Marriage Strike

I really think everybody should read this article. http://www.mattweeks.com/strike.htm

There are no jurys in divorce court, and it can be initaited if the women is simply "Unhappy" with her spouce.

This article gives numbers on what I have failed to put into words. It also explains why men aren't "afraid of commitment" they are just avoiding taking chances.

 

Two main comments on this piece:

1.

How uneducated is this author? This is not a matter of fretting about "the state of women" in the way he puts it. It is a matter of considering the effect of delayed marriage on the demographics of the US -- if people wait until the woman is past prime child-bearing years to marry, our birth rate will decline. Should that happen, our population-growth rate will decline and the imbalance between the numbers of retirement-aged seniors and working-age tax-payers (so those contributing to social security, medicaid, etc.) will increase.

Right off the bat, your guy looks like a short-sighted imbecile.

2. I clicked on the link to the article this guy claims to be taking his figures from. I even went thru the rigamarole of registering for some stupid site I'll probably never go back to. You know what I found? "The requested article was not found."

Did this guy make up his figures? An op-ed piece is not exactly a reliable source for statistics. Did he look up the actual findings of this study (as in, seek out a report published in a peer-reviewed journal)? If he did, wouldn't you expect him to cite the actual report instead of some flimsy op-ed piece that can't even be found by the site it supposedly was posted on?

Again, it sounds like he's just going off half-cocked, ranting because he wants to rant.

 

wow....what a dreary country we live in....and to think I was contemplating marriage...oh wait, I'm not shallow, brainless, and obsessed with mouching off of someone. I think I WILL get married.

this comment wasn't made in reference to the original poster, but rather to the state of the common female psyche....or even male psyches! No one seems to have the patience to TRY at marriage anymore!

 

Go to google and do a search on "Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and David Popenoe of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University".

 

Obviously this stuff has been all over. The figures seem correct though, and even if they aren't correct, what matters is mens fears of getting married. Its common knowledge that men get ass raped in divorce court. Ever hear jokes about it?

 

As for the other thing you said, him predicting a population decrease. I think thats relevant because we could become the 2nd country in the world to have a decreasing population. Japan is the only country in the world right now whos population is decreasing because people aren't getting married for various reasons.

 

But he didn't predict it. He didn't understand that that was the reason for talking about women's fertility. He was so short-sighted that he portrayed such concerns as just using this study on what's happening to men to "fret about the state of women".

Yes, it's relevant. Unfortunately, the boy who wrote the article couldn't see that.

 

The state of women is the problem. Not that every woman is a problem, but in general it is difficult. The sites try to show they are not generalizing, they are just showing that a majority is the problem. Extreme feminists are the opposite, they generalize men. Instead of discouraging women from marrying men to avoid abusive relationships, they use it to say men are evil oppressors and violent, ect.

Nomarriage.com just discourages men from marrying for specific reasons (AWS was written by a homophobe christian fundy and thats why I don't like it, also its test is stupid).

I don't even want to generalize the extreme feminists though. I've seen a site where they encourage women to become lesbians, but I forgot the URL (it was somewhere on these fourms).

The current mindset of society (men and women) is that if a few people do it then you need to prevent everybody in that gender from doing it. People are becoming more and more suspicious of men who work with children, suspecting them of being child molesters. There are more male child molesters than women (convicted), so people are being more careful of ALL males around children.

 

I'm not sure exactly what point you are trying to make, Green. There are just as many women who are "affraid" or apprehensive (as I like to say) about marriage, as there are men. And what the hell is wrong with waiting until you are older to get married? Is the sole purpose of marriage to procreate? That's not how I ever looked at it. If people want to get divorced, then let them. If they can't be responsible when they get married and set up pre-nups, or do something like have 8 children in 15 years and then decide "it just isn't working out" then so be it. Shit happens, and there are always going to be man-haters and women-haters but you know what, the world is still turning.

 

Amen to that


Tying together marriage and birth rates seems a little suspect, because, shocking as it is; you don't have to be married to have children.
I know plenty of people who have had children then gone on to marry later, when their finances allowed for it.
It's probably a good idea to wait and makes sense considering people's lifestyles/attitudes.

Just going from personal experience yes I want to find the right person and for it to last; but also want to finish university (am in my second year), establish a career so as to have finanical independance and personal achievement/satisfaction, develop the self awareness to know what I want/need in a marrage partner, have enough life experence to make it work, find the guy in the first place etc.
Going on the roughest of maths, that's going to take at least five years if not longer. And I'm 20 now.

Not even sure if I'll ever get married anyway, but meh whatever. Just want to be happy, and don't believe you need to be legal bound to someone for that.

 

If the woman was the bread-winner and the man was the stay at home dad he would be the man making off with the woman's money on a divorce.

It takes two people to make a relationship work. Divorce isn't just a tool women use to dissolve a marriage. There are plenty of men that start the whole divorce process too.

