Posted on 01/23/2007 7:11:06 AM PST by shrinkermd
THE news that 51 percent of all women live without a spouse might be enough to make you invest in cat futures.
But consider, too, the flip side: about half of all men find themselves in the same situation. As the number of people marrying has dropped off in the last 45 years, the marriage rate has declined equally for men and for women.
The stereotype has been cemented in the popular culture: the hard-charging career girl who gets her comeuppance, either violently or dying a slow death by late-night memo and Chinese takeout...
But when it comes to marriage, the two Americas aren’t divided by gender. And it’s not the career girls on the losing end. It’s their less educated manicurists or housekeepers, women who might arguably be less able to live on their own.
The emerging gulf is instead one of class — what demographers, sociologists and those who study the often depressing statistics about the wedded state call a “marriage gap” between the well-off and the less so.
Statistics show that college educated women are more likely to marry than non-college educated women — although they marry, on average, two years later.
Women with more education also are becoming less likely to divorce, or inclined to divorce, than those with less education. They are even less likely to be widowed all in all, less likely to end up alone.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
And he must be made to pay, and pay, and pay, and pay...
This is really bull. Men and women both pay a high price for divorce. Technically, they leave with half of what they had when married. Plus the kids, which women usually take with them, and men just complain about the cost. And I feel for them, I really do, but I also know that most men would far rather complain about the cost than they would get the kiddies ready for daycare before work every morning. No one is better off.
It would take a very extraordinary woman to cause me to even contemplate getting married again.
OTOH, FR has very extraordinary women...
1. Don't marry...and if you do, do so with a pre-nup that spells out not only finances (current and projected) but also custody and child support.
2. Take your future into your own hands...wear a rubber.
Family law in this country has gone over the edge and created enormous incentive for women to divorce and created enormous disincentive for men to marry.
The only solution I can envision is to go back to fault-based divorce and new laws that compel each judge to divide custody awards (when custody is contested) 50-50...every other case the judge hears should result in the MAN getting custody of the children and the woman paying child support.
Feminism has something to do with the change, I think. But economics is also a major factor, and it has been so for centuries. In the middle ages common folk did not get married until their late twenties, in spite of the drastically shorter life spans that we have now. They did not marry until they (both men and women) had worked long enough to save money to set up a household and support themselves. Even then they did not marry primarily for love, the first issue in any marriage was whether the two people had enough resources and income between them to raise a family. If they didn't, they didn't get married and they didn't have children.
The major reason for early marriages in the United States was because pioneering a new nation could not be done singly, one needed a partner. And also a marriage meant you could grow your own helpers in the form of children.
There are many issues that go into changes like this, and changes like this have been happening for centuries.
Nasty whores.
>> Oh really? LOL. I didn't realize it was my duty to marry. <<
Not to suggest that, in this age, your choice to remain single for now stems from evil desires, but, presuming you are a Christian, it IS your Christian duty to marry. Unless you want to join the religious life. The first commandment given to Adam and Eve was "Go forth and multiply." The first words God ever said about mankind was, "It is not right for Man to be alone." The Church fathers anathematized anyone who was single, not out of devotion to a consecration to remain a virgin for love of the Lord, but out of simple distates for marriage.
"People are single nowadays because they were raised in a culture of narcissism. Marraige requires responsibility and sacrifice.....two concepts that are anathema to modern culture."
You also have to look at it from the point of view of those not married, and what they face with the prospects.
The women I meet are generally spoiled beyond control, and demand - yes demand - engagement rings that will put you in debt for decades. Then they demand the $50K wedding that takes a year to plan, driving everyone nuts, followed up by the $10-20K honeymoon to some idiotic "couple" resort, or the typical cliche Hawaii. Then, when you return, you are expected to buy the newest, biggest house in town, furnish it from the best of suppliers, and buy the newest, fanciest cars imaginable. All so your darling wife can lord it over everyone else.
Just the act of marrying these days can threaten to drain a man's bank account and put him in debt up to his eyeballs for years, if not decades. Men are to blame too, almost everyone I know lives beyond their means. Save money? Unheard of! I've dated women who started hinting around at week long vacations in Hawaai and such, and we'd only been dating a few weeks. I could afford to do that, but I'd have to save for a while, but they expect me to just throw it on a credit card.
