Posted on 10/12/2015 8:32:47 AM PDT by Salvation
A 2012 report on men and marriage by the Pew Research Center shows statistically what many of us have noticed anecdotally: men are finding marriage less desirable than in the past and are now marrying later, if at all.
In today’s post I want to present some excerpts from a hard-hitting article that appeared at Lifesite News in 2013, commenting on the Pew study. The full article can be read here: Men Giving Up on Marriage.
As usual, I present the text from the original article in bold, black italics, while my own poor commentary is in plain red text.
Fewer young men in the US want to get married than ever. … The number of young adult men saying that having a successful marriage is one of the most important things dropped from 35 percent to 29 percent [since 1997].
The latest census data showed “barely half” of all adults in the United States are currently married, a “record low.” Since 1960, the number of married adults has decreased from 72 percent to 51 [percent] today and the number of new marriages in the U.S. declined by five percent between 2009 and 2010.
Moreover, the median age at first marriage continues to rise, with women getting married the first time at 26.5 years and men at 28.7 [years]. The declines in marriage are “most dramatic” among young adults. Just 20 percent of those aged 18 to 29 are married, compared with 59 percent in 1960.
In my mere 26 years of priesthood, I have seen the number of weddings I perform each year decrease from 35 to 5, and the average age of engaged couples increase from 24 to 31. These are startling changes, and they largely match those experienced by other priests with whom I have discussed the matter.
29 percent of young adult men desiring marriage is an amazingly low figure. The article notes that the things that once motivated men to marry in the past are largely in eclipse now. Men once enjoyed the esteem they garnered by marrying, and were motivated by the challenge of being breadwinners. Getting married was once a proper and approved way of attaining status, and legitimately enjoying sexual intimacy. It was part of the passage to manhood.
But today, many (if not most) women don’t need (or don’t think they need) men to provide for them economically. It’s goodbye to any notion of the esteem of being a provider.
Further, in an age of promiscuity, most men don’t need marriage to open the door to sexual encounters. Only a few “old-fashioned” Catholic priests and traditionalist Catholics raise any eyebrows at men’s “playing the field.” And women as a group (with certain notable exceptions) seem less insistent on expecting men to connect sexual intimacy and marriage.
Add to this the financial bondage introduced by the racket that college education has become. Many young people graduate from college with six-figure debt. And when undergraduate degrees no longer open doors, advanced degrees became necessary, bringing on even more debt.
And finally, add one more thing: pornography. It is more available than ever before. And though it is theoretically more privately accessible than previously, I would point out that there is nothing private about the Internet; Internet service providers know every site you have ever visited.
Sadly, many young men honestly admit that they prefer pornography to real women. Pornography doesn’t talk back or have preferences or moods. Real relationships are complex and require navigation and negotiation. Pornography, it would seem, is a narcissistic paradise. Click through to your current preference; it’s all about you and what you want. And at the end, the object of your fantasy disappears and does not have issues or attitudes with which you must deal.
The overall image is of a cauldron, filled with a witch’s brew or a satanic stew. That men and women marry at all today is increasingly miraculous. I always make a point of congratulating and thanking engaged couples that get to my rectory door for beating the odds and having the gumption to swim upstream.
Pew’s findings have caught the attention of one US writer who maintains that feminism, deeply entrenched in every segment of the culture, has created an environment in which young men find it more beneficial to simply opt out of [marriage] entirely
Suzanne Venker [in her] article, “The War on Men,” … points out that for the first time in U.S. history, the number of women in the workforce has surpassed the number of men, while more women than men are acquiring university degrees. …
With feminism pushing them out of their traditional role of breadwinner, protector, and provider—and divorce laws increasingly creating a dangerously precarious financial prospect for the men cut loose from marriage—men are simply no longer finding any benefit in it. …
“When I ask [men] why, the answer is always the same: women aren’t women anymore.” Feminism, which teaches women to think of men as the enemy, has made women “angry” and “defensive, though often unknowingly.”
“Men are tired,” Venker wrote. “Tired of being told there’s something fundamentally wrong with them. Tired of being told that if women aren’t happy, it’s men’s fault.”
Most men I know perceive that they are often considered by the wider culture as deficient, even depraved. The “men are stupid” commercials and sitcoms abound. Men are often presented as buffoons, who need women and children to “set them straight” on the simplest of things.
Schools, dominated by feminist ideology, have made a pathology of the normal behavior of boys, which includes competition and roughhousing. They seek to feminize boys, going even so far as to encourage medication for them. Most of these boys merely have the spit and vinegar that was once considered normal, needing to be curbed somewhat rather than suppressed with drugs.
It is little wonder that fewer young men make it to college and are falling behind young women in almost every category. Being told (even indirectly) on a regular basis that you are fundamentally flawed has a significant effect over time.
The article says that feminism has emboldened many women to direct suspicious anger toward men and generally presume that they have bad or evil motives. But it has also caused a lot of men to draw back from the healthy confidence that once bolstered them to go out and seek a wife and to take a leadership role in the community, the Church, and the family.
