Posted on 10/12/2015 8:32:47 AM PDT by Salvation
A 2012 report on men and marriage by the Pew Research Center shows statistically what many of us have noticed anecdotally: men are finding marriage less desirable than in the past and are now marrying later, if at all.
In today’s post I want to present some excerpts from a hard-hitting article that appeared at Lifesite News in 2013, commenting on the Pew study. The full article can be read here: Men Giving Up on Marriage.
As usual, I present the text from the original article in bold, black italics, while my own poor commentary is in plain red text.
Fewer young men in the US want to get married than ever. … The number of young adult men saying that having a successful marriage is one of the most important things dropped from 35 percent to 29 percent [since 1997].
The latest census data showed “barely half” of all adults in the United States are currently married, a “record low.” Since 1960, the number of married adults has decreased from 72 percent to 51 [percent] today and the number of new marriages in the U.S. declined by five percent between 2009 and 2010.
Moreover, the median age at first marriage continues to rise, with women getting married the first time at 26.5 years and men at 28.7 [years]. The declines in marriage are “most dramatic” among young adults. Just 20 percent of those aged 18 to 29 are married, compared with 59 percent in 1960.
In my mere 26 years of priesthood, I have seen the number of weddings I perform each year decrease from 35 to 5, and the average age of engaged couples increase from 24 to 31. These are startling changes, and they largely match those experienced by other priests with whom I have discussed the matter.
29 percent of young adult men desiring marriage is an amazingly low figure. The article notes that the things that once motivated men to marry in the past are largely in eclipse now. Men once enjoyed the esteem they garnered by marrying, and were motivated by the challenge of being breadwinners. Getting married was once a proper and approved way of attaining status, and legitimately enjoying sexual intimacy. It was part of the passage to manhood.
But today, many (if not most) women don’t need (or don’t think they need) men to provide for them economically. It’s goodbye to any notion of the esteem of being a provider.
Further, in an age of promiscuity, most men don’t need marriage to open the door to sexual encounters. Only a few “old-fashioned” Catholic priests and traditionalist Catholics raise any eyebrows at men’s “playing the field.” And women as a group (with certain notable exceptions) seem less insistent on expecting men to connect sexual intimacy and marriage.
Add to this the financial bondage introduced by the racket that college education has become. Many young people graduate from college with six-figure debt. And when undergraduate degrees no longer open doors, advanced degrees became necessary, bringing on even more debt.
And finally, add one more thing: pornography. It is more available than ever before. And though it is theoretically more privately accessible than previously, I would point out that there is nothing private about the Internet; Internet service providers know every site you have ever visited.
Sadly, many young men honestly admit that they prefer pornography to real women. Pornography doesn’t talk back or have preferences or moods. Real relationships are complex and require navigation and negotiation. Pornography, it would seem, is a narcissistic paradise. Click through to your current preference; it’s all about you and what you want. And at the end, the object of your fantasy disappears and does not have issues or attitudes with which you must deal.
The overall image is of a cauldron, filled with a witch’s brew or a satanic stew. That men and women marry at all today is increasingly miraculous. I always make a point of congratulating and thanking engaged couples that get to my rectory door for beating the odds and having the gumption to swim upstream.
Pew’s findings have caught the attention of one US writer who maintains that feminism, deeply entrenched in every segment of the culture, has created an environment in which young men find it more beneficial to simply opt out of [marriage] entirely
Suzanne Venker [in her] article, “The War on Men,” … points out that for the first time in U.S. history, the number of women in the workforce has surpassed the number of men, while more women than men are acquiring university degrees. …
With feminism pushing them out of their traditional role of breadwinner, protector, and provider—and divorce laws increasingly creating a dangerously precarious financial prospect for the men cut loose from marriage—men are simply no longer finding any benefit in it. …
“When I ask [men] why, the answer is always the same: women aren’t women anymore.” Feminism, which teaches women to think of men as the enemy, has made women “angry” and “defensive, though often unknowingly.”
“Men are tired,” Venker wrote. “Tired of being told there’s something fundamentally wrong with them. Tired of being told that if women aren’t happy, it’s men’s fault.”
Most men I know perceive that they are often considered by the wider culture as deficient, even depraved. The “men are stupid” commercials and sitcoms abound. Men are often presented as buffoons, who need women and children to “set them straight” on the simplest of things.
