i) I'm going to make a few anecdotal observations about feminism. I believe there's increasing evidence that many men have given up on marriage. Feminism isn't entirely to blame for this. Before women's lib, there was still lots of marital unhappiness. Unrequited love. The Sorrows of Young Werther and all that. In a fallen world, longing, rejection, and domestic malaise are inevitable. However, feminism has exacerbated those problems.
ii) It's my impression that as a rule, men are easier to please than women. Take two examples. I've spoken with beauticians who say women customers are tougher customers than men. Harder to satisfy. Harder to get it right.
Likewise, take the cliche of the wife who's always nagging her husband to fix things or make improvements around the house on the weekend.
iii) Some professional women are offended by professional men who marry down. Offended that men are so easily satisfied in a wife. Offended that men aren't more finicky when it comes to picking a mate. To them, that means the man isn't treating the woman as an equal.
This, however, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of normal male psychology. Or a refusal to even attempt to understand normal male psychology.
Many men thrive on competition. However, they like to compete with other…men.
They don't view their wife or prospective wife as a colleague. They're not looking for a woman to play that role. They're not looking to a woman to be interchangeable with a man in that regard. In some cases they may enjoy a good argument with a female colleague, or interviewer, or lawyer from the opposing firm, but that's at work.
Although they enjoy competition, they don't want marriage to be another competitive arena. When they come home, they want to put the battlefield behind them and just relax. Let down. Home is supposed to be an escape.
They don't want to be in a performance situation 24/7. They want some down time. To interject a competitive dynamic into marriage is the very thing they wish to avoid. That's something they look for in a man, not a woman. A woman is supposed to be different. If she's not different, what's the point of having a long-term relationship with a woman in the first place?
Throughout the week, they test their mettle against other men. They aren't hankering to test their mettle against their wife.
We all want a place to go where we're just accepted. Where we don't have to prove ourselves to anyone. Among other things, family is supposed to be a retreat. I don't have to impress you. I can just be myself. And I'll return the favor.
I definitely agree with what you said above. I would also add to it the fact that marriage is a high risk, low reward endeavor for men now, which truly means that I would recommend not getting married if you can at all help it. In America today, a guy can be 100% happy in his marriage, come home to find out that his wife is shacking up with the neighbor, get slapped with divorce papers, and he ends up having to pay alimony and child support (in some cases for kids that aren't even his because they were conceived in the affair). He gets to move to a crappy apartment in the middle of the worst neighborhood while she gets to keep a huge portion of his paycheck because she needs to maintain her "standard of living." To top it off, no one cares that the man no longer gets to keep his standard of living, that 80% of the time he will lose custody, or that he is now enslaved to a person for the sole crime of *believing* her promise.
ReplyDeleteWhat reasonable person would take that risk? What reasonable person would ask, in the words of Bill Burr, "Is this the line where I can lose half my stuff? Awesome!" Who wants to be the man who has to pay for another man to raise his kids when he's only allowed visits on occasion?
A woman has virtually no risk in marriage. She knows that at any point she chooses, she can just leave and there is NOTHING that her now-ex can do about it, and that it will cost her nothing. There's no social shame to divorce anymore, and even if there were she could always claim that he was abusing her, and in our climate no one is allowed to even question that. So women have a "get out of marriage free" card they can play any time they want.
Men, on the other hand, still face stigma, especially in churches. "Your marriage failed, huh? You must lack spiritual leadership." They have to pay their hard-earned money to the person who has sinned against them for the privilege of CONTINUING to sin against them, all lest they be jailed and viewed as a deadbeat by society as a whole. No one cares that you have less input into your child's life then the grocery bagger at their local supermarket, because you're just an ATM now.
I may be jaded now because of my own experiences, but if anyone asked me, I would counsel every single man to NEVER get into a legal marriage. Personally, I think the governmental side of it should be abolished. Leave the religious and ecclesiastical aspects of it, but the way marriage exists in America is sinful. And not only that, but it actively harms more people than it benefits. (Again, I'm speaking of the LEGAL aspects, not a genuine marriage in the Church Universal.)
Completely agree. If I ever get married, I will NEVER sign a marriage license. If the state sees me and my wife as a co-habiting couple, that's fine by me. I will never legally jump into an agreement wherein if things go sour, I will pay for it for the rest of my life.
DeleteI think most Christian men think that will never happen to them- and what good man who loves his bride won't sign an agreement that she'll be taken care of should he become a bad guy? Of course, his wife is destined to hate the authority he has over her, so you would think that would make him hesitate to give her legal power to screw him over in that way.
And yet Christian men sign marriage licenses anyway? In summary, Christian men? Pretty freakin' stupid.
Peter said, "[B]ut the way marriage exists in America is sinful."
DeleteAre Christians who get legally married sinning somehow? Maybe I'm outside the loop, but this is the first time I've ever heard anybody suggest that Christian men ought not get "legally" married or ought not sign marriage licenses.
