Celebrating One Hundred Years of Failure to Reproduce on Demand [NYT editorial: Way off for women]

I think that the reason for the delay in getting married is at least partially attributable to the fact that better educated males are not necessarily nicer people.

These are men not just "males" - just as women are not just "females". We're human! Got that!!

You must be a feminist.

Getting dressed up to host a Charity Ball might be a piece of cake for some women. But it isn't for a woman who was brought up in a lower class environment. Teaching or nursing is much easier.
It takes as much study to learn how to host a Charity Ball as it does to learn how to become a teacher. If you come from a family that hosts Charity Balls, then you do have an advantage. You already know the basics.
That's why many children follow their parents into a career - they already know a lot of what is expected. It's much harder to move into a career or life-style that isn't consistent with your parents'.

But it isn't for a woman who was brought up in a lower class environment. Teaching or nursing is much easier. It takes as much study to learn how to host a Charity Ball as it does to learn how to become a teacher.

I disagree with your premise that teachers and nurses are in a lower class of women than those who host charity balls.

Teachers and nurses include women who are more than capable of doing that hosting job. However, many women who host charity balls would be lost in a classroom or a hospital ward.

Your comment demonstrates to me how little respect women get for their work when they do something as meaningful as teach a child to read or save a life.

Another reason why perhaps more women should ditch education and nursing and go host charity balls, since choosing a buffet menu and hiring florists is seen as having more value in our society and garners more respect.

As women have been "liberated" from the roles of wife and mother, they have been ENSLAVED by our sexualized culture: They must be thin, they must wear the latest fashions and hairstyles, they must know (as Cosmo tells them) "Sex Secrets to Drive Him CRAZY." With the retreat from marriage and traditional sex roles, men can no longer expect women to cook, clean and take care of the kids.

That's true.

However, I think there is a new, rising tide that will turn this around, because no one anticipated Martha Stewart's empire -- centering around the home, or a 24 hour cable channel like Food TV to actually take off and become so successful, nor these other cable channels that focus exclusively on home decorating and lifestyles -- matters that require one to SPEND time at home. And, to HAVE a home.

I just some OTHER author, on FOX, who wrote a new book called "The Price of Motherhood" and her big argument is that motherhood can be the quickest route to poverty for women.

I haven't read the book, but from reviews it seemed to me that her arguments were mostly a retread of the socialist cant about why we need state funding for mothers Scandinavian-style. I agree that divorce does play havoc with women & that many women are poor because of it. That doesn't mean women shouldn't marry if they desire, though, because women *as a whole* who *remain married* are far better off than either single women, unmarried mothers, or divorced mothers. (Women w/o kids who divorce don't seem to be hurt financially, usually.)

Well, part of the problem here is that we live in a sexualized society

Indeed. It's just like ancient Corinth, in fact. And Paul's advice to the Corinthians is directly applicable to us today: First, he advocated that Christians involved in sexual sin, be thrown out of the church. Secondly, he advocated celibacy for those that could handle it, and, marriage for those who could not. "To avoid fornication...", he advocated marriage as a defense.

We do not obey these things today, quite the opposite. First, sexual sin is rampant and mostly unaddressed in our churches. Secondly, modern teaching on marriage is backwards -- Jesus himself plainly stated that there are some who cannot accept singleness, yet modern churches frequently teach that accepting one's singleness is a necessary precondition to marriage. Also, St. Paul wrote that it's precisely those who are NOT content with singleness, who should get married: "Better to marry than to burn with lust."

Worst of all --
CHRISTIAN CLERGY .... warn young people of the danger of marrying "too young."

You are SOOOOOOO right about this. Telling a kid who's hit puberty at 12 or 13, that sex has to wait til marriage, is difficult enough -- but adding to the burden by delaying marriage til what seems like "old age" to a teenager, is a surefire recipe to convince many youth that waiting is til marriage is just "impossible".

by the way, about COURTSHIP: Your problem was that you were ignoring the rules...make your interest known to HER FATHER

WHAT father? She's an independent career woman. Besides, even if she had an involved, available father figure, could the suitor (fyi, it wasn't me) say to him, out of the blue, "Sir, I don't know your daughter, but she looks good. May I court her"? Would you approve such an approach? Or, would you prefer the young man to get to know her somewhat, first -- so that his interest will have some solid basis rather than beauty alone? And if dating is ruled out, group activities are the only way for them to get to know each other. But if she refuses all group activities where she thinks one of the men might be interested... the outcome is obvious.

I'm sure courtship is great for teenagers living at home with Christian parents and an easily accessible community of like-minded families. But for adults with fulltime jobs in urban areas, courtship is impossible and therefore moot. I used to waste many hours debating this at another website, until the webmaster thereof finally found a girl himself, and, behold, he had to break most of the courtship rules to make it happen. QED, and LOL!!! I am sincerely happy for him, but it was amusing seeing him get flamed on his own message board in the same way I once was.

Gee, I had always planned to have an 18 room mansion, a 75 foot yacht and plenty servants by the time I was 35. What happened? I guess in my single minded obsession to just live my real life I just "forgot" to acquire those things.

... the girl who insisted that a cup of coffee with friends would violate her courtship principles... was giving you the brush-off... the "no dating" rule functions like the old "got to wash my hair" excuse.

Once again - fyi - I wasn't the guy involved in that situation -- the girl herself told me about it later. However, I did indeed receive the holier-than-thou "I don't date" brush-off from other women who not long afterwards dated other men right under my nose. As my old pastor put it, "When she says she doesn't believe in dating, it really means she doesn't want to date you."

I remember when I was a freshman in college, it seemed like every girl on campus had a fiance back home and the ring on her finger to prove it. Only later did I learn that this was a strategem.

I guess I'm a little younger; in my day it was always, "I have a boyfriend". They sure acted like they enjoyed the extra male attention though. In the rare case where I was able to verify that the boyfriend existed, he was older, out of school, and had a well paying job and $$$.

if the girl liked the guy, he didn't hear anything about any fiance, and if he asked about the ring, the girl explained that it was her mother's.

Don't women realize that these tactics select for JERKS? A good man will back off immediately at the sight of a ring or the hint of a boyfriend; only the lowest scum would continue pursuit long enough to discover that it was a lie. Then again, lying women deserve scummy men... karma, ya know?

would you rather be rejected by a girl on pretext of a fictitious fiance back home, or would you rather have her respond, "Get lost, zit-face, you make my skin crawl"?

That's a false choice, neither lying nor insults are scripturally appropriate methods of turning down a polite suitor. There's a third option: the lost art of the honest, polite rebuff: "I'm flattered, but, no thanks, I don't want to date you." I always respected women who did this, however disappointed I might have been. But so-called Christian women who used evasions, or insulted me, caused me to lose respect for them very quickly.

I disagree with your premise that teachers and nurses are in a lower class of women than those who host charity balls.

I didn't say that. What I said is that different women have different skills, and often their skills come from what they were taught by their parents.
But I also don't dismiss the women who run charity balls - they raise a lot of money for good causes. And it is a skill.