Category Archives: Family

Building a Life Together

Donal wrote a couple posts on men’s SMV and marriage conundrums and women’s complimentary conundrum.

I’m going to focus on the second, in particular. Not wanting to add to Sigyn’s compassion fatigue, I’m not going to talk of how its easier for women to find a marriage partner at this age than men, but rather I’m going to give advice to the young ladies who want to marry young but can’t find a worthy young man to marry.

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First, the reality: you won’t be able to.

For you, young woman of average beauty in your late-teens or early-20s, it will be almost impossible to find a worthy young man who wants to marry you. The vast majority of men your age are of naturally low value, they are unworthy. Most of those few that aren’t unworthy will either not desire marriage or would be a poor marriage partner.

To be worthy, a man must be a good man; he must also have experience,  be able to lead, have a mission, have resources, be skilled, be confident, have positive status, and having a little charm would help as well.

Notice what these all of these but being good have in common:

They all take a long time to develop.

A young man in his early-to-mid-20s will not have had that time. At best, most men will develop this in their late-20s or early-30s. Many men will never develop these.

A good young man near your age will not have discovered his mission yet, he will lack confidence, he will be inexperienced, he will be poor, he will lack status, he will be unskilled, and he probably won’t have developed charm yet. He has likely never been in a position of leadership in his life.

Those that do have status, charm, or confidence at this age will usually have it for the wrong reasons. These will be the petty drug dealers, the college sports stars, the rebel musicians, the budding Casanovas, the frat boys, etc. Most will not be desiring marriage because they will be drowning in easy sex from many fresh, young co-eds (you’re not the only girl trying to find a confident, charming young man) and they would likely make poor marriage partners even if they did.

Now, there will be a very few good young men looking for marriage who have all this. Whether from inheritance, genetic blessing, exceptional parenting, and/or plain dumb luck some good young men will have many or all of these measures of worth, but these men will be very rare indeed. The young Christian sports star (the Tim Tebows of the world) or the grungy-looking worship leader would be the most likely bet.

If you want to have your own Tim Tebow, go back in time and be born a blonde bombshell with a beautiful face and measurements near 36-24-36C.

Don’t have a time machine? You’re not getting a Tim Tebow.

Unless you were born an 8 or a 9 and managed to keep your figure looking smashing, you won’t be getting the worthy young man. These young men are exceedingly rare and will have their pick of the church. Are you the prettiest in your church, your college and career group, and your Christian campus group?

Probably not, otherwise you’d already have one of these men and you wouldn’t be reading this.

Exception: A high-school sweetheart deal. An average young women in high school can snag a higher value man simply by being his first girlfriend and making it so pleasant for him that he marries her right out of high school before he even begins to understand his worth. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably missed that chance, but if you’re still in high school, give it a go; you never know.

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So, now that you, young woman who is not exceptionally beautiful, know that you will not be able to get a worthy, marriage-minded man near your age, what can you do to get a worthy husband?

There are two options: date older or build one.

Option 1: Date Older

There won’t be a worthy young man your own age, but there will be a few worthy, marriage-minded men in the 28-35 age range.

If you do this, you will essentially be joining the life he will have built up. He will likely be loathe to give up what he has already built, so it will be less a melding of lives together and more you inserting yourself into his pre-built life.

There is nothing wrong with this, but it is what it is.

Also, an age difference to 5-15 years may be looked at askance by society in this fallen age. Be prepared for that.

If you’re fine with both of those go for it. It should be fairly easy; most of these men will be very happy to have a young girl in her late-teens/early-20s interested in them. What man wouldn’t feel proud to have a cute wife 10 years his junior?

Find out where good young men in their late-20s, early-30s hang-out. Then go there, look pretty, be nice, and make yourself available. Or go on a dating site and express an interest in this age group in your profile; a few of the dozens/hundreds of men e-mailing you will be these kinds of man, it’s simply a matter of sorting the wheat from the chaff.

But if marrying a man 5-10 years older than you sounds unappealing, there is a second option: build a worthy man.

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Option 2: Build a Worthy Man

You won’t be able to find a worthy young man, but you can build one from an unworthy man. This is a 3-step process.

Step One: The Building Clay

Find an honest, good-hearted, marriage-minded young man who displays potential.

Potential is hard to define, but, essentially, is he a decent young man?

Remember, you are looking for a man who has a certain amount of natural virtue; focus on that and ignore the superficial things; you can work on that later.

Some things to look for:

  • Is he building for the future? ie.: Is he going to college, working on his own business, or taking trades training?
  • Does he have a good relationship with his parents?
  • Is he responsible with his money, his time, his gifts?
  • Does he express an interest in marriage and children?
  • Could he be handsome if he stood up straighter, had a better haircut, and lost those dorky-looking glasses?
  • Does he have plans for the future?
  • If you’re Christian, does he go to church regularly?
  • Do other adults who know him (his boss, church elders, his professors, etc.) respect him and speak well of him?
  • Does he have a group of friends who are decent people?

If the answer is yes to most or all of these, he has potential.

Now potential is just that, potential, it is not actuality. He is not going to have everything you want, now. But, if you choose the right base material, you can build the rest into him. So here’s some things to overlook because they will either develop with time, or you will help him develop it:

  • He dresses poorly.
  • He’s not a leader.
  • He’s socially awkward.
  • He’s currently poor.
  • He plays video games.

Choose the right base material and you can fix all these superficial deficits over time.

If you’re in doubt if the man you’re interested in is good base material, bring him to your parent’s home for a night of dinner and board games. Ask your parents about him afterwards (and demand they be honest). If they like him, you’ve got a decent candidate; if they don’t, dump him.

Step 2: Test Him

So, now you’ve found a decent young man, but he hasn’t proven himself yet, so you’re taking a risk.

Here’s a few simple tests of worthiness for a guy you’ve been dating for a few months or for one of those guys who’s been your close friend with for a while and there’s some mutual interest:

1) Tell him you want to spend a special day together and ask him to plan it. Don’t help him plan, don’t criticize, and go along with whatever he plans. His attitude is more important than what you actually end up doing. If he puts in some planning, pulls off something half-decent, and tries to lead while doing so that’s good. If he sloughs it off and phones you at the last minute asking what you feel like doing and you end up hanging out together as normal, that’s not.

2) Say you’d like to go on a day-long road trip to ???? (some park or attraction within an hour’s drive) and ask him to plan it. Look for the same things as #1.

3) Invite him to help you paint your room; tell him you don’t know what you’re doing. Does he show up prepared to work? Does he take the lead? Does he try to show you how? Is he patient? Does he avoid complaining? Look for his attitude.

4) If you’re planning to move, tell him you don’t have any men to help you (make sure to tell your dad, brothers, and male friends to be busy that day) and don’t know how you’re going to move all this big, heavy furniture by yourself. Ask if he can organize some of his friends to help. If he shows up with a couple friends in tow and takes the lead, you’ve got a keeper on your hands.

5) Have your dad invite him over to work on a project together; tell your dad why and let your dad arrange it. Listen to what your dad says about him afterward.

If he passes a few of these or similar tests, you’ve probably got good base material. It will not eliminate the risk of a dud entirely, but it will minimize the risks.

Onto the next step.

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Step Three: Build Him

He’s probably a bit dorky, awkward, or weird, but don’t worry, you’re going to change that.

Is he a poor engineering student now? Don’t worry; that means 10 years from now he will be a highly-paid engineer. Just let time take its course.

Does he dress like a dork? No problem. He doesn’t realize he looks like a dork, and he likely really doesn’t care how he dresses (as long as it’s not fruity). He’ll be happy to change for you, if you do it right.

