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.
What men want?
A woman who's a whore in the kitchen and a gourmet in the bedroom.
Or something like that.
I think feminism has destroyed women and the family in general.
Friends are great sources for dating and finding a mate.
Also if you participate in something like a sport (tennis) or at church, you could find good people there as well.
Actually, the sociological data I've seen indicates that the three aspects of men's lives mentioned by name here (health, finances, job success) are improved even if their marriages go bad. There's just something about approaching life as a team, I guess.
That's true!
One of the good things about immigration -either legal or illegal- is the amount of women coming into the US with backgrounds, and values, different from American women.
This can be a boon to American men who find overly educated and pampered American women too hard to put up with - not to mention a pro-women American legal system,
This is an area where "made in America" isn't necessarily the best option.
I got married at 22 and it's the best decision I ever made other than becoming a Christian.
Sounds like the best answer! A lot of people get married because they want money, or children, or they're copying their friends, or parental pressure, etc. I don't know why I proposed to my wife, I just wanted her and blurted it out one day. We're lucky, been married 29 years. We started out dirt poor with absolutely nothing and everything we have now, came from working together to obtain it.
A lot of young people haven't figured this out - they're waiting until they have a career or money or house, looks, whatever, before proposing, and they often wait too long and are never happy. What works best is to compromise and work together and God will help provide the rest.
dad gummit...you beat me to it....every thread like this is obligated to mention the word Philippines or filipina....:)
I mean normal women. It's like hunting Bambi, But I might have one from Brazil. She's coming back. Let's see if she sells her stuff down there and moves here:) She is a professional that can do better here than down there in hospitals. But I'll keep my options open, as we should.
There is no respect for God as strongly as in generations past, so with no strong Spiritual base, many more are divorcing.
I had one friend who's divorce lawyer bill alone was $254,000. The lawyers get everything and the couple goes broke.
Guys in particular fear a divorce before marriage and that causes guys to get cold feet.
If both are young without stuff, it is easy to go in and both develop something.
If someone is even 25, there might already be assets to worry about and marriage gets tougher as people get older with more assets to lose.
Thanks for the advice, t'is much appreciated. I think the only one of those ideas that is actually an option for me (I'll spare you the reasons) is church. I guess maybe I'll have to force myself in to one of these blasted southern churches again. Mind you, I'm a staunch Christian- but all the fire, brimstone, yelling, and contemporary Christian "music" makes me ill after about ten minutes. I'm gonna need to buy a big bottle of asprin for this mission.
Are you being a little touchy, perhaps?
Allow me to correct you, kind sir.....
Marrying the *right* woman at 22 is the best decision you ever made.
*chuckle*
Makes sense to me. Marriage just isn't for some folks, or isn't for them until they're older. C. Peter Wagner says being content with being single is a spiritual gift, and I believe it.
She is a professional what?
***Brazil***, be careful, that is pretty much one of the aids capitals of the world and there are lots of sex changes going on over there.
Unless you met and know her family, your Sally might be in fact a Steve. Watch out!
bump
dad gummit...you beat me to it....
Sorry about that :)
He may mean "Over-liberalized".
Re: my post #11
If you were in CA, you could find an international woman of a more traditional background who sees her role in a more 1950s view.
California is the most diversified place in the entire world.
More than New York. More than anywhere else in the world.
You'd have choice here in California in all shapes, sizes, cultures and colors.
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