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.
|
|
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.
Really does she watch tv? Everything from Lizzy McQuire to Sex in the City contains pieces of this type of propaganda.
You are saying 2 different things. If an excess educated woman cannot find a man, then an undereducated man will not find a woman - it is the same equation from different sides.... and that is what women of the future will have to "change".
Currently, men will marry "down", it is not uncommon for a man to marry a less paid woman, a waitress, or whatever, but you rarely find women marrying "down". Since the men of the future will be less educated and less paid, women will either have to adjust/change, or else neither the less educated man or the excess educated woman will find someone.
The colleges are trying to get more males, but the males wont go to college. Lots of colleges are even taking boys with lower grades in order to try to get more males into school - there is an active affirmative action out there to recruit dumber males.
SCU in the News
A Growing Gender Gap Tests College Admissions By Peter Y. Hong Los Angeles Times Staff Writer November 21, 2004
When admissions officers for Santa Clara University recruit new freshmen, they do their best to reach the kind of students they'd like to see more of on the Silicon Valley campus: boys.
"We make a special pitch to them to talk about the benefits of Santa Clara, as we do for other underrepresented groups," Charles Nolan, Santa Clara's vice provost for admissions, said of the school's efforts to boost male applicants.
It's a startling development to anyone who remembers that Santa Clara was all male until 1960. But the Jesuit-run school reflects an important transformation of American college life. Among the 4,550 undergraduates at Santa Clara, 57% are female. That matches the percentage of U.S. bachelor's degrees now awarded to women, a demographic shift that has accelerated since women across the country began to attend college at a higher rate than men about a decade ago.
Today, many colleges, particularly selective residential schools, face a dilemma unthinkable a generation ago. To place well in influential college rankings, those schools must enroll as many top high school students as they can — and most of those students are female. Administrators are watching closely for the "tipping point" at which schools become unappealing to both men and women. They fear that lopsided male-female ratios will hurt the social life and diverse classrooms they use as selling points.
Despite employing the same tactics used for years to lure ethnic minority students, few colleges say they give admissions preferences to boys. But high school counselors and admissions experts say they believe it is happening.
"At some schools, it's definitely a strategic advantage" to be male, said Chuck Hughes, a former Harvard admissions officer who is now a private admissions counselor and author of "What it Really Takes to Get into the Ivy League and Other Highly Selective Colleges." Vincent Garcia, a college counselor at the Los Angeles prep school Campbell Hall, said liberal arts colleges, especially, can be "more forgiving of the occasional B or even a C" from a boy. "Sometimes the expectation is a little bit less" than for girls, he said.
"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."
When Hubby Does Housework Guess Who Milks the Cows
(Click "View Larger") - From an 1850's engraving
Call me when they get married, and have kids.
Exactly. Lots of women "date" down, because they have to, but few "marry" down.
That is the problem, and it will have to change someday as fewer and fewer men have degrees or good jobs. And when it does change and it is the woman who has the good job, and makes most of the money, it will be the woman who is in control of the relationship (because she is the one with the money).
Ultimately, most decisions that will have to be made, what house to buy, where the summer home is, what cars, clothes, where and when vacations are to be taken, etc, will all depend on the wife's career and her decision on whether to spend the money. The lower paid less educated husband will be allowed to persuade her, but it will still be up to her to make all the big decisions.
You are scarily right on with like 99% of your posts.
Damm, another great post! Too many women think they are really sexy when they are really not and look down on many decent guys that show interest. I have seen so many slobs think they are good looking when they are really not and act like they are.
You make a good point, but there's no changing the fact that the government takes much more of our money than it did 50 years ago.
Largely true. But no-fault divorce makes divorce much easier, and often "profitable" for the wife.
True. Especially when work is crazy 8-)
There are tons of man-hating, traditional family hating, radical/gender feminists in - - - drum roll please - - - the blue areas of the country. Yes, California, Massachusettes, New York, Colorado, etc. They live under the Democratic big tent.
I'm most familiar with the elected ones in CA: Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Nancy Perlosi, Maxine Waters, Sheila Kuehl, Jackie Goldberg, Rebecca Cohn, etc.
I think one message has to get out: When you divorce, you divorce not your spouse, but your family (and it doesn't matter who "gets" the kids). Ask the children of divorced parents, they'll tell you. Fortunately, this factor has convinced many of the generation now entering adulthood that they need to put more work into the relationship before marriage, to ensure that they will never do the same to their own children.
I see you reacted predictably, ignoring facts and repeating nonsense. Hey if it makes you feeling superior, have at it...guys love that trait. I love the part using SCU as indicative of all men in the US. Wasn't Fernwood Community College available for comment? I'll retype the UVA 2004 stats from my previous post to you for the learning impaired.
Engineering-undergrad .... 75% Male
Engineering-Graduate ....77% Male
MBA ....76% Male
I don't think your point was clear and that is why the discussion bogged down into a semantic dispute.
The goals of the Lesbians was clearly articulated in the 70s when they announced the changes that were going to be forced within the major feminist organizations. Since the leadership does not really believe equality can be achieved as long as men and women operate within the same framework seperation must be the intent. Lesbianism and faggotry are the ultimate seperation.
Actually I think it's created a generation intent to sleep together, not necessarily exclusivly for several years before contemplating marriage.
Please post a list of scholariships available to white male students going into technology fields.
I don't know how knowledge of the Spanish Armada relates to Iraq but it gets extremely tiresome to hear the nonsense about public education which appears to be gospel here. My late wife was a public school teacher and there never was a better. My sons went to public and private schools in Chicago. The former is a Navy Nuke the latter a senior at IIT on the Dean's List.
Ideological blinders draw my attention and comment.
Spaying them.
I agree with the thrust of your comment if not the use of the word "congruent."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.