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'm glad. Women are finally waking up and standing up for themselves and not allowing men to walk all over them. Men walk all over women everywhere you look and treat them like $hit. My motto is if you can't beat em join em! I'm not really even that bad. You people are blowing this out of proportion.
Then why do they keep dating the jerks, then marrying them and creating a bad name for all women by being absolutely vicious in the divorce proceedings?
Men walk all over women everywhere you look and treat them like $hit.
See previous statement. Do unto others, huh...Women like you are scaring the truly good men away from you.
My motto is if you can't beat em join em!
Nice group-identity liberalism there. In other words "F morals! Be a slutty ho!"
but I also want a man who is rich good looking and sexy
With a growing majority of American adults being overweight/obese, good luck. Now, start removing the % of non overweight that are not rich. Now, remove the % of non overweight that are not rich and not Brad Pitt looks. Now, remove the % of non overweight that are not rich and not Brad Pitt looks and not Adonis-sexy and you've reducing your choice pool to probably less than 1% of the available single American male market. Of that 1%, probably 90% will be put off by your "GIMME, GIMME, I WANT, I WANT" attitude leaving you with 0.1% of the available single American male market as your prospects. Or -- if you're a Monica Lewinsky-type, you will stand to increase your pool of targets drastically.
Regardless of how awful stbxw has been to me, I would never deprive my daughter of equal time with her mother - that would be vindictive and hypocritical.
I wish I were a wonderful father. But I can't shake the feeling that I've failed them. I couldn't do what a man is supposed to do: protect the family. God knows, I tried. Don't get me wrong, I'm not ashamed the marriage failed. I wasn't the one that broke the vows and walked away. But I was willing to do anything to keep the family together. And I failed.
So now I focus on trying to be "just dad". I don't see myself as a divorced man. I'm a dad and I'm damned proud of that.
Do you take your talking points from Oprah?
I've got news for you. You have the power to absolutely obliterate any man you marry. Emotionally. Financially. You hold all the cards and the legal system is there to back you up all the way to the bank.
You've come a long way, baby.
You could very well be thirty times more attractive. But to say it aloud (or write it down) sounds more like conceit - an rather unattractive trait. It ranks right up there with selfishness, oftentimes illustrated in archaic references as follows:
I do want a man that is faithful, considerate, committed, responsible, dependable etc., but I also want a man who is rich good looking and sexy. I want it all. Men want it all from women as well, so I demand the same.
With that reasoning, I sincerely hope you are faithful, considerate, committed, resonsible dependable, rich, good looking and sexy too.
Yes, they are, in Timothy chapter 3, specifically a candidate "must be blameless, the husband of one wife..."
I am not ignoring Scripture
Yes, you are.
You are ignoring Scripture.
No, I am not. Instead, you are ignoring specific requirements for church leadership given in scripture by quoting other scripture that has nothing to do with the requirements for church leadership roles.
And worse, you are claiming for your own additions and interpretations the sanctity of Scripture itself
I am merely stating the word of God as it has been written by the Apostles and interpreted by the Church for nearly 2000 years. It is you who are trying to create your own personal interpretation of scripture, and you can only do that by ignoring Church tradition, historical teachings, and the literal words of the Bible itself.
There, have I convinced you? I have claimed grandly to know what is right, by accusing you of whatever error it takes to make my position right
Your claims are as irrelevant as those of the modern Episcopals; neither of you have any standing when you ignore the clear meaning of scripture.
You entire argument is circular. By your claim I am ignoring Scripture that explictly says my position is incorrect, when in fact the whole point is that isolated passages do not provide complete guidance and therefore the Bible does not explictly say what you claim, except when isolated passages are taken out of context with the rest of Scripture
The Bible does indeed explicitly say what I claim, and your attempts to ignore those parts of scripture in no way invalidate them. Your argument is essentially the same as that of the so-called homosexual priests in the various pseudo-churches; both of you believe that the Bible can be re-interpreted to make various rules meaningless when you decide those rules are no longer convenient. And you are both wrong to do so.
In essence, you are ignoring all Scripture except that which (in isolation) supports your point. And yet, even in that you are inconsistent. There are many requirements for members of the Church other than those which are explictly tied to the leadership qualifications themselves. Are you claiming only those qualifications that are 'explicitly' identified with leadership positions apply to leaders?
Once again, you are trying to create a strawman argument, and not a very good one at that. I do not claim that only those requirements listed are the only ones that should be taken into consideration when choosing Church leadership, but that certainly does not mean that I believe such explict requirements should be ignored. The latter is your argument, and is self-evidently un-biblical and illogical.
Or are you claiming that Jesus taught us that we should sin?
Yet another strawman, and a very poor one at that.
Since Jesus said divorce when a woman has been an adulteress is an exemption to the faults that follow other divorces, I would maintain that He has explicitly made an exception that applies to Christians - all Christians, whether leaders or members
And it is you who are adding to scripture at this point, except in this case your additions go against the specific requirements in Timothy 3. What you are trying to "maintain" is in contradiction to scripture, and is as nonsensical as suggesting that Jesus's forgiveness of the woman who committed adultery means that adultery isn't relevant to church leadership roles either.
Your position is not logically sound, ignores critical Scriptural passages, and ultimately is not convincing.
