We simply could not agree on where to place our baby bathtub. We decided not to argue anymore about it and agreed to take the advice of a professional interior decorator.
Posted on 07/05/2005 5:31:57 AM PDT by Bon mots
Is marriage, as a social institution, doomed? As recently as 50 years ago, it was the norm for people to get married and have children. But now, at least in the west, we are seeing record numbers of people divorcing, leaving marriage until later in life or not getting married at all. In Britain, I was amazed to learn the other day, the proportion of children born outside marriage has shot up from 9 per cent to 42 per cent since 1976. In France, the proportion is 44 per cent, in Sweden, it is 56 per cent and even in the US, with its religious emphasis on family values, it is 35 per cent.
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I suppose we must blame the rise of selfish individualism. People are a lot less willing to sacrifice their independent lifestyle and become part of a couple or family unit than they once were. And if they do marry, the importance they place on their right to a happy life leaves them disinclined to stick around for long once the initial euphoria has worn off.
I wonder, though, if there is another possible explanation: that, frankly, a lot of women do not like men very much, and vice versa? And that, given the choice, a lot of women and men would prefer an adequate supply of casual nookie to a lifelong relationship with a member of the opposite sex?
Choice, after all, is a very recent phenomenon. For most of human history, men and women married not because they particularly liked one another but out of practical necessity: men needed women to cook and clean for them while women needed men to bring home the bacon. It is only in very recent times that women have won legal independence and access to economic self-sufficiency - and only recently, too, that men have been liberated from dependency on women by ready meals and take-away food, automatic washing machines and domestic cleaning services.
During the times of mutual dependency, women were economically, legally and politically subservient to men. This had a number of repercussions. One was that, lacking control over their own lives, women could justifiably hold their husbands responsible for everything, resulting in what men around the world will recognise as the first law of matrimony: "It's all your fault." Second, while men ruled the world, women ruled within the home - often firmly, resulting in the age-old image of the nagging wife and hen-pecked husband. And third, understandably resenting their subjugation outside the home, women took pleasure in characterising their oppressors as selfish, insensitive, lazy, lying, feckless, incompetent scumbags.
Fair enough. But in the last 30 years, relations between men and women have undergone a greater change than at any time in human history. Women have not reached full equality yet, but they are getting close. And now the economic necessity for getting hitched has died out, marriage is on the rocks.
What can be done to save it? My interest in this was provoked by an article I read online last week by Stephanie Coontz, an author of books on American family life. In The Chronicle of Higher Education, she said an important principle was that "husbands have to respond positively to their wives' request for change" - for example, addressing the anomaly that women tend to do the larger share of the housework.
So, husbands have to change. Does this sound familiar? Of course it does, because it is another repetition of the first law of matrimony: "It's all your fault."
I could quibble with Ms Coontz's worries about the uneven split in the male/female workload. In the US, according to the latest time-use survey from the bureau of labour statistics, employed women spend on average an hour a day more than employed men on housework and childcare; but employed men spend an hour a day longer doing paid work. While this may be an imperfect arrangement, it hardly seems a glaring injustice.
But my point is this. Yes, men must change; indeed, they are changing, which is why we hear so much about new men and metrosexuals and divorced fathers fighting for custody of their children. But are women so perfect, or so sanctified by thousands of years of oppression, that they cannot be asked to change even the tiniest bit, too?
If economic necessity is not going to bring and keep men and women together in marriage, then we are going to have to rely on mutual affection and respect. And there is not going to be much of that about as long as women - assisted by television sitcoms and media portrayals in general - carry on stereotyping men as selfish, insensitive, lazy, lying, feckless, incompetent scumbags, even if some of them are.
So, my timorous suggestion is that it is time for women to shrug off the legacy of oppression and consider changing their approach to men and marriage. First, with power comes responsibility, which means it is now all women's fault as much as men's and, hence, the end of the blame and complain game. Second, if women are to share power in the world, men must share power in the home, which means that they get an equal say in important decisions about soft furnishings.
Most of all, it is time for the negative stereotyping to go. I know women will say: "But it's true!" If so, then marriage certainly is doomed.
But whose fault is that? If you treat all men as selfish, insensitive, lazy, lying, feckless, incompetent scumbags, you should not be surprised if that is what they turn out to be.
"The basic, simple, biological reality is that women need to be having children when they're 18 - 25 and not when they're 30-45, and they need to be able to do that without having to marry men who are ten years older than they are. "
Why the objection to a 10 year age difference? In my experience, a woman in her twenties is a good match both physically and emotionally with a man in his thirties, ditto woman thirties, man forties, and on into later middle age. Girls mature emotionally much earlier than boys, and young men need the additional time to catch up, while the greater physical strength of men means that a younger woman will still be challenged keeping up with her somewhat older husband (in fact, even at a 10 year age difference, he's going to have to slow down for her, but the older man is much more likely than the younger to have the maturity to do that.) The older husband is also likely to be much more confident in himself as a man, and therefore less likely to seek to dominate her. And sexually, many women go through menopause in their forties, while men in their forties are still going strong.
