Posted on 07/28/2004 4:40:28 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
Do men still want to get married? Or has a culture of casual sex and cohabitation made men lose all interest in marriage? A new report from Rutgers University provides some fascinating insights into a subject that’s often misunderstood.
Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and David Popenoe in “The Marrying Kind: Which Men Marry and Why”—part of Rutgers’s annual “State of Our Unions” report—write that we know less than we think we do about young men and their attitudes toward marriage. They note that young married men are hardly ever portrayed in popular culture, as if there are none. “Yet . . . in 2002, there were 9.5 million married men between the ages of 25 and 34. And contrary to the popular stereotype, the typical thirty-something guy is a married guy.”
Moreover, many men in the 25-to-34 age group have positive feelings about marriage. Ninety-four percent of young married men that the authors surveyed “say that they are happier being married than being single.” And although many of the young single men in the survey planned to delay marriage for a while, only one in five does not intend to marry.
It’s encouraging to know that so many younger men still hold marriage in high regard. As Whitehead and Popenoe point out, marriage changes men in ways that dating and cohabitation don’t. Being married improves men’s health, finances, job success, and other aspects of their lives. And in turn, the authors say, “marriage includes a norm of male altruism.” It teaches men to put their family’s needs ahead of their own and encourages them to work to better their society.
Unfortunately, there’s also some bad news here. Our culture still isn’t doing a very good job of preparing men for marriage. Men are freely offered alternatives, like cohabitation, that damage their attitudes toward women as well as their understanding of marriage. This may be why the evidence suggests that couples who live together before marriage are more likely to divorce.
So it’s worth asking what factors encourage men to get married and help them build successful marriages. What Whitehead and Popenoe found isn’t surprising: Men with strong religious faith and men raised in intact two-parent families “are significantly more likely to marry and to have positive views of marriage and family life.” Interestingly, men from traditional families also had a better view of women than did young men from single-parent households.
These findings are backed up by a recent book titled Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands. Author W. Bradford Wilcox analyzed an enormous amount of data about three groups: conservative Protestants, mainline Protestants, and those with no religious affiliation. He came to a conclusion that doesn’t surprise us: that is, conservative Protestant men come closest to the ideal of what a husband and father should be. Contrary to popular stereotypes, these men are more affectionate and more “engaged emotionally” with their wives and children. Their faith directly inspires their view of their role in the family.
So there’s no need to despair just yet about the state of marriage. There are still quite a few men out there who are “the marrying kind”—men inspired by their Christian worldview.
I think most women would make that a guarentee.......lol
I was from NY and would vacation in parts like the ones you mentioned.
I got the impression Cyborg lived in the suburbs though, so if she lives out in farmland, that would be nice, but as you say, a whole other life.
Some day let me tell you about how the whole block where I lived was burglarized in NY and how at 5, I woke up with a knife at my throat.
Lovely NY story in itself.
Then there is the humidity of the summer and dirty slush and cold of the winter.
The biggest difference between NY and CA that I remember was that it was far less prejudice out here than back east.
I was a kid when I moved and I would put racism in the east and ten fold over the west coast.
NY has it's charm, and lots of problems as well.
I don't miss it, but I respect the people who are from there regarding their work ethics. They are more aggressive than west coast people and that is in the plus column for them.
PS, do people ever talk OVER each other back east as well. LOL That one could be fun to witness though.
Actually, I've read an article (I don't remember whether on FR or elsewhere) claiming that even UNhappily married men were more emotionally healthy than single men, specifically as it relates to depression.
The Apostle Paul said it first. ;)
Another consideration is making the marriage a covenant marriage, if your state provides them (only a few do so far, though). Check out http://www.divorcereform.org/cov.html for details on them. One might also consider writing one's senators and/or congressmen to push for covenant marriages.
Care to elaborate?
read later BUMP!
Court paid so-called experts are nothing but thieves who will say what they are paid to say. I happen to also have experience with such paid "whores"!
There are ways to make a father financially responsible. The law is on the child's side. However, if your sister and your family chose to have nothing to do with the father, then you all have chosen to foot the bills. You all get to live with that choice.
My greater concern is for the innocent child who has to bear the scars.
The child hasn't been scared and no one has stressed to the child that his dad tried to abort him and doesn't want to pay child support.
Not being one to give up, my sister then dated a guy from Pakistan who was polite and ended up also lying about everything. He has several women it ended up.
I can't think of any honorable Persians at all and I've come across plenty to see the pattern.