Next time he goes clothes shopping, go with him. Recommend a few things you like; when he tries something on and it looks good in it, make it known. Compliment him on how handsome he is, smile coyly, lick your lips, make a big deal of how handsome, sexy, and manly he looks while rubbing your hand casually but enticingly up his arm. I know it sounds kind of stupid, but it will be almost impossible to go overboard. Most young men very rarely get complimented by cute, young girls, so the rush he’ll get from from your effusive praise will make him ignore such petty things as logic and reality. If possible, convince another female cashier to comment on how handsome he looks in those clothes. He will buy that outfit; if not this time, the next. He might not wear it for a while, but when he does, do it all over again; gush over how handsome he looks in it and get your other female friends to do so as well. Do this for one item a shopping trip; in a few years you’ll have replaced his whole wardrobe, he’ll be looking good, and he’ll think it was all his idea.

One important rule: Do not nag; do not ask or demand he buy or wear the new clothes. That will backfire and create resistance. Simply stay positive and compliment and encourage him; it will work wonders.

Does he have a dorky haircut, stupid-looking glasses, a nerdy watch? Do exactly what you did with the clothes and soon he’ll have contacts, a great haircut, and a stylish watch.

Does he lack confidence? No problem. With a cute, young girl like you telling him what a great man he is every day and supporting him in everything he does, he’ll gain some pretty fast. Nothing boosts a man’s confidence like a pretty young lady’s compliments. Make sure not to criticize him; remain positive.

Does he lack leadership? Don’t worry about it. He may not be a leader now, but when you submit to him, he’ll be forced to lead and, in being forced, will learn to do so. With a cute, young girl, like you, looking to him for guidance, submitting to his decisions, and regularly praising his decisiveness, great decisions, and excellent leadership, he’ll quickly become the dominant leader you’re looking for.  Whatever you do, don’t criticize his decisions when he does lead; that will backfire and he will be less likely to lead in the future.

Is he socially awkward? No problem. Get him to read this and this. Talk with him and make him comfortable talking with you. Bring him to hang out in large groups. With you at his side, supporting him in social situations, he’ll slowly gain the social skills you want him to have. A few years from now, you’ll look back and wonder whatever happened to the socially awkward man you once knew.

Does he have less ambition than you like? That’s a bit of a problem, but easily remedied as long as it’s not a complete lack. Encourage him to be proactive (again, no criticism).

Does he idly come up with a decent business idea? “That’s an amazing idea, honey, I’m sure you could make it work.” Then, when out socially with him, mention to your friends/family this great idea he had. Eventually, he’ll try simply because you’ve built so much positive expectation that he would feel horrible about not doing so. Then support him fully as he tries.

Is there a job or schooling opportunity you think he should go for? “Did you hear about this dear. It looks like an amazing opportunity and I think you’re so good at this that you’d be a shoe-in.” Then, when he does try, support him fully and unreservedly. When he gets the job, praise him and tell him how you knew he’d do it.

Again, do not nag. Remain positive.

Another important rule: If he tries and fails, do not complain about his failure or criticize him. A simple “some things are not meant to be” or “circumstances just weren’t right” is okay. Follow that up with a “You’re so amazing, I’m sure next time you’ll do it. Have you seen this? I’m sure you’d be great at it.”

Does he play too many video games? Understand an hour or two a day is not that big a deal. If he plays a lot more than that: find out what he likes doing otherwise, then sign you both up for it, or get him and one of his friends to sign up for it if it’s a male activity. Be supportive and positive, don’t nag. “You know how you’ve always wanted to ????, well I’ve signed us up. It will be so much fun doing this with you.”

Is he in poorer shape than you’d like? Cook him some good meals. Then join a gym, go a couple times, and mention how you wish you had someone to go with. If guys hit on you at the gym, be sure to let slip how you wish “there was someone to go to the gym with as guys are always hitting on me.” At other times mention how much more handsome he would look with a little less weight or a little more muscle.

Eventually, he’ll come with you. After the workout, mention how hot he looks when he’s lifting or dripping with sweat or something related to working out. After he’s been coming to the gym with you for a while, take care to notice that new muscle (“it feels so big and hard“, said admiringly while putting your hand over it) or the lost weight. After that, he’ll keep going with you.

You’ll notice a them through all of this: positivity and support.

For most decent men, they will rise up to what is expected of them. If you go into a relationship expecting the best out of a good man and encouraging him to reach his full potential, he will rise to the challenge. There is nothing in life that will drive a man to self-improvement like having a cute, young woman support and compliment him in doing so.

Young lady of average looks, if you want to marry a man your own age who will be worthy:

Choose a good man with potential, test him, then build him up.

Do all this and in a few years you’ll be married to worthy man of whom you’ll be proud and he will love more than you could possibly understand for helping make him so.

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One other thing: make sure to improve yourself so that good men are attracted to you.

  • Keep fit; little will drive men off more than being fat.
  • Be happy and pleasant. Most men like a girl who’s positive and enjoyable to be around.
  • Be of good character. A man of good character wants a wife of good character.

See here and here for other things a good young man might be looking for in a wife.

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Finally some theory.

Today, marriage is treated as a capstone. People think getting married is something they do once they’ve completed all the others bricks in the wall.

“Once I finish college, get a good job, and buy a house, then I’ll be ready for marriage.”

This is not how marriage is supposed to be. Marriage is supposed to be a cornerstone.

Marriage is about building the wall together. The proper attitude is:

“We’ll get married, we’ll support each other through college, we’ll support each other in starting our careers, and then we’ll buy a house together and make a family. We’ll build a life together.”

When I recommend  building a man, this is what I am talking about.

You don’t have to try to go after the fully formed man who has it all together; you can marry the solid, young guy who has unrealized potential.

He may not be much now, but if you join to him while young and build a life together as he becomes a fully realized man, he will love you more than you can imagine, for he will not be able to imagine a life apart from you, because you will have been there with him building the wall together.

That is my advice to both young men and young women. Find a good person while young, if you can, and build a life together.

Child Support is not Fatherhood

I was reading this post, An E-mail from a Proud Deadbeat Dad.

Matt is correct that fathers are important and that a man abandoning his child is an awful human being, but, while he does give a cursory out for men who have been kicked out their homes, he is far too accepting of the “women get pregnant and men abandon them myth”.

Matt, in the unlikely event you read this, the women who wish they had a man around are as much requiring of exorciation as men who abandon their children.

What kind of despicable women has children with a man who is not going to be there?

Why are these women not picking out better men to have children with, instead of cads who pump and dump them?

You should ask this question in your next blog.

(I sent him a e-mail asking him this, but in a more polite manner, we’ll see if he has a response).

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BW is the product of feminism. “His body, his choice.”

When women can renounce motherhood by destroying their child in the womb, how can society judge a man for renouncing fatherhood?

How is BW any worse a person than the women who has serial abortions?

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I came across this comment, by one gastronaut76:

I raise a daughter alone, after her father- who I was engaged to- whose idea it was to have a child, who was so excited to have a baby, who I realized I couldn’t make a life and separated from, slipped out of my daughter’s life, stopped paying child support, and owes me thousands. Your reductionist argument that I’m not only somehow defective because I was in love, believed a man who promised to support me and bore his child, only to be left holding the bag, but also AT FAULT for his actions? I have no words.

This gastronaut is obviously entirely at fault here, yet she seems to blame the man.

She kicks the father of her child out of her house for undisclosed (which likely means immature) reasons and then he’s the deadbeat for not paying child support.

This kind of crooked thinking can only be the result of a complete lack of understanding of what fatherhood is.

Child support is not fatherhood.

Every second weekend is not fatherhood.

Visitation rights are not fatherhood.

A man who has been removed from his own children and his own home can not engage in fatherhood. He can try to father the best he can, and any man that does gets my respect, but there is simply no way a father, no matter how great a man he may be, can fulfill the functions of fatherhood while removed from his children’s lives.

