Should Men Get Married?
My PJM column is up:
Much of the column is about a new book by professor Stephen Baskerville entitled, Taken into Custody: The War Against Fatherhood, Marriage, and the Family.
The book is an important one and brings to light some of the difficulties men are having with the current family court system. It is worth a read for those of you who want to know more about the ins and outs of the family court system's bias towards men (and some women).
Anyway, take a look at my column to learn more.
If PJM’s advice columnist Dr. Helen Smith ever doubted that the institution of marriage was getting to be an increasingly risky and expensive proposition for men - her readers have certainly educated her, forcing her to think carefully about whether or not to advise them to head to the altar.
Much of the column is about a new book by professor Stephen Baskerville entitled, Taken into Custody: The War Against Fatherhood, Marriage, and the Family.
The book is an important one and brings to light some of the difficulties men are having with the current family court system. It is worth a read for those of you who want to know more about the ins and outs of the family court system's bias towards men (and some women). Anyway, take a look at my column to learn more.
Labels: PJM column
posted by Helen at 5:06 AM
33 Comments:
While crude, in need of a good editor, and not especially well-organized, one of the most compelling treatises on this subject is at www.nomarriage.com.
I exited a 14-year marriage to an abusive Borderline woman two years ago. I am daily grateful that we did not have children; no child deserves a mentally ill parent. I gave her all the cash I could scrape up and absolved her of any debt. I refer to this strategy as "gnawing one's leg off to get out of a trap."
In the middle-aged dating world, men seem to be viewed in one of three ways. In my experience, women under 40 want a babydaddy/ATM; women over 40 want a walking retirement package; others of whatever age want a disposable sex toy. In the final analysis, the empty, lonely feelings generated by having been used for sex are far superior to the stark realization that you are only as valuable as your income.
The key word seems to be "entitlement," and we now seem to have a couple of generations of women who have been taught that their entitlements should be unlimited merely because they inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Consider the 47-year-old neurotic I recently met who ACTUALLY BELIEVES some surgeon is going to take her as his trophy wife.
When we really get to the bottom line, the women who are not sick, abusive, and/or purely mercenary are in relationships with men they admire and respect. Having been burned, I will not be using a match to check the level of fuel in any gas tanks again.
Regarding video's passage: "..merely because they inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide..." I believe this rationale is incomplete. I submit that video omitted reproductive plumbing as a justification for women's self-determination as universally "entitled."
That being said, though, I think for men, abandoning marriage is exactly the wrong approach, though I totally understand why most MRA's are advocating it. In my estimation, that approach plays exactly into the hands of the feminists, who have been striving for three decades to destroy the institution by seizing reproductive choice, demonizing men as being dangerous to their own children, and raising the spectre of domestic violence as a one-gender problem.
I think the better choice is for men to marry, but to be active in preserving their own rights as well as those of their brothers. Most of the damage to marriage and to men's rights has been done through political power, and much of that has been asserted in the vacuum crreated by men's silence on the issues.
It's time (has been for awhile) for to be silent no more.
The PJM link seems to be dead.
It is my relatively inexperienced position that men and women make the best relationships when men pony up and lead right out of the gate.
Note that 'lead' does not equal 'you're the boss', but that you need to model the behavoir you want your wife to emulate, be intolerant (perhaps in a gentle way) of nonsense from your spouse, and have the self-awareness to realize when you're being an ass.
It means saying 'no' to her when she starts being stupid and sticking to it, and occasionally 'no' on relatively insignificant matters that you disagree with, just to set the tone that 'no' is an option, and she's not always right.
Basically, you need to be an old school gentleman who is clearly dominant, without being abusive, degrading, nagging or whiney.
You need to set the tone of 'this is how it is', and how 'it is' needs to be a thoughtful, quality way of going about things.
Now at this point it's very easy for many of you to imagine I abuse and bully my wife (2 months married, six years dating) but that's not the case. She's a good woman and sets me straight from time to time.
But I set the tone, I make the calls when she's indecisive, and I set and maintain the standards for myself and her.