Sinning by being positively foolish? Yes. I try to approach it from the perspective that the man is placing himself in a very dangerous situation, but yes, it is sinful. A Christian man knows his wife is destined by the fall to undermine his authority. His own welfare and reputation are hers to ruin if he gives her that power. What ramifications can that have? How about his church? How about the lives of the children he will have with this woman if she decides to divorce him and leave? Then the children will grow up without a father, become felons, pregnant out of wedlock, etc.
DeleteAnd that's all in addition to the life of a slave that he will live after the divorce is finalized, assuming he isn't thrown in jail because of a spurious accusation like child-abuse.
Your absurd argument either proves too much or too little. It fails to select for the act of legal marriage. If you simply decide to live 'as if married', without the paperwork, then you don't avoid placing your life in the hands of another. That is essential to a functional marriage in any situation, paperwork or no paperwork. A lack of paperwork makes no difference to allegations of child abuse etc.
DeleteSo, either your argument proves too much - that it's sinful to have contact with females - or too little (failing to prove that it's sinful to legally marry). Not to mention adding new burdens to people, declaring something to be sinful that God has not.
It fails to select for the act of legal marriage.
DeleteTo the contrary, I specifically talked about signing a marriage license. That is directly relevant to the act of legal marriage.
If you simply decide to live 'as if married', without the paperwork, then you don't avoid placing your life in the hands of another.
i) If so, then why sign a marriage license?
ii) It avoids giving the woman, the one partner destined by the fall to undermine her husband's authority, the incentive to detonate the marriage. You don't put alcohol in front of a recovering alcoholic. By parity of reason, you shouldn't go out of your way to unnecessarily put incentives to divorce in front of a wife since she is destined by the fall to desire to undermine her husband's authority. Basic application of scriptural principles.
That is essential to a functional marriage in any situation, paperwork or no paperwork.
Again, why sign the license/certificate if that's the case?
A lack of paperwork makes no difference to allegations of child abuse etc.
Actually, it's a common tactic used by wives to get a bigger divorce settlement and greater custody of the children than they would otherwise. If they don't initiate the divorce in the first place, this would make a great deal of difference. It could discourage the wife from even filing in the first place.
So, either your argument proves too much - that it's sinful to have contact with females
I argued that men should take reasonable precautions that don't tempt and enable their potential wife to undermine his authority.
or too little (failing to prove that it's sinful to legally marry).
There's nothing illegal with living with each other without a license. I'm not arguing against legally marrying, I'm arguing against going out of your way to sign a document that places you at the mercy of your wife when you don't even need to do that. No man needs to sign a marriage license. Ever. And yet they do so carelessly, at the risk of themselves, their church, and their own children. THAT is sinful. It's a completely unnecessary risk, but they're more than happy to take that risk.
Not to mention adding new burdens to people, declaring something to be sinful that God has not.
i) God never declared marriage licenses as sinful or not sinful. Obviously God didn't even address this precise issue, which, of course, is irrelevant.
ii) God condemns foolishness, and signing a marriage license is foolish. Therefore, God condemns it.
iii) How is my admonition against placing yourself at greater risk of harm "adding a new burden"? Christians who mandate signing marriage licenses are the ones placing a new burden on the couples marrying. Seems to me you've got this whole thing backwards.
If you consider that there is any sort of comparison between 'putting alcohol in front of a recovering alcoholic', and contracting a legal marriage with some particular woman, then the only logical conclusion is to not enter any sort of relationship with that woman at all. The whole foundation of your idea - that legalising your marriage constitutes tempting your wife to divorce you on unfavourable terms - is absurd.
DeleteGetting out of your bed involves risk. So does staying in bed. God nowhere told us that taking on risk is foolishness. By your logic, becoming a missionary would be a sin, because of all the extra temptations and problems and strains that it will expose you and your family to.
Uncommonly Common asked:
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Are Christians who get legally married sinning somehow?
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No, that is not what I meant by what I said. The legal institution of marriage in America makes a husband the slave of his wife, and that is sinful. A Christian woman can decide not to behave in that manner, but the option is legally available for her.
Put it this way. In no other area of life could you sign a contract with someone upon the agreement that you would both do a specific thing, only to have one of the parties unilaterally dissolve that contract *all while forcing the other person in the contract to continue to pay them as if the contract was still in effect*? Nowhere. Yet that is what the institution of marriage in America has become.
American marriage does not FORCE anyone to sin, but it certainly facilitates it. And I believe the statistics speak clearly that more and more women are discovering it's to their economic advantage to bail on the marriage the instant they don't like something about their husbands, and the church sits by thinking this is something we should DEFEND instead of noting that no, *THIS* is not marriage at all. This is a unilateral agreement that men will submit to being taken advantage of the instant a woman feels like doing so.
