One of the posters recently had a post asking some peripheral questions about this such as single motherhood on the rise.

I wrote a blog post last year attempting to detail all of the factors that go into the demise of marriage. Re-posted in entirety if you don't want to click on the link.

I can’t remember any one person having tried to write down all of the negative effects about the demise of marriage. This is basically a list to try to write down most if not all of them at least in the US. Most western countries probably have similar trends too. Some may overlap with Christianity and Christian marriage, though culture would have been increasing hostile regardless.

Got the idea from reading the comments here. Much of everyone arguing about many of the common talking points not realizing that pretty much everything contributed.

Unfortunately, don’t have the time to link all of the posts that related to all of these topics, so I’ll possibly do it when I have more time. Just linked some of the more recent ones.

Feminism

  • Proto-feminism women’s suffrage — sped up the implementation of liberal policies (see: many points below). However, many of these policies would come about regardless.
  • Women in the workforce — increasing need for full-time jobs decreases quality and pay of jobs. Note: I’m not saying women can’t or shouldn’t work (as many women have throughout history and even Biblical times did: Proverbs 31), but this trend does negatively affect employment rates and quality of pay of jobs. It’s basic economics.
  • No fault divorce — incentivizes divorce and single motherhood, especially for cash and prizes
  • Default mother gets the kids — incentivizes wife divorce
  • Child support model has replaced fathers — can easily leave a marriage to get money (h/t Dalrock)
  • Sex outside of marriage — decreases marriage rates, increases cohabitation. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?
  • Decreased stigma of bastards — decreases marriage rates
  • Contraception — decrease marriage rates
  • Abortion — decreases marriage rates via increased sex, decreased stigma, and contraception
  • Bloating government spending and entitlements — incentivizes single motherhood and poverty
  • Increased victimhood and protected class status — virtue signalling and sky high expectations become the norm
  • Women can do no wrong — everything is somehow men’s fault.
  • Masculinity is demonized (via "the patriarchy") — decreases “good masculine men,” increases “feminized pansy men,” and increases “bad boys.”
  • Rise of the white knights — men thinking that helping or speaking up for women will make them attracted to him
  • Cross-dressing and cross-behavior — women start to cut their hair short, wear men’s clothing, and act more like men which leads to decreased their own attractiveness. Women with longer hair, feminine clothing such as dresses and skirts, and feminine demeanor are almost universally more attractive.
  • Women delay marriage “Find yourself” and “try to have it all” and “don’t settle down too early” — delays women’s marriage expectations until after their most attractive years
  • Tearing down “patriarchy” or forced equality of the sexes which doesn’t exist — women are not attracted to most men
  • Decreased shame — “certainly societal shame over old maids, loose women, divorcees and bastard children played a large role in why many people were “christian” at the time. Once the stigmas started to be removed from the previous list then people found more interest in them. I mean, its not like loose women is a new thing, right? Been around since the beginning of time! However in most societies such women were shunned and frowned upon, despite the absence of God. This kept such activities in check, whereas now they are celebrated and running rampant!”

These trends have highly destabilized the marriage marketplace, leading to entitled, less-attractive, less feminine women and decreasing amounts of attractive masculine men.

Education trends

  • Women gravitate toward educational teaching especially K-12 — biases education system toward girls
  • Elimination of PE and increase of busy work in schools — biases education system toward girls
  • No child left behind — no stigma for failure leads to decreased care about doing well in life, especially for boys who schools don’t care about
  • Men tend to do well in more hands-on fix-it work — some/many men prefer not to go to college and into trades. Trades aren't as valued as college by women because of less social status.
  • College/STEM pushed for women via feminism — Women increasingly represented in college and graduate education (also due to above). Don't want to marry down in status or financially because of hypergamy.
  • Parents push their daughters more than their sons — Unsurprisingly, their daughters are more ambitious than their sons to get an education and good job
  • Expectation for young adults to move out at age 18 (or 20 or 22 or whatever) — pushes women to develop career skills in order to support herself in lieu of pursuing marriage. If needing to live on your own is a certainty but marriage is only a possibility, its not a wonder young women aren't focusing on marriage.

As educational attainment and a high paying job have become a ‘status symbol,’ this leads women to look down on men leading toward more “where have all the good men gone.”

