Why Women Must Change Too if we are to Rescue Marriage

The Financial Times ^ | July 5, 2005 | Richard Tomkins

[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.

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.

[kharaku]

Women cheat because all of their TV icons are ruthless sluts. Girls are trained from 5 up to get as much as they can from as many men as they can. This is a learned behavior.

[HitmanLV]

Works for me. Like I said, I have no interest in holding up my end of a lopsided relationship with a woman that has a great career and needs 3,000 hours a year at the office to cultivate it.

[Eaker]

Likewise, a woman may jump up and down and say she demands a high-status man, but her desires are worthless unless and until she backs them up with the ability and willingess to pay the required price

Or be worthy.

[papertyger]

I read this thread today and it felt like witnessing an argument between some old, disatisfied married couple! I think the thread was provacative to begin with and the women who responded had no choice but to be on the defensive.

Then you have obviously missed the points being made, and opted for the intellectual sluggardlyness of the "Rodney King" approach. Anyone that won't admit the deck is currently stacked in the female's favor is of the same stripe as a mohammeden that won't admit they have an image problem.

[Eaker]

Girls are trained from 5 up to get as much as they can from as many men as they can. This is a learned behavior.

Hmmmmm. We missed this raising our daughter.

[xVIer]

Pardon me...but your arguement is laughable...read what you wrote...if you are that bitter from personal experience I am sorry for you , but generalizing is wrong for both sexes. And did you call me sluggardly? Name calling has already been discussed here earlier...sorry you feel the need to resort to that ...laughing at, not with.

[papertyger]

Spare me your self-esteem assault. I'm not a woman, and it doesn't faze me in the least.

Do you have a better descriptor for someone who can't tell the difference between the perp and the victim, besides maybe "UN official?"

[T. Jefferson]

SandyB, as a "higher educated" woman let's hope you have a learning curve. Reread my post #521, then revisit your reply with silly, false generalities about men.

"that was back in the days when males went to college, and when males started their own businesses."

My comment was correct, and took all of 1 minute to verify. I picked a random school, U of VA.

Engineering-undergrad .... 75% Male

Engineering-Graduate ....77% Male

MBA ....76% Male

UVA 2004

If you want a higher IQ man, you have to at least know where to look! (we take the higher IQ stuff). So now that you've been proven wrong with the easily obtained facts, how you react to this will tell you alot about your relationships issues. Most men will run from women with a false sense of superiority.

Now shaddup and make me a samwich.

: )

[Delphinium]

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.

Sounds so familiar.

[Delphinium]

I've noticed that women who complain about the endless stream of unsavory men with whom they've been involved manage to find another one, each and every time.

[LongElegantLegs]

Feminism negatively affects women, too.
Many men now expect that a woman will work right through her children's early years. Women who want to stay home may not, because the feminists insist that she chase that elusive, amorphous 'ALL' that we're supposed to have. By the time they realize they don't want it all, the kids are too old to want her attentions, anyway, and hubby's probably been chased off; emotionally, if not physically.
Then there are the snide comments from 'professional' women about how they couldn't stand being coped up in the house all day stagnating, etc etc...
American feminism has become a curse.

[LongElegantLegs]

Aagh...COOPED up. Not coped up.

[television is just wrong]

I agree women and men have to come together and be supportive of each other. Been married to a terrific guy for 22 years. Wouldn't trade him for the world.

[MrNatural]

Bon mots: 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.

Delphinium: Sounds so familiar.

Mr Natural: If you believe all men are selfish, insensitive, lazy, lying, feckless, incompetent scumbags, that is what you will meet.

[xVIer]

Sorry! I forgot my place here on the women bashing thread. Guess I'm supposed to shut up and take it ...and away I go with all the other women y'all have alienated here today. I guess we thought you guys might really want to talk about this but...obviously you just want to insult and divide. Goodbye to you and your kind.

[Rca2000]

So right you are. and then, these said women end up all alone, at the "end of the day", wondering "where did I go wrong?"

BUT-- I think this is a moot point. I think the "horse has already left the barn", as far as this argument goes. When you have so-called "Christian" and "conservative" women, marching RIGHT to the drum beat of the femilezis, I think we have pretty much reached the point of no-return.