Even soldiers, sacrificing everything and fighting wars on the other side of the world, get home leave to spend quantity and quality time with their families.

A father needs to be there for his children, to spend time with them, to teach them, to discipline them, to love them, to nurture them. A father need quantity time with his children.

Every second weekend, no matter how “quality” it is is not enough.

Fatherhood is not disposable, and child support is not fatherhood.

Sex – A Response to Scott Alexander

Scott over at Slate Star Codex has created the Anti-Reactionary FAQ, probably the first rational, comprehensive critique of neoreaction. (It also turns out he like Turisas. Huzzah!) Much respect goes to Scott for this; it was a comprehensive and fair work (unlike some pieces of drek), which, over time, (neo)reactionaries will have to respond to. Michael has already done a short, preliminary response, while Jim has critiqued one particular aspect of the FAQ.

My humble blog was mentioned a couple of times. He mentioned my analysis of how the communists won, and quickly analyzes a Republican platform in response. I’ll provide a greater response to this in the future, when I have the time for a decent one.

For this post, I’ll concentrate on his section “5: Are modern ideas about race and gender wrongheaded and dangerous?” where my post, One More Condom in the Landfill, was referenced. I will be working on the gender aspect for this post and will respond by section number. So, my focus will be on 5.1-5.3, as 5.4 gets into stuff on social justice rather than sex itself. I should note Bryce has already made a post concerning this, but his is more theoretical in nature, so I will make my own.

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5.1

Sexual surveys on lifetime partners are usually not fully reliable, as the number can vary significantly depending on estimation strategies. Women underestimate, men overestimate.

The data on lifetime partners is, as he points out, minimal. 6 for men in 1970 and 2006, 2 for women in 1970 and 4 in 2006. He ends up using French data instead, but the French are not English and have a different culture, so I’m not sure if this would hold.

Instead, let’s look at bastardy rates, a more easily measured proxy for promiscuity. As we can see on this graph of CDC data from the Heritage Foundation, bastardy has been on a steady increase since some time around 1960.

This steady increase has occurred despite the increasing availability of both the pill and abortion. It is obvious that sluttiness and promiscuity has increased.

If we look back to one of Scott’s sources we find this gem:

American illegitimacy ratios in the eighteenth century and after the Civil War seem to have been about one or two percent, well below the five or six percent found in England and Wales at the time(s) (Smith, 1980, p. 372; Wells, 1980, pp. 354-55; Laslett et al., 1980, p. 18) and very far below the 30-plus-percent ratios found in the U.S. in the 1990’s.

Imagine a bastardry rate of only 2%.

It is obvious sluttiness has increased drastically.

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5.1.1

In this section, Scott ignores the religious argument, and I will too, for one argues with one’s (reasonable) opponents on grounds both can accept.

The decline of marriage would be the major argument, as he acknowledges. He posts this graph but misses the commentary on the graph.

The commentary states:

My own hypothesis is that a higher partner count (up to 5-9 or so partners) is correlated with age and maturity in dating experience. Older women, and women with more dating experience, are more likely to have learned which personal qualities will work best for them in a marriage partner. As a result, such women choose more wisely and tend to experience lower divorce rates. Now, it also happens to be the case that older women have had more time and occasion for pre-marital sex! Specifically, I suspect it’s not the 5-9 pre-marital sex partner count per se that drives the relative drop in the divorce rates, but rather it’s the maturity and experience that women have acquired while they’ve dated more men.

Scott does not take this confounding variable into effect in this piece.

This one chart comes from unpublished data from anonymous source. Sadly, it is the only source I know of where divorce risk is measured by number of premarital partners.

Most data either looks at either whether a person had premarital sex or not, or lifetime partners, which can be confounded by additional sex partners post-divorce.

If we look at data posted by the Social Pathologist elsewhere:

Only four nationally representative studies have examined whether premarital sexual experiences are linked to divorce (Heaton, 2002; Kahn & London, 1991; Laumann et al., 1994; Teachman, 2003). Nevertheless, the core finding—the association between premarital sex and increased risks of divorce—is robust[Ed]. Teachman (2003) found that women who had sex only with their future husbands did not have higher risks of marital dissolution, which suggests that the premarital-sex effect on divorce is related primarily to having sex with multiple partners

Each additional sexual partner increased the odds of infidelity by 7% while increasing years of education seem to decrease the risk by 10%.

The most salient finding from this analysis is that women whose intimate premarital relationships are limited to their husbands—either premarital sex alone or premarital cohabitation—do not experience an increased risk of divorce. It is only women who have more than one intimate premarital relationship who have an elevated risk of marital disruption. This effect is strongest for women who have multiple premarital coresidental unions.

Here’s some data showing adultery risk is higher for promiscuous women.

Here’s another chart showing that delaying sexual activity reduces divorce risk:

Here’s a chart, it counts all partners not just premarital ones:


Even beside divorce, there’s a large array of social and personal ills that come from promiscuity and higher numbers of sexual partners.

There is other information, but it all points to the same conclusion; the more sexual partners and the younger the woman is when first having sex, the more likely the risk of divorce.

By focusing only on that single chart, Scott misses a wide array of data which all tell the same story: a slutty women is a divorce risk and an adultery risk.

Even if we accept that one chart alone, Scott’s argument falls apart.

Being a virgin leads to a greatly lowered chance of divorce, a fact Scott just shrugs and dismisses it, accepting that premarital sex is an inescapable norm among the non-religious .

The whole point is that premarital sex should not be the norm. People (at least those intending to marry) should not be having premarital sex.

A doubling  (or tripling) of the divorce rate is not something we should just accept. It is damaging to the very fabric of society as parents’ divorce is associated with an increase in almost every socially non-desirable trait we measure (from poverty to crime to poor educational achievement).

[Edit: Removed two charts that did not fit with the main point and simply confused things. Moved a few things around, added a bit, and generally improved section 5.1.1. Thanks Ozymandias. 25/10/2013]

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5.1.2

In a broad perspective the point is correct – empirically, men with more psychopathic traits, less agreeableness, and greater narcissism have more sexual partners.

He agrees on this point, but goes on to equivocate between men and women, then essentially shrug his shoulders (“I have no idea how to solve the object-level problems”).

The reactionary project (at least those that aren’t PUAs) is attempting to do more; we have a model we know works from history and we are trying to reimplement it.

Simply allowing the cads to run amuk and having the good men go without is a recipe for social disaster, I’ve outlined here, here, and here.

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5.2

He accepts that divorces have elevated, but doesn’t acknowledge there is a steady, long-term trend of increase since 1860 and divorce rates per married couple still remain almost double what they were at 1960.

Also, he says that progressivism has created a natural memetic “immunity” meme to divorce.

I would suggest instead the decline of divorce is instead linked to the decline in marriage rates; ie. those who are less committed to marriage and more likely to divorce are moving in together rather than marrying then divorcing, driving the divorce rate down.

You can see this easily in the chart Scott provided:

Divorces spike, then as marriage rates decline so to do divorce rates per married couple, but this rate remains almost double what it was in 1960. The decline in divorce rates per population is decreasing, simply because the family is disintegrating by not getting married.

He asks why progressives are less likely to divorce:

College-educated women have about half the divorce rate of the non-college-educated (source). More conservative states have higher divorce rates than more liberal states (source). Atheists have divorce rates below the national average (source). Some of these factors seem to remain even when controlling for wealth and the other usual confounders (source, source).

The education and atheist arguments are mistaking IQ and/or a low time preference for progressivism (atheists tend to be smarter on average than religious folks because most unintelligent people stick with their default philosophy, which, in the US, is religious). Conservative (ie. Southern) states would likely have high divorce rates due to high levels of blacks which have a much higher levels of divorce. (Nevada, likely has the highest divorce rate for what seems like a self-evident reason; Vegas).

