Posted on 06/23/2004 1:36:23 PM PDT by John Lenin
By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer
NEW YORK - While most single young men aspire to marriage, about one-fifth are deeply skeptical of the institution and their prospects of making it work, according to a new national survey which closely links men's marital outlook to their upbringing.
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The survey, released Wednesday by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, found that the men with negative attitudes were far more likely than the rest to have been raised by a divorced parent in a non-churchgoing family.
"Most young men are still 'the marrying kind,'" said a report accompanying the survey. "Moreover, the men who are the best 'marriage bets' are those who are more traditional in their family and religious background."
One critic said such assertions were too broad, fostering illusions about traditional families and overlooking the nuanced attitudes of those raised by divorced parents.
Of the 1,010 men aged 25-34 who were surveyed, 569 were married. Of that group, 81 percent said they got married "because it was the right time to settle down." The desire to have children was a major factor for 35 percent; only 15 percent said they married sooner than they wished because of pressure from their partner.
The survey was part of the annual "State of Our Unions" report authored by Marriage Project co-directors David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead.
Their report avoided making specific recommendations, but Popenoe, in a telephone interview, counseled women seeking husbands to "take into consideration the guy's background — don't avoid the traditional guys."
"A huge percentage of the men say they'll marry when it's time to settle down, which a lot of women don't quite understand," Popenoe said. "A word of advice to women — make sure you're getting the guy at just this time."
Survey responses from the married men painted a positive picture of marriage — 94 percent said they were happier married than single, and 73 percent said their sex life was better.
"For men, even more than for women, marriage is a transformative event," Popenoe and Whitehead wrote. "They work harder and do better financially than men who are not married. They are less likely to hang out in bars, to abuse alcohol or drugs."
According to the survey, married men are roughly twice as likely as unmarried men to go religious services regularly. Three-quarters of the married men said it was important for children to be raised in a religion, compared to 59 percent of unmarried men.
Regarding parenting, married and single men had similar views — about two-thirds of each group said having children shouldn't be the main purpose of marrying.
Among the single men, those interested in marriage were more likely to have had a father fully involved in their upbringing than those who were skeptical of marriage. The unmarried men raised by two parents also were more likely to be trusting of women than those raised in single-parent homes.
Stephanie Coontz, a history professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and author of several books on families, questioned the utility of such findings.
"There's this endless stream of correlations that seem designed to convince people, 'By golly, we'd all do better if everybody got married and stayed married,'" she said. "That's unrealistic in the modern world."
She said researchers should conduct more detailed surveys, for example, comparing the outlooks of men whose parents divorced amicably with men whose parents endured in an unhappy marriage.
Of the unmarried men who were surveyed, 53 percent said they were not interested in getting married anytime soon. Most agreed that "at this stage in my life I want fun and freedom"; 47 percent said they wouldn't marry until they could afford to own a home.
Her comments about this seem kind of shallow. I would like to see more books for men...how to treat a woman nicely. If men had the right learning, they might be more confident about getting married.
"God's Gift to Women," by Eric Ludy.
You are welcome!
She gives a warning at the beginning of the book that if you are in an abusive or destructive environment, this book is not for you.
Nothing wrong with that. I do the same for my husband, been married 21 years, with two children.
I don't like everything Dr. Laura says, but the book is a basic rule book to give the ground work to help the marriage where feminism has failed all of us.
Our men are not the enemy, Our sons are not to be ignored. They have basic needs, and mothers/wives are the nurturers. That is what her book is about.
Getting back to basics. Take care of your men, they will gladly take care of you.
However, again in destructive or abusive relationships, this cannot work.
A Bump for later and for Dr. Laura. It's a great book.
Darn right. She is trying single-handedly to save marriage, as an institution. It works with partners having mutual respect for one another.
Bump it up hate to lose this thread. It is an important one.
ping
Not to say that women shouldn't love their husbands, obviously. But I'd like to see more material out there about how men should love their women.
If more young men had the skills, I'd think there would be more of them who were confident to marry.
