Posted on 06/09/2022 10:17:39 PM PDT by Jonty30
Why does the Millennial generation (people born between 1982-1996) have lower marriage and birth rates than previous generations? And when Millennials do get married, why is it at a later age than previous generations? Prominent periodicals like The Atlantic, Time, Washington Post and others have published articles trying to explain the phenomenon.
Some claim that the cause is economic – we graduated from college into the 2008 Recession, we have a lot of student loan debt, and we receive stagnant wages as housing prices soar. Financial difficulty prevents young people from getting married. This is of course part of the problem, but it is wrong. People got married at a higher per capita rate during the Great Depression and the brutal wars in history, which were much tougher than anything we endured.
Some argue that the cause is increased education, feminism and careerism. People want to focus on establishing a stable career in their youth, including women in equal if not greater numbers than men, which makes them delay family formation. This is also a partial explanation. There is no reason a person cannot pursue education and career while married. If the issue is about focus, we would argue that living “the single life” is even more of a distraction from schoolwork. Even if we concede the argument about focus, it still does not explain the large number of Millennials who are now in their late 30s, well-established in their careers, but still remain unmarried.
(Excerpt) Read more at lifeandtimes.substack.com ...
Campion, your personal opinions do not line up with detailed statistical research on what most Americans, male or female, actually do regarding sex and marriage. Read the link above in post 101.
Unfortunately, at the time I was an introvert with confidence issues. It took a few years to gain the required confidence.
By 24, I had the equivalent of a “little black book”.
Long ago a bright, very pretty girl I was dating answered this question clearly. Because marriage and family are iherently boring and timeconsuming. She described the life of her older married sister who had three children as this; Work, work, work all the time. Even with the young Dominican woman she employs , sister is on the go from day break to after supper. Get the kids up, feed them breakfast while husband is showering and dressing. Get husband off to work and then turn to and start house chores, get the children showered , dressed and the oldest ready for school. Haul him to school while the maid/nanny gets the washing started and the dishwasher loaded. Back home after the school run and any short stops at grocery or other shops. Start getting lunch together and planning dinner. Give younger children some sort home school/pre school lesson etc, etc,. As my friend said , she liked children but not that much. Mindless grind every day. On top of it married to one guy. How much fun can that be? Stuck in the mindless burbs compared to the city, ‘the stores, the restaurants/bars, the excitement. Work can suck but once the day is over you are free to persue going out with girl friends, chasing men, having exciting fun in general. As she said, love affairs are damned exciting, falling in love is just tying yourself tosomeone who will eventually bore you. Fun, excitement, pleasure, materialism,foreign vacations, passionate flings, those are the things that makes life tolerable not being suffocated with the mindless treadmill of home, kids, husband, dullsville town etc.
Married to a uke mail order bride. How did that work out?
A lot of churches, rather than shaming out-of-wedlock mothers (as they did in the past), now celebrate them. They place all the blame on men.
Every Christmas, some churches even teach that Mary was a homeless single mother and a refugee. (Overlooking the facts that Mary had not fornicated, that Joseph was her intended, and that she was only temporarily unhoused because there was no room at the inn.)
But when too many men close the gate, the State intervenes to commit those men. Either through divorce laws, palimony, or higher taxes to fund single motherhood, men are made to commit.
[[Read the link above in post 101.]]
The rule of thumb is the top 20% are having 80% of sex. The study you refer to in #101 says 60%. The general observation is not that off. And I don’t grant much precision to sociological surveys over people who have talked to a lot of people over years.
[[A lot of churches, rather than shaming out-of-wedlock mothers (as they did in the past), now celebrate them. They place all the blame on men.]]
Most churches operate as a business. They know if they have lots of women in the congregation, that men will show up.
You can tell men they need to improve, and they will sit there and take it.
But offend the women, and they will LEAVE, and you will no longer have a congregation.
No 3rd decade of MARRIAGE...not life
Women expand their pool of "acceptable" men, but not their pool of "desirable" men."
Women in their 30s often "settle" for men they don't really want. Their hearts are still set on the Alpha "bad boys" they slept with, but failed to marry. And they resent their affluent "Beta Providers" for having had to settle for them. Thus, the eventual divorce.
These women are known as Alpha Widows. They slept with Alphas, and still hanker after them. The Betas they eventually marry never live up to their past thrills.
I once read an interview in which an actress said, "I love falling in love."
This was an inadvertently ominous admission. It means that women love the process of "falling in love" -- the excitment of getting to know someone new -- but once that process is over, the thrill is gone. She's stuck with a same old, same old, boring man.
So she wants to "fall in love" all over again, which requires a new man. Then "fall in love" again with a still newer man. And so on.
“As any quick perusal of an online dating site will confirm, every woman wants a tall man.”
At 5’6” I tower over my Asian gf. Works well for both of us
Thank you.
Women have historically been expected to and did stay home.
Men were out working, traveling, hunting, going to war.
By virtue of the fact that they were out and about so much, they by default have more opportunities for sex, thus it is easier for them to do it.
Many women want to carouse with alpha males, but they don’t want to marry them.
The reason being is because they don’t want to feel insecure whenever he is gone for three hours unexplained.
I assume that is the case, but the issue was making it advantageous not to be married.
It’s not BS.
Almost any woman can go to a bar or nightclub. If she’s dressed for the occasion, she will be going home with somebody before the night is over.
That is not the case with most men.
Most men are relatively modest in their sexual conquests prior to marriage, with most of them leading a near celibate life until they marry.
The ones that stay in the basement have assessed their odds of success at too low a number to be bothered.
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