Essentially what Scott has shown here but not noticed is a long-argued contention of reactionaries: smart upper-class folks can have progressive values and still function because they are smart upper-class folks, but when applied to the less intelligent lower classes these values are socially destructive, because poor, stupid people do not have the time-preferences to function despite the harm from these values.

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5.3/5.3.1

Here he essentially argues that the depopulation of the US doesn’t matter because foreigners with foreign values are immigrating here and replacing native Americans. Also, you’re a racist if you think this is a problem.

I will just say that this is exactly the problem that reactionaries have with depopulation; he’s not actually refuting anything, he’s simply confirming our arguments. (Also, every reactionary is used to being called racist, so, that won’t really work).

If Scott can’t see the problem with foreign populations with different cultures and values replacing the current population, I don’t think I’m going to be able to convince him here.

I just hope he doesn’t mind losing his progressive values when non-progressive minorities start voting against progressive laws.

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5.3.2

He’s probably right here on the effects of low-IQ fertility on intelligence, which is why I don’t (or at least try not to) espouse the idiocracy line. The effects of dysgenics through fertility are something that will not substantially effect us, in and of themselves, for a very long time, too long a timeline to worry about overmuch now.

Instead our focus would be on the mass importation of low-IQ immigrants, which will have a more immediate effect on society.

I would also focus on the effects of single-parent, low-IQ homes with many children on the national treasury through government welfare, education, and health programs. This problem will rear its ugly head far sooner than dysgenics due to fertility rates will.

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So, there we have my first kick at the FAQ. I’m sure there will be others down the road.

Christian Marriage

Man was created to be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth. It is not good for Man to be alone, so Woman was created from Man as Man’s helper. Once united in marriage the two become one flesh, indivisible. This union is as the union of Christ and the Church. The sex act, by itself, is enough to create this union. Any sexual relation outside of this union of this is a sin against God and against one’s own body, the temple of the Holy Spirit, and is taken very seriously by God. Marriage is to be held in honour by all and the marriage bed is not to be defiled by sin.

The fall led to Man’s work being unyielding and ultimately fruitless and Woman’s submission being to a fallen Man who can never fully be what she needs. Yet, in Christ and His kingdom, Man can build a home eternal where his treasures never rust or decay. In Christ, Woman can submit to Man as to Christ.

Marriage is not eternal; it is made for this world. The dead and the resurrected do not marry for they cannot die. Marriage does not carry from this world to the next; marriage ends with death, and with death alone.

Some men are meant to be alone; they are made eunuchs by birth, by men, and for the sake of the kingdom. It is good for a man not to have sex and not to marry, for he can devote himself fully to the Lord. But not every man is given the gift to remain chaste, remember, Man was not meant to be alone. It is better to marry than burn with passion; if a man cannot exercise sexual self-control, he should marry. Each man unable to do so should each take his own wife. Both marriage and celibacy are good, neither is a sin, but neither Man nor Woman should primarily be focusing on either marriage or being free from marriage. Young women, particularly widows, are given extra encouragement to marry. One should not be burdened or restrained whatever one’s choice, as the choice of whether to marry is for a person’s own benefit, to best promote order and devotion to the Lord. Those who forbid marriage are deceitful; each man should live as he is called. The unmarried should be devoted to the Lord, while the married will necessarily split their devotion.

Marriage has two biblical purposes: to sate passion to avoid sin and for man to have a helper in his mission (to be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth). In addition to the commandment to be fruitful, Women will be saved from responsibility for the fall through child-bearing. Any marriage taken should be for one, but optimally both, of these purposes.

To marry a divorced man or woman is to commit adultery. For a man to marry a prostitute or non-virgin or marry more than one woman is less sanctified and may prevent a man from having a position of leadership, but is not necessarily sin.

Christ is the head of man and the husband is the head of his wife for Woman was created for Man.  A wife is to submit in everything to her husband, as the Church to Christ, for the Church is Christ’s bride. No woman should have spiritual authority over a man, yet a wife has authority over her husband’s body, while the husband has the same over hers.  Likewise husbands should love their wives as Christ does the church and as they love their own bodies. A Christian’s submission to Christ and God is to be total and absolute, so should a wife’s submission to her husband. As well, Christ’s love for the church was absolute and self-sacrificing, so should a husband’s love for his wife. Neither man nor women are independent.

To divorce and remarry is sin. A woman is bound to her husband until he dies and a husband should not  divorce his wife, for it is to commit violence. There are only two acceptable justifications for divorce and remarriage: adultery and abandonment by a unbelieving spouse. Separation without remarriage and with attempts to reconcile is acceptable, but not recommended.

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With all the discussion of marriage around these parts I decided to create a summary for myself of what I could find in the Bible on the issue.

Marriage is both a less important and more important than much of modern Christianity makes of it. It is less important In that being married is not necessary to the faith, as some seem to advocate.

But it’s more in that if you do become married, it is a major dedication for both men and women. Men are to be as Christ, women are to fully submit; there are no outs and there is Biblically no such thing as asking too much in a marriage, for either men or women. Also, Simon is right, Woman was created for Man, and a married woman does not submit to God and is not accountable to God, but to her husband.

The common manosphere meme of divorcing if your wife doesn’t provide sex does not seem to have any support, unless adultery is defined far more broadly than would seem prudent. You have to love her anyway.

So, before you marry, count your costs and be prepared to carry your cross. Biblically, it is a huge, irreversible step with very limited escape clauses.

Marketing Marriage

f you follow Dalrock you’ve seen is recent posts on this little advertisement on Mark Driscoll’s new man-up and marry series:

Dalrock has already pointed out the moral problems with the ad, I’m going to focus the advertisement aspects. Dalrock argues that the ad is aimed at churchian feminist woman, and I agree because otherwise, the proponents of marriage suck at advertising.

Instead of making marriage look like something men would want to pursue and would be willing to sacrifice for, they make it look horrible.

In the little skit in the middle, the man is the thoroughly henpecked, seemingly unhappy husband of a fat, dumpy, controlling wife. He’s so thoroughly beaten down that he’s afraid to have a little masculine bonding time with his son, with the video implying that there’s something wrong with him wanting to do so.

Watching this, my main thought was”is this really how they want to advertise marriage to men?”

I’m lean more towards the more pro-marriage part of the manosphere, but this would drive me away from marriage more than any other possible effect it could have. What kind of man would desire to become that husband?

What young man could possibly watch that and say, “yeah, I want to man-up and marry so I too can be a the ball-less husband of an ugly, dominating shrew who’s afraid to play pool with his son.”

C’mon guys. If you want men to man-up and marry how about making marriage look good? How about making marriage seem like a rewarding experience?

In fact, I’ll give you guys an awesome marketing campaign. A marketing idea this good would generally cost thousands of dollars from a slick New York agency, but I’ll give it to you for free because I love western civilization and we need working marriages to keep the remnant chugging.

Here’s my ad campaign for a man-up series:

It starts with an average-looking man in a suit, someone most guys could identify with, coming home from a day at the office. He looks kind of worn-out and stressed. He parks his car, sighs a bit, then walks up to his house. He opens the door.

The first thing seen when the door opens is his non-offensively pretty wife dressed femininely. She looks up from working in the kitchen and sees he’s stressed, so she comes up to him with a smile on her face and gives him a hug and quick kiss on the lips. She takes his bag and says, “Dinner is almost ready, why don’t you sit down?” He gets into his recliner and leans back, his stress visibly fading away. She joyfully brings him a small plate of freshly made cookies and some milk. He thanks her with an expression of mingled gratitude and relief and takes the cookie. While he snacks she says, “How about later…” and bends over and whispers something in his ear while brushing her hand up his leg. The man responds with a large, expectant smile.

