Posted on 09/03/2017 11:34:00 AM PDT by EdnaMode
Thanks to cheap sex, marriage may be doomed.
The share of Americans ages 25-34 who are married dropped 13 percentage points from 2000 to 2014. A new book by sociologist Mark Regnerus blames this declining rate on how easy it is for men to get off.
Regnerus calls it “cheap sex,” an economic term meant to describe sex that has very little cost in terms of time or emotional investment, giving it little value.
Regnerus bases his ideas, in part, on the work of British social theorist Anthony Giddens, who argued that the pill isolated sex from marriage and children. Add online pornography and dating sites to the mix and you don’t even need relationships.
The result is “two overlapping (but distinctive) markets, one for sex and one for marriage, with a rather large territory in between comprised of significant relationships of varying commitment and duration,” Regnerus writes in “Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy” (Oxford University Press).
In generations past, women generally made men wait until marriage to have sex. To get a wife (and, therefore, sex), men had to be clean and presentable and have a good job. This, Regnerus reasons, gave men all the motivation they needed to become respectable members of society.
Now with porn on-demand and greater reproductive freedom, sex is a commodity available at any time. This has left men with little motivation for marriage, writes Regnerus, who cites demographer Steven Ruggles’ prediction that one of every three people in their 20s will never marry.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
And it’s better for American women how?
i.e. smart men need to think about the risk they are taking with their future when they get married. One guarantee in life is the person you marry is not the same person they will be in 10 or 20 years.
Remember, women get frustrated with men because they don’t change and men get frustrated with women because they do.
That last sentence is oerfect
And it’s better for American women how? These so called American men are such catches? Please.
I have used this analogy for decades:
If you buy a car and believe it is the only car you will ever own, you tend to keep up the maintenance so you don’t find yourself without a car because it’s broken down for the last time.
If you buy a car with the belief that you can always just sell it or trade it in for a new one if you don’t like it, you may not keep up the maintenance.
I think a lot of people are treating marriage as the latter. It hurts both men and women and, especially, children. But the fact is that men seem to be giving up on marriage BEFORE they get married while women are giving up on it AFTER they get married.
The former is the higher course. Only one of them is violating vows.
My first marriage lasted 20 years and produced three lovely daughters. Then my wife decided she just didn’t want to be married any more.
I then met the woman of my dreams at, of all places, my 25 year high school reunion (no, we never dated in HS). We just celebrated our 19th anniversary and the honeymoon is not over.
It’s kinda funny, like you, my wife cherishes me and I cherish her. We thank God for each other. My first wife was eventually exposed as a “man hating feminist”. She never remarried, but has had a few boyfriends which, according to my daughters, she gets a little violent with. I feel bad for her, but my dedication is to my wife and my daughters, not my ex-wife that basically threw me out without cause.
And to get a perspective about the problem we are facing in the US, just watch this excellent documentary. It’s free on Amazon Prime right now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLzeakKC6fE
Yes, some men are jerks and some women are jerks. However...
Maybe that is why my wife and I are so happy together. She has read and loves “The Submissive Wife”, and I reciprocate in my attitude toward her. My motto is, “If I want to get in touch with my feminine side, I reach for my wife.” And she feels the same regarding her “masculine” side.
She loves being a wife to a real MAN, and I love being a husband to a real WOMAN. I enable and encourage her femininity and she enables and encourages my masculinity.
That is the way we were designed by our creator. A hammer is happiest when it is used as a hammer and a wrench is happiest when it is used as a wrench.
American men are such pansies. The unmarried ones are losers.
For guys intending on having children, a big career indicates she will be less likely to want to take time off for babies.
I’ve been married over 30 years, three nice kids, wife stayed home to take care of them.
Foul mouthed and quarrelsome. That’s just sad.
Just sayin’. :-)
She’s very pretty. There’s not one guy writing on this thread that I would set her up with. You’re a bunch of idiots.
