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The Marriage Strike - Why are men reluctant to marry?
Radiofree West Hartford ^ | August 13, 2003 | Wendy McElroy

Posted on 08/13/2003 9:40:36 AM PDT by ddodd3329

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To: RightWhale
You're right. We're both thrashing around with no real numbers. Obviously the subject of this thread touched a nerve--witness the many bitter, bitter posts about marriage.

I have a hard time identifying with them. I'm very happily married and plan to stay that way.

341 posted on 08/13/2003 8:40:14 PM PDT by ModelBreaker
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To: montag813
Agreed. All excellent points.
342 posted on 08/13/2003 9:04:17 PM PDT by xrp
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To: BradyLS
Thanks!
343 posted on 08/13/2003 9:12:18 PM PDT by null and void (*finally!*)
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To: ddodd3329
Okay, I didn't even read the article, the headline alone was enough! Here goes: Men don't marry because...why should they? They have all these surgically inflated "Girls Gone Wild" sluts, strippers and porn stars throwing poon in their faces for free so that their reality about real women is completely warped. I'm 36 and don't feel sorry for the younger generation of whores who walk around naked because they bring it on themselves! Now, when they have the nerve to turn 35 and are alone except for meaningless one-night stands, oh well! Make hay while the sun shines ladies, just have some self-respect for Chrissake!
344 posted on 08/13/2003 9:14:27 PM PDT by wazoo1031
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To: FreedomAvatar
It's the Oprah-ization of American women.

...then let them marry Oprah.

345 posted on 08/13/2003 9:24:29 PM PDT by He Rides A White Horse (For or against us.........)
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To: Mat_Helm
Money, wealth, and power of personal freedom over responsibility have convinced selfish people to allow abortion, divorce, homosexuality, and the decline of the family.

Run, don't walk from any pro-abortion types. Think about it for a minute. Here's a woman who would betray her own child in the womb. For convenience.

Now skip ahead to when you are older, and married to such a woman. Maybe you start having health problems.

Any woman who finds her own child expendable in such a way would find anybody expendable. Including her husband.

Not very reassuring.

346 posted on 08/13/2003 9:33:08 PM PDT by He Rides A White Horse (For or against us.........)
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To: Mat_Helm
...no way I'll find myself being 'aborted' in old age by one of these types.
347 posted on 08/13/2003 9:34:39 PM PDT by He Rides A White Horse (For or against us.........)
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To: CoolPapaBoze
If I were single and living here, why the hell would I get married?

Because you don't want to get AIDS.

348 posted on 08/13/2003 9:37:06 PM PDT by Screaming_Gerbil (Let's Roll...)
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To: Gorjus
But, there is no reason a divorced man cannot be a leader in a church, if he has truly repented

Except for the words in that pesky bible, which says that only men who are the husbands of one wife are qualified for such positions. But then again, that same document says women should keep quiet in the church, and that would mean no women preachers. Surely God was just confused when He wrote that part.

It is going forward that matters, but if a church leader counsels those in the midst of marital strife that divorce is 'okay', then they're going against Scripture.

Anybody who re-marries after being divorced is committing adultery according to God (but again, He only said that in an obsolete pesky document which is ignored by our more "enlightened" pseudo-churches. Surely God now realizes that our modern wisdom is so much greater than his archaic rules).

349 posted on 08/13/2003 9:40:11 PM PDT by Technogeeb
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To: snowstorm12
and take advantage of others and opportunities wherever I can.

You sound like a real catch. Actually, you sound like most women in America today. Which is probably why this thread was posted in the first place.

There is never a shortage of men wanting female companionship anywhere that I've seen. I love men and what they can do for me and what I can get out of it. You're simply wrong, I love men.

I don't know how old you are snowstorm, and perhaps you may be reasonably attractive, but it won't last forever. I suspect that as time passes and leaves a few wrinkles on your face, you'll be as attractive as the words you've left here.

Think Dorian Gray.

350 posted on 08/13/2003 9:43:33 PM PDT by He Rides A White Horse (For or against us.........)
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To: snowstorm12
....and I'll also say that I imagine you at the age of fifty decidedly unhappy with 'The Government' as your husband. Social Security isn't much of an alimony payment.

Perhaps you'll be the vanguard of a new type of feminism; demanding that 'government' isn't doing enough to find you a husband. Maybe it's the feminist whine of the future; try introducing legislation to force somebody to marry you.

351 posted on 08/13/2003 9:52:24 PM PDT by He Rides A White Horse (For or against us.........)
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To: snowstorm12
....and I'll also say that I imagine you at the age of fifty decidedly unhappy with 'The Government' as your husband.

