SSM: QUICK HITS. Dappled Things, while saying several nice things about the series so far (thanks!), writes, “Her observations about male gender are very interesting, but I found less than convincing the argument that once getting married ceases to be a thing that proves masculinity, then men will gradually lose interest in it. It’s one thing to say that once we let girls be altar boys, all the boys will drop out. To make a similar argument about something as ingrained in the human race as mating and marrying seems to me a bit of a stretch.”

Well, but the last sentence there is the giveaway, no? “Mating”–you can’t beat people away from that one with a bat. “Mating and marrying,” though, have already been effectively delinked in a lot of communities. Hence my volunteer job. If marriage is invincible, indelibly written on the human heart, untouchable or only slightly touched by culture, where do all these fatherless families come from? When one’s surrounding culture doesn’t support marriage, it’s much harder to make a good marriage, to understand how to do that and why you would want to.

Lots of men and women will always have sex. Some men and women will always marry. But the ratio of “have sex + marriage” to “have sex (and therefore babies) without marriage” varies quite a bit. We’ve watched it vary within my lifetime. The recent renewal of marriage is immensely important; I’m opposed to anything that would undo the marriage gains of the 1990s. I think unisex marriage will kick marriage just as it’s getting back on its feet. So, not a fan.

And Motime Like the Present has a series of quick points, to which I’ll try to give brisk replies.

So: In re marriage as purely symbolic: Not sure I follow the logic here. Sounds like MLTP is arguing that now that marriage is basically meaningless, we can’t deny it to same-sex couples. A who a what now? I expect I’m missing something there.

But if you want a good look at why marriage is not merely symbolic, even today, and why marriage and divorce are crucial issues, I can’t recommend The Abolition of Marriage highly enough. Powerful, high-impact, and profound. One of the few public-policy books I could imagine actually changing someone’s life. It’s a fast read, too. If you want more recent stats, The Case for Marriage is good. I think AOM also addresses MLTP’s larger points about divorce.

MLTP also suggests that men should simply control themselves and act right because they fear punishment for acting wrong. I don’t think this works well at all in the sexual realm (e.g. don’t abandon your children or the woman you made ’em with). I think it works somewhat better for “male aggression,” though still not as well as punishment plus cultural support for honorable masculinity; but aggression isn’t the only thing we’re trying to handle here.

So why not offer a carrot as well as a stick? My position is that we should offer cultural rewards for and ideals of masculinity, to make it easier for men to do the right thing. The consequences of men doing the wrong thing are pretty awful for (in order of obviousness) children, women, and men themselves, so why not try whatever works?

On the men-controlling-themselves tip, I’ll drop another book recommendation, too, I think….