A feminist culture in effect shames these desires as being “patriarchal.”
This is a situation that should not be celebrated by feminists, Venker says. “It’s the women who lose. Not only are they saddled with the consequences of sex … The fact is, women need men’s linear career goals … in order to live the balanced life they seek.”
Yes, in the end it’s usually the biology that kicks in. Truth be told, men and women are meant to be complementary not competitive. Our very body bespeaks a difference that requires the opposite sex to complement it. The design of women’s bodies speaks to bearing children and nurturing them.
A woman who wants to have and raise children well needs time and flexibility. The 9-to-5 career world does not facilitate that. Thus her husband complements her need by taking up the linear and less-flexible career world, leaving her freer to nurture the children.
This used to be obvious to us. But ideology is often disinterested in the obvious. It may be true that we were once too restrictive, limiting certain jobs and careers to men. But for most women, the freedom to work has become the duty to work, even in the childbearing years. It’s a raw deal for everyone: women, men, and especially children.
The bottom line is, it’s never good for anyone, or for civilization as a whole, when huge numbers opt out of or find no access to our most fundamental building block: the traditional family. We must save traditional marriage if we stand any chance of saving our dying civilization.
For further reading, consider Men and Marriage by George Guilder and Eggs are Expensive, Sperm is Cheap by Greg Krehbiel.
That's hysterical. My older son is off to college after a 6 year hitch in the navy and his shyness overwhelms any libido he may have so he doesn't date. That would never have worked for me, hence the 8 kids. My other son only cares about video games. He works two food jobs and plays video games.
One son is married and the 18 and 15 year old are chick magnets. They will definitely end up with all the fun that marriage brings.
I know some men in the same position; it really is a leap of faith, and I guess it is hard to find the right woman.
I think they start realizing it when men (as in my case) start “working like girls”. It disgusts me that being 59% of college classes is acceptable, but somehow a line will be crossed if women are 60% of college classes. As with blacks, they do these women no favors with social promotion (in school or the workplace); they end up frustrated and feeling far behind the qualified people in the room. In my experience, some are completely content to play the ditzy child; they are laughing all the way to the bank (and enjoying the so-called protection of anti-discrimination laws).
I’m a 37 year old man and I simply haven’t found anyone with whom there is enough mutual values, interests, and attraction. I would marry, but in the world we live in I’m not going to start a family with whomever for its own sake. The single, childless women 30-37 that I know are career types holding out for Mr. Perfect with their checklist out. Good luck with that...
Amen.
The American family began its unraveling with the dawn of NO-FAULT divorce...easy, split 50-50, no blame, no shame and that's all she wrote.
It’s also too easy for incompatible people to marry who shouldn’t be doing so in the first place.
I haven’t given up. The strategy is to let this thing collapse and then in the chaos seize control over all the territory we can while removing from ourselves all Democratic voters and their offspring. So, you see, worse is better. The worse it is, the closer we are to collapse, and so the better like it.
On my first deployment (1985) my fiancée told me that she was pregnant. I didn’t know until I got back that she wasn’t pregnant by me.
Your comment resonated with me.
I have three adult children—one married, one to be married soon and one single.
All three have made the comment to my wife and to me that we are the exception among their friends.
We have been married over 39 years.
Come to think of it, we had the house that all the kids came over and spent time at. My kids told us that was because we were “normal”.
Sobering thought, indeed.
I asked my teen daughter last night “Mom and I’s anniversy is the 28th this month - right?”
“Yes Dad.” as she rolled her eyes.
“Let’s see - it’s, um, our 27th! That’s pretty good!”
“Dad - 5 years is good nowadays.”
“Yeah, I suppose. I’m surprised she’s put up with me for this long.”
Further talk (she’s heard it before!) about how marriage is hard but full-filling, etc.
**The American family began its unraveling with the dawn of NO-FAULT divorce**
AND contraception.
Good for you for reinforcing what is important.
These conversations are what your daughter will remember when you no longer are around.
Younger women (22-26) have grown up with these pussified, low-T manlets and are VERY responsive to any displays of masculinity. They don't really care about age anymore. I'm getting more women in their twenties now than I ever did when I was in my twenties.
AND contraception.
Especially ARTIFICIAL birth control, the kind the Church objected to.
THAT'S for sure.
Divorce is just too easy and if they are anywhere NEAR Nevada they can get the super-duper quickie divorce and remarry before the ink is dry on their divorce papers.
I always learned that marriages will be easier less difficult if both spouses speak the same language, and are from the same general culture, socio-economic group and faith. They SHOULD discuss, BEFORE marriage, what their ideas of family, children, faith, etc., are.
End welfare and contraceptives. Criminalize abortion. End no-fault divorce. End the EPA and HUD and end Federal participation in education and medicine and insurance. The family and a healthy birth rate will return and there will be a good start on retiring the national debt.
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