Other/Social trends

  • Social media and dating apps — Encourage narcissism and skyhigh unrealistic expectations, typically in women more than men, but can be both. Also, normalizes hedonistic lifestyles and presenting yourself as perfect without flaws.
  • Husbands and fathers are treated with contempt and no respect — especially happens in the media. Corollary: Loss of solid role models. Decreases men who want to be such.
  • Disney princess mentality — sky-high expectations of “prince charming” leading to decreased dates, relationship formation, and marriages. Improper view of “romance.”
  • Obesity — decreases both sexes attractiveness which decreases dates, relationship formation, and marriages.
  • Pornography and romance novels — sexual satisfaction can be gained at the expense of morality outside (or even inside) of marriage.
  • Liberal media bias — feminist policies are pushed at the expense of morality
  • Romanticization of marriage — Most marriages outside of the last hundred years were not out of “[feeling] love.”
  • Many men and women start to believe that things that are attractive in men (e.g. have a good job, successful, educated, interesting, etc.) are also attractive for women to get a man — Hint: youth, beauty and femininity are attractive to men. These incorrect expectations lead women to focus on the wrong areas to try to land a man.
  • Women want men that “have it all” but won’t date men who are significantly older — this is simple logistics. Most men in early to mid 20s are not very successful yet, aside from a few start-ups and those men are usually socially awkward. Since there are only a few men like this early on, the few very attractive women will snap them up. The rest complain where “all the good men went” when their expectations don’t match reality.
  • Increase in risk averse behavior — parents want to protect their children from life rather than introduce them to the conflicts of life and how to overcome them. Less men and women are willing to take the plunge to get married earlier or even just ask their counterparts out on dates.
  • Parents don’t teach their sons and daughters about the opposite sex much anymore — little if any parental mentoring about life which leads to mass confusion for men and women
  • Less stigmas for bachelors or bachelorettes — Socially single for longer periods of time is more accepted. There used to be preference to giving promotions to married guys over single ones.
  • Marriage vows are literally just people saying stuff — "To have and to hold" where each spouse meets each other's sexual needs is out. "For richer or for poorer" and "in sickness or in health" are not taken seriously. Women, and to a lesser extent men, will just leave at the first sign of hardship.
  • "Other" relationships are more acceptable — Polyamory, friends > marriage, and exploring non-monogamous non-heterosexual relationships are becoming more normalized.

These factors negatively affect men and women’s expectations of relationships and also some may result in decreased or significantly decreased attractiveness.

Christian trends

  • Chivalry and feminism’s “Christian” counterparts (complementarianism and egalitarianism) have replaced Biblical marital roles and responsibilities — leads to an inversion of roles or idolatry of the wife in the marriages
  • Clear Biblical compromise — women pastors/leaders, de-veiling of women in Church, etc.
  • Lack of focus onto preparation for marriage — God’s Biblical marital roles and responsibilities are largely ignored or manipulated in favor of worldly talking points such as “communication” and “conflict management”
  • Tingles are a sign of godliness — if she’s not in love with you (romance), you’re not acting godly. Makes husbands idolize their wife’s feelings and thereby a slave to them.
  • “Women are more spiritual than men” — increases pride and self-entitlement and decreases repentance and humility
  • “Women good, men bad” — an offshoot of the above used to blame husbands/fathers for even sins that their wives/daughters/sons commit saying that ‘if they were only godly enough then their wife or children would submit.’ Encourages rebellion and decreases respect and attraction.
  • Feminimization of the Church: worship, preaching, etc. — increases female and decreases male attendance leading to disparities in the dating pool that negatively affect women.
  • Preacher apex fallacy — sexual attraction is from power and status in the Church. “Be like me” attitude doesn’t work, especially when the pastor suddenly starts having marital troubles because of adherence to chivalry or complementarianism over the Bible.
  • Fall to cultural expectations — happy wife happy life, white knighting, women can do no wrong, and many of the other feminism trends.
  • “A man must pursue a woman” — the non-Biblical reality of the typical conservative Christians. Reality: Jesus invited the disciples to follow Him, and the disciples chose to follow. He did not chase after them.
  • Christians following worldly social scripts — college -> job -> house/car -> marriage are more important than instructing children to follow Biblical morality.
  • Physical attractiveness and worldly success are largely ignored — to get a spouse you must wait on “God’s timing and be godly” while ignoring that no one wants to go out on dates with obese, poorly dressed, and poorly marriage-prepared Christians. Which leads into…
  • “God’s timing…” or “God’s plan…” — prevents Christians from actually taking steps to change their own situation which decreases chances of meeting someone who also finds attractive. Corollary: God does not promise anyone a spouse in the Bible
  • Nuclear rejections — dissuades young Christian men from approaching in the future
  • The over-spiritualization of dating — Dating is only encouraged if you’re serious about getting married, and Christian friends hype up a date like you’re getting engaged.
  • Jesus is my boyfriend — leads to weird pseudo-romance that negatively inflates women’s expectations in a relationships
  • Mother’s day and Father’s day microcosm — praise mothers and shame fathers to do better or “man up.” Even worse: claim God the Father is also a mother.
  • Purity culture — Flirting is a “sin.” Women are brown-beaten to not have sex so much they still remain unwilling to have sex in marriage.

Honestly, there were more Christian (or should I say non-Christian) trends than I expected. Most of these negatively affect women’s expectations. Some disincentivize men from being Christian or even trying to date. The worst offenders are the ones that distort the Scriptures to mean or say things that God never said about marriage or promises He never made.

Overall thoughts

In general, when most men and most women married in their early to mid 20s, the women were marrying for the trajectory of what the man could be (unless she was marrying someone 5-10+ years older than herself). Men would get the “wife of their youth” immediately while working to support his family and become a great husband and father that his wife could brag about as he becomes much more successful.

Most Christian men and women would do well to focus on themselves and what benefits they could bring to a potential spouse. They should work on their own attractiveness: stay fit, eat healthy, well groomed, and masculine or feminine in action and clothing if possible. They should also focus on what God says about marriage and not the common cultural Christian distortions that are parallels of what culture says about husbands and wives.

Christians should be active in serving Jesus and mentoring/discipling others and being mentored/discipled themselves if possible. Network within the Church and go to widespread events as that gives them more avenues to meet other Christians. Evaluate your own expectations of a spouse to make sure that you’re not having unrealistic expectations or too many deal breakers (aside from Biblical requirements like serious Christian).

Also, if I missed any, add them to the comments. I’m pretty sure I got most of everything, but there are always some that I probably missed.