Posted on 03/10/2018 7:18:24 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Over the last few decades, weve seen a revolutionary change in the way marriage works in America.
In your great-grandparents heyday, relationships were more about raising a family and making a living than love. That doesnt mean there wasnt any love involved; it just means the motivations were often a little different than they are today. Women wanted to get out from under the same roof as their parents and have kids. When a woman found a decent man who treated her well and seemed like he could provide for her and her children, that was often enough of a foundation to build a marriage. After all, the country was much poorer then, so her parents couldnt necessarily support her and she didnt have a lot of job options. A husband was the best financial option most women had back then.
Today, most women can take care of themselves and those who cant have the federal government helping them, so they dont NEED a man to take care of them financially. Combine this with the fact that financial opportunities for uneducated and unskilled men are dramatically reduced from the pre-shipping container/pre-computer age and marriage has been forever changed. That male dockworker can no longer support a family by himself and even if the wealthier, more educated female executive were to marry him (and she probably wouldnt because he has less status than she does), the marriage would be far less stable because financial need wouldnt hold them together.
This has a lot to do with why divorce happened much less frequently in the past. Not only was it a little scandalous to get divorced, a woman had a lot more worries about how to pay her bills if she decided to go her own way. That combination of financial need and social stigma held people together. Consider that the 1967 crude (divorce) rate was 8.7 times as large as that for 1867 and it becomes obvious that marriage was a much more certain bet for previous generations of Americans.
As the need for financial security has fallen away, love has become the primary motivator of people who want to marry. The problem with that is that love can be one fickle b*tch.
For most people, that hot, passionate love driven by hormones that makes you crazy for someone else typically doesnt last forever. Additionally, as people say, familiarity breeds contempt. When a woman is on year three of sex with the same person, she just picked his stained underwear off the floor again and what she thought were cute little idiosyncrasies early on have started to get on her nerves, love has turned out to be a much less effective cement than financial necessity. Thats very important because almost 70 percent of the time the woman is the one who files for divorce.
Given that we have a justice system that rewards women and punishes men at every opportunity during and after a divorce, its no surprise that women are more likely to be the ones ending the marriage. Courts heavily side with women over men when it comes to custody of the children. Chances are if youre a man in a battle for custody, youre going to lose and then youre going to be forced to pay through the nose for the privilege of not getting to spend as much time with your kids as you like. Speaking of which, financially, the courts still act as if were in the thirties. Certainly, there could be a situation where a significant alimony payment would be the only fair solution, but that should be a fairly rare occurrence in this day and age.
Imagine a secretary who makes $30,000 a year who marries a CEO making 10 million dollars a year. Five years later, they get divorced. How much does she deserve? Most women would say half. At least half of what he made while they were together. The honest answer a lot of men would give you would be nothing. You know how much she contributed to the mans success in his career? Nothing of significance. How much is she worth in the working world after the marriage? About the same as she was before, plus shes had the advantage of having her much richer husband buy her things for years that shell take with her. Do you know what he should owe her in that situation after five years of marriage that didnt work out in the end? Nothing, just like she owes him. Yet and still, in many states, her husband would be expected to keep her living in the style to which she has become accustomed. This is exactly the reason that any MAN WHO ALREADY HAS MONEY is crazy if he doesnt insist on a prenuptial contract before a wedding. Is that romantic? No, but neither is giving a woman who hates your guts half your money. Does it imply youre not 100 percent sure the marriage will last? Yes, it does, but in a world where divorce is so common, no one can really be sure a marriage will last anymore. You can claim otherwise if you like, but youre just whistling past the graveyard. Ive known women who divorced a husband because he lost his job and had trouble finding another one; because she wanted to relive her party years at 35 years old with two kids; because she decided her husband wasnt manly enough; it goes on and on and on. What I am telling you is that there are no guarantees and your sweet, reasonable honey who loves you to death may decide she wants out of the marriage and turn into a monster once she has a lawyer whispering in her ear during the divorce. Guess what? Usually, the guy never sees it coming.
This can lead to a situation where youre paying for the lifestyle of a woman who doesnt want to be with you anymore and is using your kids as a weapon against you while you struggle financially. I know more than one man who has been in this situation. Almost every man does these days. Some people would tell you thats just the price of marriage. Hey, if shes not worth that, then dont get married. But how often does the opposite situation happen? How often is a woman stuck paying the bills for her ex-husband while he has the kids after he decided he just wasnt in love anymore? Ive never heard of a situation like that, although Im sure it has probably happened. This is an enormous risk that marriage entails for men, but generally not for women.
You also cant underestimate the impact of having reliable female birth control and women pursuing their careers. Between college and many women trying to climb the career ladder, marriages are occurring later than ever. There was a time in American history when 80% of people were married by 21. That is no longer true.
Barely half of all adults in the United Statesa record loware currently married, and the median age at first marriage has never been higher for brides (26.5 years) and grooms (28.7), according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census data. In 1960, 72% of all adults ages 18 and older were married; today just 51% are. If current trends continue, the share of adults who are currently married will drop to below half within a few years.
