Dalrock, a manosphere traditionalist with a great love of charts and statistics and other accoutrements of SCIENCE, has managed to figure out a way to stretch “don’t be so picky, ladies, or you’ll get old and ugly and no man will ever want you” out to 1500 words.
Here are a few of them:
Men foot the searching costs in the marriage and sexual marketplace (MMP & SMP). This means bearing most of the risk of rejection and expending the bulk of the resources to facilitate the process of meeting and getting to know one another.
Oh dear. We’re off to a very unpromising start here.
As the ones who bear the costs of courtship, men have a strong incentive to minimize the number of women they court and the overall duration of time spent in the process. However, as the consumers of courtship, women have an incentive to draw the process out as long as possible and to receive courtship from as many men as possible.
Here’s some surveillance footage of an average American woman being courted by several men.
But now — get this — the ladies are waiting longer to marry!
Just think about what this does to the dude navigating the marriage market hoping to “maximize his Pareto efficiency,” if you know what I mean and I think you do.
He needs to manage risk vs reward. When courting, there are two fundamental risks. These are the risk of wasting resources on the wrong women, and the risk of rejection harming the man’s reputation/MMV.
So watch out, ladies, because if you wait too long, guys are going to decide you’re not much of a bargain!
For a man who is managing the risks of courtship outlined above, the age of a woman is very important. The older a woman is, the more likely it is that she is very picky and/or not seriously looking for a husband.
Exactly! Because women never change their mind because they’re, you know, in a different stage of their life or anything.
Older women also are less attractive from a courtship perspective because they have used up more of their most attractive/fertile years, and while their attractiveness for marriage has declined their expectations for courtship have only increased.
This reminds me of that famous joke, you know, where that woman approaches Winston Churchill at a party and says, “Sir, you are drunk.”
And he replies: “And you, Bessie, have used up your most attractive/fertile years. But I shall be sober in the morning, and you will still have used up your most attractive/fertile years.”
That Churchill, what a card!
Consider the 25% of current early thirties White women who still haven’t married; unless they are terminally unattractive an awful lot of courtship has almost certainly been wasted on them.
Are there really a lot of guys who look back on the women they dated in their twenties and think, “boy, I wasted a lot of courtship on those gals! I mean, I wasted nearly 14 courtship on Jessa alone!” (Also, who knew that the women are always the ones to blame when heterosexual couples in their twenties break up?)
They aren’t just bad bets for courtship today, but (in retrospect) they clearly were bad bets for courtship for the last 15 years. …
Put simply, the extended delay of marriage by women has placed marriage minded men in a dilemma; older women are (generally speaking) known bad bets for courtship, but half of early twenties women are also poor bets for courtship.
Well, you could always marry a dude.
There are only two logical ways men can respond to women’s extension of courtship.
Wait, really? Please, please, please, let one of the ways be “marry a dude.”
The first logical choice is to recognize that these women are debasing marriage, and decide to “court” for sex and not marriage.
Damn. Anyway, sexual relationships are fine, but you are aware that there are other kinds of relationships — sorry, “courting” — besides sex and marriage, right?
Ok, we still have one more. Marry a dude. Marry a dude. Marry a dude.
But while “courting” for sex is a logical choice, it is not a moral choice, and we still do see men courting for marriage. For these men, having a fairly low age cutoff makes a great deal of sense.
That’s your, er, “solution?” Marry a teenager? Or a woman at most in her early twenties?
As Dalrock knows, but doesn’t want to believe, those who marry when they’re very young are much more likely to divorce than those who marry when they’re older. For evidence, see this chart, which I found elsewhere on Dalrock’s own blog:
But hope springs eternal for modern misogynistic manospherian marriage market minded men (MMMMMMM).
This isn’t a weird utopian hypothetical ideal for me, btw. I’ve been married for 22 years and we’ve managed some very tough decisions together. I do not submit to him, he does not submit to me, and we are very happy together. I couldn’t love or respect a petty tyrant who stamps his foot if someone says no to him, and he couldn’t love or respect a subjugated doormat, so it’s worked pretty well for us.
Kootie,
When a Christian man is single, he has ultimate authority for every single decision that he makes in his entire life. The person of ultimate authority whose laws he must OBEY is Christ. And Christ OBEYED God the Father.