I've noticed more than once that if I raise the standard for myself (most lately in exercise), she'll follow my lead with virtually no prompting, and we both benefit.
There is nothing dramatic in any of this- it's a manner of relationship that needs to be established relatively early on and then can be maintained with small 'course corrections,' if you will.
The easy pessimistic reply from my more experienced fellow husbands is "oh, she'll change, and it'll go down the tubes."
My response?
In general, masculinity is in a sorry state lately, and in general the 'more experienced' of us have been leading that sorry state, though due to understandable pressures.
It's time to raise the standards for masculinity, and simultaenously raise the standards for women. You cannot constantly indulge women- or anyone- in their (occasional or constant) foolishness and expect that you will have a healthy relationship.
That being said there are some thoroughly rotten women out there. If you're not convinced your prospective wife is cut from quality cloth, stay the hell away. In any case, be the man as I've described right from the get go and hopefully that'll help sort things out.
And yet, after many of the horribles happening to me, I am contemplating going back into marriage.
Why? I am in my mid 50's, and see how isolated the older single men get. My father was widowed a couple of years ago, and yet he was lucky - a lot of the social ties created and strengthened through the years are strong enough that much of his circle of friends is still intact. But that was after almost 60 years of marriage.
The other thing is children. I love them, and would have loved more of them, but divorce intervened. So, faced with the choice of custody every other weekend and almost nightly calls (over the last 13 years) and no kids, I would take the kids any day.
Finally, prenuptials have their limits. They work reasonably well in protecting assets from spouses, but mostly don't when it comes to child support and custody. It seems like "the good of the child" invariably trumps whatever you agreed to before. So, it is not uncommon for the ex to agree to things before the marriage, and then get them anyway in court, as long as they can be viewed as child support and visitation. Still, if you have assets, a must.
Preach on, brother Michael. It's the truth, which should cause conniptions all over the place; but it's the truth, and the truth works.
Clearly, our society won't make it if men don't marry and don't have children. And clearly, men and women should not be enemies, but partners to help each other through life and develop the next generation of good citizens.
I am 43 and unmarried. My lack of a marriage and family is not something I blame on women. I dated many fine women in my teens and 20s. Many wanted to marry me, but there was always something else I wanted to do before marriage. Or I engaged in self-destructive relationships with women who made it clear they couldn't be trusted.
At this late date, I have concluded that my entire approach was wrong-headed. I "dated" instead of looked for a lifemate. I was over-infatuated with looks. I relied and trusted women more than I knew them. I pursued regular sex partners rather than a long-term relationship. And I discounted honorable women with faith because I didn't take them seriously. Guess what? Many of them are in happy marriages.
I found that by my late 20s, the rules had changed. Suddenly the available women were more sexually aggressive, but worse, many of the remaining women had an unbelievable sense of entitlement and disrespect for men and masculinity. That is, there is more than a grain of truth to these criticisms of many (far from all) American women.
I often tried to lead by not tolerating male-bashing, but found myself then treated passive-aggressively.
Still, had I not been a jerk when I was younger, I no doubt could have found numerous pleasant women to share life and raise a family with. I've learned to live with it and tried to not to have too much regret.
And I do have friends in unhappy marriages -- men often struggling to keep women happy, but nothing is ever enough. Men being repeatedly lectured to, controlled and even disrespected.
FWIW.
A few more thoughts: I think part of the problem is many American women in particular think gender is a social construct -- that they're the same as men. But they're not. Not better or worse, just different.
Just last week, I heard a woman brag about how "tough" she was when compared with her boyfriend -- she said she was more than a man than he was.
I gently suggested that if she were a man, her sharp-tongued, sarcastic, aggressive and confrontational ways would get her ass kicked regularly until she changed her attitude or was entirely made of scar tissue.
It's a difficult point to get across to some women -- they get away with saying things to men that would get their butts handed to you on a silver platter. But I see this attitude more and more.