Cut to her calling out that dinner is ready. The man goes to the table to find a delicious home-cooked meal of steak and potatoes, his cute, happy children run up to the table. His wife wipes the dirt smudges off of one of the rascals as they sit down. The man looks on proudly as he sits at the head of the table. His wife sits to his right. She looks at him with an expectant smile, her hand on his arm, and he proudly says grace for the family.

During the prayer fade to black and end with the tagline: Worth being a man for.

Boom. I’d want buy that product. I don’t know a man who wouldn’t.

I’d happily man-up to come home to that; I’d happily work 70 hour weeks to come home to that; I would happily sacrifice quite a bit to come home to that. So, would most men. Most men would willingly sacrifice their left nut for that.

So, some marketing advice to Mr. Driscoll. If you want men to man-up and marry, make marriage seem like something rewarding for men.

McDonald’s doesn’t sell cheeseburgers by having a fat, ugly man eat them in his dingy basement while playing WoW and sobbing to himself. They sell cheeseburgers by showing groups of realistically attractive people having fun together while eating cheeseburgers.

Likewise, you don’t make men desire to man-up and marry by showing marriage as a demasculating process of having your pride, virility, and freedom slowly drained from you by an ugly, domineering shrew. You make men want to get married by showing marriage as a refuge from the cares of the world occupied by a pretty, loving, nurturing woman.

Then again, my campaign might be false advertising for most men. Driscoll might get sued.

Guest Post from Europe

Below is a guest post from a reader that would like to remain anonymous. The post touches on a number of topics. As I’ve stated before, I am willing to put up guest posts as long as said post is of some value and is somewhat related to the blog’s general purposes.

1. I GENUINELY believe that the Abortion/Anti-Family/Birth Control/Divorce/Feminist/MarxistSocial PONZI Scheme Agenda will eventually cause TOTAL Economic & Social Collapse as some people have predicted. This will mean the END of the Cradle-to-Grave Western Social Welfare system. We will see states recognize ONE type and ONLY one type of Household, the MARRIED household. In the LONG-TERM Total Economic & Social Breakdown, which will make the Economic Mess TODAY look like a toddlers’ playschool tiff, will benefit Society, especially children. This will mean that a GOOD man of 40 – 45 years of age can marry a lady half his age and father 10 children. The young lady of 24 will have NO PROBLEM marrying a man of 40 years of age and having 9 children as HE will have a house & an income to make a family lifestyle practical. There is NO CASE known to History since people started living in caves of ANY Long-Term successful society that was NOT organized along Patriarchal lines or ‘Love, Honour & Obey YOUR Husband Ladies’ to the non-verbally-gifted in Society. On the other hand a woman older than 35 will have great difficulties becoming a mother. The State will have to make Marriage an ENFORCEABLE contract. So the spouse who wants out from a NON-Abusive spouse will be allowed or indeed forced to leave NO children, NO money & NO house, rendering the INNOCENT spouse a widow or a widower, almost. We will see a return of LARGE families of 8 – 12 children as CHILDREN become new Pensions. Sooner or later the Pensions’ Laws will be changed to link a person’s pension to the number of children that a person had. So the BIGGER the family, the BIGGER the pension you get.

2.01: Some time ago, I pointed out in a Family discussion that Society needs 3 children per couple to replace the people who die and 5 people of working age per pensioner to keep the pensions’ systems safe. I was accused of wanting to keep women PHYSICALLY chained to the kitchen sink, only being released to go to the Maternity Ward.

3. 01: As we speak “Same-Sex Marriage” is the new Liberal Agenda demand, being compared to Martin Luther King & Civil Rights, according to our Deputy Prime Minister recently. The Government has introduced Abortion into Ireland, while the same politicians who make their “Reproductive Health Care” speeches on Monday will make their “Looming Pensions Crisis” speeches on Tuesday, metaphorically speaking.

4.01: I listened to The Communist Manifesto on Youtube in which we hear:
4.02: The “Children’s Rights” and the “Bad Parents” speeches,
4.03: The “State Education” speeches,
4.04: The “End of the Family” especially the Marriage Family speeches,
4.05: The “Abolish Countries and Nations” speeches.
4.06: Some 75 years ago, Anatonio Gramsci a Marxist Philosopher concluded that the World Revolutions that Marx & Lenin had predicted were NOT going to happen. He said that Marxists should infiltrate Society’s CULTURAL Institutions and so undermine Society. We see his programme being enforced. How little things change!!!!

5.01: As you know, Augustus the first ACKNOWLEDGED Emperor of Rome, during his 41 Years as Emperor from 27 BC – 14 AD was NEVER tired urging the Roman élite to have children and to stop spending their time having fun with the Girlfriends & Boyfriends. Augustus even had his “Bachelor Tax” to encourage procreation. When Pliny the Younger in 100AD approximately, uses the word ‘burden’ to describe how the Roman élite viewed their 1 child “families” it is estimated that there were some 1,000 Christians from a population of some 60 million in the Roman Empire, both East & West. While the estimated population remained reasonably stable over the next 200 years, the Christians increased to 1 million approximately within 100 years and some 6 million people 10% of the population a century later. One of the reasons for this Christian advance was DEMOGRAPHICS, big families to the rest of us. A second reason, flowing from BIG Families, is an efficient Health Care system. If you come from a LARGE family, it means that you have plenty of relations to help pay for doctors and provide care to the sick people when there was NO Insurance or Government Heath Care System. The Romans, just like the West TODAY, were into their “Whatever-you-want-yourself-Joe/Do NOT Judge me” type of families. When the Plague would strike Roman cities a LOWER proportion of Christians than the GENERAL population died, due to the Communal Christian Health Care system. Additionally Christians searched the streets to find the sick people not unlike Mother Treasa of Calcutta’s nuns today. In addition, Christians taught that we are ALL equal before God. Also Christianity taught people about the After-Life whereas Romans NOT UNLIKE Europe today, believed that we live, we die — Period – Finished – Over.

6.01: I have no doubt that in 100 years time the historians will say that those Churches (Rome & some Reformed Churches) got things a TRILLION percent correct when those Churches said some 50 years ago now, that artificial contraception would lead to an absolute social disaster. Time will prove the statement from Cardinal Hume of Westminster ‘A Contraceptive Mentality inevitably leads to an Abortion Mentality’ to be correct. Time will prove the SUPER-NON-PC statement from a former Archbishop of Dublin, some years ago now, that Planned children are LESS loved than Unplanned Children. We will see artificial Contraception being BANNED and treated like Cocaine today. In 1900 the American Association of Atheists said that by 1950 Christianity would be dead in the USA. This prediction was based on the fact that 42% of College-educated Americans said in the previous Census that they did NOT believe in God. The USA is now the MOST religious Western country. Ah, yes, Time is a GREAT & GLORIOUS Storyteller. I am NOT making a religious point, merely saying that Time has proven the Men in Rome correct.

Sexonomics: Odds of Divorce

I was accused of understating the risk of divorce, to which I gave an off-the-cuff calculation that by controlling a few factors in your spousal selection you could probably lower the statistical probability of divorce to less than 10%, but I said I’d look into it more, to give a more accurate response. So, here I’m going to find a bunch of statistics concerning factors of divorce, so you can learn how to lessen your odds of divorce.