Schools, dominated by feminist ideology, have made a pathology of the normal behavior of boys, which includes competition and roughhousing. They seek to feminize boys, going even so far as to encourage medication for them. Most of these boys merely have the spit and vinegar that was once considered normal, needing to be curbed somewhat rather than suppressed with drugs.
It is little wonder that fewer young men make it to college and are falling behind young women in almost every category. Being told (even indirectly) on a regular basis that you are fundamentally flawed has a significant effect over time.
The article says that feminism has emboldened many women to direct suspicious anger toward men and generally presume that they have bad or evil motives. But it has also caused a lot of men to draw back from the healthy confidence that once bolstered them to go out and seek a wife and to take a leadership role in the community, the Church, and the family.
A feminist culture in effect shames these desires as being “patriarchal.”
This is a situation that should not be celebrated by feminists, Venker says. “It’s the women who lose. Not only are they saddled with the consequences of sex … The fact is, women need men’s linear career goals … in order to live the balanced life they seek.”
Yes, in the end it’s usually the biology that kicks in. Truth be told, men and women are meant to be complementary not competitive. Our very body bespeaks a difference that requires the opposite sex to complement it. The design of women’s bodies speaks to bearing children and nurturing them.
A woman who wants to have and raise children well needs time and flexibility. The 9-to-5 career world does not facilitate that. Thus her husband complements her need by taking up the linear and less-flexible career world, leaving her freer to nurture the children.
This used to be obvious to us. But ideology is often disinterested in the obvious. It may be true that we were once too restrictive, limiting certain jobs and careers to men. But for most women, the freedom to work has become the duty to work, even in the childbearing years. It’s a raw deal for everyone: women, men, and especially children.
The bottom line is, it’s never good for anyone, or for civilization as a whole, when huge numbers opt out of or find no access to our most fundamental building block: the traditional family. We must save traditional marriage if we stand any chance of saving our dying civilization.
For further reading, consider Men and Marriage by George Guilder and Eggs are Expensive, Sperm is Cheap by Greg Krehbiel.
There was an article on First Things a while ago about the sexual economics of marriage.
In short, it is now a luxury good. The immediate cost of a lower to lower middle class woman with children getting married to a working man is huge. Most women don’t want to lose that.
Also, most men have access to other sources of sexual gratification, and see the costs of marriage as to high. When you can at any time loose most of what you own and any access to the children, may get cautious. When you see your friends go through it left and right, many stop playing altogether.
Which is why many single women in New York can’t even get a date, let alone a relationship.
I think those replacements for children are sad, but true. Also, are they sometimes the replacement for a spouse?
...no but a goat can....
Yes, until their father dies; then they may marry (late in life) so someone else can clean the snow off their cars...
I know. I try to find Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion and I almost always have to choose women.
Once a week there will be men, and I definitely ask them to serve.
Hmm Females having relations with goats, really? I thought females were attracted to the produce section.
My first wife cheated and put me into a financial crisis that took 25 years to get free. My second wife had a bipolar episode and took her life after five years of marriage leaving me with a three year old. I don’t think I want a third disappointment.
From The Gods of the Copybook Headings...
...On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
Kiping
Civil marriage as now constituted is actually a gay institution. I don’t see how anybody normal would want to have anything to do with it.
I guess it's not just me, then. That's too bad.
My life had been pretty good until Hurricane Manure rolled in and then stalled over my world for these last few.
Unfortunately, the "someday I'm gonna marry that girl" girl married the other guy not long after the hurricane started and I haven't dated or even looked for anyone to be with since, not until I was fairly sure the sh!t storms had definitely passed. Just didn't seem fair or right to bring someone new into that storm.
Now that the skies are a sunny, Carolina blue again, I've never had more to share and never been better nor better able than I am now, but this has to be one of the worst times in history to find someone to share with.
I hope God is a matchmaker. Otherwise, a rogue male I am and a rogue male I shall always be.
That reminds me, I need to find out how much net worth is required for a single man to be considered eccentric instead of crazy.
Whatever the amount, that's my new Five Year plan.
Most still get a preacher to preside, but they have to find one willing to do it at a venue that is not their church.
Any priest or preacher who will only conduct a wedding ceremony in their own church will have seen the number of weddings they officiate go down rather dramatically as the price they charge has gone from zero to thousands.
