I just finished a book called Things I Wish I’d Known Before We Got Married by Gary Chapman. In it, the author outlines the complexities of married life that few of us anticipate before we tie the knot — such as how our personality affects our behavior, or how important spirituality is to most people, or how few couples explore this topic before getting married. Indeed, there are so many things that make marriage challenging all on its own that being raised in a culture that undermines this institution practically guarantees people will fail. Yet that’s exactly where we are.
Never in the history of time have women had a better shot at marital bliss — they have more freedom, flexibility, and privileges than ever — yet they’re celebrating the single life in record numbers. The reason is twofold. Since the day they were born, women have been tremendously influenced by the most significant revolution of our time: the feminist movement. For decades its mission has been to change a woman’s place in society and eradicate both masculinity and femininity. The result is a battle between the sexes — the likes of which this nation has never seen.
The second reason women struggle with marriage — which is part and parcel of the first — is they’ve been taught that the world revolves (or should revolve) around them. This attitude is a bona fide deal breaker. So much about marriage requires putting oneself last, or being quiet rather than demanding, or taking the higher road and not having to have one’s way all the time. Simply put, married life presupposes a maturity modern women don’t have.
We’ve been hearing a lot lately about young men who fail to grow up and become good family men, but video games are not the culprit — women are. Men tend to follow women’s lead — and it is women, not men, who fight Mother Nature. It is women who’ve changed the roles, rules, and expectations of marriage. It is women who embrace no-fault divorce laws that allow them to check out the moment they’re dissatisfied. Indeed, feminists assure women they can’t possibly be happily married until men change who they are or adapt their nature to accommodate the needs of women.
They’ve also drilled home the absurd notion that women in America live in a patriarchy. Not only is this patently false — women in this country rule — the truth is that women have chosen the lives they have. They chose to abandon marital intimacy by bringing the power they wield at work into their homes, where it doesn’t belong. The happiest wives I know don’t do this. No matter how successful they are outside the home, they leave that piece of themselves at work. When they walk in the front door, they put on their feminine hat and let men be who they are: simple creatures with few demands. As my cousin, a former law partner (and female), says, “There are two ingredients to a healthy marriage: good food and good sex.”
Naturally, this philosophy will raise the ire of the most strident modern woman who’s been taught to believe that cooking for a husband or saying yes to sex amounts to indentured servitude. They refuse to even accept that men have a greater sex drive than women. In failing to understand the differences between men and women, women have sabotaged their own happiness. As for the men, they aren’t so much choosing to be immature as they are doing what they’re told. Tell a man he’s dispensable, and he’ll quickly prove you right.
Marriage was never meant to be a competitive sport, yet that’s exactly what is has become. That’s because modern women have been taught that in order to be equal with men, women and men should pursue identical lives and ignore the differences between them. This attitude is producing enormous strife and makes happy marriages impossible.
Honestly, marriage doesn’t have to be so difficult — and it needn’t become obsolete. But it will if women don’t stop fighting men and start surrendering to their nature. They’re fighting a losing battle.
— Suzanne Venker is co-author of the book The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know – and Men Can’t Say. Her website is www.suzannevenker.com.
Decent young people want to get married, but understand (correctly) that marriage means responsibility -- especially financial responsibility. That goes double when children are contemplated.
In a country where a 25 year old guy doesn't see a clear path to a decent career, how do you expect him to feel comfortable taking a leap that, even when things were good, was a leap?
I see upper middle class Ivy types with their Cayenne station wagons and their condos and their toddlers dressed in Baby Burberry. Marriage and children -- it's now a status thing.
Yeah, we ought to scream at and shame and scorn people who copulate and spawn instead of bringing children into two-parent marriages. But we also need to do a whole lot of income redistribution so that two hard working, God-fearing high school grads can get married and raise a couple of kids on two working class salaries.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMr. B,
You wrote, "But we also need to do a whole lot of income redistribution so that two hard working, God-fearing high school grads can get married and raise a couple of kids on two working class salaries."
Why do we need "income redistribution" and who gets to decide how much income you receive? Let me do it for you - I decide that you get very little. How did that work out?