I think the ones that were born and raised here are more or less normal. The others off the boat should be avoided like a plague and should marry their own if they can find one willing to put up with them.
Going so far out of one's way merely to find a woman is a bad idea for a real man.
No woman is worth such trouble.
And women sense that.
No woman is worth such trouble.
I don't know if I agree.
If one is seeking precious gems or oil, one must go to where these things are abundant once the local supplies are played out.
re: "Made in America". I'm not so sure that what women here and from foreign countries want is so different, just the approach. From what I've seen a large number want the "traditional" role for women. Man provides, woman takes care of home, etc, etc. Note this includes man buying woman "little tokens of appreciation". Note also that foreign women are far more likely to consider any man in the U.S. as "rich". In some foreign countries, women are far more likely to be the breadwinner than the man. Not sure why. Some women do want what a career can give. For American women, be most wary of any approaching the age of 40. Thats when "having a life", whatever that might mean individually, suddenly becomes an urgent priority. If no children, then children. If children, maybe career. Or maybe, just maybe, The Bridges of Madison County.
Hmm. An interesting thought, I have heard much about divorced men being gunshy, how 'bout divorced women?
People respond to "events" the way they were taught to in whatever culture they were raised in. That goes for men and women both foreign and domestic.
Find a culture that honors the traditional family and odds are you'll find a family oriented woman that's not likely to do the divorce thing when hard times roll around. She's more likely to keep her babies than abort them, more likely to look at her man as a husband - not as a "partner", and more likely to be a life-long mate rather than a "serial-mate".
There are problems, though, when foreign women become "Americanized". Once that happens all bets are off, and we're back to dealing with American type women again. There are no guarantees in life, but the best advice to prevent "Americanization" is to choose a foreign woman carefully, have a long courtship, and keep her as far away from the TV as possible.
I know "courtship" is considered old fashioned, but it can prevent future problems with a woman. Stats have shown that just shacking up doesn't work, and a quick marriage can be a disaster.
Ladies, I just got through reading this entire thread, and now I am going to tell you 100% guaranteed where to meet conservative men.
NRA Highpower Rifle Competition. The guys are just about all conservative, and a high percentage of them are ex-military. I cannot ever recall having seen a single woman show up alone at a Highpower shoot.
The men will see you as that rarest of treasures- a conservative woman. I would think in a year of attending matches that a young lady would have several men to choose from. Just my opinion, based on observation.
It is not hard to get started, either. Let me know if you are interested, and I will supply details.
I've actually given some thought to joining a rifle club or something along those lines. Trouble is, I know absolutely nothing about guns (I've shot an M-16 ONCE in boot camp, and that's the extent of my experience), and don't have the money for one right now. Still, you're right that most likely there'd be a lot more guys than gals at such doin's, and most of them would be conservative.
Though...locally it seems like mostly the older guys are in clubs. Younger guys just hunt...every season, every type of weapon allowed, all through fall and winter. ;-) During most of November and December where I used to work, there wouldn't be more than a handful of guys at work on any given day. And where my brother works, they get the first Monday of hunting season off, by default. We take hunting seriously around here!
There inexpensive NRA sanctioned clinics that will teach you all that you need to know, and believe it or not, you can buy used service rifles from the government at a really great price. You should not need a rifle to get started. Most clinics have rifles for shooters wihtout them. Give the NRA a call and start asking questions.
As for there being mostly older guys, yes there are a lot of older guys. But there are also lots of younger unattached ones, too.
I hadn't realized that. That makes it much more approachable...
Thanks for the tips! I just might check into this...
I don't really want to step into the middle of this because I am nowhere near as intimately acquainted with Persian culture as LibreOuMort, but this statement really set me back. It runs quite counter to my knowledge of Iranians here over the past quarter-century.
According to an excellent book: "The Arab Mind," by Rafael Patai, the Arab culture has a perspective on reality that is significantly different from the Western, to a degree that where we see blatant lies, they quite literally see a different reality. (Patai says, as I recall, that this is a result of the exceptionally high degree of expressiveness of the Arabic language -- sort of what we might experience if our everyday street/business English came straight out of Shakespeare.)
But the Persian culture and language is very different from the Arabic. I have yet to meet a Persian who has kind words for the Arabs, especially those who rule Iran today.
My knowledge of Iranians here is admittedly limited, and there are likely those who have become somewhat "Arabic" but those I know personally do not possess this Arabic sense of "truth," they're quite a bit more Western in this regard.
I have not encountered any evidence that (what we call) lying is a part of Iranian culture. Arabic, yes; but Iranian, no.
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