Taken to the extreme of role reversal, it used to be that a woman who had lost her virginity before marriage was seen as undesirable.
Today, however, male desirability is based on being not just debt free, but having a good job, material wealth, and the willingness to sacrifice it all to a wife and children. His reward being to be seen as conforming to social standards that offer him little else.
Legally, his wife controls their marriage, and if she decides to end it, she gets what he has, and he is obligated to support her and any children they produced, even if he is not left enough to survive.
If he chooses the bath of bachelorhood, he will be bitterly attacked, but he will retain his autonomy and wealth, will be able to live in comfort instead of poverty, and he will be free of the demands put on a married man.
He may even see this as the honorable course. That unless he can support a family, he shouldn’t start one, because that wouldn’t be fair to them.
“Legally, his wife controls their marriage, and if she decides to end it, she gets what he has, and he is obligated to support her and any children they produced, even if he is not left enough to survive.”
To me this seems to be the biggest reason for the end of marriage/families; the young people today are often from the broken homes of yesterday, and the males see nothing enviable about the positions the men in their life were in twenty or thirty years ago.
“If he chooses the bath of bachelorhood, he will be bitterly attacked, but he will retain his autonomy and wealth, will be able to live in comfort instead of poverty, and he will be free of the demands put on a married man.”
He will see benefits from that lifestyle, and the bloodline ends while he subsidizes many other people’s children. Marriage/children aren’t for everyone, but it has to be for SOMEONE.
I agree. That's how I see it!
My son's biggest complaint is finding a woman who doesn't swear like a sailor in a normal conversation, and we are in a good part of town.