All around, I think that an age difference anywhere from 5 to 15 years is just about perfect.
If you look back in history, women traditionally were considered ready for marriage around age 18, but they weren't marrying men their own age-- young men weren't considered ready until around 25. Judging from my observations of both my own and my older teenage daughters' generations, I think that's about right.
Or else, keep the borders open, so people can come in -- and do what the American men WON'T DO for the women.
That's a mistake, placing blame on one gender or the other is not helpful. Changes for the worse in our societies is the real culprit. I bet my life on this, that there is a corresponding increase in infidelity and "one night stands" at the expense of matrimony.
How can we attribute one particular factor to this trend? I do not think we can, falling church attendance, lack of a moral and ethical framework, teenage sexual promiscuity and gangster culture role models, nuclear family is a thing of the past........
WHY ARE WE SURPSIED THAT MATRIMONY IS FADING FAST?
You mean besides rap music, full body tattoos and piercing every part of their body?
There are several things they do the BB's did not do en masse ... well, at least not in my area.
Interestingly enough, universities still kvetch that -- although women postively infest humanities and arts faculties and the wussier sciences that men slightly outnumber women when calculus is required.
Swedes are less inclined to marry in the traditional sense but more inclined to long-term shack-up arrangements (or common law marriages). If people live together for life without officially marrying and raise children that way, then it would be hard for me to deny it's a viable family.
You don't understand women. They don't want you to do anything, just listen to them -- or pretend to.
You make an excellent point. Don't expect any change, though.
A 5 year age difference is one thing but if you think more than that is ok - think again. Most women don't want to be at home with a sickly elderly husband while they are still young and strong. Nor do many want to spend a good length of their golden years alone because their much older husband passed on.
Maybe if men (not all mind you) stopped ACTING like that, women would stop treating them like that. How about that?
I've noticed that women who complain about the endless stream of unsavory men with whom they've been involved manage to find another one, each and every time.
I listen, but am often, not always. quite bored at the nonsense about gosspiping about other people, talking about misplaced feelings of being disrespected and hurt, etc etc. It all seems petty and trivial to me after awhile.
My response, unfortunately, is often - Who the F$%^ cares?
Or, as put perfectly in the movie a Bronx Tale: "Nobody cares"
"a basic flip flop of roles would be expected, and certainly after womens "time" becomes worth so much more than mens time, women will have to give up all the menial unpaid tasks that they used to do - esp around the house."
Thank God I'm no longer involved in this mess. I'm married, and older. But it is my observation, (guess? opinion?), that some of the characteristics of the traditional role models are genetic traits. Women are better at multi tasking, and nurturing. Men are better at linear thought and abstract problem solving.
Women will certainly be able to mold many men into househusbands. And then they will feel empty, wishing they had a man in the old style mold of a man.
Just my guess.
How naive this writer be. The cause of the bulk of divorces is that "women change". Within 3 to 5 years after marriage they neither look nor act remotely like the friendly, supportive, thin bride they once were.
In our golf league there are a few guys who are younger. We were talking to one of them, the guy is 22, has a very good job. He was talking about his fiancee. I told him I wouldn't do well as a single man his age, given that women are so difficult to deal with. His agreement was emphatic, and immediate. I feel sorry for young men these days.
I have a 20 year old daughter, I love her dearly, but I'm certain one day she will make some poor guy miserable.
Nobody. She doesn't either. Why do you? In one ear, out the other. Start thinking about something else. That's the great thing about being a mathematician. I can listen to someone while working out a problem in my head, drifting in and out.
The best relationship book I've ever read is The Prince by Machiavelli.
Of course I am biased, BUT, I think men in large have gotten a terrible rap. Most I know try to please the woman they are with and it often goes wrong somewhere where an ex boyfriend shows up, or the man is unappreciated by everything he does, or the man is always trying to compete with the womans' depression , headaches, nausia, or some other ailment.
People don't have fewer children because the government tells them the world is getting overpopulated. They do so because they have economic freedom and they value their own happiness (however they define it). The only difference between now and before is that now people are free (have choices). BTW, who do you consider to be "undesirables?"
We simply could not agree on where to place our baby bathtub. We decided not to argue anymore about it and agreed to take the advice of a professional interior decorator.
Which is why I think God arranged marriage the way He did. Taking a vote doesn't resolve any disagreement. Marriage forces you to be less self-centered.
And as you said, great sacrifice results in great happiness and fulfillment. It's a paradox that the feminists and self-actualizers will never understand.
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