The women need to step up and admit responsibility to a great extent.
Feminism appeared and women wanted to be equal with men. So they got what they asked for. When so many women entered the workforce, companies loved it ‘cause they could, and would, pay females less but still enough to exist on at a basic level.
Men’s jobs diminished, both in quantity and pay. (Before feminism, a man could make a living adequate enough to support a family.)
The “qualities” women need to survive in the workplace as tough businesswomen carry over to the home and that isn’t pretty. Being a controlling hard-ass bitch in the office is one thing; in a mother and wife it’s intimidating and emasculating. (IMHO)
Feminism created monsters. Men don’t like monsters and logically will be “disinclined to marry” monsters. And women complain because they can’t find a husband. Boo hoo. Law of unintended consequences.
Sad, too, because I’ve heard that the Muslim countries are pretty much decreeing that their people must produce mass quantities of offspring to outnumber us.
Two of my five sons have no inclination to get married, or even date.
If you look at how children are raised now it’s understandable that two young people have a hard time in a committed relationship and don’t want to get married. Kids nowadays are raised to believe that they are special little snowflakes. As soon as they are big enough to sit in a highchair they are asked what they want for dinner. When they go out to dinner they’re allowed to run around an behave poorly. Parents don’t monitor or correct their behavior. The parents tell them they’re cute and creative.
Then the kids grow up and get exposed to a real job in the real world. They live with a girl/guy friend who has been as spoiled and indulged as they were. They’re no longer special and they no longer have parents catering to their every whim. No wonder they don’t want to get married. They’re not good marriage material.
Your not young you haven’t heard what old men are called or are you being funny...
...old men: old goats....has nothing to do with females...
1. In general, a good percentage of the women are whores. You can't trust them to be faithful anymore. 2. Hidden bi-sexuality or secual deviance. Kind of relates to # 1 butbthere are separate issues involved 3. Its a bad deal, financially, for men if there is a breakup. The women will take at least half plus kids and the father will be left paying child support for years. 4. Women's personalitities have changed. Thet are more assertive, aggressive, and competitive. This means more fighting in the household. Men don't need the hassle. Its hard enough just working and coming home to chores. 5. Feminization amd the emasculation of men by women and the MSM have created super-bit€he$ that men don't want to take the time to deal with. They're brutal tomthe ego (like we're supposed to have one anymore anway, right?). They're probably bisexual or lesbian anyway. 6. "Busyness"; people are so involved in their work, hobbies, and activities they don't have much time for intimate human contact anymore 7. Electronic devices; everything from cell phones to computers to yes, even B.O.B.s (boyfriends...: ) distract our attention away from direct, face to face communication with other people
My take anyway...: )
When my friend’s son got married three years ago, he insisted on a pre-nup with his fiancee.
That surprised me, as when I got married almost 40 years ago, such a thing was very rare.
But he owned a house and other things that he did not want to lose if a divorce occurred.
So far, everything has worked out, but I am old school and this still bothers me.
Maybe he was right, when I see what happens today to men.
1. In general, a good percentage of the women are whores. You can't trust them to be faithful anymore.
2. Hidden bi-sexuality or secual deviance. Kind of relates to # 1 butbthere are separate issues involved
3. Its a bad deal, financially, for men if there is a breakup. The women will take at least half plus kids and the father will be left paying child support for years.
4. Women's personalitities have changed. Thet are more assertive, aggressive, and competitive. This means more fighting in the household. Men don't need the hassle. Its hard enough just working and coming home to chores.
5. Feminization amd the emasculation of men by women and the MSM have created super-bit€he$ that men don't want to take the time to deal with. They're brutal tomthe ego (like we're supposed to have one anymore anway, right?). They're probably bisexual or lesbian anyway.
6. "Busyness"; people are so involved in their work, hobbies, and activities they don't have much time for intimate human contact anymore
7. Electronic devices; everything from cell phones to computers to yes, even B.O.B.s (boyfriends...: ) distract our attention away from direct, face to face communication with other people
My take anyway...: )
39 y/o single male here. It will be a cold day in hell before I ever subject myself to the possibility of being dragged in to the women-dominated, man-hating family courts. No way. The feminists had ruined marriage well before the fags did. I will cohabitate for as long as any woman can stand me (or vice versa) but have no intentions of ever getting a government-sanctioned marriage.
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