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.
several young women at my work....all gorgeous, smart and funny....live with these guys for years....some of them eventually married...
but I want to scream at them MAKE THEM COMMIT..THEY ARE USING YOU....but it would fall on deaf ears...
ah, the quaint old system of young men and women dating, falling in love, getting married and having children....
now,they move in together, have a baby, buy a house together and then maybe, maybe, get married
....of course there seems to be no church weddings anymore....
It’ll be even worse when ‘sex robots’ become common in 30-40 years.
Sure there’ll be laws by then allowing people to marry them.
If they’re working for themselves they count as being in the workplace. And actually, I believe white men are still employed at a high rate. I’d guess that the massive number of minority men in prison or with criminal records explains a chunk of this.
More union guys finding ways to go out on disability probably contributes to it too (and they were guys with jobs). Maybe early retirement from that segment, too.
I’m pretty sure it must.
Do not underestimate the utility of the “Nothing Box” ...
Well not to be too philosophical, a bridegroom can get a whole lot more out of marriage than just footing a bill.
A guy needs to have a whole lot more maturity and introspection before getting intimately involved with a girl than what goes on in their young lives that we see now
Until he has good reason to get married it is just paying a bill. But girls could back off and let him grow up too
I agree with your point. As someone who has seen their friends go through divorce... watching them lose almost everything, give up their homes, only get to see their kids every other weekend, etc. That’s hardly an incentive to get married, in the off chance that things don’t work out.
Ironically enough, guys I know who emphatically insist that they will never put themselves out in the slightest for a relationship, will walk through fire to help out one of their male friends. Our culture has cultivated a fundamental distrust, verging on contempt, between the sexes.
As a married father I’ve been “working like a girl” for a few years now, putting in the bare minimum hours (and boosting my hourly wage nicely, since I’m a salaried employee). I don’t want to be a girl, but I don’t want to work my arse off while affirmative-action females promoted to keep lawyers at bay work even less than the minimum workweek. The childless white women that complain about darker women rushing home to care for their children do the same thing, substituting cats, dogs, or aging parents instead. Women have found out that being a man wasn’t all they thought it would be...
I now believe one can have it all; I can take my children to school, to sports practices afterwards, help with their homework, etc., while serving as the primary breadwinner.
[[The adults that ARE in church too often look no different than going shopping]]
Even many pastors look that waY Now- What a stark difference between Dr Charles Stanley, and his jean wearing, nearly anything goes son Andy Stanley- I won’t even listen to his son- He’s not a preacher, he’s a feel good therapist- Dr Stanley however gives a good solid message- nothing fancy- just straight word of God for htem ost part
Was talking with a friend who said they allow their kids to watch andy Stanley because ‘the kids like his teaching style’ and they find Dr Charles Stanley too dry- and ‘boring’ - so I decided to listen to a couple of Andy’s sermons and oh my word- what I heard was appalling- I got l ooking online, and some of his theology is WAY off- He’s trying to be a ‘friend to all’ and doesn’t condemn anyone- even looking the other way regarding gay couples apparently- (You can find his heresy ideology on gay marriage online- it’s appalling- )
Ever heard the term "battle of the sexes"?
Yes?
Who engages in battle?
ENEMIES, that's who!
Are Man and Woman naturally enemies? Is that what God had in mind when He create us?
NO! Not merely NO!, but HELL NO!!!!
And I chose those words deliberately ... because I know whence came the concept of a "battle of the sexes" ...
Contemporary US women don’t seem to like men all that much.
And, as far as my twenty-something sons are concerned, the feeling is mutual.
assume he is referring to men marrying women...the other seems to be on the rise
And women today don't seem to understand how valuable that mystery is. They act crass and tacky and think it's sexy. It just makes them look cheap.
“I’d get down to the gates of Hell and Satan would JUMP OUT....RRROOAAAAARRRRRR!!!!!! Ah #@$#...you were married huh? Well, I guess there’s nothing much new for you here. Well, I’ll give you the nickel tour anyway....see that? That’s where we torment the soul.......OOOOOOOH! Say, you didn’t happen to see any single guys coming down the tunnel did you? I can scare the $#@# out of them. Oh &*(! ....you were married twice? Want a job? That qualifies you for the job placement program here in Hell...”
-Sam Kinison
That’s true; the divide & conquer strategy of the Bolsheviks has worked wonders between the genders. I wouldn’t call the unmarried men lazy; these are the children of the earlier generation that saw divorce become commonplace, and they have heard all of the horror stories. I suspect they would have wives and children if they weren’t 100% aware that sheer boredom on the part of the wife can ruin them financially for decades and steal their children from them.
Trust me, if it wasn’t the deck loaded against men we’d have a lot of men griping about the decline of marriage - and that just isn’t happening. They’ll take the cheap shots from the enemedia about living in basements, playing video games and so forth - and they’ll retain their economic independence and happiness. As a married father, I understand; I don’t agree with them, but I understand.
It’s even worse than Msgr. Pope says.
It is sick. What are the kids supposed to think, with their mothers acting so undignified. And the fathers treating the mothers in such a way?
The family protects kids and gives tgem an institution to belong to
Watch how modern culture dignifies animals and treats us like animals. It’s a big part of not respecting pur country not protecting our borders. And men are confused. They’re not protecting their mothers as their fathers treat them like hookers. They’re not protecting their sisters nor their girlfriends or wives. Women don’t realize how by taking on birth control as an institution and an acceptable way of life, thryvruin the world
Look at Germany, allowing young men to invade their country. They have given up on dignifying the family long ago
men just seem to want to flit around like Peter Pan...no responsibility, no children....
Men really have just abandoned their roles....its their doing...Playboy philosophy is so much simpler than actually having a loving wife and a raising children.
it all comes down to personal morals and obeying the commandments.....but you can't do that if porn is your God....
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