By Sandman
People respond to incentives and penalties. There is more of a thing when there is an incentive (women have an incentive to divorce and make false accusations because of the financial reward). There is less of a thing when there is a penalty (men are reluctant to marry because of the high risk of financial destruction and forced separation from potential children in a divorce).
These behaviors do not benefit society, civilization or children. Women are generally less happy than in the past. Someone must pay for that unhappiness and it is MEN. Collectively women further the exact situation that causes their unhappiness. It is ironic that women are happier when they are restrained from to acting on their folly. Men take a longer view when making most decisions. Women usually base their decisions on the state of their emotions at the time of the decision.
Why do ordinary men and hedonists understand the reasons that Marriage is Down & Dystopia is Up but the religious do not? Civil Unions and Shared Parenting is not the answer. Men are avoiding marriage for rational reasons. Avoidance of marriage will continue because a man will often do a risk/reward analysis in order to act in his best interest. Is it rational for a man to embrace unilateral indentured servitude or to play poker when the deck is stacked against him?
Men already have been avoiding marriage. Over the last 9 years, the percentage of married adults in the U.S. has dropped from 57% to 52%, a record low. The state of the economy is blamed, but this is delusional. Men, in general, do not irrationally fear commitment, if it is fair, reciprocal, equal and binding on both parties. As such the problem is “civil marriage” and not “marriage.”
In any case, the U.S. divorce industry is facing a bleak future. With housing prices down and many mortgages underwater, there is no money to extract from selling the marital house. With high unemployment, it will be increasingly difficult to impute income to men. The state can ill afford jailing all the men that fall behind on generous/onerous spousal maintenance and child support obligations. Quite a quandary!
Even though the female divorce incentive is economically unsustainable, women should lobby to remove it. Since women generally act in the moment, they will happily forego the potential of a future divorce payoff for the immediate desire to marry. Most women WANT to be married and will easily trade away the divorce incentive to get married NOW.
There is an exception by which women take a longer view: A woman will unite with other women to work with a single-minded focus to remove the obstacle to her desire (both good desires and distorted desires). All men have to do is create a path for this to happen, and women will do all the work to improve that path. This is the basis for my belief that the Catholic Church should opt out of “civil marriage.”
Catholics should lobby for exemption from “civil marriage.” Then all could choose the unencumbered option to be religiously married with the traditional “for better, for worse, til death do us part” covenant. In the event of a separation, there would be no divorce and the only remedy would be “annulment,” which the Catholic Church already handles through canon law. Other non-Catholic denominations would have to develop their own systems. A religious non-civil marriage is also a public marriage, rather than private or hidden, which I mention to negate a bogus religious criticism of this concept.
Civil custody issues would still ensue but may be less acrimonious and somewhat less frequent because of the reduced financial windfall of alimony/spousal maintenance.
Why not mandate that civil marriage be performed by a civil authority? Stop mandating that Priests and Pastors be instruments of the state by presiding over civil marriage formation, thus creating future fodder for the civil divorce/custody industry. If a couple wants to be both civilly and religiously married then there should be two ceremonies, one religious and one civil. But the churches should not make the civil ceremony a prerequisite for the religious ceremony. The concept of “separation of church and state” would seem contrary to subservience of church to the state.
A religiously married spouse could receive “partner benefits,” the same as if it were a gay partner. Women would actually fight for this cause. This turns the tables on the homosexual and feminist activists and lets all men participate in the benefits they have won.
The Catholic Church and other churches commonly abandoned fathers. Churches refuse to recognize the rights and responsibilities of a father to his children, all because of the divorce and false allegations acted upon by the civil family court. Still, it is the civil authorities that have planted the seeds of destruction and watered them to germinate. The Bishops and Priests in the Catholic Church were blind to the effects of No-Fault Divorce at the time it was foisted upon the unaware population.
I advocate reclaiming the definition of “Catholic Marriage” as it existed prior to the changes Luther promoted in 1525. Let society do what it wants but let the Catholic Church to be one of the shining lights of truth and shelter from the destructive tendencies of society. Imagine a bulwark against the financial incentive for women to divorce (70% are filed by women) and enclave of support for a father’s continual involvement in his children’s lives. This “castle keep” could be protection from the siege of financial incentives for women to make false allegations, which is all too common during the divorce process.
In the past 500 years marriage has devolved from a covenant to a contract to a status (or possibly from a 2-party contract to a 3-party sham contract). Government, rather than supporting the supposed contract, now supports and rewards the party violating the supposed contract under the guise of No-Fault Divorce.
There is a great opportunity in the marriage issue for the Catholic Church and other Christian church denominations to “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” as stated in Matthew 10:16. Why do I primarily advocate for the Catholic Church to take these measures? For three reasons: 1) I am Catholic, 2) The Catholic Church has a structure and hierarchy to promote this, 3) The Catholic Church is large enough to be influential.