It seems to me that you are out Googling reasons to hate women. Do you think that kind of attitude is a healthy one?

 

This thread is depressing. I suddenly feel like everyone is an opportunist

 

RE: If the woman was the bread-winner and the man was the stay at home dad he would be the man making off with the woman's money on a divorce

VERY VERY rarely.

In fact it gets worse. Guys have been ordered to pay child support for step children. That's right. Mama had two kids, divorced, got the cheques, married again, divorced again and is now collecting child support from two men.

 

Take it up with the system, not with women. There are opportunistic bastards in every gender.

 

I'm not sure exactly what point you are trying to make, Green. There are just as many women who are "affraid" or apprehensive (as I like to say) about marriage, as there are men. And what the hell is wrong with waiting until you are older to get married?- Nothing, I actually recommend waiting until you are older to get married.


Is the sole purpose of marriage to procreate?- Yes, marriage is a system and the porpose of it is so that a man and a woman can be together and procreate. If it wasn't, then nobody would be opposed to gay marriage.

That's not how I ever looked at it. If people want to get divorced, then let them. - Divorce is a sucky process.

If they can't be responsible when they get married and set up pre-nups, or do something like have 8 children in 15 years and then decide "it just isn't working out" then so be it.- Standard bs line, the courts take an insane amount of money and say "don't have more kids than you can support" even though the money might not all be going to the kid.

Shit happens, and there are always going to be man-haters and women-haters but you know what, the world is still turning.- And its getting uglier every day.

 

Amen to that


Tying together marriage and birth rates seems a little suspect, because, shocking as it is; you don't have to be married to have children.- Thats true, but 9 out of 10 times the guys run off when the girl gets pregnant, so I can understand a little bit why women would want it. Thats a statistic from health class.


I know plenty of people who have had children then gone on to marry later, when their finances allowed for it.- Good for them.
It's probably a good idea to wait and makes sense considering people's lifestyles/attitudes. - Yea

Just going from personal experience yes I want to find the right person and for it to last; but also want to finish university (am in my second year), establish a career so as to have finanical independance and personal achievement/satisfaction, develop the self awareness to know what I want/need in a marrage partner, have enough life experence to make it work, find the guy in the first place etc.
Going on the roughest of maths, that's going to take at least five years if not longer. And I'm 20 now. - Thats great, but could you define "Self awareness"?

Not even sure if I'll ever get married anyway, but meh whatever. Just want to be happy, and don't believe you need to be legal bound to someone for that.- Exactilly, you don't need a legal bond, so why would you get one?

 

If the woman was the bread-winner and the man was the stay at home dad he would be the man making off with the woman's money on a divorce. - Yes, in some cases, but I still doubt it. They almost always give the children to the mother.



It takes two people to make a relationship work. Divorce isn't just a tool women use to dissolve a marriage.- It is for some, they dissolve the marriage and make the men pay up.

There are plenty of men that start the whole divorce process too.- There are 1 men for every 3 woman who initiate it, but the men lose most of the time.

It seems to me that you are out Googling reasons to hate women.- I'm not googling reasons to hate women. I don't hate women or anybody, I just don't think I should get married. My dad really wants me to get married. Almost every day he says the word girlfriend or marriage in a sentance to me.

Do you think that kind of attitude is a healthy one?- Men in successful happy marriages live longer lives, assuming they don't have children. Men in unsuccessful marriages lives are much shorter, because of the stress of the marriage, and also the stress of the divorce. The chance that the marriage will go bad is too high and since I don't want to have kid"s", it would be much more healthier to not get married.

As for your question, no its not healthy to hate woman. Social interaction with many different woman (without sex) is highly recommended for men, it leads to lead less stressful lives. The more woman a man knows, the less likely it is he will have a heart attack. Since men can have relationships without having to get married, then there really is no reason to.

The only exception is if you want to have kids. If you want kids then if you get married the guy can't split after you have them, as I said earlier 9 out of 10 guys leave when they findout their girlfriend is pregnant. A guy shouldn't even be thinking about marriage unless he wants kids.

 

Its not the systems fault that society believes men are bad with children, or not as good as women with children. There are opprotunistic bastards in every gender, so we should leave them to each other, and get out of the way.

 

RE: Take it up with the system, not with women

Who do you think runs the system?

 

You think women run the system?

Women don't plot for divorce before they get married any more then men do. If you guys are worried about some woman having your babies then taking your money then just get a prenup and a vasectomy. But stop with the generalizations, you are labeling all women for the acts of the few. We can't help what gender we were born with. I don't waste my time and energy calling men wife-beaters because some men do it. But I know what you want to say say "well there are some women that are like that!" And you know, there are some men that are wife beaters, they are both doing damage. YOU attitude is doing just as much damage as these "femi-nazi's" with their generalizations.