David,
DeleteWhile I do find myself in agreement with pretty much everything that Prince Asbel said, I also understand those who are hesitant or who might think that what I am saying is too extreme. Maybe twenty years ago, I think it would have been too extreme too.
I think that perhaps I should include the failings of the American church as a whole in my critique of American marriage too, because the reality is that the church is facilitating a lot of the divorce culture too. Part of it is based on truth: we are forgiven for our sins. Yet that has allowed for a kind of antinomianism to sweep through the pews to the point where no one cares about whether anyone has broken their vows or not.
I remember reading in "The Complete Husband" by Lou Priolo a section where he said that most divorces were initiated by women, and in fact in Christian marriages it was becoming more and more frequent for him to hear her say, "God has told me to divorce my husband." I didn't think this could possibly be so prevalent, but it is exactly what my wife did to me when she left. We live in a world where churches facilitate people making up revelation from God that sounds spiritual, and then treating it as if it's a genuine relationship with God, and then saying, "Well, if God said it..." when the Bible clearly shows God WOULD NEVER SAY IT.
So in that sense, we are getting the marriage we deserve because we have the false worshipers that pretend to be Christian. The problem is how to differentiate between such false worshipers and the legitimate ones, especially when the instant there is any difficulty there are a plethora of books and sermons out there that the woman can point to showing that there are ALL KINDS of reasons why God would permit divorce if you just rub your eyes and squint enough at the Greek. I know, because I was sent the evil justifications for why vows were meaningless, how if your husband doesn't fulfill you then it's because he is sinning and you don't have to submit to a sinful head, and all sorts of stuff.
If we had a righteous people, it wouldn't matter that the law was so evil. But Americans are wicked, and the church exists right now to give false comfort to sinners, such that they believe they are worshiping God when they are still worshiping themselves. Thus, a Christian woman can say all the "right things" and it's not until the rubber meets the road that you discover she's willing to bail at the first sign of discomfort.
This is only going to get worse, because men are constantly belittled and berated and only men are ever encouraged to fight for their marriage. Women are always encouraged to "take what is rightfully theirs." Just compare the average sermon on Mother's Day (about how awesome Moms are and what a difficult job they do--it's so hard they can even do it in their pajamas!) to that of the average Father's Day sermon (how you are letting your family down and what you need to do to stop being a jerk and start being a real man by being a woman). I wish I was exaggerating, but I fear this is something that cannot be parodied.
If you consider that there is any sort of comparison between 'putting alcohol in front of a recovering alcoholic', and contracting a legal marriage with some particular woman, then the only logical conclusion is to not enter any sort of relationship with that woman at all.
DeleteI've already responded to this. You're repeating accusations I've already refuted.
The whole foundation of your idea - that legalising your marriage constitutes tempting your wife to divorce you on unfavourable terms - is absurd.
This is a ridiculous representation of what I said. You're not even trying to argue in good faith.
God nowhere told us that taking on risk is foolishness.
And I haven't said that, of course. Since you're so willing to ignore what I say, I'll quote myself back to you for the readers' sake:
"I argued that men should take reasonable precautions that don't tempt and enable their potential wife to undermine his authority."
"I'm not arguing against legally marrying, I'm arguing against going out of your way to sign a document that places you at the mercy of your wife when you don't even need to do that. No man needs to sign a marriage license. Ever. And yet they do so carelessly, at the risk of themselves, their church, and their own children. THAT is sinful. It's a completely unnecessary risk, but they're more than happy to take that risk."
As any reader paying attention can tell, signing a marriage license is a completely unnecessary risk that no Christian man is obligated to take. So why in the ever-loving heck do they take it?
Or, since you've ignored my challenge to you, let me challenge you again: Why SHOULD they take that risk? Or will you continue to ignore me on that point as well?
By your logic, becoming a missionary would be a sin, because of all the extra temptations and problems and strains that it will expose you and your family to.
i) I'm not using your blatantly false representation of my logic, so none of this follows.
ii) Some risks are necessary to living a certain life. A marriage license is UNnecessary. I've belabored this point to death. Might as well not even reply if you can't even acknowledge this basic tenet of my argument.
Do women really want to marry equals? From what I've read, they tend to want to marry up. That's why in the old days a rich man could have multiple wives and the guys would go join the military.
ReplyDeleteThe poor performance, relative to women, of men will cause problems because most women don't want to marry down. And I believe the rates of divorce go up significantly if the woman earns more than the man.
Yes.
ReplyDeleteThe observation that this post makes, is of wide and general application. When 'feminism' persuades women to behave like men (which is a really weird set of behaviours to label as 'feminism' rather than 'masculinism'), it persuades women to make themselves redundant. Men already exist. What women have, that men don't, is femininity. 'Feminism' treats femininity as worthless or pointless. But it is itself the thing that is worthless/pointless. No sane person who appreciates the real virtues of a godly woman would trade them for something else.