"Can Men Be Shamed Into Marriage?"

Submitted by Broadsword on Wed, 2012-11-07 18:37

Article here. Excerpt:

'The United States Census Bureau found that in 2008 16% of American men between 40 and 44 had never been married, an increase of 150% over 1980 numbers. Dr. Carl Weisman, author of "So Why Have You Never Been Married", says these confirmed bachelors are being stigmatized by society as being a "playboy, loser, commitment-phobe, fussy, damaged goods, plain weird" or, like in the famous "Seinfeld" episode, are labelled as a closeted homosexual, whether or not they are actually gay ( with the recurring disclaimer "not that there's anything wrong with it"). Katie Hahn, author of "The Stigma of the Unmarried Man", says that many women actually hope a middle age date is divorced rather than never married. She says never-married thirty and forty something men have a hard time explaining their life history toward wary potential partners, like an ex-con accounting for those missing years on his resume: "If you ask a guy in his late thirties or early forties why he isn't married, he'll have his answer- you could call it his defense- ready."

The 150% increase in never married men ages 40-44 over the last three decades indicates that the societal shaming mentioned above isn't working. Pierce College social scientist and lecturer John Fergus argues that because half of all marriages end in divorce, the popular knowledge of this grim statistic has had a "chilling effect" on single adults, making them fearful of relationships. A survey by Ohio University and Scripps Howard News Service confirmed this increasing public pessimism of successful matrimony due to the apparent recent changes in the way men and women relate to one another. Seeing the failure of so many marriages, many single men are refusing to even try it, regardless of a disapproving culture.'

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Comments

I don't care how hard people (mothers, aunts, female friends, well-meaning but they're-not-you married guy friends, etc.) are putting the screws to you, never get married unless it is 200% what you want to do and you are ready to take the substantial risks associated with going into it. It's not their life, it's YOURS. If certain people persist on tormenting you about it, you're entirely justified in saying something like: "Look, enough. If you keep harping on this and sticking your nose into my personal life this way, we are through. And I don't care that you are my _______ (fill in the blank: mother, sister, etc.). Keep it up, I am done interacting with you until or unless you can promise me you have dropped the subject and will not bring it up again in any way, shape , or form, ever. And if you do, that'll be that. No second chances. I will block your email address. I will block your phone number. If you come to my home or workplace I will call the cops. If need be I will get an order of protection against you. But our relationship will be permanently at an end and I don't care how anyone else feels about it."

You'd be amazed how well that works-- most times. And if it doesn't, ask yourself, do you really need people in your life who won't respect your insistence on maintaining your boundaries? If you go this route though, be sure to be prepared to exercise the option. If you threaten hollowly, you will never have leverage again on this topic and will have to deal with the endless nagging until you either move away and don't leave a forwarding address/number or until whoever it is just plain drops dead. That could be years away. :)

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Submitted by Matt on Thu, 2012-11-08 02:17

Thusly:

The risks are simply too great for most men to take who have given it any thought and have much to lose. Try as you might, attempting to shame an otherwise intelligent man into marriage in today's anti-male legal and social climate simply will not work.

I call the author's attention to these facts: Over 50% of new marriages in the US now end in divorce, usually within 7-10 years. 70% of divorces are initiated by the woman. 90%+ of the time, any children they have together go to the mother as sole custody or joint custody with her having primary residence (and thus she gets the CS payments).

Do the math: .5 x .7 x .9 = .32

Basically, a man has a 32% chance if he gets married and has kids that his wife will leave him, take the kids, and stick him with the bill. These are not good odds. I do not blame any man for not wanting to roll the dice. This is his life we are talking about here, not just a hundred bucks on a roulette table.

The author of this and other such articles needs to be asking less such questions as "How can we get men to marry, etc.?" and more along the lines of "Why aren't they interested anymore in getting married?" and once that question is answered (and believe me, I just answered it), next ask, "How can we make it safer for men to do this marriage thing?" You catch a lot more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. If marriage is to survive much longer as an institution (not that I think it's doing too well at the moment anyway), it needs to become a lot more man-friendly. Otherwise, as they say in Little Italy, "Fuggedaboutit".

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Submitted by Matt on Thu, 2012-11-08 02:24