Norah Vincent did a good job of explaining it in her recent book. She explained that she was a masculine, butch lesbian -- but when she tried to pass as a man, she came across as an extremely effeminate one.
I think the biggest problem is that marriage is an institution for grownups, and these days we have a decided lack of grownups.
Dr. Helen previously posted a link to an article about women who get "starter husbands." That is to say, they get married to men they have no intention of loving, honoring or cherishing 'till death do they part. I'm sure this kind of mentality isn't limited to women.
Once upon a time, people believed that promises meant something. These days not so much. The result is that people don't take marriage proposals seriously, and they end up marrying the wrong person.
So the current divorce law favors women. So what? In my opinion we're up against something bigger than the law. We're up against the devaluation of the oath.
I, for one, took an oath to love, honor, and cherish my wife for as long as I live. Maybe I'm the only one, but I take that seriously, and I wouldn't have asked her to marry me if I didn't. And I wouldn't have married her if I didn't know she did.
I'd like to suggest that we change the question. Rather than "should men get married?" it should be "how should men get married?"
Baskerville's "mounting evidence" suggest that men aren't marrying, but other data suggest that over 90% of men will marry at least once. Moreover, data indicate that it's not that men aren't marrying but that young men are marrying later. It's no longer a world where young Americans marrying at 18.
The thing is, the majority of divorces are based not on abuse or other serious issues. Most of them are because of those dreaded "irreconcilable differences." These differences don't start out "irreconcilable." Couples often forget to keep working on their relationship while they're running around staying employed or taking care of the kids.
On the other hand, "mounted evidence" exists to show that healthy marriages are good for both men and women (despite what you may have heard about marriage only benefiting men). But the emphasis is on having a healthy relationship. Unfortunately, many people think that these things just happen and that the work is done when they wed. This simply is not the case.
We no longer live in a world where loveless marriages "survive" for decades because that's what society expects. So if men and women want their marriages to last, they have to work at it.
Admittedly, I have my own professional biases about this topic. And, no I'm not suggesting that every marriage can or should be saved.
I have a good, but not perfect marriage. I know many other couples who are happily married. So marriage works well for many men. From my perspective I would much prefer being married and having an intact family with children to the alternative of going through life as a single male.
I have thoughts about how to make marriage work, but they would be far beyond the scope of a blog comment.
It appears that Dr. Helen is happily married. Perhaps she could write about what has worked for her.
Hi all,
Thanks for the comments thus far, they are good ones.
Bill,
You make good points. I know that I get away with saying some things that if a man said, would get him smacked. I thought Nora Vincent did a great job with "Self Made Man." We did a podcast with her about the book and it was interesting to hear firsthand about the difficulty she had with living as a man:
http://instapundit.com/archives/028215.php
Here is my comment I made on the blog with your article:
"The only "trick" to having a good marriage is finding the right woman to marry. Good sex is not a reason to get married. How do you know when you've found the right one?"
It's cutesy-cutesy, Dear Abby-ish statements like these that make me wonder if A) Do you have ANY idea what is going on at all? B) Have you actually ever met a real live American Woman? C) What year are you living in.. 1974?
This isn't a simple 'character' issue- this is a legal issue. The 'legal' system is now and has been completely insane. Guys, to explain how it feels to be a man nowadays to a woman, tell them to imagine if they woke up suddenly tomorrow to find out that rape is now legal. All the women would be completely freaking out, saying, "this is insane," but then the men's only response is, "hey, not all men are like that." Then, just to make you feel like you've just entered the Twilight Zone, they ask accusingly, "hey lady, (talking to her like she's an idiot that was born yesterday) what do you have against men anyway? You're scary and creepy and obviously have issues that you need to get counseling on because of some past relationship problems-you know, you fit the profile of an abuser. I would never date a woman like you."
Oh, and how could I forget.. these men can falsely accuse YOU of anything at anytime, instantly having you arrested on their word if you anger one of them or even so much as criticize any of them for their actions and have it labeled as 'abuse.'
Video,
Where are all the women who want to use us for sex? Never one around when I need one...
