Now, wait a minute!

A large number of child-bearing women are supposed to be too poor to marry. Marriage is supposed to be unrelated to childbearing. Indeed, marriage is supposed to be unrelated to whether the married persons are of opposite gender. So say the leftists.

But doesn't that imply that same-gender marriage is a means to discriminate against the poor? Shouldn't leftists be opposed to it? Where's the class struggle when you really need it?

Saying you won't get married because you can't afford the big wedding is like saying because you can't afford a Ferrari, so you won't buy a car at all. No one does that with cars, though.

I had assumed the idea that one can be too poor to marry was going to be based on some idiot assumption that everybody should be entitled to one of those Long Island Special overdone weddings with ten foot angel food cakes and 500 guests dancing the hokey pokey to the tune of Mack the Knife.

Or maybe I am mixing some stereotypes there. But the cost of an overdone wedding was definitely the only great cost I could think of associated with marrying. I was all set to excoriate anyone from the welfare-industrial complex who either advocated such a right or suggested is absence is responsible for the illegitimacy epidemic. Insofar as it is not so long ago that anyone but the rich just married at city hall or some county register office.

Now to see that someone actually thinks that the married state itself is more costly than singlehood, especially when parenting, boggles the mind, since it has not only been shown to be false, it is obviously false unless one is insane. Just the cost of one less roof alone should make the difference, and that is more likely with a long-term commitment.

That first Times quote is pretty retarded even by their standards.

“Money helps explain why well-educated Americans still marry at high rates: they can offer each other more financial support, and hire others to do chores that prompt conflict.”

Well-off people don't need the support as much, and any couple situation that involves pooling resources at any level of income will mean some kind of savings, again achievable more easily with a commitment and legal backing. Unless literally ALL the income is on one side, and then, sure, that person will be losing money. Only useful for them to marry to help raise the kid, which will still be cheaper in a marriage. Unless the male is the one with money, and too low-born to feel any paternal obligations. Then, OK, he would be a fool to marry.

The second clause is one only a well-off boomer or post-boomer New York writer could possibly imagine, let alone commit to print.

"Hire others to do chores that prompt conflict".....How would that go?:

"Honey- let's hire a maid to wash dishes because I so hate that I feel a surge of conflict welling up from deep within my soul."

"Well, OK, but only if we pay her to also scrub the toilet because the mere thought of that seizes my bowels with spasmodic fits and curdles my blood until I want to scream."

"Quick- to the domestic service hiring agency so we can quickly mitigate this impending conflict prompted by our routine chores..."

What an insight into contemporary upper middle class sociology we can derive from this one tiny sentence fragment!

And, of course, it also ignores the obvious fact that a couple sharing quarters may argue about who does which chores, but living separately they both have to do all of them. The man probably a tad less frequently and manically, but still.

Unless the issue is that people at the lower end of the scale must live like pigs, unwilling to clean anything, which would be an interesting inference by a Times writer in itself.

"Insofar as it is not so long ago that anyone but the rich just married at city hall or some county register office."

Wait, what? Are we talking about earth? Most people have small religious ceremonies. In fact, marriage not solemnized as a priest wouldn't be recognized as a marriage if the parties were Catholic. So unless some twent-odd percent of the population were "the rich" there's an obvious disconnect here. I can't imagine an overwhelming percentage of Protestants forgoing religious ceremonies as well.

And a church wedding doesn't always equal some forty thousand dollar extravaganza.

I believe the "...I'm too poor..." defense as to not getting married, is not about not being able to afford a big time wedding ceremony. I believe the "...I'm too poor..." defense is with respect to the belief that too many poor women believe that because they have no money, no man would marry them?

I'm getting married this year. I have a good job, but my fiancee does not.

With her low paying job, she could receive public assistance (like food stamps, etc.), but once we're married, our combined incomes will disqualify us as a couple from these benefits.

We earn enough to be comfortable without taking the public money, but I'm sure there are others in such a situation for whom the welfare state introduces a disincentive to marry. On the other hand, we will benefit from the income tax code this year by filing our taxes jointly.

Where I live - almost every waitress is in the same predicament. They are all in their late twenties and up, have 3+ kids, and no husband. Where does the guy go? I saw one family disintegrate before my eyes. Nice husband and wife are going into my favorite restaurant every weekend. They have four cute kids and drive in a nice suv. The woman is the sister of a waitress there. Next thing you know, this woman is asking me if I know an attorney because she got served. The guy took off with another woman - he got tired of his wife and dropped her like a rock. Now she's a waitress at this same restaurant with her sister. Her stature has plummeted. Outside of being a Mom - that's all she knows.

My point is ... it's not this woman who can't afford to get married.

So if the financial self interest of single mothers is to get married, why don't they?
If it's so obviously better than their present condition, why do they need right-wingers to hector them to do it? Do you know something about the socio-economic conditions these women face that the women themselves don't?

"The Times provides an amusing feminist twist..."

Heather Mac Donald is doing the traditional hack job on females while pretending to be horrified and viscerally revolted by the same ideology (feminism) that helped to create her own job.

Meanwhile, the entire article assumes that it's up to a woman to marry or to not marry. The article fails to point out the obvious: the people who are less likely to PROPOSE marriage when they are poor are men....

And we live in a society where few women are empowered enough (despite feminism) to propose to their men themselves....

This is never even mentioned as a possibility in this article. Instead the blame and contempt is poured on women, especially those with children, who aren't married......I'm sure that many of these would be happy to be married to a partner willing to help parent her children if she found a man willing to shoulder these responsibilities and to propose.

And yet this significant problem remains in this economy: I've never met a jobless man propose marriage to a woman. I think that's the economic reality the Times was pointing out....Marriage itself is enhanced by economic stability....and the institution of marriage is damaged by long-term unemployment.....