The End of Marriage in Scandinavia

The Weekly Standard ^ | February 2, 2004 | Stanley Kurtz

[Destro]

The point above was not mine but it made sense to me and I thought of placing it here before the usual it is the homo's fault or socialisim's fault for the failure in marriage etc.

America's marriage failure rate is a disgrace - maybe the Scandanavians are smarter then us and avoid the marriage pitfall while Americans stick to it out of cultural sentimentality? Our hearts tell us marriage but our minds say it is not worth it and I blame the American legal system and the culture that developed out of it.

Marriage was invented as a form of wealth AND DNA transfer. Men had to buy their wives in the past or the wives had to put up a dowry to make the marriage burden acceptable to the male. That is how it has always been until the last 50 years.

Watch dowrys make a comeback in the Western world as this marriage situation gets worse.

[Dajjal]

Decline of Civilization ping

[Land of the Irish]

Ping

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Aside from the fact people are no longer taught the Faith, I've come to another realization. In doing some high quality spiritual reading (thank you traditional Catholicism) and in examining my own life, once a person commits one sin and rationalizes it away, it becomes progressively easier to commit another sin and another. Pretty soon, a person has reached an entirely different state of existence with either no conscience at all or wondering how in the world he or she got there.

I think that applies to nations as well as individuals.

[Snerfling]

Watch dowrys make a comeback in the Western world as this marriage situation gets worse.

It already has - it's called having a wife with her own professional career. Only a fool would marry an uneducated person that was completely financially dependent on them, provide witless companionship, and then line up for 1/2 of all the assets HE had managed to accumulate.

[dennisw]

Hahahahahah!

[longtermmemmory]

What a fiasco in iceland. Hardly a good example.

Interesting that Greece has only a 3% out of wedlock births. Of course it is a heavily orthodox christian nation.

[longtermmemmory]

It depends on whether the man wants a family as to the value of a woman's career. What is the point if it only damages the children.

A wife with a career is not a dowery. Dowery were assets given to the husband.

[Snerfling]

Dowery were assets given to the husband

Would you rather be given $1m up front or have a wife who can earn $100k/yr for 30yrs? There's quite a lot of women graduating from top colleges that are available to equally educated men.

[longtermmemmory]

If the husband owned the wife you would have a point. However, dowery was (and is) given outright to the husband. It is his.

What you are arguing is the value of a wife as a finacial asset to the husbands job of being the breadwinner. Two different aspects.

[tj005]

I agree, divorce is a killer. You have no choice in your losses, your children are gone, and your money and possessions are gone. Then for the majority of the rest of your youger life, THAT is controlled to the point of virtually being gone too.

If I had to do it all over.. I would never get married.

[Destro]

I understand. I wish it were otherwise I was not publishing what I think but these reports I have read make more sense then the bugaboo that we are under assualt by forces of gayness or something.

Our marriage laws - divorce laws whatever they are called are killers to men. Nature has a way of finding a balance - it used to be that families had to bribe a man to marry their daughter thus the dowry. We will see that again.

[Destro]

I understand. I wish it were otherwise I was not publishing what I think but these reports I have read make more sense then the bugaboo that we are under assualt by forces of gayness or something.

Our marriage laws - divorce laws whatever they are called are killers to men. Nature has a way of finding a balance - it used to be that families had to bribe a man to marry their daughter thus the dowry. We will see that again?? (I forgot to add the question mark)

[NYpeanut]

Good men are victimized by bad women and good women are victimized by bad men.

Well put.

[Siamese Princess]

Our marriage laws - divorce laws whatever they are called are killers to men. Nature has a way of finding a balance - it used to be that families had to bribe a man to marry their daughter thus the dowry. We will see that again?? (I forgot to add the question mark)

A historical note: In early medieval Europe, a man paid a bride price to the family of the girl and a morning gift to the girl herself. In the latter half of the Middle Ages, the dowry appeared -- The family of the girl in effect bought a husband for her. This seems to indicate that in the early Middle Ages there was a surplus of men, in the latter, a surplus of women.

To this day in the Muslim world, a man pays a bride price --there probably is a shortage of women due to polygamy.

[Destro]

I should also add that independent women can make a living for themselves in the Western World and do not require the income of a husband. All this plays a factor.

[Landru]

>Watch dowrys make a comeback in the Western world as this marriage situation gets worse.
"It already has - it's called having a wife with her own professional career. Only a fool would marry an uneducated person that was completely financially dependent on them, provide witless companionship, and then line up for 1/2 of all the assets HE had managed to accumulate."

Might be some truth to that but then, how does one explain the concept of a "Trophy Wife" who's usually a blond (but not always), 5'10+" (on average), =<135# (+/- a few #s) et al who's also as dumb as a box of rocks, then?

Just work your thing in reverse & a redefinition of "fool" is in order, I'm afraid.

...& they're out there, y'know.

[truthandjustice1]

"yes, handball prowess makes for celebrity in Norway). Hundvin had been in a registered gay partnership with fellow handballer"

You just can't make this stuff up.

[Siamese Princess]

I should also add that independent women can make a living for themselves in the Western World and do not require the income of a husband. All this plays a factor.

Absolutely right! Though during the Middle Ages, women held all kinds of jobs, independent of husbands, including some quite unladylike occupations such as weapons-making or blacksmithing. In early modern times, though, it became very difficult for a woman to earn an honest living on her own so she either had to get married or depend on her family. This only began to reverse itself in the 19th century.

Remember, too, that historically, the family was a unit of economic production; now it's a unit of consumption. Husbands, wives and children worked together on the family farm or business. They grew and raised their own food and made most of what items they needed. A man needed a wife -- she really was a helpmeet. Men were as dependent on their wives as women were on their husbands. Women also enjoyed a great deal of self-esteem and the respect of others because being a good housewife really did require a great deal of skill. This only began to change with "the industrial revolution," urbanization, the growth of middle class and even labor-saving household devices. People purchased items instead of growing, raising or making them. The result was that a growing number of women became economically dependent on their husbands. Even being a housewife nowadays does not require either the amount of work or skill that being one 200 years ago required. It's been suggested that one of the reasons for modern feminism is an attempt by some women to regain their lost self-esteem and the respect of others.

[Snerfling]

how does one explain the concept of a "Trophy Wife"

Ain't nothing wrong with a trophy wife. However, the issue was marriage and the risk of divorce and loss of financial assets. Trophy wives ALWAYS sign pre-nups, therefore the potential losses are known in advance. No pre-nup, no marriage - then they're just mistresses.

There's an old saying that goes something like this:

You marry the first time for love, the second time for money and the third time for companionship. The first one is the killer that takes out many men. The second is achieved by those who wait until they are financially secure. The third doesn't really have to be formal - just 60+ somethings dating/living together.