The marriage sellers are linking to "A Case For Getting Married" by Matthew Walther. It's at The American Conservative, so all of you who aren't conservative are already warned.
In the extended social circles to which I belong a great deal of agony surrounds discussions of the so-called “dating scene.” Men are so lazy and so childish, and just look at the icky things they tweet; women are impossible to approach, etc.
Guys running game often wait for women to approach them. Hot women hate to be ignored.
Right off the bat, this reveals something about the author, or at least the people he associates with: they are bad at dating, and so they are happy if they don't "have to" do it anymore. We hear the same thing from Michael Medved, who thinks all men are as hapless as he apparently was.
My own belief is that beneath all the other difficulties real and imagined is risk-aversion. The longer people wait to pair up in the hope of finding the “right” one, the likelier they are to become so settled in their habits—and so neurotic about the opposite sex—that no prospective partner will be capable of ticking all of the ever-increasing number of boxes.
So, don't grow into the kind of person who you are, give all that up to be molded by some woman who will likely divorce you.
It’s better to be young and poor and struggling.
Nope. The more successful a man is, the hotter the women he gets.
Speaking for myself, I can only say that the case for getting married young is that I was comparatively young when I met the woman with whom I knew I wished to spend the rest of my life.
How many men have written similar things and then five, ten, fifteen years later they are divorced? This guy has only been married seven years. I was married longer than that when I found out something about my wife that would have prevented me from marrying her in the first place.
He goes on to explain how he met the woman he'd marry (this time) at a university. She said something to him that was, as he says, "unsolicited advice":
“The world wasn’t made for you. You will never be able to change all the things that are horrible. You won’t even be able to do anything important in the world, not in the way you think when you read about Nelson or the Duke of Marlborough. The only thing for someone like you is family life.”
In other words, "You're not going to amount to much. Might as well sign over your earnings and freedom to me."
The path that led us from that night by the lighthouse to this year, the seventh anniversary of our marriage, was in some sense a long one. The abandonment of various long-gestating plans,...
Women are dream killers.
We also found out she joined "the Church." Catholic? Mormon? Either way, marriage-minded people should not be dating someone who isn't in their religion in the first place.
Amid all of these and many other things perhaps the only constant has been that we still prefer each other’s company to that of anyone else in the world.
It's only been seven years, but good for you. Many married people don't feel that way.
OK, so it's sweet and romantic. Good for them. But this one claimed (for now) success story is hardly a case for getting married. I can link to the Dead Bedrooms Reddit, or cite countless divorce filings, or any number of anecdotes about how awful marriage is.
As you know if you read this blog, DO NOT FALL FOR IT, GUYS!
Someone going by the name of "Impeach Biden" left this comment:
There is no case for marriage until the marriage laws are completely rethought and the incentives for divorce and illegitimate children are removed.
-60% of women file for divorce because they think they can get a better deal from divorce than being married and they are correct. A divorced woman will likely get alimony, the family house, the family car, the family furniture, child support, child custody (if not sole custody) and she is free to take her children and leave the state if the state doesnt give her what she wants. If she doesnt get what she wants from the divorce then she can get govt subsidies. Women say to themselves...why do I have to cook and clean and work and put of with the responsibilities of a relationship when I can have everything that I have married financially but without the responsibilities of a husband or making a marriage work. -So the spouse that files for divorce should be disqualified from alimony and child support.
-Many women lie about who the father is and its often only in a divorce that he finds out that he is not the biological father which should be a crime but isnt. Paternity tests should be mandatory to put a birth man's name on a birth certificate.
-From the point of view of the court, the child has already bonded with the father and thus even though its not his biological child the court still see's him as having the the paternal responsibilities for the health and welfare of the child. Well the court should have the same attitude over the health and welfare of a family and a marriage. You make it work or there will be legal and financial disincentives.
