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.
"fem·i·nism (fm-nzm) KEY NOUN: Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. The movement organized around this belief. ",/i>
When you start investing billiosn into re-writing tv shows and text books maybe you'll have something to say about the effect of moderates, since as it sits moderates are watching the family get sold down the river to perpetuate the feminist agenda.
I have to agree with you. Not every woman is meant to be a mother. It's good when a woman can recognize that motherhood is not her calling.
I didn't even imply it.
Maybe this will help clarify my opinion.
I have a good friend. We ride horses all the time together, she's my age, 51. She's been married once and had several live ins. She conciously choose not to have children BECAUSE she would have had to cut back on riding time, she would have had to cut back her career, they cost money to raise, they take up alot of time, etc. Is all she could see were the things she was giving up, she could not see the gains. It was all about herself. I have told her numerous times, I admire her for NOT having children if that was how she felt about it. BUT I believe her reasoning shows a bit of selfishness, and maybe that's why her marriage and live ins never worked. She's a good person, I think she is a real person, but fulfilled....
Lately, I think she's seeing somethings she is missing now. She's alone. She spends holidays at movie theathers, alone. She has no one to share her day with. Some people land up in this situation thru no fault of their own, but she choose it, and now I believe she regrets it.
Does that help clairify what I'm talking about?
Becky
"Selfish" and "shallow" said it all. If that is all I can ever be because I do not want kids, fine.
I don't feel like changing my screen name though, maybe I should sign all my posts that way or make it my tag line. Nah, not worth the effort!
Nazism IS an extreme viewpoint and cannot possibly be called conservatism although both ideologies fall on the right side of political perspectives. This emphasizes my argument
This is not required to have a firm grasp on the spoken and written language
Perhaps you would like to discuss that with the lexicographers at merriam-webster; they seem rather certain of it.
I have a husband, we do not want kids. So I am not alone just shallow and selfish with a shallow and selfish husband!
Still there's a ton of scholarships for minority, women, over 30, and practically none for white males between 17 and 20.
Please explain where this suggest activity based on role reversal? It is plainly and unambiguously NOT there
Fantastic. Where do I go to get my ovaries installed?
Don't wish for things you don't really understand. For example, you are going to find out that the argument 'working is a form of showing love to your family' doesn't stand up in family court.
Then there is the funny-happy alimony/child support game where you'll be expected to part with most of your net worth because Dad went and did the horizontal mambo with the pool girl or the babysitter.
They'll start shopping, and getting together at their kid's social events and gossip like a bunch of adders in a pit (been there - unbelievable).
This is going to be a new age - economic power meets histrionic venality to form a kinder, gentler ruler of the world.
Margaret Thacher excepted, of course.
Yes and when you talk about WWII you talk about Hitler, you don't talk about some lone German in a village somewhere saying maybe we don't really have to kill people. Similarly when you talk about Feminism, the agenda, you talk about the feminist agencies, and organizations pumping money into, and holding conferences based on that agenda, not some lone woman suggesting a wholely different and unpopular view point.
Well at least your like my friend and admit it.
Becky
What I'm trying to say is that the second merriam-webster definition is more fitting of the modern meaning of "feminism", whereas the first definition may have been more fitting for a past meaning of the word.
O.K. Now you've got me interested. Just what is this "moderate" feminism you believe is so obvious to everyone? Who is behind this "movement"? Were there any notable books you read? Who are the outspoken political advocates for "moderate" feminism?
I wish you were right about this, but I think its all in your head.
Sorry you are getting this wrong again, a lone German in a field may have the same views as Hitler in which case he is also a Nazi, if he has different views plainly he is something else
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