Another Reason to Remain Unmarried and Free

There are many reasons to stay unmarried, and I've listed some of them before here.

I've also discussed how Free Men can be morally superior to married men.

I recently realized another very important reason for men to remain unmarried and free.

I've seen repeated claims that we can't be sure a woman who is performing on a webcam isn't being trafficked. By the very same thinking, we can't be sure any woman who we'd marry isn't being trafficked into the marriage. She might say she's not, but maybe that's because she's being threatened to say she isn't.

There is a long history of trafficking fueling marriage and marriage fueling trafficking. Marriage wouldn't be where it is today without trafficking, and trafficking wouldn't be where it is today without marriage.

So, men, the only way to be sure you're not perpetuating trafficking of brides is to avoid marriage.

Stay free, men!

Answering Marriage Seller Assertions, Talking Points, and Questions - Part 1

 

 Marriage sellers are varied. The ones I'm familiar with include:

• religionists (who are usually trying to get you to marry within their denomination or cult, but if you're not going to they at least want to behave in their approved way)
• sociologists who are likely to be religionists or dependent on them for funding/publicity
• your mother
• Dr. Laura Schlessinger
• Michael Medved (basically a combo of his wife being a sociologist and them being religionists)
• Dennis Prager (religionist, but might be a religionist because of his emotional fixation on marriage)
• Matt Walsh (religionist)
  

While I list specific names here, most of the tactics they use to sell marriage are used broadly by marriage sellers that might include your aunt or your pastor. Just to be clear, I am what many people would call a religionist. I'm a Bible-believing, praying, churchgoer. But since I do read my Bible, I'm aware that there is no clear Biblical command in effect for all Christians to marry, certainly not for them to get a license to do so from a secular state.

If you're going to discuss why most men should avoid marrying, especially if you're going to have an audience, it might drive the point home if you say "terrible state contract" instead of "marriage."

I plan to post [have since posted] a series providing answers and responses to common talking points of marriage sellers.

I'm starting with a very common one used by almost all of them.

Married men earn more, are wealthier, are happier, are healthier, live longer, and have more sex.

Response:

Like so many claims of marriage sellers, these claims rest almost entirely on perceived correlations and statistical trickery, not provable causation. Marriage sellers want you to think that if you marry, you'll be better off in all those ways. However, what is really going on here is that all unmarried males are lumped together, including divorced men and men who are unable to attract a wife. Women are more likely to marry and stay married to a man who has/earns more money, is happier, is healthier, and with whom she is having a lot of sex. Poor, sickly, unhappy men are less likely to be having a lot of sex or attracting or keeping a wife. Also, males who die young are less likely to have married. Duh!

These claims never separate out men who have their act together and intentionally avoid marriage. Many of them are better off financially, have better overall well-being, and have more and better sex  than most husbands. Plus, they are free, with their residences and overall life the way they want, not the way some woman wants.

What marriage sellers don't point out about finances is that my never-married counterpart only has to earn 51% of what I do to be better off financially than me, and doesn't spend money on goods and services that aren't to his personal benefit; he gets to make all spending decisions for his earnings, and nearly everything he buys is less expensive because he only needs to buy for himself.

The one thing I'm willing to concede is that a wife nagging her husband to go to the doctor can help him live longer. However, men can be nagged to go to the doctor without signing a terrible state contract. I cut out the "middlewoman." Also, consider: What are those extra months/years like? Should a man trade a lifetime of freedom for those months?

The fact that married men are taller is a clue of what is going on with these statistics. Marrying won't make you taller. Women marry taller men.

The fact that divorced men are usually lumped together with all other unmarried men is misleading. Family laws, family courts, ex wives, and their lawyers often work a man over, leaving him in terrible shape, at least for a while; even before divorce, marriage might have hurt him a lot, but since he escaped or was dumped his conditions are attributed to the "unmarried" in the stats.

It’s dangerous to imply or outright tell someone that signing a terrible state contract or marrying will make them better off or happier. When it doesn’t, they might make their spouse or others miserable or otherwise harm them.

That's a lot to say. If you only have a few seconds, say:

None of those studies separate out men who have intentionally avoided marriage, who can be much better off than most husbands.

Read Part 2 here.

Unmarried Men: You Need to Get or Stay Scarce Until At Least February 15

Unmarried men, if you've been staying scarce for the last month or two when it comes to any woman who was thinking of you as husband material, keep up the good work!

For those of you who spent December and the holidays with such a woman, you really need to get with the program NOW!!!

You DO NOT want a woman trying to make you her husband, and so you need to get or stay scarce. Be busy. Be "sick."

There are ads on television, radio, and websites/apps right now trying to get men to plan romantic evenings and buy expensive items because February 14 exists. NO NO NO!!!

Don't be so ignorant, delusional, or masochistic that you're thinking you want to be exclusive to a woman.

Don't Go Further Down That Ladder

During his Male-Female Hour on Wednesday, January 25, 2023, Dennis Prager again tried to fool men into legally marrying.

This time, he did it under the guise of asking people who lived together before marriage what the difference was after they married.

Except he didn't leave it at that.

He asked men if they really want to go through life saying "This is my girlfriend" instead of "This is my wife."

See, he has an emotional fixation or being married and being a husband that he picked up very early in his childhood, and so that's a compelling argument to him. People who think through it rationally might say, "Yes, I'd rather keep saying that." or "We can all each other whatever we want. Nobody in our life ever asks to see a marriage license or wedding photos. So I can call her my wife without getting a terrible state contract."

He added that adults have wives and husbands, children have boyfriends and girlfriends.

Says who??? Again, this is his emotional fixation at work. Dr. Laura callers make a point of calling their spouse their boyfriend or girlfriend. (There are some things I would PAY to hear Dennis Prager and Dr. Laura discuss together.)

He said getting married is announcing to the world that you are committed.

Here comes one of his favorite phrases: "So What?"

Most people understand and accept that people who are living together, even people who aren't living together but consider themselves a couple, are committed in the sense that, unless they have indicated they swing or whatever, they are off-limits to new love interests. If one is being invited to an informal engagement, the other is being invited unless it was planned as "no partners."

As Dennis knows, anyone can divorce at any time. Getting legally married is committing to nothing more than a shift in wealth - usually from a man to a woman. That's the only commitment.

People can make an announcement of their commitment without a ceremony, without a terrible state contract.

Dennis asked what the argument for NOT marrying is if you've been living together for years, but he kind of answered his own question: the state contract is terrible.

He argues that living together unmarried is different than living together married. If he wasn't emotionally fixated on being married no matter how many divorces you've had, the answer is in his declaration: living together unmarried is different than being married. Some people are going to prefer living together unmarried. We all know Dennis doesn't. But most men don't have the emotional fixation he does.

Kudos to the last caller, who said his faith took him away from remarrying after his wife and the mother of his children divorced him.

As I've made clear repeatedly on this blog, I think shacking up generally a bad idea (although, there are situations in which is preferable to legally marrying.) So, I'm not defending unmarried cohabitation. Rather, I'm tired of Dennis Prager trying to fool men into legally marrying. He wants men to go further down that ladder. I don't.