In fact, many of the women I date are shocked and get quite chilly when I tell them i ripped up my credit cards and shut down the accounts, and don't plan on getting any new ones.
And heaven help you if you start dating someone near Valentine's Day - even casual dates now seem to expect diamonds and such. I'm sorry, but I need to be in a commited relationship, with some hope of it lasting, before I go there. I watch my friends drop hundreds on diamonds and flowers and candy and dinnder for V-day, and what do they get? Maybe a card. Maybe sex.
Feh. Dating is all about how much you spend on them these days. I HATE being measured like that - I'm very generous with my trusted friends, but I will not be a chump like that.
Then, you are expected to jump into the rat race and push as hard as you can for more money, all of the time, work the hours necessary, and still put in full time duty at home raising the kids, taking care of the million dollar McMansion, cooking, cleaning, and giving her as much "space" and "my time" as her whims desire. If you're good, you can watch the occasional football game, or play golf. Hobbies, dreams, desires, goals? Forget them, unless SHE approves, and they cater to her whim.
I know it's not all like that, but that's what I've seen my friends get trapped into year after year after year. Marriage for a lot of women these days is not so much a partnership to have and raise kids, but a guaranteed serf in the home who you can throw out on a whim, and never make a single sacrifice. (Yes, i know there are bad men too). Dating is just as bad. I've heard women tearing their boyfriends up because they did'nt spend enough on them, and their freinds telling them to dump him, and find someone who isn't "cheap".
Feh!
I'm looking for an old fashioned girl who knows that when you start out together, you may not have much, but you help each other get the things you want, who measures me by who I am, not what I spend. I'm tired of everything being about how much money you spend, and how expensive your toys are.
Here in CA, dealing with the women who were raised middle class or wealthy have expectations and demands of marriage and men that are pure fantasy, and impossible - but they'll make everyone around them miserable trying to get it.
I havent given up hope, but I know my search will be long and hard to find a good woman, and I've given up hope finding her in California. Even the transplants succumb to the spell eventually, and are ruined. For the time being, single is a much better existence than signing on teh dotted line for the insanity that the average woman offers a man these days.
Also the stat have crack will shack was left out.
OTOH, FR has very extraordinary women...
Good luck. FR is probably a good place to start.
One of the bigshots on the editorial page of the Slimes, Gail Sheehy, actually advocates married women divorcing their husbands when the kids leave or they get to a certain age so they can have "freedom" to do all the things they've wanted to do. Apparently it's awful when men leave their wives to do the same thing, but to feminists like Sheehy it should be what women should do to express themselves...or something.
Most smart men are waiting until the go deaf to marry. Until then they have hunting fishing, enjoying their own money and all the peace and quiet they want. The mail order bride thing is strong in this country right now. There is a reason for that and in many ways it is sound reasoning.
The trophy wife on your arm isn't necessary any more. More deals are being made at hunting clubs than at expensive dinners with the wives.
"Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry."
1 Corinthians 7:1 (NIV)
;-)
Good! They just did you a big favor. They are disqualified. Just say "next!" and move on. Same with the engagement ring - the kind of spoiled brat who demands a big one should suffer an immediate revocation of the offer.
When men start playing hardball again, much of this bratty female behavior that has become endemic to our culture will cease. Fortunately - and despite media brainwashing - not all women are like this, so you have no reason to put up with those who are.
The answer is easy. Marriage sucks.
It's also my personal experience.
FWIW, I loathed alimony, but I don't mind the child support. Indeed, although my daughter's (she was 2 when her mother and I met, but she's still MY daughter!) child support ended when she turned 18, I am voluntarily paying her an educational stipend.
Had I been married to the eeeeeevil slime mom only a bit longer the alimony would have been for life, apparently under the legal fiction that being married to a man permanently ruins a woman's ability to care for herself...
When the phrase "my baby's daddy" comes into widespread use you can make certain assumptions about marriage and class.
There may BE some Leftist bias and false stats,but,still,lets be real.When I was growing up it was rare in my world to see single 40 and 50 year olds.Now it is so common no one thinks twice.
So maybe the Times article is not quite accurate.But its a lot closer to the truth than many here would like to think.
Because the single women aren't fit to marry. They are mindnumbed human deritus.
This SLIMES study has already been dissected and proven wrong.
Another manipulation of statistics by the Liberal press ping.
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