some want to avoid marriage so they can goof off, others want to avoid marriage because it slows down their work as very important scientists. It's a diverse group.

Anyway, here are some excerpts of the interview:

LOPEZ: Who are “White Knights” and “Uncle Tims” and why are they a problem?

SMITH: White Knights are typically conservative men who are chivalrous and always trying to protect women and have no problem with biased laws that punish men while protecting women. Uncle Tims are generally liberal guys looking to get sex or political favors by being male sellouts to their own gender. They are the Bill Clinton types who crack down on their own gender, using biased laws such as sexual harassment while sleeping with women and using them.

Terms like "mangina" and "beta" get thrown around in some circles.

LOPEZ: How has the Obama administration curbed due-process rights of men on campus?

SMITH: The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights sent out a “Dear Colleague” letter in 2011 telling colleges that take federal funds that they should use a lower preponderance-of-evidence standard in sexual-assault cases. Basically it is “50 percent plus one,” meaning that a campus tribunal can decide a young man is guilty with less certainty than is needed in a criminal trial. Read the case of Judith Grossman’s son in the Wall Street Journal to find out more about how young men are believed to be guilty without a fair trial or real evidence.

Outrageous.

Ladies, do you care about your brothers? Your sons?

* * * * * * *

[Now I am more stridently in support of the marriage strike.]