Another comment I made about the article:
"Like most of society, those of you who are still insisting that marriage can work are in the same kind of denial an alcholic has, in that you continue to believe that life will get better despite drinking a fifth of whiskey a day.. "If I can just find the right situation to allow for my drinking.." Until the alcholic stops drinking, then they're life will not improve, but only continue in a downward spiral.
The U.S. is in denial that today's American women are Monsters and we need to change that as well as the divorce laws as well as beginning to make women accountable for their actions, otherwise getting married today is like starting a cross-country trip in your car with a flat tire and a severe oil leak- you're going to have to fix it before you leave the driveway."
Having been in a 20+ years situation as video's, except with children, I add that I agree with tullimoredu's additional comments in the first two sentences of his post. Further, there is not a "piece of plumbing" worth that price.
Truly, those of that mind set have priced themselves out of the market.
Actually, the opposite is true. They have no worth at all.
When the right person finds the right person, marriage can be wonderful. I have friends who are, and have been for decades, crazy about each other. It's a wonderful thing.
Another comment I made on the bog with the article:
"Ironically, our own sense of chivalry and being a real man does not allow us to be as capricious and downright mean as our wives or girlfriends. I knew marriage was a compromise, I didn't know women had the right, and endorsement, if not downright encouragement, from society, to unilaterally change the terms of that compromise."
Perfectly stated. This very hostile and insane environment created by my wife was the cause of my alcohol addiction, so I left my wife and almost overnight, lost all desire for alcohol. I am so happy now alone. I have peace. I suggest to any of you men out there with alcohol problems who are married carefully consider the source of your pain that is causing your addiction. There's about a 95% chance it's sleeping right next to you.
I remember back as recently as the 70's when I used to respect women so much and long to be with them because they showed some degree of respect and had not been infected with the feminist virus so horribly yet. Feminism has made U.S. women monsters and now they demand respect, and now, ironically, I have lost all respect for them. You see, respect is not something you demand, respect is something you earn.
Because women in the U.S. have become so monsterous, I have also lost all sexual attraction to them as well. Their personalities are either so offensive or so sickeningly fake, I'm happiest when they're not around.
Now women to me just appear as something that crawled up out of Hell. No accountablity, no respect for men, as venerally diseased public toilets, with all the charm of an open sewer, women in the U.S today are cockroaches.
Come South Young Man !!!-
I think it is still true, although no decent, self-respecting woman would have anything to do with ME, that Southern girls are a lot more hospitable towards men than their Yankee sisters..
The Southern girl just isn't into feminism and hating men and never was-- a lot of the old cultual ways never died, nor were they even affected much by the sunami of anti-male bigotry that has engulfed out nation since 1965 or so...
I have one anecdote to support that. When I was U Minnesota in Minneapolis in the 90s.. the women there were total jerks-- profs, grad students, any adult female basically needed shooting... .. They would complain when the prof said "mankind", asking him after class to "Say "humankind'". This is grad/med school !... ovulars instead of seminars-- no kidding... unbelievably obnoxious anti-male women, who I loved to tease. ( It was such a joy to tell them that 'Feminist" was to be a new entry as a personality disorder in DSM-iV-R)..
On hearing a fellow female student had recently become engaged ,I offered the idle pleasantry " Shoot, all the good ones are taken".. and she accused me of sexual harassment...
I know my reaction was not idiosyncratic. I talked to a prof in the Psychiatry Department . He said that "we"-- men-- just have to put up with them. I asked him if it was just me. He said, No-- every resident from the South who comes there says the same thing about the women and goes back home as soon as they can... poor suffering, abused males in Minnesota.
So if you want to try the marriage waters, move down South-- Jackson, Birmingham, Baton Rouge, Memphis, New Orleans, Knoxville, Nashville, Huntsville, even smaller college towns like Tuscaloosa and Athens and Knoxville-- even Austin--- the old Confederate states. South Carolina, NC and old Virgina , too.
Girls are still pretty sweet down here, from what I can see...
The relentless hate and abuse that is all over the media and books and endemic in our culture and in our law is much attenuated down here.
So leave the North and leave them all with their cats and their vibrators. Go South , young man-- its a whole lot better than those Yankee women.
JHE
I agree completely with JHE... There is a remarkable difference between the two groups.
I would offer a bit of caution though... one doesn't find southern girls in Atlanta. Ya know what I'm sayin?
Nate -- you just have to know where to look. Thirty-one years ago, I bumped into a cute young coed in bluejeans and saddle oxfords, at Georgia Tech of all places, smack-dab in the middle of Atlanta.
She hails originally from New Jersey but is an adopted southern girl.
She done stole my heart long ago, and shows no sign of giving it back. ;)
@etahasgard1986:
I know what you mean about the U. I was there in the mid-late 1990s, myself - taking graduate classes in social work and social policy, no less. I ran into exactly what you're describing.
That's probably why courting a tour guide from Colonial Williamsburg held such appeal. Seven years and 2 kids later, I still think it was one of the wisest decisions I've ever made.
"Come South Young Man !!!-"
I've lived in Texas all my life and still do.
Dr. Helen,
Consdering I am a healthy, attractive man with a perfectly normal personality who has lost all sexual interest in women and have become asexual because of their overall repulsiveness in today's culture, you could do a study on men like me, invent a term for this new 21st century condition and become famous for discovering it by being published.
There are probably millions of men like me who simply are too embarrassed to admit any of this- they just need to be encouraged to come forward.
Dr. Helen, I thought that the Ph.D. credential following your name meant you were supposed to have some insightful advice to provide?
You're like a NYC shrink in a 70's Woody Allen movie (Tony Roberts played the part as I recall, in pajamas), asking his client after 15 years on the couch - "So, how do you REALLY feel about your mother's suicide?"
Dr. H., comes a time for a genuine professional contribution, pro bono, yes?
One thing to consider is there are a number of religious sub cultures in this country in which marriage is understood and practised very differently than what is represented by many of the comments here. I am familiar with the LDS (Mormons) but I suppose that there must be others who also practice marriage largely by their own rules. Of course these subcultures exist within the framework of the law and the larger culture, but their own value systems win out much of the time. For instance, LDS people who take their religion seriously believe that marriage is a commitment not just for life, but for eternity, and most of those who I know act like this is actually the case.
For those with a pent up supply of snarky comments please note that I am merely observing, not preaching. My personal situation is that of a socially clueless lifelong bachelor and I claim absolutely no wisdom on the subject of marriage.
JHE - For sheer coolness, Norfolk girls have 'em all beat. At least they did when I went to school down there. Even the most feminist among them were fun, feminine, sexy, laid back, and they liked good music.
Or maybe it was just 70s girls. There were some pretty cool Yankee women where I went to college.
Not sure what's up these days.
Derek- I was in the Behavior Genetics/ Bio Psychiatry program there In Minn-- but I was located in the Psychology Department. ... but I must say the undergrad girls I taught were pretty girlish and normal and endearing... I think you have to be indoctrinated into disliking men. I don't think it comes naturally-- nor does disliking women come naturally to men.
But the fields you were in were really politicized. It must have been tough...
As far as the South-- I grew up in Meridian, MS ( went to school with Sela Ward of Sisters, etc and saw Steve Forbert come up) in the 70s-- and I never heard any real conflict between the genders, other than the normal, good-natured ribbing and not much of that. Everyone was trying to make whoever you were interested in happy so they would like you, too. Seems simple.
In college in MS- no... and in Tuscaloosa at UA -- are you kidding ?... I could not find any feminists at the University of Alabama to argue with or discuss my concerns about the books coming out from 1969 through 1982. When I would rail away at feminism, my girlfriend ( she eventually recovered from the trauma and now lives in a convent) said
" Dash, have you ever met any women like that ?"...
"No, Ellie Mae, I haven't "....
(Alabama girls were gorgeous , second maybe to Ole Miss, where two Miss Americas-- 1959 and 1960-- came from the same sorority !)