Here’s the characteristics of a woman and the odds of her ending up divorced:

Age of first sexual experience (p.10):

>18: ~32-38%
17-18: 47%
15-16: 59%
13-14: 72%
<12: 82%

Number of prior sexual partners (p.18):

0: 20%
1: 46%
2-4: 56-60%
5-15: ~70%
16+: ~80%

Age of First Marriage:

<18: 48%
18-19: 40%
20-24: 29%
25+: 24%

Time of first birth (p. 16):

Before marriage: 67%
0-7 months after: 59%
8 months after: 32%

Education (IQ correlate) (p. 16):

Bachelor’s: 22%
Some College: 51%
High School: 59%
< High School: 61%

Race/Ethnicity (p. 16):

Asian: 31%
White: 46%
Hispanic: 47%
Black: 63%

Parents (p. 16):

Two parents: 42%
Non-intact family: 62%

Religion Raised (p. 16):

Catholic: 47%
Protestant: 50%
Other: 35%
None: 57%

Religion (GSS):

All Christians:41%

Active Evangelicals: 34%
Non-active Evangelicals: 54%

Active Mainline Protestants: 32%
Non-active Mainline Protestants:42%

Active Catholics: 23%
Non-active Catholics: 41%

All non-Christians:48%
No religious beliefs: 51%

All non-Christian religions:42%
Non-active other religions: 48%
Active other religions: 38%
Jewish: 39%

Cohabitation (p. 18):

Did not cohabitate: 43%
Cohabitated with husband before marriage: ~55%

Effects of Wife’s share of total income on divorce risk (p. 9):

0-20%: 1x
20-40%: 1.39x
40-60%: 1.62x
60-80%: 2.12x
80-100%: 2.19x

Income Quartile (p. 10):

Lowest: 1x
2nd: 0.87x
3rd: 0.86x
Highest: 0.92x

Looking at all this, it’s easy to see the two best determinates of her divorcing you are her education and whether she has had sex prior to marriage.

A bachelor’s degree is a 40-point decrease in the odds of divorce over a high school graduate.

A women having sex with one other partner is an instant 25-point increase in the odds of divorce, with another 10-point drop for a second partner, and another for a fifth. Related to this, her having sex before age 18 is another major risk factor. Marrying her before she’s 20 is also a risk factor, but not as great a one as her having had sex with someone else; if the choice is between a virgin under 20 and older non-virgin, the young virgin is less risky. Do not marry a slut.

Religion is important, but the most important part is less what religion, but rather how devout she is. An actively religious couple is generally a 20-point decrease in the chance of divorce than a non-active couple.

Marrying an Asian is a 15-point decrease in the odds of divorce. Marrying a black was the opposite.

If she had an intact family, that’s a 20-point decrease in the risk of divorce.

If you marry a virgin bride who’s over the age of 20, has an intact family, a college degree, and is a devout Christian, the chances of divorce are very low. If she’s also Asian, they’re even lower.

Also, make sure you earn a lot more than her, don’t be poor, don’t cohabitate before marriage, and don’t knock her up until marriage.

I can’t calculate the exact numbers by calculating all these odds together because a lot of these positive qualities overlap, but I consider myself justified in estimating, that the type of women I plan on marrying would have a statistical likelihood of divorcing me around 10%.

A 10% chance of divorce, even a 20% chance, while still higher than I’d like, is a risk I am willing to take.

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Note: most of these probabilities are for not being divorced at the 20-year mark, some for the 10-year mark. So, some of the numbers may be higher over a lifetime, but I would estimate not overly much; likely not more than 5 points or so.

****

Here’s a divorce probability calculator to look at if you’re interested. According to the calculator, here’s the score on the test the kind of woman I want to marry, -56, and for myself, -76. Both had the same explanation:

Very Low Probability
Congratulations. You’re amongst a demographic of people that have the highest long term marriage success rate. What that means is that based on the factors that you indicated, and if there are no major changes in your lifestyle and that of your spouse, the chances that you will ever get divorced are far less than average. Does that mean you don’t need Divorce Insurance because you’ll NEVER, EVER get divorced? No, it simply means that based on the 20 factors we know have a significant impact on the outcome of marriage, you scored very well. However, people change over time and life has a way of creating unexpected turns in your path so insurance against the unexpected is always a wise choice if it’s in your budget. In any event, we wish you the best of luck!

That seems to be an acceptable risk.

Also, you can get divorce insurance? Might be something to look into for those considering marriage, but worried about divorce.

MGTOW, MRA, and the Long March

I’ve written on the long march before and how the progressivists goal is to have us dependent on the state, how the alt-right, manosphere, and their issues are all related and at war with progressive unreality, and how we can fight the progressivists, or at least protect a remnant to rebuild when state-backed unreality is no longer sustainable.

The goal of the long march is to get us dependent on the state. The most effective way to do this is by destroying the community ties that bind us and create civil society. These voluntary, local ties to the individuals around us allow us to live free and independent from the state.

The strongest of these social ties are marriage and the nuclear family, so these are the ones attacked the most by the anti-civilization forces.

One tool in destroying the family is destroying male-female relationships, so that they never join together to become families in the first place. So, you end up with men writing things like this. Through feminism making modern marriage inhospitable to modern man, man stops caring about and for women and preemptively removes himself from the family.

But feminism is not the end goal of the state-worshippers, it is but one step in the process. The next step is the adoption of Men’s Rights and/or MGTOW. As No Ma’am outlines:

So, what’s next? What were the original goals of this Cultural Marxist plan? Well, in regard to the ladies, it was to achieve “true equality” by putting women back into the public work force, thereby destroying the entire concept of the family. In order to do this, women must be relieved of their biology as mothers, which is why V.I. Lenin instituted such things as no-fault divorce, easy abortion, community kitchens, sewing centers, housekeeping services, and state-run daycares. The goal of this, however, was not to “empower” women. That’s just what was said. Quite frankly, if you want to argue that Lenin was altruistically helping women be all they could be, you would be sorely mistaken. The goal was to take children away from their parents and bring them under the control of the state, instead of parents. Families, say Marx, Engels, Lenin and Feminists, are the founding cornerstone of Capitalism, and therefore all discrimination and oppression ultimately stems from the family.

But, no matter how much women hate men today, and no matter how much money they make shuffling papers around mindlessly in their cubicles, do you think that women would ever willingly give up their own children?

I think not!

The way to remove children from their mothers, via Marxist techniques, would be to abandon the cause of women and take up the cause of men. It can easily be pointed out now that it is men who are not treated equally, and dialectically speaking, it is quite easy to see how disenfranchised fathers could be manipulated into thinking shared-parenting (or, marriage 3.0) is in everyone’s best interests, and thereby empower the government to take custody of children away from mothers and place them in the custody of the State –  who will then decide a baby-sitting schedule for the sperm and egg donors. It is also not a stretch for oversight committees to be erected to ensure the “ongoing best interests of the child.” Heck, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s thesis compared children in the family to the corruption Indians experienced on the reserve. That wingnut Marxist believes that the government should create a new bureaucracy to represent children separately from their parents. In other words, each child ought to have a legal-aid lawyer representing them, so that their parents don’t abuse their power over them.
…
The idea of government taking custody of children today, however, is much greater than in the past. As the Bull Market in Anti-Feminism develops, more and more fathers are going to demand the government grants shared-parenting, which is quite obviously the foundation for government taking custody of children. Is it such a stretch of the imagination to see courts appointing government representatives – an unelected bureaucracy – instead of parents, who will decide what is “in the best interests of the child?”

Just because a backlash is developing against feminism does not mean it is a good thing, nor that it can only benefit men and society. Many of the things the MRM are requesting is in line with feminism – DV shelters for men is one example, and would only serve to increase government power in the home, not decrease it.

I can’t bear the thought of men being manipulated into becoming Useful Idiots who further feminist and Marxist goals.

Can you?

We have no great love for MRA’s here. While we do agree with some of their goals, fighting progressivism with greater progressivism (excepting in the case of well-executed black-knighting) is a fruitless endeavour. It will simply further drive another nail into the coffin of Western civilization.

MRA’s are not the solution, they are a distraction.