I have four children. Two are married and on their own and two still in college. Nobody gave them any "re-distributed income" and they do not ask for any.
On the other hand, if you have any income, re-distribute to me. Oh, I am older and will get Social Security and you will get none. I guess that "re-distribution" thing is working out OK after all. Thanks.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI agree with your diagnosis of the societal problem but disagree with your prescription. More income redistribution will only hurt the economy more. We need to grow the economy and adopt policies that will cause wage levels to increase. I propose starting with a moratorium on immigration. This will cause wage levels for lower income Americans to go up quicker than anything else, and it will help with the quality of public education.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo close and so far...a charmingly insightful post spoiled in the last line by the usual pseudo-Marxist bullsh*t.
The best years of my 25 year marriage, which was ended by a sudden catastrophic illness, not by divorce, was not the raising of our four great kids; rather, it was the first 7 years, when we were poor as churchmice but made do. I remember saving pocket change every day to pay for a couple of days' vacation on the Cape.
Income redistribution will only weaken America and America's married folks. Give it a break, Mr B.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse(a) Families based on redistribution just perpetuate dependency.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse(b) "two working class salaries" would run afoul of the author wanting lil woman to know her place (with a vacuum, a scrub bucket, then on her back).
(c) Your concern that family is out of reach for many working class individuals, though, is valid. I would suggest the policy solution isn't redistribution, it's sound money so the economy doesn't fly off the hinges, and ~serious~ repair to our secondary education system so that the "high school grads" have a piece of paper that means more to employers than "I kept my head down for four years, didn't cause any problems, and even though I can barely read my diploma, my failing school passed me on to you. So, can you hire me on blind faith?"
My husband and I started with next to nothing when we were surprised by the impending arrival of our first son. Thankfully there is nothing that dictates that parents have to be able to afford a house and more than one car. We lived in a tiny apartment on a shoestring. Many families have historically started this way and they've survived. It seems that you feel that someone else owes you something. I've been happily married for a very long time, longer than half my life, now. Happiness seems more to depend on friendship, mutual respect and a lot of humility than it does on owning the latest Lexus or Porche. The world owes you nothing, Mike. Just like all of the other creatures that creep across the face of this Earth you will have to work hard and struggle for what you need in life. The benefit to marriage and a family is that you have a lot to show for it in the end in terms of young folks who love you and come home to visit and a good spouse who loves you into old age, wrinkles and all.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseP.S. It may help to know that you are not made real by what other people think of you. In other words, owning a big house or a fancy car as a means of validating yourself to other people is a waste of your life. Most worthwhile people are too busy with their own lives and the people they love to be interested. Ultimately, it's been my experience that success in raising children and an intact happy marriage at my age is the most rewarding success.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYour true colors come out. How in good conscience can you advocate giving away other peoples sweat of their brow?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMike B is engaged in his usual jiu-jitsu of trying to turn conservative arguments toward left-wing policy. But he's conflating marriage with childbearing. Fertility rates in this country could be better, but they're not that bad. Marriage rates are very bad and falling. So people are still having kids; they're just increasingly doing it outside of marriage. And far from being a challenge to financial security, marriage enhances security by combining expenses and cushioning each spouse from shocks to his or her own career. The welfare state, meanwhile, discourages marriage by providing a competing source of financial safety, particularly to single mothers. Why else would single women disproportionately vote Democratic, and suddenly become Republicans once they get married?
The detrimental effect of redistribution on marriage is also borne out by the fact that marriage rates have fallen as real incomes have risen, and the welfare state has extended its reach.
It may be possible to construct an argument that targeted welfare only available to married couples with children would increase fertility rates without harming marriage rates (although there would still be other reasons to oppose that). But the effect on marriage rates per se cuts against, not for, a general policy of redistribution.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNo jiu-jitsu, just facts.
America's real average household income grew 62% between 1979 and 2007.
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Anyone who reads this and was working in 1979 probably doesn't think that America in general was 62% better off in 2007 than it was in 1979, even with the housing bubble fully inflated and not yet bursting.
But I'll leave that to the people here to evaluate. Needless to say, the bottom 80% of America -- the people for whom the economic factors I was referencing in my previous post are particularly important -- fared substantially worse than average over that period.