As an Evangelical Protestant convert to the Catholic Church, I have also studied “Game”, “Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body” and “Socionomics (Elliott Wave Theory).” It is amazing how certain aspects are complementary and consistent with concepts voiced in the Men’s Rights Movement and recent behavioral/medical research. Men and women are different and think differently. Equality of the sexes is not sameness, rather it is complementarity.
An analysis of the “nature of women” and “The Fall,” is insightful. Genesis 3:16 includes a curse (penalty and repercussions) on women and some Bible translations use the phrase “yet your desire shall be for your husband,”. Although this was written in a different time, it may be useful to read this commentary on Genesis 3:16, – here.
Genesis is not strictly factual, rather it is mythological, in order to convey truths that transcend a literal interpretation. The desire of a woman for a man is a good thing but is inclined to become distorted. In Genesis 3:16 the woman’s “desire for her husband” is not a blessing but a curse. It does not describe a good desire, but rather a distorted desire. I infer that it is her desire to possess her husband. As an example, if I were to say, “My desire is for a Mercedes-Benz E-Class Cabriolet,” then it would be reasonable to infer that I desire to possess it. Similarly, it is reasonable to infer that a woman would desire to possess a man, which includes the benefits of his support and unending control of the fruits of his labor. Is this not the case today?
But there is another phrase in Genesis 3:16 that should temper the curse, and is necessary because of the curse. There is a control on her distorted desire, “and he shall rule over you.” This is similar to inserting graphite control rods into a nuclear reactor to control and prevent a run-away reaction. This is a positive thing since if the woman achieves her distorted desire, she will experience sorrow. His “rule” will not always feel good, but it results in a better outcome than if she fulfilled her distorted desire. Sometimes a man’s “rule” will be tyrannical, but is usually benevolent. History bears this out. After all, it was men that built farms, engines, machines, factories, cities, roads, bridges, houses, power plants, the electrical grid, pipelines, refineries, mines, railroads, ships, ports, stores, schools, universities, other infrastructure, and men instituted democracy. Men did all this while providing for their families, improving the lives of women and reducing the burden of household labor. This all seems very benevolent, but I do not believe that men would have done all these things were it not for the drive to make things better for their wives and children.
Why did women rarely participate in building the infrastructure of civilization? Were women oppressed? First, such work was dangerous and men commonly died doing this work, which protected the lives of women. This doesn’t sound very oppressive. Second, women didn’t want to do this kind of work, so men did not force then to do it. Third, women were consumed with the drudgery of the task of maintaining the home. Men freed women from that drudgery which allowed women to choose to take jobs outside the home. That is what women said they wanted. Now the modern woman has the freedom (and requirement) to have a job, maintain her independent household and pay for childcare, since a man is really not necessary. No wonder so many women are sorrowful! Meanwhile women unconsciously bow to the altar of feminism, which has endowed them with the wonderful freedom from “oppression.”
Certainly there was a curse (penalty and repercussions) placed upon men after “The Fall.” That is a topic for another article, but the absence of that analysis herein, does not negate these points and this opinion. Part of a man’s curse was to sweat and it took a lot of sweat to build civilization.
It seems that men need women and women need men. Otherwise most men would still be living in a cave and occasionally catching fish and hunting deer. This is the essence of Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW). It sounds appealing to me although not particularly motivating! The reality is that when men are marginalized, civilization suffers and will eventually fall. Dr. Stephen Baskerville alludes to this in his this recent interview – here.
Modern women are experiencing the sorrow in success of the pursuit of their ”distorted desire.” Women will fight each other over a man, will fight each other if no man is involved, but commonly unite against a man that neither wants, or against men in general. Women commonly support a “sister” so she can extract the fruits of a man’s labor, when her “sister” no longer has use for a particular man. This is not all women, but too many (NAWALT but TMWALT). Does this result in happiness or in sorrow?
Generally, a man acts consistently with the nature of men and a woman acts consistently with the nature of women. It is a simple matter to study these natures, as experienced in the modern world and as expressed throughout history. After doing this, I have no problem trusting a woman, because I can generally trust a woman to act like a woman, according to her nature. Many aspects of a woman’s nature are delightful. But it is a huge mistake to trust a woman to act like a man. This is a profound understanding, and each individual man should contemplate the meaning. I, in turn, will act according to integrity and principles.
I live in the modern world, not utopia, so I am not holding my breath waiting for these changes.
For those non-religious and non-Catholic, I hope I contributed to the mutual objective of reestablishing the perceived value of men. It is not my intension to religiously “convert” you. I appreciate the charity of The Spearhead to host exploration of related religious issues. Such things are relevant to non-religious, even if only from a historical perspective. An opinion article such as this would not be welcome on most religious sites.
For further contemplation, there are some insightful discussions on marriage at The Thinking Housewife blog:
