Donal has some musings:
The basic strategy which many (most?) women employ right now, which is regularly known as AF/BB (see Rollo’s post for more), is one that requires two distinct elements to pull off: deceit and desperation. Many, if not most, men would not be content to marry a woman whom they realize is choosing to marry them solely as a meal ticket, and effectively a sperm donor as well. It should surprise no one that men don’t like to be used in that way, and will balk at it if they realize that is what is happening. Hence the importance of hiding what is going on from them.
Maybe I’m odd, but I honestly wouldn’t mind taking a wife who was wanting to make rational deal upfront. I’d be quite willing to go along with a young woman who proposed an honest, straightforward marriage deal: ‘you provide for me, protect me, and father my children, and I’ll bear you many children, keep your house, and provide regular sexual access.’
If she met my list and I had some positive feelings for her, I’d jump at the chance for such a rational young girl.
That’s not to say I’m willing to be the beta bux for a woman who’s already had her alpha fux, but that’s something quite different a family-oriented girl with a low time preference rationally planning her future. In fact, that kind of future-time orientation would be rather attractive in its own right.
My problem with being the beta bux is not that a woman would want “a meal-ticket” but rather that she is not offering a worthwhile value in trade by trying to sell damaged and/or decaying goods for full price through deceit.
If a young woman wanted to make a fair and honest trade on the marriage market for a meal-ticket, I’d be game.
But then again, I’ve always been rather emotionally-detached and bloodlessly rational, so I’m probably the odd one out here.
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Which leads me to further musings on romance.
The slow, agonizing death of modern marriage did not start with gay marriage nor did it start with no-fault divorce. It didn’t even start with the creation of ‘marital rape‘ or mass contraception.
It started well before that: it started with the acceptance of romantic love as the basis of marriage and the conflation of romantic love and Christian love.
Romantic love is a feeling and feelings change, for this reason romance and romantic love are a horrible basis for marriage.
Christian love is not a feeling, it is a series of purposeful attitudes and actions adopted.
‘Love’ is not love.
If you accept that romantic ‘love’ should be the basis of marriage, you are the problem.
I don’t think you are odd FN. As I explained in Rollo’s thread he wrote in response to my post, being a “meal ticket” isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A rational exchange of services is entirely defensible. However, the rational exchange you propose is not what I was referencing. The AF/BB model isn’t “give and take” from both parties. Rather, it is “give” from the man and “take” from the woman, all without the man knowing about it.
You are right about romance and marriage, of course. Romance is something to be kindled within marriage, that is, romance is supposed to stem from marriage, rather than the present paradigm of marriage stemming from romance.
Here is the core of what I left at Rollo’s:
An equitable exchange is tolerable. But this whole system is built around avoiding such a thing.
Love isn’t necessary for a successful marriage at all. Certainly not Christian love as many nations before Christ and after have hard stable, long term and productive marriages.
Brilliantly put.
The problem is not that women want “the marriage deal”, the problem is that they want it only when they have finished having fun, Mr. Exciting “won’t commit” (surprise, surprise), their hotness is disappearing and they are running out of options.
The problem is that they are stale/damaged goods masquerading as new and fresh.
Once upon a time, I met a hot nineteen-year-old South American beauty. Naturally, I wifed her up. More than twenty-five years later, we are still together. The love we felt at the beginning is nothing compared to what we have now. I think this one might just go the distance.
The problem is that Western thought – and Media romance in particular – has given women the same astronomically high expectations that porn does in men. If you’re not a Victoria’s Secret model, don’t expect a Soap Opera Guy.
The dangers of porn are well documented and understood; the dangers of unreasonable media-inspired romantic expectation are dismissed – yet they are flip sides of the same coin.
The one thing that I wish that I could get people to understand is that “Love is not a feeling – it is a choice”.
“if they think that there is some kind of equitable exchange at place. The problem is that men are being used right now- the exchange is anything but equitable.”
Part of the problem is that the exchange is also not above board, on the table, and in good faith. Part of the problem is that the man doesn’t even know there’s an exchange going on, or if he does know of the exchange, he doesn’t know the full nature and extent of it.
Men don’t mind there being an exchange, a quid pro quo; so long as it’s honest, above board, and done in good faith.
Yes deti, this whole paradigm reeks of bad faith. That ties in again to the deception/deceit component which FN quoted from me above. Deception is essential to this whole enterprise- if men knew what was really going on, that they were being used as meal tickets and receiving little to nothing in return, they would reject it out of hand. But everything in the present system is built around keeping the wool over men’s eyes. The Matrix metaphor re: the Red Pill really does work for this part of the Great Lie- there is a world of lies built around us to keep us from realizing the truth.
In my humble opinion, the tradcon exchange between husband and wife that you advocate is not really all that equitable – and certainly not what one sees in ancient societies.
A good writeup on that can be found here for your consideration.
Romantic love, FN got it right, but so did Shakespeare in his writing. It’s a dangerous thing, a highly sought after thing, and something that gets in the way of a smooth functioning society. The left is rooted in blind idealism, so it worships romantic love. As hardened rationalists it is our job to tell the ugly truth that romantic love must be controlled which often means subverting it. It means the bittersweet of love and loss. We are to play the role of villain that everyone has been trained from birth to hate. Telling people they can expect both romantic love and a stable society is a boldface lie. The worst part is it’s a lie that must be told because most people won’t hesitate to let society burn if it means fulfilling their love.
Free – well, now that you put it that way, it does make sense, and I would have signed up for a deal like that, too. The problems are, as you mentioned, covering up for damaged goods, and misrepresentation so as to appear of greater value. The latter I guess is used in advertising all the time, while the former would be considered fraud in any contract *except* the modern marriage contract.
Another problem, and I’m not sure of the legal terminology (“failure to fulfill”?) , is entering the contract knowing that you can’t or won’t fulfil it. Again, in the modern marriage contract, if the man finds himself on the receiving end, he has little or no recourse. If he divorces her, she still gets the house, the kids and half the money. OTOH if the woman is on the receiving end of this type of fraud, she can divorce him and get the house, the kids and half his money.