Proponents of Marriage Generally Make Marriage Sound Horrible

Suzanne Venker is at it again, this time with a column titled Why Men Won’t Marry You. Is it just me, or do people touting marriage manage to make it seem incredibly unattractive? Venker notes that marriage rates are low, and asks why men aren’t marrying as frequently as they once were. She offers several answers.

1. Because they can: Men used to marry to have sex and a family. They married for love, too, but they had to marry the girl before taking her to bed, or at least work really, really hard to wear her down. Those days are gone.

When more women make themselves sexually available, the pool of marriageable men diminishes. “In a world where women do not say no, the man is never forced to settle down and make serious choices,” writes George Gilder, author of “Men and Marriage.”

Scoff if you wish. Call me a fuddy-duddy. But how’s that new plan working out?

What. Venker makes marriage sound like entrapment!

I grew up in a conservative evangelical home where I was taught that a man would not “buy the cow if he could get the milk for free.” I was told that if I gave a man I was dating sex (because yes, that’s how it was talked about), he would no longer have any reason to marry me. I realized at some point how utterly ridiculous this was. Why on earth would I want to marry a man who was only interested in marrying me so that he could have sex with me?! I’d much rather be single!

2. Because there’s nothing in it for them: What exactly does marriage offer men today? “Men know there’s a good chance they’ll lose their friends, their respect, their space, their sex life, their money and — if it all goes wrong — their family,” says Helen Smith, Ph.D., author of “Men on Strike.” “They don’t want to enter into a legal contract with someone who could effectively take half their savings, pension and property when the honeymoon period is over. Men aren’t wimping out by staying unmarried or being commitment phobes. They’re being smart.”

Unlike women, men lose all power after they say “I do.” Their masculinity dies, too.

What?!

Are Venker and Smith not aware that men who have wives earn more than men who do not have wives? Indeed, marriage is often talked of as a swell deal for men and not quite as good a deal for women. Women still do the majority of the housework on average, and the majority of the childcare. Married women see their wages decline vis a vis their unmarried peers.

And exactly how is marriage going to cost men their sex lives? I mean yes, having children may take a tole on your sex life, but marriage and childbearing are not synonymous. Is it that men will no longer be able to sleep around? If so, isn’t that a strike against all monogamous relationships, not just marriage? And what about women? Don’t they also lose the ability to sleep around?

In the span of just a few decades, America has demoted men from respected providers and protectors of the family to superfluous buffoons. Today’s sitcoms and commercials routinely paint a portrait of the idiot husband whose wife is smarter and more capable than he.

Okay, you cannot both bemoan the idea that marriage will cause men to “lose . . . their money” and bemoan the loss of men’s status as economic provider. Seriously, you think marriage was less costly to men before the rise of the second income? How about no?

As for TV, I’m thinking through the TV shows I watch, and I’m coming up dry vis a vis men being portrayed as “superfluous buffoons.” Yes, there are more capable women on TV today than in the past, but there are just as many capable men.

There was a time when wives respected their husbands. There was a time when wives took care of their husbands as they expected their husbands to take care of them.

Or perhaps therein lies the rub. If women no longer expect or even want men to “take care of” them — since women can do everything men can do and better, thank you very much, feminism — perhaps the flipside is the assumption that women don’t need to take care of husbands, either. And if no one’s taking care of anyone, why the hell marry?

There is absolutely no way in which anything in these two paragraphs has any relevance whatsoever to my own marriage. My husband and I respect each other, thank you very much. Really, is the concept of mutual respect so hard to understand? We’re partners. We help each other, lean on each other, advise each other, comfort each other, love each other—as equals.

I am really at a loss as to why this so hard to understand.

As for why marry, is the concept of going through life with a partner by your side that unattractive?

For women, the reason is obvious: kids. Eventually most women decide they want children, no matter how long they put it off to focus on their careers. So they often nab the best guy they can find, usually the one with whom they’re currently sleeping, and convince him to get married.

And men don’t want to have children? A recent survey at a UK university found that 59% of college aged men wanted children as compared to 63% of college aged women. Perhaps it’s just me, but that doesn’t look like a big difference.

If the man refuses, we call him, as Smith notes, a “commitment phobe.” But is that fair? Perhaps these men know all too well that women initiate the vast majority of divorces — anywhere from 65-90 percent, depending on demographics. And when they do, they take the kids with them and hang hubby out to dry with the help of a court system that’s heavily stacked in their favor. In the past, Mom got the kids because she was home with them doing the thankless, unpaid, mountainous work associated with that role. Today, neither parent is home, so there’s no reason the default custodial parent should be Mom.

And . . . the default custodial parent is NOT Mom! Seriously, maybe some research before writing an article for a major news site? Just maybe? While I am sure there are some judges who are influenced by traditional gender roles (which are, oddly, just the gender roles Venker defends), courts today give men and women equal precedent in custody hearings. The reason women tend to get primary custody is that men don’t tend to ask for it. In fact, when a man asks for primary custody he’s more likely to get it than not. (Read more here.)

So remind me, why would a man marry today?

What. The. Hell.

You know what? I am sick and tired of people bemoaning low marriage rates while simultaneously making marriage sound like the most unattractive thing ever. Perhaps individuals like Venker should turn their marriage promotion gig over to happily married individuals in supportive egalitarian relationship—you know, people like me. What’s that, you say? Why yes, that’s right! I’m a Millennial! You know, one of those horrible terrible no good very bad selfish evil commitment-hating Millennials! And you know what? I can make a better argument for marriage any day than Venker can.