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.
We've either got to change the system or watch other societies and cultures bury us.
If you are practicing something you are doing something. If you have a viewpoint it is because you are thinking something. But of course, I understand. To feminists, thinking is the same as doing. It makes perfect sense.
"This has led to a divergence from feminism to extreme and new perspectives."
Indeed! Here are some of your feminist leaders. Their "perspectives" are just dandy! LOL! ! !
"All men are rapists and that's all they are" -- Marilyn French, Author, "The Women's Room"
""I feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them." -- Robin Morgan, MS. Magazine Editor "
""I claim that rape exists any time sexual intercourse occurs when it has not been initiated by the woman, out of her own genuine affection and desire." -- Robin Morgan "
""No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one." Simone de Beauvoir, author of _The Second Sex_, the book that is credited with launching the mainstream of the modern feminist movement ---"
"64 YEAR-OLD FEMINIST COLLECTS AND PUBLISHES NUDE PHOTOS OF BOYS, YOU KNOW, FOR FUN." (Germaine Greer)
Thanks sweetie :)
True, but I worked in law for 8 years in NYC and most of the women were either in an unhappy relationship, or in no relationship at all. A lot of men simply don't want to deal with a woman with a demanding career (I know I don't).
When a woman manager or physician or attorney or biologist, etc comes home from a long day at work making mega bucks, she will expect dinner and a clean house.
She can keep on waiting. Even if she finds a guy like that (and they are out there), in no time she will be sexually frustrated by him. A woman, on balance, can not be consistently sexually excited and fulfilled by a man who isn't a dominant male (that's not to say domineering, which is a negative trait).
True, but I worked in law for 8 years in NYC and most of the women were either in an unhappy relationship, or in no relationship at all. A lot of men simply don't want to deal with a woman with a demanding career (I know I don't).
When a woman manager or physician or attorney or biologist, etc comes home from a long day at work making mega bucks, she will expect dinner and a clean house.
She can keep on waiting. Even if she finds a guy like that (and they are out there), in no time she will be sexually frustrated by him. A woman, on balance, can not be consistently sexually excited and fulfilled by a man who isn't a dominant male (that's not to say domineering, which is a negative trait).
"Pretty soon women will be in the recliners watching the Browns game and men will be fetching the cold beers..."
It's been a long time since I knew a woman who would fetch cold beer. And I know I wouldn't do the fetching without proper inducements! ;)
I don't agree, I think it's plain simple moral character.
Very true.
Hee hee. This is a thread about women needing to change and the women are going ballistic! What a hoot!
Never make the case for the beta-male. There are legimiate reasons that women routinely reject them and cheat on them. I'd have it no other way.
The root of the problem is no-fault divorce, isn't it?
No-fault divorce combined with a family law system that is hopelessly corrupt and anti-child/anti-male. One sage Freeper referred to the system as one that rewards women: "wreck a marriage, earn a check." After having to spend a year's income to secure a meaningful joint custody with my two children, while watching a corrupt court bend over backwards--to the point of fabricating evidence--to repeatedly find in favor of my ex-wife with borderline personality disorder, I concluded that it was in the best interests of my children to not marry again--at least not in this liberal cesspool of a jurisdiction. To do so would put them at even greater risk of being further harmed by the elitist oligarchy.
bump for later
I know a woman who has been talking about how studies show that women marrying over 25 after completing their education have better marriages. She also thinks that arranged marriages work better than those who marry for love. When I said maybe I was an exception to her viewpoint (marrying young, and unless something drastic happens very happy), she said, "You're still young. I used to feel the same way." She's only four years older than me.
Yet some fools here say you shouldn't jettison this creep because of the wedding vow.
My wife was eight years younger and died 7 years ago. I never thought I would survive her since she did everything right and me rarely. But that didn't matter.
I don't think so. Most of the people that I know who have fallen to temptation clearly didn't set out to.
The more opportunity someone has for extramartial sex, the more likely they will have extramarital sex.
Morality has something to do with it, but not nearly as much as you think. Perfectly moral people fall to sexual temptation. Like I said, when they make that snap decision to have uncomplicated sex with that very attractive new person in their life, it really seems like a good idea at the time.
There you go! ;-)
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