You ought to be able to put yourself in the shoes of a 25 year old man. How daunting must the prospect of marriage be from the standpoint of economic stability? Does such a guy think, "Things will be easier because we can pool and share" as opposed to, "My God, I am going to be responsible for her and probably kids too"?
I'll let you and others think about that and put themselves in the shoes of a responsible 25 year old male.
Wall Street Pizza. LOL. Have you ever even been to New Haven?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMike:
Please. What you're positing as a cause for declining marriage rates was worse at virtually all of history than it is now, and is currently worse in countries throughout the world with much higher marriage rates than ours. The data simply don't fit your theory.
And New Haven is lovely this time of year. Hello from the YLS courtyard (I'm the one on the left, jacka@@):
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Look -- I went to Yale too! That's me on the right.
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People are getting married later than in all of history too. Again, put yourself in the position of someone who's young and thinking about being responsible for others.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think that responsible 25 year old male needs to understand--and find a bride who also understands--that there's no shame, and a lot of good, in starting out small and building wealth and stability over time. What's wrong with marrying at 25 while in entry-level jobs, starting out in a modest apartment, living frugally, and building from there? Working to build a life together, including solid finances, grows a strong marriage.
Your comments remind me of the disordered view that some of my acquaintances have that they can't possibly afford to marry and have children until and unless they can have a destination wedding in the Caribbean, a four bedroom house in a snazzy suburb, $400 strollers, iThingies, and an au pair. Ridiculous and sad.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThreading doesn't seem to be working. My comment at 14:09 was supposed to a reply to MikeB's comment that began with the phrase 'no ju-jitsu.'
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMost entry level jobs available to 25 year old men are extremely low-paying. Jobs that pay a living (even living in a modest apartment in a crummy area) require either very expensive educations, significant amounts of vocation training, or long waits for networking and connections to come through.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnyway, most datable (let alone marriageable) women expect considerably more than a mate with a used car and a cramped apartment.
it isn't that waiting, working, saving, schooling, and frugal living (years of it) are required to be wealthy, but that they're required.
Student loans are often grudgingly high (& women seem to have eye watering levels of student debt, which is often a reason for wanting a husband) and livable apartments often cost as much as houses.
Or, conversely, men can keep their money, perform work they enjoy, find temporary mates at nightclubs, and live in safe, harmless, digital worlds, free from divorce lawyers, difficult spouses, nasty and treacherous female coworkers, and caterwauling children.
We ought to do a whole lot of income redistribution? Didn't you just say something about financial responsibility in marriage?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOh, you meant someone else's finances should be responsible.
"Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society." Rush Limbaugh
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNo, Mike, those two people do not have the right to make me devote part of my work week to them so they can get married and have kids. That is called slavery, and we abolished it some time ago. My earnings are my private property, and healthy, young people capable of work have NO moral claim on it. To assert that my time and labor belongs to anyone else is immoral.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe're not talking "rights." We're talking "What do we want?"
I want a country with roads in it. I have no right, God-given or otherwise, to a country with roads in it. If I want roads, I have to dig deep into my pocket to pay for them. In fact, because I alone don't have the money to pay for roads, I have to utilize the structure created by the Founders to force you to pay for roads you may not want.
Now I'll bet you want roads, as I do. But there are some people who don't want them. You and I are coercing them or, to use the oft-invoked right wing metaphor, stealing from them, to pay for roads they don't want.
The only question is what to steal for. It's very important to me to live in a country where people get married and bring up kids in two-parent families. I'm willing to use the Founders' process to coerce you into paying for it. You're not. That's what we have elections for.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMike - I believe I understand where you're coming from, but I think it's important to remember a couple things:
1) Life has never been easy for married couples without at least one college degree. A college degree provides security that has never been available without. Yes, I know stronger unions helped, but those days have come and gone & are most likely never coming back.
2) You don't need a Porshe Cayene to have a happy and successful family. All families got by on much less before two incomes became the norm, and they still can. The inability to pay for an upper middle class lifestyle is a pretty whimpy excuse to not to start a family, and shows a lack of faith in something greater than oneself IMO.
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