The longer you wait to get married, the less of a chance there is that the marriage will produce children. Take the potential of having children out of the equation and marriage is even less appealing to many men. Keep in mind that single women can now easily avoid pregnancy and have become much more promiscuous than they used to be. Does that mean every single guy is getting laid left and right? Not at all, but it does mean that sex is much more available to the average single man than it was 100 years ago. In other words, even if a man never gets married, he doesnt have to forego sex. In fact, he has the opportunity to have sex with multiple women, an attractive proposition to most men that would be denied to him if he were married. On top of that, he doesnt have to take on any burdens. Hes not financially responsible for his girlfriend. He doesnt have to take care of the kid she had with another guy five years ago. Theres no potential for a brutal divorce if things dont work out. Typically, women are the ones who grew up dreaming of the perfect wedding and the commitment that followed. Most men just grew up dreaming of having sex with beautiful women.
At one time, those two fantasies had to merge. When our society was less promiscuous, the man needed to get married to have regular access to sex. He got what he wanted and she got what she wanted. Is that still true today? The numbers say No.
Back in the early 1990s, the average American had sex about 60 to 62 times per year, but that number dropped to less than 53 times per year by 2014. Among married couples specifically, the drop was even more dramatic - from about 73 times per year in 1990 to 55 in 2014. This actually brings the sex lives of married couples below people who've never been married, who have sex about 59 times per year as of 2014. So if youre a man, getting married may very well mean LESS SEX and with the same woman instead of potentially sleeping with multiple women. It also means risking a soul-ripping divorce where the court system will be stacked against you. Oh, and dont even mention the old, Getting married? Wow, Ill be treated like a king! fantasy that men had once. Today, youre more likely to be treated to demands that you do half the weekly housework.
When you look at that sort of thing, its easy to understand why some men are simply opposed to marriage. I am not one of those men, but I will tell you the scales have tipped too far against men in marriage. By that, I mean that unless something changes that shifts the institution of marriage back onto more favorable ground for men, marriage will have great difficulty recovering in America. Since marriage is one of the most important building blocks of a successful society, thats something none of us should want.
“Exactly. I remember we made our commitment till death do us part before GOD and our friends and family. Like other things today, God seems to be on the outside of a lot of things and may explain many issues we seem to be facing.”
Your American “Christianity” is phony, it stood idly by and even approved of the establishment of the Family Court System, the Duluth Model and other instruments of female power over men.
In contrast, Russia (a true Christian nation) and its Russian Orthodox Church (a REAL Christian Church!) is rolling back female power and is gradually restoring men’s patriarchical authority over their wives and daughters.
“so very sick of this continuous diatribe against women....”
Another American Thot defending the evil US Deep State.
“For those guys who haven’t figured it out yet, women are hardwired to have very little empathy for men. They can break a nail and cry and demand that the world stop, but a man with a knife through his chest just needs to stop being such a big baby. Meanwhile (most) men are hardwired to be over-sympathetic to women.
In other words, never look to a woman to sympathize with your plight, especially when that sympathy might interfere with her sense of entitlement. “
Amen
- "Hotflashes"
- That "distant" look in their eyes as their brain disengages when talking
- A sudden and intense focus on money (watch your bank accounts as menopause approaches and question every withdrawl)
- Talk of a sudden sense of "Freedom" once the kids turn 18
- Disengagement from the kids once they turn 18
- More "wine parties" with "the girls"
- An increase in her divorced friends (they travel in groups and recruit each other to divorce their husbands)
- Reading "relationship" related books (gives them "ammo" for complaints even if they don't really care/agree with what's in the book)
- Talk of "not being happy" anymore
- Complaints about lack of intimacy, especially if they're the one's who've shut that off. They have this unique way of trying to turn the tables here....
- Sudden/increased focus in remodeling the home (they want it ready to sell when they file for divorce)
********
Wow. My ex did every item on this checklist. Scary.
@BobL
“The first step for men who want their marriage to last is to marry into a culture that VALUES MARRIAGE, which means, sadly, a non-US and non-Western culture. Lots of options out there though...”
Amen, a thousand times!
Traditional Marriage was an economic contract between two families.
American marriage is none of that. It is a scam to turn men into slaves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNQ2kV1OTPU
One day, one day, you destroyers of Western civilization will answer to a restored patriarchy. Whether that patriarchy is restored by Islam, a resurgent Western armed resistance, Holy Christian Russia, or the Middle Kingdom.
Watch out for the “horse girls”
That’s another red flag.
Not sure what you mean.
“Traditional Marriage was an economic contract between two families.”
Not universally.
If you want to put it in an “economic” sense:
At it’s core it is a contract between a man and woman. In “economics” (resources and labor) it - fidelity in marriage - protects the man’s interest that he will not be working (providing) for offspring that are not his own. On the woman’s part it - fidelity in marriage - “economically” (resources and labor) - it means her family’s resources (including the husband) are going to her family and not being diverted to some other woman and her offspring as well. That fidelity is for the benefit of the offspring of the couple; that their resources are devoted to their family unit.
A lot of what people think they know about marriage comes from literature and in literature most often it is the people of means that are being written about and not the common folk. Yes, to people of means their “social standing” and securing (in social standing) the best mate for an offspring was often considered more important than what their offspring sought. Fortunately for society the children often rebelled.
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