-There is only one other type of reform and that is a reform one can learn from gay marriages which do not involve children. Gay marriages jokingly are measured in dog years ( a 1 year anniversary is 7 years in a straight marriage). All joking aside, gay men enter a marriage with their own established credit, their own assets, their own furniture, their own car, their own IRA/401k, their own savings and checking accounts, etc....and they often do not intermix their finances as straight marriages do. Thus in the event of a gay divorce, its treated more like a divestiture from a business partnership. There is no alimony. There is little need for a lawyer to separate assets because the assets were never integrated. Gay men would be the first to tell you that there is no expectation that their spouse will take care of them for the rest of their life if they break up. As I see it...marriages without children will devolve into a civil partnership without the expectation of financial support after divorce. Most women today openly say they are equal to men yet they will not give up the societal privileges that women have in divorce court and family court when women were in disadvantaged positions (but women are not in disadvantaged positions anymore). Today more women are educated than men. Today there are more women that out earn men and women are already balking that men do not deserve lifetime financial support after a divorce if the woman is the higher earner.
Until the laws and the courts leave behind the laws that allow women to have an advantageous position in divorce and family court then the institution of marriage will never be a realistic basis to form a union or family.
-60% of women file for divorce because they think they can get a better deal from divorce than being married and they are correct. A divorced woman will likely get alimony, the family house, the family car, the family furniture, child support, child custody (if not sole custody) and she is free to take her children and leave the state if the state doesnt give her what she wants. If she doesnt get what she wants from the divorce then she can get govt subsidies. Women say to themselves...why do I have to cook and clean and work and put of with the responsibilities of a relationship when I can have everything that I have married financially but without the responsibilities of a husband or making a marriage work. -So the spouse that files for divorce should be disqualified from alimony and child support.
-Many women lie about who the father is and its often only in a divorce that he finds out that he is not the biological father which should be a crime but isnt. Paternity tests should be mandatory to put a birth man's name on a birth certificate.
-From the point of view of the court, the child has already bonded with the father and thus even though its not his biological child the court still see's him as having the the paternal responsibilities for the health and welfare of the child. Well the court should have the same attitude over the health and welfare of a family and a marriage. You make it work or there will be legal and financial disincentives.
-There is only one other type of reform and that is a reform one can learn from gay marriages which do not involve children. Gay marriages jokingly are measured in dog years ( a 1 year anniversary is 7 years in a straight marriage). All joking aside, gay men enter a marriage with their own established credit, their own assets, their own furniture, their own car, their own IRA/401k, their own savings and checking accounts, etc....and they often do not intermix their finances as straight marriages do. Thus in the event of a gay divorce, its treated more like a divestiture from a business partnership. There is no alimony. There is little need for a lawyer to separate assets because the assets were never integrated. Gay men would be the first to tell you that there is no expectation that their spouse will take care of them for the rest of their life if they break up. As I see it...marriages without children will devolve into a civil partnership without the expectation of financial support after divorce. Most women today openly say they are equal to men yet they will not give up the societal privileges that women have in divorce court and family court when women were in disadvantaged positions (but women are not in disadvantaged positions anymore). Today more women are educated than men. Today there are more women that out earn men and women are already balking that men do not deserve lifetime financial support after a divorce if the woman is the higher earner.
Until the laws and the courts leave behind the laws that allow women to have an advantageous position in divorce and family court then the institution of marriage will never be a realistic basis to form a union or family.
Of course other TAC commenters downvoted the comment and feebly responded in disagreement.
What's with this conservatives and their advice to marry? Even Jordan Peterson seems to want men to fall to this trap.
ReplyDeleteWant more marriege? See why people are avoiding it. Fix it and than demand that people marrie.
Personal responsibility my a** when marriege just invites the state to your affairs.
They think that marriage turns women into conservatives.
DeleteYou suggesting that they fix it reminds me that I've been mulling over a post that explains what will need to change for most marriage-striking men to call off their marriage strike.