It is not convincing to you only because you refuse to accept scripture as having any absolute meaning other than what you read into it. Your so-called "logical" position is that explicit requirements for church leadership should be ignored, based only on the idea that Jesus talked about divorce and forgiveness when talking about issues that had absolutely nothing to do with church leadership.
Let me make it 'explicitly' clear how these passages can be integrated together. A Church leader should be the 'husband of but one wife' except that (as Jesus 'explicitly' said) adultery of the woman is a valid basis for divorce and therefore a marriage to an adulterous woman becomes irrelevant.
You are inventing passages that are not there. There is no exception. The passage does not say "the husband of one wife unless that wife committed adultery and then this verse should probably be ignored".
That is how they can be integrated together
You are perverting scripture. God will judge you for that particular sin.
You're welcome to cherry pick the parts of Scripture you find satisfying - and to declare that therefore your views on disputable matters are explicit and written down by God Himself
There could be dispute with the passage only if there were some other verse that actually provided such an exception for church leadership roles. It is a "disputable matter" only if specific scripture is deliberately ignored. That many churches ignore such scripture only proves that they are false churches; such actions do nothing to modify the clear meaning of the scripture itself.
I choose a more modest claim to authority. I believe I'll let God tell us what is right at Judgment, and in the meantime trust in his mercy if I - in good faith and honest scholarship of the Bible - am wrong
It will be more than just misjudgment of scripture to which you will have to answer. Methods like yours, of ignoring those verses where are inconvenient to you, are used to justify many of the terrible abominations afflicting the church today. By advocating the legitimacy of such selective interpretation, you add to that chaos.
Worse yet, If you so much as SAY anything about that chip, let alone knock it off, you will go to PRISON.
Good luck, Men of FR. You will need it.
BTW. Count all the posts that call me evil.
So I Guess, (by Your Implication), that you expect your "Lothario" to Totally Support You & the "Issue" of Your "Dalliance" FOREVERMORE!!
Our Biology Dictates That BOTH a "Male & Female" are REQUIRED to produce a Child.
In a Consensual Event, BOTH "Parents" are EQUALY RESPONSIBLE for the "Outcome!!"
EXCEPT in the event of TRUE RAPE, BOTH "Parents" are EQUALLY RESPONSIBLE for the "Issue" of a Sexual Encounter!
"AFTER-THE-FACT" protestations should be viewed with a HIGH DEGREE of SKEPTICISM!!
In our Permissive Culture, TOO MANY Ladies (& I use the term, "Ladies" Loosely) Cry, "RAPE," to cover a momentary (often Drunken) Lapse in Judgement!!
IMHO!
Doc
No, it is not. Fidelity matters in church leadership roles. If it didn't, the requirement for it would not be there.
You're not even reading your own words, let alone what I have written. Your words (emphasis on your) were . .
The exception for adultery was not extended to nor included in the requirements for Church leadership roles.
That is your conclusion
No, it is not a "conclusion". It is a statement of fact. The FACT of scripture is that the so-called exception for adultery given by Jesus for divorce is irrelevant to the discussion of choosing church leaders. Jesus was not talking about Church leaders. When the requirements for Church leaders WERE listed, they did not include any exception for adultery of a wife. If anything, the text of qualifications would exclude any such candidate from such roles even if the requirement of being the husband of one wife were not there, because another one of the requirements is that a candidate rule his house well. The fact that the requirement (of a single wife) IS there makes the issue so obvious that the only way it could be mis-interpreted is by deliberatly ignoring scripture as well as being completely ignorant of church history.
If you can't tell the difference between your own words and those of the Bible,
You wouldn't know either way, since it is clear that you have either never actually read the bible, or that you deliberately ignore those passages that are inconvenient to your corrupt viewpoint.
You are as guilty as those who have allowed homosexuality to defile the priesthood, and you will surely be judged for your complicity in that role.
Hardly! Nowadays men are scared to death of a "sexual harrassment" charge. That's what Feminism did. Define "walk all over".
I do want a man that is faithful, considerate, committed, responsible, dependable etc., but I also want a man who is rich good looking and sexy. I want it all. Men want it all from women as well, so I demand the same.
Sorry, but "rich, good-looking and sexy" means that he probably isn't really up on the rest. He doesn't have to be. His looks and his money are all the stupid bimbos can see.
I guarantee you this. If you want faithful, considerate, committed, responsible, dependable etc., you're going to have to be able to deliver the same. No real man will suffer a woman who's not. If that's what you mean by men walking all over women (because he won't commit to a woman who is not those things, and leaves her), then you've got the key to changing that situation. The road you're going now will leave you old, ugly, used, and alone.
Tough is not the word I was thinking of. Impossible is more like it.
Good post.
No, you're not that bad. You're plain awful.
.....and judging from your posts, you don't want a man; you want a Labrador Retriever.
Listening to the things you say, it's plain to me that that the perfect man for you is some emasculated fembot being cranked out of our universities. Maybe you can hang together at Planned Parenthood rallies, or go see the 'Vagina Monologues' together.
I'm going to practice what I preach; I'm not wasting two more seconds of my time arguing with you and your ilk. You aren't worth the time of day.
LOL, you sound like a gem.
Hitmen will have the market all to them!
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