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.
later read/
WHY ARE WE SURPSIED THAT MATRIMONY IS FADING FAST?
Great post, there isn't much wisdom in this thread, nice to find a bit of it. To put all the blame on "women" or "the feminist movement" is INCREDIBLY short-sighted. Society has gone through some incredible changes since World War I and continues to change for the worse at an incredibly rapid pace.
And that is why they fail. Women don't want a giving, compliant, docile man who satisfies their needs and cares about their feelings. Women want to feel needed, they don't want a man who is needy. The key to success is 100% cynicism. They smell weakness.
I'm going to get creamed for saying this but marriage sure seemed to last longer when brothels were legal. It may be a terrible thought but Ms. Kitty may have helped keep the home on the range.
I am a pretty muscular bodybuilder type. I was losing my hair a bit in the front and shaved my head. I look pretty menacing right now, and my girlfriend hates it. She thinks I look like a tough bad dude. That's why I am keeping it!
I (and the Church) would say no. It's a calling, although it's a calling for most men and women.
1 Corinthians 7:8-9Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
Matthew 19:12
"For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage [ Or have made themselves eunuchs] because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."
You're learning. What women say they want and what they really want are completely independent of each other. Sometimes they sync up, sometimes they don't. She's probably honest: For that brief nanosecond of time, she didn't like it. But your instincts were right, grasshopper.
I dont think they are genetic at all, as shown by how much women have changed since the 1950's, they mostly used to fit into the mold of Mrs Cleaver, now they are aggressive, run you off the road, and most women dont even wear skirts anymore, or even own one.
As far as being dissatisfied, when women outnumber men in college by 60% or more, and when all the high paid professions are now mostly female, it is inevitable that there will be a shortage of men who make more or who are better educated than women - it is basic math. Therefore, Women have to "change" to expect less from a man, to expect a less educated, a less paid partner. The one that owns the gold makes the rules, and women who make more than husbands will be the ones in charge, and men will have to do the more meaningless tasks in a marraige because womens time will be worth so much more than a mans time. 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.
You mean besides rap music, full body tattoos and piercing every part of their body?
There are several things they do the BB's did not do en masse ... well, at least not in my area.
Agreed, but in the area of sexuality......
My husband is a former marine and full time football coach and dad. I work full time in a research lab, BUT we share the same values in life some people would call old fashioned values. This is why we will never divorce, or why I do the housework and have dinner waiting for him when he comes home. (it would ruin my impression of him as a strapping marine to see him with a feather duster or baking ingredients in his hand LOL)He still opens doors for me. We go to church.....
Does this mean I am servile or exploited ?? Arrggghhh the politically correct buffoons of the 80's and 90's have a lot to answer for.
They still are, see "The Hedonist" on Amazon.com
That's about 50% of the people at work. All I ever wanted was to have kids. Thank God I have some, and it's even better than I hoped it would be or could have ever imagined.
There's no way to adequately explain the intensity of love that I felt when my first was born. The way I try to explain it is that my heart went out from me and joined to my daughter, like an iron bond.
That's a clever line but you seem to have inadvertently switched the sexes, given that the "bulk of divorces" are instigated by women.
It would be impossible to explain to someone that has no children don't even try. You did come close though.........:-)
Believe it or not, I was a bit self conscious about the hair thing, until I shaved my head and got a little color on top. I get looks like never before and feel more confident than ever.
Spoken like a true misogynist. Perhaps some men really ARE those things, then treating as IF they are is irrelevant. That list describes my soon-to-be ex. Except he ommited some other adjectives, such as "sociopathic, abusive, irresponsible, cruel, substance-addicted, mentally ill." I did not need to TREAT him like he was those things for him to be those things. He WAS and IS those things. This article is a big cover for the plea for more sex from women. (Flame away.....)
Unfotunately....while men may have that luxury of a woman at home cooking, cleaning, shopping....raising the kids...the man is having affairs and/or expects his wife to be thin and pretty until she's 90. I don't even want to try to fit into that mold in today's world. If you ask me, it's men who ruined most woman's desire to 'stay at home'. The divorce rate skyrocketed over mens fantasies and woman had to fend for themselves. That's why I was brought up education over everything else in my strict religious family.
Instigated? this can mean that the man was guilty of infidelity so it would not be helpful to look at which gender "instigates" the divorce. This is assuming that infidelity of either gender is the real cause of divorce figures. My guess is that it is not, rather changing attitudes and "must have" society is really the factor
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