Marriage, and relationships are a two way street, but Dr. Laura's book is a good start. She is trying to get women, (who usually set the mood of the home), to put the effort out there. Men usually will respond positively to this. Making for a more harmonious lifestyle. Each person working to help the other feel more comfortable. It just makes sense to me.
We are all just human, and are flawed. But we have decades of feminism to undo. Some of the feminist movement was for good intentions, however, it has caused the divorce rate to skyrocket, and peoples lives to be terribly unhappy. Just a thought.
If Girls want the Guys whom the date to treat them nicely, here's a radical concept: Girls should date the Guys who do treat them nicely.
Shocking concept, I know. But it's crazy enough, it just might work...
By and large, Men do not respond to self-help books and deep, personal introspection. It's not in our nature. We respond to direct, immediate positive reinforcement: appreciate our strengths, our virtues, our passions and compassions, and we are putty -- putty -- in your feminine hands.
Unfortunately for the women-folk, this radical idea demands a necessary corollary: Don't date scumbags. I know, it's going pretty far out on the limb to suggest such a thing, but work with me here:
And as far as the "Bad Boys" go... shun them, spurn them, refuse them and embarass them with your denials -- and Darwinian Sexual Selection (which even a Creationist will admit, is true insofar as it goes) will take care of eliminating the chaff, over time.
best, OP
Who doesn't respond to these things? Women are exactly the same in this area.
Often the men are known to be the ones who cannot articulate these things; I suppose going along with the stereotype of males who lack in sensitivity. True or false?
One obvious thought is that women are probably much more likely to buy/read a book about marriage than men are. That would factor in also.
Her basic theory (I'm a radio listener who has not read the book) is that women have been taught to be aggressive and demeaning toward men. Most men, when a wife is nice to them, will KNOCK THEMSELVES OUT to make her happy.
I think she is absolutely right. My husband isn't a simpleton but the major fact of his life is that he works most of the day. A smiling wife and decent food go a long way toward setting him up for a happy evening.
This may be. However, there are lots of men who read. I think if there were good books out there perhaps a smart man who really was interested in self-improvement (is that such a rare breed?) would pick it up.
However, I was remiss in suggesting that this would be the only area where such material is needed. Seminars, TV, Movies, Magazines....wherever the public attention goes. This is where men need to be taught how to treat ladies.
Mmmm... True and False.
"Males who lack in sensitivity" are usually just... males who lack in sensitivity -- and, as I said in my prior post, not worthy of a woman's bother.
On the other hand, it is, I think, stereotypically true that "Often the men are known to be the ones who cannot articulate these things"; articulation, socialization, commensuration and empathy -- these things are not always our strong points.
Sensitivity, we can do -- if you look for the right Man. Just don't expect it to be necessarily Articulate in expression.
By way of Incidental Evidence, amongst "genius-level scores" on the SAT Maths, Men consistently out-perform Women across all racial and socio-economic lines by an incredibly outsized margin: at least 3-to-1 on scores of 780 or above, as much as 7-to-1 on "perfect" scores of 800. Simply put: On all standardized exams, including IQ tests, men score higher than women on mathematical reasoning sections.
By comparison, amongst "genius-level scores" on the SAT Verbals, the gender difference is practically lost in the static -- maybe 1.3-to-1 in favor of Men on "perfect" scores of 800, a difference I'd be tempted to chalk up to the Bell Curve (On average -- the Male Sex produces both more clinical Geniuses, and more clinical Idiots, than does the Female Sex; Simple psychological fact), and adjudge the Female Sex to be the more "Verbal" and Communicatively-gifted overall. Certainly, Females mature in Verbal Communication anywhere from 2-3 years faster than do Males.
These are our differences; and Vive la Difference, I say. The Golden Rule of Dating, it seems to me, boils down to this: Reward the Good, and Punish the Bad.
As always, just one fella's Opinion.
best, OP
I didn't get married until I was 31 partially because for deven years, I had 3 married women in my life who would drop by for sex only 3 or 4 times a week.
None of them wanted to get divorced, all had kids they just wanted someone who didn't jump on and off.
Add on to 99
None of them were poor, fat, drunks, or used bad language.
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