God -> Christ -> Man
When a man gets married, he understands that he has “headship” and is ultimately responsible for the spiritual growth of the family. That is an enormous responsibility and with it come rights, the right to expect his wife will obey him in all things (as God and Christ have commanded of her.)
God -> Christ -> Man -> Wife
It is not about winners or losers. Marriage is NOT a game. And it doesn’t even have to be work. Just stay married through thick and thin. A man cherishes his wife (for sure) specifically because she does OBEY him and submits to him. He knows that whatever decision must be made in the family, he has ultimate authority. It doesn’t work any other way.
If he didn’t have this authority with his wife (and you feminists are claiming he doesn’t because you don’t like it) then of course, he should NOT marry her. Why should he marry her, what is in it for him? What does he gain? And don’t say love because for men love basically is just s-x. That is love. She doesn’t want to obey him, then she should live alone and support herself WITHOUT a man’s support and guidance. She doesn’t need him, she has feminism. Feminism says she is in complete control over her own life, right? Why would she want a man?
And that is why our current marriage rate in the United States has dropped from 72% of all people 18 and older in 1976 to 49.2% today. Women still want to get married (as they want financial provisioning from men) but they don’t want to obey them. Okay, so men are refusing to marry women. We’ll be at 48.8% of our adult population as married, this time next year. This feminist “Life of Julia” crap (which mandates maximum government provisioning for Julia as she has NO husband in her life) is a disaster for taxpayers.
You’ve not made your case at all, IBB.
Again, why should I, a non-Christian living in a non-theocracy, be forced to follow Dalrock’s interpretation of the Bible?
Love. I see you have no understanding of the concept of love. That explains some things. You should probably look into the concept of love. I hear Jesus was big into it.
It’s telling that you think that a relationship is something one person “wins” in. That and the whole, “Why would you marry a man if your not going to totally obey him in everything?!?” bit tells me you are more interested in maintaining power than maintaining a good, healthy relationship. What you want is to be able to lord it over someone, not a loving marriage. But anyway, all those disagreements? My husband and I would handle like adults. We’d talk over the pros and cons and come to a resolution. That’s what adults do. As for my daughter’s college, as the 18-year-old adult who’s going to college and who will ultimately be responsible for the student loans, she’s the one who gets to pick her major.
@contrapangloss:
Meanwhile, my parents (now divorced) have had a tumultuous and generally unhappy marriage because of my dad’s inability to view individual situations as anything other than something to “win.” In fact, he’s used similar arguments to boston’s; namely, if there is a decision to be made and they agree to go with my mom’s decision, doesn’t that mean he didn’t get a say? If he doesn’t get the final decision, that must mean there never was a discussion (even though there was).
Oh, so you’re just some sort of weird “Christian” sociopath who can’t make an affectionate attachment to another human being? All human connections are for is just orgasms and getting to order someone around? Then I pity you.
innocentbystanderboston: You have a very rudimentary, incomplete grasp of theology of gender. You ought to do more reading on the topic. As you talk like an evangelical, might I recommend Rachel Held Evans?
http://www.amazon.com/Year-Biblical-Womanhood-Liberated-Covering/dp/1595553673/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1429651571&sr=8-1
So what does that husband’s wife gain in a relationship? Her husband apparently is only in it for the sex.
You’ve defined a husband’s love as lust (for sex and for power) and a woman’s love as servitude. No wonder your view of marriage is so messed up.
And most of you still have not answered my question. Seriously, if a woman is not willing to obey her husband, why on earth would she be willing to marry him? That is not a complicated question. And don’t tell me love. No, she does NOT love him if she does not want to obey him.
There is a very good (feminist-centric) reason why she wants to get married to a man she refuses to obey, I just want someone to be honest with all of us and admit it. So far, none of you have.
In that case, parents definitely don’t love their children (at least I hope not)!
I loved living alone, actually. I had no trouble supporting and guiding myself. As far as I wanted this man — it goes back to that “love” thing that is apparently so alien to you. Also, we got some lovely wedding gifts!
“Answer the question! But don’t answer it with the answer you answered! I decided that’s not an answer!”
OK, here’s an answer that doesn’t use the L-word.
No, the OTHER L-word.