The judgementalism over a few posts on a single thread is perplexing, however. I have a feeling that if you talked face to face with many of these men you would realize they are not the monsters they appear to be nor are most of the women posting here the shrews many of the men posting are imagining (but not actually verbalizing) that they are.
Reminds me of an old joke:
A store has just opened in New York City that offered free husbands. When women go to choose a husband, they have to follow the instructions at the entrance:
“You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are 6 floors to choose from. You may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you CANNOT go back down except to exit the building!
So, a woman goes to the store to find a husband. On the 1st floor the sign on the door reads: Floor 1 - These men Have Jobs
The 2nd floor sign reads: Floor 2 - These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.
The 3rd floor sign reads: Floor 3 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids and are extremely Good Looking.
“Wow,” she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going. She goes to the 4th floor and sign reads:
Floor 4 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework.
“Oh, mercy me!” she exclaims. “I can hardly stand it!” Still, she goes to the 5th floor and sign reads:
Floor 5 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, help with Housework and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.
She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the 6th floor and the Sign reads:
Floor 6 - You are visitor 71,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that you are impossible to please.
Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.
To avoid gender bias charges, the store’s owner opened a Wife Store just across the street.
The 1st first floor has wives that love sex.
The 2nd floor has wives that love sex and have money.
The 3rd through 6th floors have never been visited....
My nice cowboy and truck driver neighbors don’t quite get your remark.
I also asked if that woman was a single mom and didn’t get a reply. I think we know why her friend is unmarried.
I confess that I’m troubled by the sheer quantity of judgementalism by a couple of women on this thread but, truth be told, I have my own judgementalism streak that I have to deal with. It annoys my wife.
To wit. We moved from Seattle to central, rural kentucky and I’m simply floored by the sheer quantity of FAT, Tatooed, chain smoking single women in their twenties driving around in barely running cars with a kid or three in tow.
They have sealed their fate at a VERY young age and, truth be told, are a product of their upbringing. And most of the folks here go to church. But it is more a cultural thing than a religious thing.
There is also a LOT of meth and other drug use among them.
And I can discuss some of the guys too, but with them it’s different attributes. Either would be poison to any of my kids.
Frankly, it just saddens me. Our culture has destroyed a lot of lives in rural America.
Between my wife and I we have six kids, and we have a lot of friends with kids. One thing we’ve learned, and Twink may learn (but I hope she doesn’t have to experience it), is that good kids come from bad families and bad kids come from good families.
Nobody’s perfect. It’s why Christ died for ALL of us.
You will find that prosperity does not bring happiness. It brings prosperity.
I think it is a very interesting thing.
Fact is, the more that people disagree on a topic, the more “interesting” the thread will be. ;-)
My wife was a “big sister” for several years to a “problem mother”. The little sister was living with her grandmother. Grandmother would help the mother any time she needed it, but the mother being into meth and all sorts of other drugs was a challenge. But grandmother still helped her.
That is, until a year ago, when the mother died of a drug overdose.
And the “little sister, who is now 14, is making terrible decisions. No matter how we tried to help her make the right decisions, grandmother would both enable her and fight with her as though she was a peer. It is a terrible situation being passed down from generation to generation. I’ve made the decision that this girl is dangerous to my wife and me. I was always careful to NEVER be alone with this girl, for MY protection.
Yes, the devil is in the details which is why we should read entire threads before pontificating. Check out #425.
Speaking of E-harmony:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brrdn3OLODE
That is not only informative, but it is a laugh riot. :)
Many women believe that they can spend a decade or more acting like trollops with bad boys from bars and then, decrepit and infertile, be treated as pure prizes worth winning by rich and respectable men.
And in the middle of it she tried to get my other sister to participate in a threesome. My other sister was a different person. She declined. She also ended up marrying a billionaire, to whom she is still happily married.
It was either Brian Tracy or Dennis Waitley who said, and I paraphrase, “Wherever you are in your life, however successful or a failure, reach around and give yourself a good pat on the back, because you are responsible.”
Yes, the devil is in the details which is why we should read entire threads before pontificating. Check out #425.
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