As well, going your own way is not the solution. With MGTOW, the family is even further destroyed. By removing himself from society, the MGTOW only further helps lessen the importance of family.

Same with PUA’s who are only the other side of the self-destructive hook-up culture.

As a man, you are meant for more than burning yourself out on the hedonic treadmill to feed the tyranny of the state.

****

Now, I am not encouraging you to ‘man up and marry that slut’. In fact, do not marry a slut or a women with baby rabies; a destructive marriage ending in divorce is worse for society than no marriage at all.

Find a good wife if you can.

In fact, I’m not telling you not to be a PUA, an MRA, or a MGTOW. You are free man, do what you want. Besides, there are probably not enough good wives out there for every man, so many will have to find an alternative.

All I want, is for you to think about it. To know that by fighting progressivism with more progressivism or by simply stopping caring, you are not helping the problem and are probably hurting yourself in the long run.

If you decide trying to fight the system is too much of a pain and want to be a MGTOW, I won’t condemn you, in fact I sympathize. If you decide that fucking sluts is too much fun, that is your perogative, but will you think the same a decade from now when every pussy feels the same and the mechanical sex is little better than emotionlessly masturbating into a very realistic sex doll?

Make an informed choice that is all.

Then again, maybe the system is doomed, and the PUA’s, MRA’s and MGTOW’s are simply hastening its inevitable collapse and hopeful rebirth. In which case, maybe they are doing civilization a service.

Gay Unions are Better

Here’s an article from Slate, Gay Couples Do It Better, in which feminist Hanna Rosen writes:

Without those assumptions, gay couples tend to make more logical choices. The one who is the better cook more often makes dinner, without worrying that this might violate some principles of either feminism or masculinity. The one who earns more money works more, etc. In economics this is called “specialization,” and it tends to make households —much like industries—run more efficiently. One great surprise: Gay dads, studies show, are slightly more likely to have a full time stay at home parent than straight couples. Why? Because much as we hate to hear it, that arrangement is probably more efficient and makes everyone less stressed. But the important lesson here is, the one who stays at home doesn’t need to be the mom.

We now know that feminists accept that traditional family roles are more logical and efficient as long as its gays doing it, not women in heterosexual relations.

It’s easy to see from this that feminism has never been about logic, reason, or the best for civilization or children. It has always been about the selfish desires of selfish women.

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The blog post linked back to this Atlantic article. Because the discussion of this article is about how much better gay unions are than marriage, rather than a discussion of marriage between oppressed women and oppressive men, the article is willing to actually be more forthrite on ‘controversial’ topics than is typical for liberal rags. So there are a few delightful little tidbits if you ignore the propoganda.

The National Center for Family and Marriage Research has produced a startling analysis of data from the Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that women’s median age when they have their first child is lower than their median age at first marriage. In other words, having children before you marry has become normal. College graduates enjoy relatively stable unions, but for every other group, marriage is collapsing. Among “middle American” women (those with a high-school degree or some college), an astonishing 58 percent of first-time mothers are unmarried.

That’s kind of sad, don’t you think?

For instance: we know that heterosexual wives are more likely than husbands to initiate divorce. Social scientists have struggled to explain the discrepancy, variously attributing it to the sexual revolution; to women’s financial independence; to men’s failure to keep modern wives happy. Intriguingly, in Norway and Sweden, where registered partnerships for same-sex couples have been in place for about two decades (full-fledged marriage was introduced several years ago), research has found that lesbians are twice as likely as gay men to split up. If women become dissatisfied even when married to other women, maybe the problem with marriage isn’t men. Maybe women are too particular. Maybe even women don’t know what women want. These are the kinds of things that we will be able to tease out.

This is a good fact to pull out next time casual divorce is blamed on men.

On the contrary: the institution is far more flexible and forgiving than it used to be. In the wake of women’s large-scale entry into the workplace, men are less likely than they once were to be saddled with being a family’s sole breadwinner, and can carve out a life that includes the close companionship of their children. Meanwhile, women are less likely to be saddled with the sole responsibility for child care and housework, and can envision a life beyond the stove top and laundry basket.

Wow. ‘Not all is broken in marriage, it simply doesn’t mean anything anymore.’ I’ve written on this before. Simply put, marriage is about creating a division of labour for raising children and sexually monogamy. By destroying the division of labour and destroying per-marriage chastity, marriage itself has been rendered moot.

And yet for many couples, as Bianchi, the UCLA sociologist, has pointed out, the modern ideal of egalitarianism has proved “quite difficult to realize.” Though men are carrying more of a domestic workload than in the past, women still bear the brunt of the second shift. Among couples with children, when both spouses work full-time, women do 32 hours a week of housework, child care, shopping, and other family-related services, compared with the 21 hours men put in. Men do more paid work—45 hours, compared with 39 for women—but still have more free time: 31 hours, compared with 25 for women.

The good ol’ second shift. I’ve already written about the housework debate here and we already know the second shift is a myth based on poor methodology. So, I won’t go farther into that. This is just a reminder it’s all BS.

It’s not that people don’t want to marry. Most never-married Americans say they still aspire to marriage, but many of them see it as something grand and out of reach. Getting married is no longer something you do when you are young and foolish and starting out; prosperity is not something spouses build together. Rather, marriage has become a “marker of prestige,” as the sociologist Andrew Cherlin puts it—a capstone of a successful life, rather than its cornerstone. But while many couples have concluded that they are not ready for marriage, they have things backwards. It’s not that they aren’t ready for marriage; it’s that marriage isn’t ready for the realities of 21st-century life. Particularly for less affluent, less educated Americans, changing economic and gender realities have dismantled the old institution, without constructing any sort of replacement.

This here is one of the main problems with marriage. This pernicious attitude of marriage is destroying marriage and society with it.

Marriage works best when you build a life together. It is not a capstone to your life, it is a foundation. Marriage is stability, not decoration or status.

If you serious about having children at some point in your life, you are ready for marriage now. There is no “right” time, there is no reason to wait. It doesn’t matter if you’re 18 or 35; if children are something you plan for your future, be serious about marriage now, find a suitable spouse now, and get married, now.

It is a shame the church has bought into the notion that young people should build their lives, then get married. Getting married should be the beginning of a shared building and this attitude should return to the church.

What Schwartz and Blumstein found is that gay and lesbian couples were fairer in their dealings with one another than straight couples, both in intent and in practice. The lesbians in the study were almost painfully egalitarian—in some cases putting money in jars and splitting everything down to the penny in a way, Schwartz says, that “would have driven me crazy.” Many unmarried heterosexual cohabitators were also careful about divvying things up, but lesbian couples seemed to take the practice to extremes: “It was almost like ‘my kitty, your litter.’?” Gay men, like lesbians, were more likely than straight couples to share cooking and chores. Many had been in heterosexual marriages, and when asked whether they had helped their wives with the housework in those prior unions, they usually said they had not. “You can imagine,” Schwartz says, “how irritating I found this.”

Remember, earlier about how lesbian unions end much more frequently. Also, you know how cohabitationg couples break-up far more often than married couples. There’s a reason.

There were still some inequities: in all couples, the person with the higher income had more authority and decision-making power. This was least true for lesbians; truer for heterosexuals; and most true for gay men. Somehow, putting two men together seemed to intensify the sense that “money talks,” as Schwartz and Blumstein put it. They could not hope to determine whether this tendency was innate or social—were men naturally inclined to equate resources with power, or had our culture ingrained that idea in them?—but one way or another, the finding suggested that money was a way men competed with other men, and not just a way for husbands to compete with their wives. Among lesbians, the contested terrain lay elsewhere: for instance, interacting more with the children could be, Schwartz says, a “power move.”

You mean earning money is a form of competition for men? Am I ever surprised.