....and I say that because it's already coming to pass. Middle aged feminists crying about how they are unmarried..........they've spent the last thirty years bashing men and wonder why they are growing old alone. It's a simple answer.

I love men and what they can do for me and what I can get out of it.

Reread your statement, and good luck. You're going to need it.

352 posted on 08/13/2003 9:57:46 PM PDT by He Rides A White Horse (For or against us.........)
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To: mattdono; redgolum
I once was slapped for holding a door open for my date. She said it was an insult to her and I had better apologize.

I opened a door for a lady going into a building (a courthouse) and she refused to walk through the door. She said, "I won't be a slave to you and won't give you the power by letting you hold the door open for me"

Yeah, but now the temptation is to adopt a defensive attitude and not open any doors for any females in the future...

Would "I'm sorry, I thought you were a lady." be a good (short and to the point) response to these sort of women?

353 posted on 08/13/2003 10:17:39 PM PDT by Screaming_Gerbil (Let's Roll...)
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To: Screaming_Gerbil
you don't just open the door for "the woman" you open it becauste its the right thing for YOU to do. Any women who would refuse the courtesy is not female.
354 posted on 08/13/2003 10:46:37 PM PDT by longtermmemmory (Vote!)
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To: BradyLS
Men marry women hoping they won't change, women marry men hoping they will, and they're both disappointed.
355 posted on 08/13/2003 11:32:19 PM PDT by Richard Kimball
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To: riri
Yeah, right, I kid all the time. I tell ya, though, it's been rough. My wife just cut me down to twice a week. Course, I shouldn't complain. She cut out two other guys altogether.

Get married. You'll find out whether I'm kidding or not.

356 posted on 08/13/2003 11:41:46 PM PDT by Richard Kimball
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To: Criminal Number 18F
You are a perfect illustration of what Fred Reed calls "The Chip." You can look it up.

I had to look it up... Found it here: http://www.fredoneverything.net/Reimer.shtml

Marriage, Horror, And Susan Reimer
Take Horror. It's A Better Bet.

July 14, 2003

Were I to offer thoughts on marriage to young American men today, in these the declining years of a once-great civilization, my advice would be as follows: Don't do it. Or, if you do, do it in another country. In America marriage is a grievous error.

And why so? Because of The Chip. The Attitude. The bandsaw whine of anger, anger, anger that makes American women an international horror. It's there. It's real.

You, a young man, may not recognize the Chip if you have never seen normal, warm, happy women. If you are twenty-something and haven't been out of the US, you haven't seen them. They exist by the billion--in Latin America, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaya, China and, last I looked, France and Holland. And of course not every woman in America carries the Chip. None of them think they do. Yet it is the default, the usual, what comes out of the box.

The following is a perfectly ordinary, everyday, bulk-lot example, suitable for poisoning a cistern:

"Other than a 29-inch waist and a full head of hair, there isn't much to recommend the twentysomething male…He is living an extended adolescence -- an adult-olescence -- and every immature, irresponsible, self-absorbed thing he does is reinforced by the latest issue of his favorite men's magazine." (Susan Reimer, a columnist for the Baltimore Sun. I bet she goes out a lot.)*

Hers is the Attitude--and what they think of you. It is the defining trait of American women. Exceptions exist, and they have my apologies, but they are few and no, sport, your Sally probably isn't one of them. They're coiled to bite. As soon as problems arise in the marriage, they turn into Susan.

Susan Reimer is what is out there, guys: bitter that no one wants her (as who in his right mind could?), sure that no one is good enough for her, never having grasped that those who would be loved must first be lovable. Understand this: Susan is America. Some hide it better, springing it on you after the ceremony, but Susan is the rule.

The Susans do not like men. Sometimes they actually take courses in disliking men ("Women's Studies"). Yet they want to marry one and have babies. For them, the contradiction actually makes a kind of sense, because (and they know this, believe me) they will get the house, the children, and the child support. For you, it makes no sense. You will get raped in the divorce courts. You don't know how bad it is. Don't do it.

A prime effect of marriage is backbreaking financial overhead: the excessive house in the prestigious suburb, the pricey but boring cars, all that. But if you don't fall into the trap, keeping your expenses down means you can live in Alaska or overseas and enjoy existence. There is more to life than debt service. Although these are bad times for marrying, they are extraordinarily good times for being single.

Now, children. This is sticky. You may want them, or think you want them, or think you may want them. She wants them. My advice is to move to almost any country where English isn't spoken and women don't want their husbands to be the mothers of their children. Any country inhabited by the Chinese would do nicely.

