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The Marriage Strike
ifeminists.com / Fox News ^ | August 12, 2003 | Wendy McElroy

Posted on 08/12/2003 8:31:25 PM PDT by buzzyboop

Edited on 04/22/2004 12:36:57 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

According to a 1999 National Vital Statistics Report from the CDC, 7.4 per 1,000 Americans married in 1998. From 1990 to 1995, the marriage rate dropped from 9.8 to 7.6. Different sources render other statistics but the trend remains sharply downward.


(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: antimalebias; catholiclist; cohabitation; dating; divorce; marriage; relationships
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Ms. McElroy is a hoot. The statistic she quotes are irrefutable. However, on one hand she confirms the bias of almost every so-called "family court", yet she encourages that we locate unbiased family courts adjudicate breaches of contracts. Find me one "unbiased" family court. Sounds like the current broken system to me.

Please.. present something workable next time. As if women want to.. why would they want to change the current system when they maintain the advantage?

1 posted on 08/12/2003 8:31:25 PM PDT by buzzyboop
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To: buzzyboop
— The percentage of live births to unmarried women rose from 5.3 to 33.2.

Exactly how does this father of this unwed mother have "better" access to these kids than if he was married to the mother and then divorced?

2 posted on 08/12/2003 8:47:10 PM PDT by xzins
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To: buzzyboop
The reason people aren't getting married: In recent decades men and women simply don't like and each other enough to get married. They engage in sex without personal or formal involvements. The sexual revolution produced a collapse in male-female relationships.
3 posted on 08/12/2003 8:51:17 PM PDT by RLK
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To: xzins
The genes get passed on...he wins. Lawyers loose, Y Cromosome contiues to exist. Pass 'em a cigar.
4 posted on 08/12/2003 8:57:19 PM PDT by BiffWondercat
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To: buzzyboop
Exactly. And the feminazis and more moderate women still don't get it. Women's lib was a big lie that only harmed women.
5 posted on 08/12/2003 9:07:26 PM PDT by ableChair
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To: buzzyboop
They say that their financial assets are better protected if they cohabit rather than marry.

Not much. If they live together long enough, they will be seen as common-law spouses. Even if they don't, the woman can get 'palimony' if she can show she traded sex for the man's promise of marriage and/or financial support down the road.

I am fortunate to be married almost 15 years and still very deeply in love with my wife. We have been through the wringer together in years gone by and toughed it out. Now things are better than ever, and I couldn't imagine any circumstances that would cause us to be divorced.

Nonetheless, I am sympathetic to the sentiments of the men on 'marriage strike'. The court system has been so tilted against fathers it is sickening. The politicians fall all over themselves to cater to the 'soccer mom' vote. I have seen friends get absolutely reamed in divorce, but even my dear wife sees it as just rewards for what I consider relatively minor offenses. They all watch too much Lifetime channel and our culture is beginning to suffer for it.

There is a sisterhood thing going on here, and until men join together the same way our rights will continue to be trampled.

-ccm

6 posted on 08/12/2003 9:15:45 PM PDT by ccmay
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To: ccmay
You raise some excellent points:

If they live together long enough, they will be seen as common-law spouses.

This varies from state to state. In PA, common-law is not recognized, only a legal mariage (before a JP or a minister) is recognized. The flip-side is that PA is a community property state. Basically, in a divorce, the woman automatically gets half.

We have been through the wringer together in years gone by and toughed it out.

This has been exactly my experience. Marriage is not like business (that can be shut down or merged or sold) or anything else. You have to hang in there and eventually things will get better.

One of my brothers was divorced just a few years after buying a nice house - if his wife had toughed it out with him, the underlying property would be worth at least $50K more today and their money worries would be significantly less, since he would have refinanced from 8.5 to 5.5% interest and thus have hundreds more per month available.

They all watch too much Lifetime channel and our culture is beginning to suffer for it.

Hoo boy, the stuff I could say about that! Let's just say I can't stand even Oprah and leave it at that.

7 posted on 08/12/2003 9:39:56 PM PDT by ikka
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To: RLK
The sexual revolution produced a collapse in male-female relationships.

Yes, I feel pity for the Gen Xers and Y's who have been raised by parents with serial mates/live-ins and who have sitcoms and pornography as their framework for male-female relationships.

I know that you have written extensively on this; I've read your articles on zolatimes.

The younger generation cannot even fathom its loss. It has shaken this civilization to its foundations.

8 posted on 08/12/2003 10:04:53 PM PDT by happygrl
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To: xzins
Exactly how does this father of this unwed mother have "better" access to these kids than if he was married to the mother and then divorced?