This is why having a female breadwinner is death on a marriage. The female working makes the money issue a competition for the man. If the man is not winning the competition (especially to his wife), he will not feel good about himself and the wife will not respect him.

Lesbians also tended to discuss things endlessly, achieving a degree of closeness unmatched by the other types of couples. Schwartz wondered whether this might account for another finding: over time, sex in lesbian relationships dwindled—a state of affairs she has described as “lesbian bed death.” (The coinage ended up on Schwartz’s Wikipedia page, to her exasperation: “There are other things that I wish I were famous around.”) She posits that lesbians may have had so much intimacy already that they didn’t need sex to get it; by contrast, heterosexual women, whose spouses were less likely to be chatty, found that “sex is a highway to intimacy.” As for men, she eventually concluded that whether they were straight or gay, they approached sex as they might a sandwich: good, bad, or mediocre, they were likely to grab it.

You mean men and women have different views of intimacy? Am I ever shocked.

When the opposite-sex couples did parent simultaneously, they were more likely to undermine each other by talking at cross-purposes or suggesting different toys. The lesbian mothers tended to be egalitarian and warm in their dealings with one another, and showed greater pleasure in parenting than the other groups did. Same-sex dads were also more egalitarian in their division of labor than straight couples, though not as warm or interactive as lesbian moms. (Patterson says she and her colleagues may need to refine their analysis to take into account male ways of expressing warmth.)

Men and women are different in their relation to children? Shocking.

Even as they are more egalitarian in their parenting styles, same-sex parents resemble their heterosexual counterparts in one somewhat old-fashioned way: a surprising number establish a division of labor whereby one spouse becomes the primary earner and the other stays home. Lee Badgett, an economist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, told me that, “in terms of economics,” same-sex couples with children resemble heterosexual couples with children much more than they resemble childless same-sex couples. You might say that gay parents are simultaneously departing from traditional family structures and leading the way back toward them.

In his seminal book A Treatise on the Family, published in 1981, the Nobel Prize–winning economist Gary Becker argued that “specialization,” whereby one parent stays home and the other does the earning, is the most efficient way of running a household, because the at-home spouse enables the at-work spouse to earn more. Feminists, who had been fighting for domestic parity, not specialization, deplored this theory, rightly fearing that it could be harnessed to keep women at home. Now the example of gay and lesbian parents might give us all permission to relax a little: maybe sometimes it really is easier when one parent works and the other is the supplementary or nonearning partner, either because this is the natural order of things or because the American workplace is so greedy and unforgiving that something or somebody has to give. As Martha Ertman, a University of Maryland law professor, put it to me, many families just function better when the same person is consistently “in charge of making vaccinations happen, making sure the model of the World War II monument gets done, getting the Christmas tree home or the challah bought by 6 o’clock on Friday.” The good news is that the decision about which parent plays this role need not have anything to do with gender.

More on how the traditional division of labour is awesome, as long as it is not applied traditionally.

More surprising still, guess who is most likely to specialize. Gay dads. Using the most recent Census Bureau data, Gary Gates found that 32 percent of married heterosexual couples with children have only one parent in the labor force, compared with 33 percent of gay-male couples with children. (Lesbians also specialize, but not at such high rates, perhaps because they are so devoted to equality, or perhaps because their earnings are lower—women’s median wage is 81 percent that of men—and not working is an unaffordable luxury.) While the percentage point dividing gay men from straight couples is not statistically significant, it’s intriguing that gay dads are as likely as straight women to be stay-at-home parents.

Gay men’s decisions about breadwinning can nonetheless be fraught, as many associate employment with power. A study published in the Journal of GLBT Family Studies in 2005 by Stephanie Jill Schacher and two colleagues found that when gay men do specialize, they don’t have an easy time deciding who will do what: some stay-at-home dads perceived that their choice carried with it a loss in prestige and stature. As a result, gay men tended to fight not over who got to stay home, but over who didn’t have to. “It’s probably the biggest problem in our relationship,” said one man interviewed for that study. Perhaps what Betty Friedan called “the problem that has no name” is inherent in child-rearing, and will always be with us.

Not intriguing at all. Men are more logically rational and more given to thinking in cold economic terms, such as specialization.

RULE 3: Don’t want a divorce? Don’t marry a woman.

Hehe. Self-explanatory that.

Which perhaps boils down to something like this: straight women see themselves as being less powerful than men, and this breeds hostility.

The curse of Eve.

Anyway, the piece goes on about how awesome gay unions are and how horrible traditional marriage is, but this was the interesting stuff.

Guest Post from Europia: The Importance of Fathers

Below is a guest post contributed by someone who wishes to remain anonymous. Remember, If you have something you want to say that is in line with the blog’s purpose and topics, feel free to send it to me.

3. I just thought that these figures MIGHT interest you, even though some of them might be a generation old.

3.01: I just thought that you would find the following FACTS from Social History of some interest. The 43% of U.S. children who live without their father (U.S. Bureau of the Census) account for the following:
3.02: 60% of America’s rapists came from fatherless homes. Source: “Life without Father,” copyright 1996 by David Popenoe. Reprinted by permission of the Free Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Inc.
3.03: 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Bureau of the Census).
3.04: 70% of long-term prison inmates as opposed to youths in prison, are fatherless. Source: “Life without Father,” copyright 1996 by David Popenoe. Reprinted by permission of the Free Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Inc.
3.05: 70% of youths in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes (U.S. Dept. of Justice, Sept. 1988).
3.06: 71% of pregnant teenagers lack a father (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services press release, March 26, 1999).
3.07: 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools).
3.08: 72% of adolescent murderers grew up without a father. Source: “Life without Father,” copyright 1996 by David Popenoe. Reprinted by permission of the Free Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Inc.
3.09: 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes (Rainbows for All God’s Children).
3.10: 80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26).
3.11: 80% of adolescents in psychiatric hospitals come from broken homes. US Dept. Of Health & Human Services (1988
3.12: 85% of all youths in prison as opposed to long-term prisoners come from fatherless homes (Fulton Co. Georgia, Texas Department of Corrections, 1992).
3.13: 85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes (Center for Disease Control).
3.14: 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes (U.S. Bureau of the Census).

4.01: Regarding “Deadbeat Dads” you may find these figures of some interest.
4.02: 90.2% of fathers with joint custody pay the support due.
4.03: 79.1% of fathers with visitation privileges pay the support due.
4.04: 44.5% of fathers with no visitation pay the support due.
4.05; 37.9% of fathers are denied any visitation.
4.06: 66% of all support not paid by non-custodial fathers is due to the inability to pay.
4.07: In 1992 the General Accounting Office (GAO) found 14% of fathers who owe back child support are dead.
Source 4.02 – 4.06 inclusive [1988 Census “Child Support and Alimony: 1989 Series” P-60, No. 173 p.6-7, and “U.S. General Accounting Office Report” GAO/HRD-92-39FS January 1992]

5.01: 61% of all child abuse is committed by biological mothers (Department of Health and Human Services Report on Nationwide Child Abuse).
5.02: Rates of serious abuse are lowest in intact families; six times higher in stepfamilies; 20 times higher in cohabitating biological parent families and 33 times higher when the mother is cohabitating with a boyfriend who is not the father. (UK research).
5.03: 70.8% of children killed by one parent are killed by their mothers! 206 (National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System)
5.04: 70.6% of children abused by one parent are abused by their mothers! (U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Child Maltreatment reports from 2001-2006

6.01: Child Murders
6. 02: Killed by Mothers 1,100
6.03: Killed by Live-In Boyfriends 513
6.04: Killed by Stepfathers 250
6.05: Killed by Biological Fathers 137
Source of 6.02 – 6.05 inclusive, The Heritage Foundation report “The Child Abuse Crisis: The Disintegration of Marriage, Family, and the American Community,” May 15, 1997.