Incidentally, remember that it is never now or never. Your prospects improve with time. At thirty-five or fifty you will be perfectly able to find a good woman if you know where to look. See above list.

Remember also that these are not good times for having children in America. It is almost irresponsible. The schools are scholastically poor, drug-ridden, given chiefly to political indoctrination, and hostile to male children. The universities are little better. Divorce is hell on children and their fathers, and nearly universal. The country lunges to police-statedom and isn't, I suspect, as stable as it might be. Worse, worst, there is Susan Reimer. Her name is legion, and she seeps everywhere, like the effluvium of unwashed socks.

Further, there is no social duty to have children. Some argue that the white population is in decline. Tough. If the country chooses to make having kids undesirable, then let it decline. It is not your problem.

Now, you might well wonder, why are American women carrying the Chip? Practically, it doesn't matter: They do carry it, and will continue. Still, it is partly because from birth they are fed the notion that they have been oppressed, battered, cheated, deprived, harassed, used as sex objects, not used as sex objects, on and on. Being rational, you are perhaps inclined to point out that never has a female population been less any of these things, but don't bother. It will have no effect. The Chip is an emotional artifact to which they respond emotionally.

The bedrock of The Attitude is that everything is the man's fault. Wonders Reimer, "What is the answer, especially if the 20- and 30-year-old male is such poor marriage material?" She does not wonder, "If I am such a grindingly awful termagant that men on three continents are crossing their legs and feeling queasy over my mere column, and won't come near me except in a Kevlar bathysphere with a disinfectant system, maybe I'm doing something wrong. Gosh. I wonder what?"

Yet something more is going on, though one does not easily see just what. Note that in recent decades we have seen the invention by women of bulimia and anorexia, which no one had heard of in 1965. Men made them do it. At roughly the same time women began getting breast implants, which men also made them do, and then suing about it. In the same period they began having induced memories of being raped or satanically abused by their fathers. Men again. The psychotherapy racket grew like kudzu, a sure sign of deep unhappiness over something.

All of this is recent. You have to be fifty to remember women who were resilient, sane, psychically strong and, within the limits of an often sorry existence, content. But whatever the answer, guys, the problem isn't yours.

Spend a year overseas, however you have to do it. For smart, classy, just plain glorious women who often speak English, try Singapore. Argentina is splendid. Many places are. You would be amazed. See what's out there before you marry a gringa with her Inner Susan, who will one day burst from her chest like one of those beaked space-aliens in the movies, dripping venom. They're death.

* Orlando Sentinel, July 1

357 posted on 08/13/2003 11:58:32 PM PDT by Screaming_Gerbil (Let's Roll...)
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To: snowstorm12
Desperate isn't my reality. There is never a shortage of men wanting female companionship anywhere that I've seen. I love men and what they can do for me and what I can get out of it. You're simply wrong, I love men.

You are the toxic female. It's women like you that make it difficult for a guy like me to find what and who I'm looking for. You will do anything you want to get your wants and needs met, then kick the guy in the nuts and yell "NEXT!" It's all about you. What you want. What you need.

It's pathetic women like you who make me wonder if there any women that want a real man, and no, I'm not talking about macho, hung, rich, good looking, or anything like that. I'm talking about faithful, considerate, committed, knows how to be the head of the household without being a dictator, responsible, dependable, and all the other character traits of a real man.

You don't want a man like that because you couldn't control him. Any man you can't control is a man you will avoid. You'll make up excuses like "he's boring", "he's too serious", he's not rich enough", but the real reason is you're afraid of him. You'll tell me I'm full of crap, but I've seen your type before, I've dated them, I've made the mistake of falling in love with them. Now I know what to watch out for.

358 posted on 08/14/2003 3:28:13 AM PDT by nobdysfool (Every time I learn something new, it pushes something old out of my brain...Homer Simpson)
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To: He Rides A White Horse
Didn't Gloria Steinem or some 60-something feminist finally get married?
359 posted on 08/14/2003 5:16:11 AM PDT by xrp
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To: nobdysfool
You don't want a man like that because you couldn't control him. Any man you can't control is a man you will avoid. You'll make up excuses like "he's boring", "he's too serious", he's not rich enough", but the real reason is you're afraid of him. You'll tell me I'm full of crap, but I've seen your type before, I've dated them, I've made the mistake of falling in love with them. Now I know what to watch out for.

Incredible wisdom and you hit the nail on the head.

360 posted on 08/14/2003 5:22:34 AM PDT by xrp
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