Posted on 08/13/2003 9:40:36 AM PDT by ddodd3329
Why do fewer people marry?
According to a 1999 National Vital Statistics Report from the CDC, 7.4 per 1,000 Americans married in 1998. From 1990 to 1995, the marriage rate dropped from 9.8 to 7.6. Different sources render other statistics but the trend remains sharply downward.
There is never a single or comprehensive explanation for complex phenomena that are rooted deeply in human psychology. Non-marriage is a particularly difficult issue to address because, as a recent paper from Rutgers University entitled "Why Men Won't Commit" explains, official sources are scarce. "The federal government issues thousands of reports on nearly every dimension of American life. ... But it provides no annual index or report on the state of marriage." Much of the discussion of the motives surrounding non-marriage must be anecdotal, therefore, relying on statistics to provide framework and perspective.
In examining reasons for the current decline of marriage, one question usually receives short shrift. Why are men reluctant to marry?
The Rutgers report -- admittedly based on a small sample -- found ten prevalent reasons. The first three:
They can get sex without marriage;
They can enjoy "a wife" through cohabitation; and,
They want to avoid divorce and its financial risks.
As a critic of anti-male bias in the family courts, the reasons I hear most frequently from non-marrying men are fear of financial devastation in divorce and of losing meaningful contact with children afterward. (Such feedback is anecdotal evidence but, when you hear the same response over a period of years from several hundred different sources, it becomes prudent to listen.)
In a similar vein, the Rutgers report finds: "Many men also fear the financial consequences of divorce. They say that their financial assets are better protected if they cohabit rather than marry. They fear that an ex-wife will 'take you for all you've got' and that 'men have more to lose financially than women' from a divorce."
Increasingly, men are stating their reasons for not marrying on the Internet. In an article entitled "The Marriage Strike," Matthew Weeks expresses a sentiment common to such sites, "If we accept the old feminist argument that marriage is slavery for women, then it is undeniable that -- given the current state of the nation's family courts -- divorce is slavery for men."
Weeks provides the math. One in two marriages will fail with the wife being twice as likely to initiate the proceedings on grounds of "general discontent" -- the minimum requirement of no-fault divorce. The odds of the woman receiving custody of children are overwhelming, with many fathers effectively being denied visitation. The wife usually keeps the "family" assets and, perhaps, receives alimony as well as child support. Many men confront continuing poverty to pay for the former marriage.
>>>Continued<<<
(Excerpt) Read more at dondodd.com ...
I know. My father was a preacher in small town churches out in "God's Country" when I was growing up. While they tried to keep it out of sight and out of mind, there were as many shenanigans and divorces in those congregations as happen in your average Silicon Valley suburb.
Which underscores that it has very little to do with religion and that religion is actually orthogonal to the issue. The current state of affairs is a social economics problem ("economics" in the broadest sense -- not just money), and is a direct consequence of the rules of the system we live in. People never change their fundamental nature, they just adapt to the current environment. Therefore, if you want to change outcomes you have to focus on changing the underlying environment that led to the current outcome. Unfortunately, most people foolishly try to change people in the process, which never has the intended results.
Actually, there is a special name for these people. They're called "guys". (Present company excepted, of course...)
Nope. At least Russian Roulette is a quick death...
'Scuse me?
I've heard this before and I can't see how this could possibly be true. Child support payments are absolutely devastating. If I were to get divorced, I'd be lucky to be able to afford a cardboard box under an overpass.
...while the income, and living standard of the female, and the children, drops dramatically...
How does whatever income you had before plus child support equal a dramatic drop? I bet the researchers who "discovered" this had some help from Enron accountants.
..funny how we dont here much about that...
I hear it all the time (in the context of discusssions such as these). And I believe that it is a bald-faced lie.
Not me. I wish I had been born 20 years earlier (1937, not 1957). By the time I got old enough where marrying was an option, it was the late 70s and women were far less interested in being a good wife and much more interested in declaring all men to be pigs and rapists.
I think I would have been happily married had I been around women who looked forward to being housewives and mothers, preparing themselves for such, instead of being around women who thought men were something to compete with.
Today's women are even further removed from the concepts that make a marriage work. Some don't even know how to be gentle. It's all a one-up game to them.
Women have become less ideal marriage partners than previous generations. That and the increasing power of family law courts is what keeps men from tying the not.
This is certainly not to say *all* women are that way. It's just that most of the good marriage partners are already married.
Their wives made them.
*Ouch*
I'm awarding you both ears and the tail...
Seriesly, the deciding vote on Amendment XIX was made by a man whose mother made him promise her on her death bed that if he was ever in a position to grant sufferage, he would...
I'm sure they are.
Until they've lived here a while.
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