Or: to put it another way, as I used to say in High-School: It is like a Nuclear reactor, in a meltdown event:: once the process goes so far, NOTHING will stop it-- and I feel that is where we are today. It would take a REVOLUTIONARY change, to return things to the way things should be-- and VERY few MEN or WOMEN, would be willing to do the things to effect this positive return to morality(as in: give up fooling around, shacking up, porn, the "me" attitude, AND a return to God in their lives, and in the throes of society,and all that entails, and so on)

[LongElegantLegs]

Well, I have a slightly more hopeful outlook...I believe that women, true, feminine, baby-loving, dinner-making, snotty-nose-wiping women, will continue having babies; The masculine, bread-winning husbands who prefer these women will raise their kids up right.

In twenty years, the dissatisfied, gender confused metrosexuals (men and women) will be relegated to nursing homes and assisted care facilities across the nation, the last relics of a decadent and foolish era.
I have no statistics for this, but I believe that my generation (20-25) is more conservative than our parents, and I really hope that our children will be more conservative still. Hopefully we can keep the gub'mints paws off the little tykes long enough for them to see what all this matriarchal, 'me me me' crap does to people, and be repulsed by it.

I hope.

[MrNatural]

...we thought you guys might really want to talk about this but ...

But what? The modern industrial society has overtaken us all. Most people don't have the will or the understanding to accept its benefits and yet retain their basic humanity. People; not men, not women, we are all being pressed through the same sieve.

We have a lot of fancy hardware (I know; I've lived my life in the middle of it, and I'm still there, and you wouldn't believe what's coming..), but it seems like the more we can do, the more it allows us to do without each other. Only those whose instinct is too strong to be educated away will prosper and propagate to any great extent.

Darwin Lives.

[Melas]

Then, you jabber on, about "how men are going to have to change, to become the "househusbands", and to have supper ready, for the woman, who "brings home the bacon". AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN, EXCEPT for the kind of men, who wear skirts, perfume, and makeup!!!!

Whoa, now you've really pissed me off. I've stayed home with my kids for the last 13 years, and I'm proud of it. As for skirts and perfume, I'll tell you what: Anytime you're game, they can lock the both of us in a phone booth and we'll see who begs for mercy first.

[Nowhere Man]

Or: to put it another way, as I used to say in High-School: It is like a Nuclear reactor, in a meltdown event:: once the process goes so far, NOTHING will stop it-- and I feel that is where we are today. It would take a REVOLUTIONARY change, to return things to the way things should be-- and VERY few MEN or WOMEN, would be willing to do the things to effect this positive return to morality(as in: give up fooling around, shacking up, porn, the "me" attitude, AND a return to God in their lives, and in the throes of society,and all that entails, and so on)

I also like to use the atomic reactor analogy too. I think society should have "scrammed" (shut down the reactor really quick, pushing in all control rods and filling the reactor with cool water) the out of control reaction this caused way back in the 1960's. I remember in high school having similar conversations with one of my favorite teachers, my German teacher, as far back as 1982, we used to talk about stuff like this about society in general and he did say a lot of the things then to what we are seeing now and the deterioration of our society is "part of a plan" to weaken us. We kept the relationship going well past high school until he passed away in 1993, I would love to hear his takes on the moral decay as it has progressed in society today, 9-11, and so on. I remember he made one point to where sometimes things do have to crash so we can rebuild things to the old values. Maybe we need some of that to shake people awake, I don't know.

I've heard stories of Christian and other communities springing up with the idea of being self sufficient to ride out the coming storm.

I don't know myself, but all I can say is we are in a heap of hurt in this world and something bad is going to happen, I don't know where, what, when, but I see something on the radar here. B-P

I've been toying with writing a story where time travellers want to go back in time and abort the social revolutions of the 1960's, so far nothing is down on paper or disc drive but I sort of got the inspiration from Harry Turtledove's "Guns of the South" but the time travellers are the good guys.

I just wish we would all get beyond the bitterness here, I do see some silver linings out there but I do think your meltdown analogy is closer to the truth. We need to stifle the "all for me" attitude, I think when you boil all of this down be it "free love," "radical feminism," and so on, it is all about "me" and heck with everyone else and society.