Simple--If he is divorced, her lawyer has a restraining order against him, as a matter of course, and court mandated visiting times where is not allowed to show up when he wants. If he just doesn't marry her, he can see the kid pretty much whenever he wants.

9 posted on 08/12/2003 10:12:51 PM PDT by Cogadh na Sith (The Guns of Brixton)
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To: ccmay
Not much. If they live together long enough, they will be seen as common-law spouses. Even if they don't, the woman can get 'palimony' if she can show she traded sex for the man's promise of marriage and/or financial support down the road.

No. Not in my state. It varies by state.

10 posted on 08/12/2003 10:15:03 PM PDT by Cogadh na Sith (The Guns of Brixton)
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To: chookter
Unwed, single mothers don't have to let fathers see their kids. You think she'll still like this guy, huh?

I don't. I think she'll be PO'd at him.

11 posted on 08/12/2003 10:15:55 PM PDT by xzins
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To: xzins
Unwed, single mothers don't have to let fathers see their kids. You think she'll still like this guy, huh?

I don't. I think she'll be PO'd at him.

You don't understand. Read the article again--60% of the time nowadays, SHE is the one who left HIM.

12 posted on 08/12/2003 10:19:41 PM PDT by Cogadh na Sith (The Guns of Brixton)
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To: chookter
That's divorcees. I'm talking about the unweds.

She doesn't get a chance to leave him. He was never close enough to give her than opportunity. Just a sperm donor.

13 posted on 08/12/2003 10:23:24 PM PDT by xzins
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To: ableChair
Are you serious? "only harmed women"??????

Been divored lately? Maybe more than once?? Ask THOSE men who was "harmed" by women's lib!!!!!!

The carnage resulting from women's lib (an anti-family ideology) has been DEVASTATION to both sexes, and a DISASTER for the institution of the family, the building block of civilization. And the ripples in the pond just get wider, causing more and more social pathologies, of which, OBTW, this marriage "strike" is one - how long do you think a society can survive with negative population growth (we're not there yet thanks to immigration and to our "minorities" and their "welfare culture", but just look at sclerotic OLD Europe for a peek of what is to come.

That aside, of course you are right that feminaziism has been as bad, or worse, than Marxism in its impact on America.

Cordially,

Al
14 posted on 08/12/2003 10:24:30 PM PDT by Al Simmons
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To: xzins
Unwed, single mothers don't have to let fathers see their kids. You think she'll still like this guy, huh?

Wrong. If paternity is established, which must be done for her to collect child support, the father also has visitation rights. The only thing that changes from being divorced is that he doesn't have to pay alimony or divide his property with her.

15 posted on 08/12/2003 10:26:17 PM PDT by CA Conservative
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To: buzzyboop; GatorGirl; maryz; *Catholic_list; afraidfortherepublic; Antoninus; Aquinasfan; Askel5; ..
A Sacramental Ping.
16 posted on 08/12/2003 10:26:55 PM PDT by narses ("The do-it-yourself Mass is ended. Go in peace" Francis Carindal Arinze of Nigeria)
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To: Al Simmons
Marriage strike?

Heck, I am on a "sex strike".

Given the courts have granted them the right to change their minds after sex and claim that the timing on their words "don't stop" after the fact. Now if they claim that it was a request for you to stop and not to continue then you get 30 year in jail.

No thanks. It's not worth that.
17 posted on 08/12/2003 10:27:27 PM PDT by Pikachu_Dad
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To: CA Conservative
It still doesn't answer my question about this father who supposedly is just dying to see his kids.

What about having them in the control of an unwed single mom makes it more possible for this "loving" guy to see his kids than having them in a divorced arrangement?

Single moms move, btw.

18 posted on 08/12/2003 10:36:09 PM PDT by xzins
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To: xzins
She doesn't get a chance to leave him. He was never close enough to give her than opportunity. Just a sperm donor.

Like 'Murphy Brown'? Like Madonna? Like Elizibeth Hurley? Like any of a hundred women celebrities? Do you know what kind of an influence that has on the dopey women of today?

You still don't get it. That's all most of them want is a sperm donor, not a husband. They like babies, not men, not husbands...

19 posted on 08/12/2003 10:36:33 PM PDT by Cogadh na Sith (The Guns of Brixton)
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To: chookter
You're right. I sure don't get it.

I don't get the divorces, I don't get the unwed mothering, I don't get the unwed fathering.

The only thing I do get is that we've got a bunch of screwed up kids in the process.

20 posted on 08/12/2003 10:40:42 PM PDT by xzins
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