At U Texas in Austin in mid-to late 80s... they were pretty much sweet girls too.... (I wish I could say I have been mistreated by women, but I haven't. I read a lot about it, though. And I get myself worked up and go out and hope some woman abuses me-- but they never do-- damn it.)
Out and about Austin--- not as sweet as Alabama and Mississippi girls-- but pretty close. Texas girls were real nice, too. Now the Yankee transplants in Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth may be different... but your home-grown Texas girl is very sweet.
The gender wars don't fit with the cultural traditions of the South. Its very difficult to say negative things about women to women-- its like you are supposed to take care of them so how can you hurt them ?.Of course books could be written on this topic-- but someone, man or woman, who spends an inordinate anmount of time criticizing the other sex-- is said to have personal problems.
There is the solution to this anti-male world !-- put all the Yankee-feminist girls in camps and only allow Southern girls to reproduce...soon gentically-based Southern -female charms will take over the gene pool and life for men will get infinitely better. The feminist girls in the camps won't mind-- they get their utopia of a world without males, rampant lesbianism, no crime, overeating without shame, no leg shaving, and no make-up !
So everyone is happy.
bugs...you went to school in Norfolk during the 70's? Odd U?
Did you ever spend any time at the King's Head Inn? If so, we may well have met before. I spent much tome there myself in the early to mid 70's - trolling for babes, as it were.
The biggest problem (I am guilty of it as well) is that people confuse marriage with love. Love is a chemical trick to get us to have sex with each other. Marriage is a statutory agreement for the mutual benefit of the two people AND government/society. Most problems arise because we let people get married (nay, ENCOURAGE them) before their brains are developed enough to know who to marry or why, or how to build sustainable relationships with other people in any environment, let alone one involving sex, in-laws, forced co-habitation, and of all things, CHILDREN. We shouldn't let anyone get married before the age of 25 ( I used to say 30, but I've found more smarts in the newer generations than they get credit for). Putting the kabosh on sex in advertising would also go a long way in reducing the idiot-inducing hormone levels of our world. Marriage has little to do with love, and the sooner we teach people this, the better off we will be. That doesn't mean it has to be clinical, it just has to be understood and not romanticized as an answer to any kind of loneliness or self-esteem problem.
Oh, I don't know, auntiegrav. I can remember when first being head over heels about a girl as a teen, and later when I knew my ex was "the one". I was floating on a cloud. There was no way in hell to wipe that shit eating grin off my face. It's the best feeling one can have. In retrospect, with or without clothes on. It only happened a couple times in life to me. I've had "crushes", maybe have them still. But nothing like those couple times.
Oops. Sorry about the grin reference. Meant no harm.
Auntiegrav (wonderful name by the way) I think you may be referring to infatuation rather than love. Love is more abiding than infatuation. Much of the "problems" in marriage so bemoaned on this site by some is from marrying based on infatuation rather than love and commitment.
Trey
My own personal view is that marriage, whether it's to a person from the north, the south, or the moon, is still not worth pursuing. It's like choosing from the following banquet table:
Feces with peanuts.
Feces with corn.
Feces with maple syrup.
I like peanuts, corn, and maple syrup...just not enough to eat the rest of the entree' to get a taste of it. I suspect a lot of people, men in particular, are coming to the same conclusions.
Furthermore, I don't give a tinker's damn about whether or not our society can exist and thrive. Those kinds of societies that trade votes for money, or law for justice, or security for freedom as willfully and blatantly as our society has, it doesn't deserve to exist, purely and simply.
Having said that, marriage is just a bad deal for men. One may argue that all it takes is finding the right person to marry, but that assumes that the person you fall in love with will remain the same person throughout a lifetime. This is almost universally untrue. Those that comprise the exceptions to this rule are rare; certainly not in enough numbers to satisfy all the men who foolishly still desire marriage.
Love alone will not sustain anyone. Fairness and sticking to one's values will sustain a person far more even in the loneliest of times. That cannot happen within the modern construct of marriage.
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