In praise of Traditional Marriage – Part 2

Or: How the heck did we get here?

This is part two. For part one, go here.

The story so far: Western culture has reached a turning point. After decades of “progress”, during which women have been given the vote and the right to work and make their way in the world, men are beginning to wake up to the fact that marriage is turning into a sucker’s bet, and are starting to turn away from marriage. Once again, this is not a “strike” so much as a confluence of rational decisions resulting in a wholesale philosophical change.

It can be taken as axiomatic that the majority of unmarried women over the age of 30 want to marry; you only have to eavesdrop on any angst-ridden “where-have-all-the-good-men-gone?” conversation among spinsters. Those of us who can divest our feelings from the reality of the world in which we live know the answer; men are beginning to realize that modern marriage (“Marriage 2.0”) simply isn’t working, and are simply choosing not to play the game. You don’t have to be a rocket scientists to figure out that something’s got to give; over the long term, marriage-minded spinsters will be confronted with a stark choice: either agree to share a man with one or other women, or learn to be content with cats.

There is an alarming rise in the number of men who are opting out of marriage-and-family, choosing instead to engage women on their own terms (girlfriends, hookups, one-night-stands), if at all. In Japan, roughly half of the young unmarried male population consider themselves “herbivores”. According to a different source, numbers ranging from one-third to two-thirds of Japanese Millennials consider themselves herbivore. The implication for Japan’s population suffering from the double-whammy of a surplus of old folks and a lack of babies, is quite horrifying.

But wait! There’s more!

“Gay emancipation, of course, may not have been a uniformly good thing for women… Just a few decades ago, many of those men—at the risk of stereotyping, the most sensitive, artistic, attractive and highest-earning men; that is, perfect husband material—would have got married, had a few kids and led a double life to pursue their forbidden urges. They wouldn’t have bothered their wives for sex and they would have made great fathers. But now they’re settling down with men, in many cases not having children at all. In other words, a healthy chunk of the most desirable men—men who no doubt would have cooed along approvingly to feminist exhortations—are now off the market, leaving even fewer eligible men in the dating pool.” (Source)

With the traditional rewards of marriage — a lifetime with a sweet, submissive, loyal, caring female who will look after him and raise his children — no longer on the table, it is hardly surprising that men are turning their backs on marriage en masse — and the shrinking pool of marriageable men is leaving women more and more frustrated.

Yay feminism, you made your bed — now you get to lie in it.

Men are also refusing to work like men, choosing instead to earn less money than their married counterparts, often embracing a location-independent lifestyle, traveling or simply making the most of their leisure time — in other words, working like women. This is because men do what works: in bygone days, men would build their careers, character and fortunes out of a motivation to attract a good mate and found their own tribe. These days, however, women are choosing to delay marriage in favor of (mostly useless) education and a (often pointless) job. Marrying young, at the peak of their fertility and youthful allure, is frowned upon. Staying home, looking after your man and bearing him fine children is seen as quaint and provincial. But as politically incorrect as that may sound, it is what many men really want; finding themselves unable to get it, they are making a rational decision to walk away from the “new deal” — and women are beginning to notice.

This has also not gone unnoticed by the Government, which has noticed the lower tax revenues these “lazy men” are generating. The State of Montana actually attempted to levy a “Bachelor Tax”, until it was ruled discriminatory and illegal and was rightly shot down in flames. Indeed, many of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (aka “ObamaCare”) look a lot like a bachelor tax, as women get a raft of “free” employer-provided benefits (birth control, mammograms and other screenings), while men get no similar “freebies”. By definition, that means that the men are effectively subsidizing the women’s benefits.

So much for equality.

More in Part Three.