And you get societal approval for those acts. A long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away) ambitious men couldn’t get far unless he toed the line on morality, householding and other matters. If a professional man were caught in the arms of a prostitute, in a compromising situation, or sometimes in the throes of divorce, he could wave goodbye to his professional ambitions. A man who wasn’t married, respectable and who with his wife was not contributing to the local community was looked at as weird or dangerous and not properly a candidate for promotion in the company. Between the difficulty of getting “whoopie” and the professional pressure to be married, men usually opted for marriage.
Since then, professional life and private life has been decoupled and, not too often, a family is considered an unwanted anchor dragging on a professional man. The family man resists working long hours or frequent transfers. He is a burden to the benefits offered by the company. In the legal profession, as an example, law firms stopped hiring only those associates it considered worthy of eventual partnership and started hiring more than they needed and gauging the internal competition among the associates to determine partnership offers. Expected billable hours skyrocketed and the firms reaped the benefit from increased profits. Married men couldn’t compete on the same level as single men and maintain their marriages.
So now marriage is little more than an accessory to many younger people, to be used or discarded as needs or desires dictate, which is truly sad because anyone who truly knows the institution of marriage for what it can be knows it takes years of hard work and practice to create that masterpiece that marriage can and should be. (Incidentally, because the article was framed in terms of men, I addressed it as such but the same applies to women.)
“And you get societal approval for those acts. A long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away) ambitious men couldn’t get far unless he toed the line on morality, householding and other matters. If a professional man were caught in the arms of a prostitute, in a compromising situation, or sometimes in the throes of divorce, he could wave goodbye to his professional ambitions. A man who wasn’t married, respectable and who with his wife was not contributing to the local community was looked at as weird or dangerous and not properly a candidate for promotion in the company. Between the difficulty of getting “whoopie” and the professional pressure to be married, men usually opted for marriage.”
You nailed it.
Very good points.