I married my husband because being married to him makes me happy, and being married to me makes him happy. We know this because we are both happier now than we were before we were married, and you can’t say we aren’t because they are our feelings, not yours.
You are the one who introduced the language of winning.
I’m pretty sure a man should cherish his wife because that’s what God expects of him, not because she’s submitting hard enough.
How… uh… biblical…?
I don’t think much of a man whose “love” is based on complete and unquestioning obedience. That’s not love, that’s tyranny. Anyone who insists on zir partner’s complete obedience is a tyrant. That’s a healthy adult relationship, that’s an adolescent power fantasy.
If that’s what you think marriage is and should be, IBB, then I’m glad it’s declining. Such a thing needs to die.
The rest of us will be over here, forming loving, respectful, adult relationships, as we see fit.
Sex is patient, sex is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it keeps no record of wrongs but it does keep notches on the bedpost.
If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not sex, I am but a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
For God so sexed the world…
*sigh* Alright, how about affection? A desire to raise children with someone? A desire to hold a monogamous relationship with someone (which isn’t quite a tautology; our culture places a special significance on being married for the sake of being married, and on having a single life partner. In fact, the reason divorce and marriage rates are falling is because cohabitation is becoming more acceptable, so a marriage isn’t required to spend all your time with a single other person)?
If you don’t like the word “love,” then how about just the feelings that “love” usually applies to; joy in seeing a person beside you when you wake up in the morning, pleasure in sharing various activities and hobbies, and yes, even sexual/romantic attraction (when applicable)?
Sorry, but if this still isn’t an answer to you because you lump it all under love (and then redefine “love” as desire to serve), then you’ll never get a good answer from us. We can’t explain color to someone who can’t see.
(not to mention tax reasons; that’s a reason for some people who don’t particularly care about marriage in and of itself, but still have someone they want to cohabitate with)
Er, last sentence in my first paragraph should read, “That not a healthy adult relationship….”
You’re the one confusing obedience with love, IBB. That’s your hang-up, not ours.
Hmm, I’ll guess you’re thinking about money. That seems to be the go-to explanation for someone marrying someone they don’t love, especially people who promote the patriarchal world of men bringing home the money and women minding the children. If that’s not it, I’m stumped.
How about a hint?
Ha, you’re totally right. He’s all “Why do you want to get married?” and then he’ll reject every answer except “money” and then he’ll be all “I knew it! Feminists only marry for money!” ignoring the 87 people who said “love.”
I love lots of people I don’t obey.
When I was a child, I obeyed my parents. I am an adult now, so that aspect of our relationship has changed. I don’t live in their house. They don’t tell me what to do. Obedience is no longer an issue. But I still deeply love them, respect them, and value their advice.
I love my brother. He’s my sibling. My younger sibling. I don’t obey him, and never have.
I do obey the government, but I am definitely not in love with them.
When I marry, it will be someone I love, who stirs me to love the Lord more, who I share mutual respect and trust with, who mutually wants to build a life together. Someone who will be a good father. Someone who is a good friend. Someone who will treat me like his peer, and not his pet.
It’s interesting that you think you know what we want better than we ourselves do. Having never met any of us IRL, and presumably not being a mind-reader, I find this rather hard to believe.
@katz:
*snrk*
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Sex the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Sex your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
@katz “In that case, parents definitely don’t love their children (at least I hope not)!”
Men also can’t love Jesus in that setup, cause loving Jesus would just mean lusting after him.
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His sex endures forever.
S-x is how a man shows his complete love an affection for his wife. That is the reaon why s-x is basically love for a man. It is a beautiful, tangible, Biblical thing. It is a real, entirely objective, measurement. Why is that so difficult to understand?
Dont you all want your husbands to love you SPECIFICALLY in this way?
Kirby,
That is exactly what I am saying. It used to be, if you left you left with the clothes on your back, nothing else. That is a non-starter for feminists. That is why unilateral divorce laws (creating by feminism) guarantees cash and prizes for the person blowing up the marriage. It is just about money, not obeying, never submitting.
That is why men are opting out (and going MGTOW.)
49.2% and dropping ladies….
I’m a bit late into this, so apologies if this has been covered, but how does our friend explain women who marry men of lower earning capacity?