Missing Men and the Biolgical Clock

[JimG]

Come to think about it, what is so wrong with women marrying later and having few children?

Nothing wrong with that at all. I think the concern may be that the later she marries, the more difficult it may be to conceive. And if a woman wants a large family, earlier is better.

Come think of it, in my own extended family there is a trend toward later marriage, later childbearing, and thus older grandparents. Instead of having grandkids in their 50’s or 60’s, some are becoming first time grandparents in their 70’s.

 

[JimG]

Yes.

The whole concept of suffering for the sins of the sexual revolution does leave one with a bad taste.

Frankly, I think it is downright hard hearted to tell that to a lonely person who is yearning to get married.

I don’t think that God asks us to suffer for the sins of the sexual revolution. But it is certainly possible that the sexual revolution may have consequences not of our choosing, playing out in the current problems with marriage. (Rather like making bad loans before the financial crisis had consequences for many people who played no part in it.)

 

[joeybaggz]

Posts like these seriously make me question why I go on CAF. Any issue about race or gender tends to get very nasty on here. As a product of divorce, divorce is a very real reality. I’m a hopeless romantic or naive realism if I believe marriage will last forever or I’m a self-fulfilling pessimistic if I prepare for divorce or believe it is a possibility. Whatever?!!!
I guess self-fulfilling prophecy is a real thing.

Okay, reading your post, maybe I should clarify. There is a saying, “defeat is a self fulfilling prophesy.” An analogy used often in sports motivation. Your original post of preparing for a divorce by setting yourself up first so you survive it if it occurs smacks to me of being defeatist. Unfortunately in today’s world, I have to admit, you have a (unfortunately) valid point. And I might add, not an unintelligent one. Sad.

I’ll stick to my words about Rush’s word chickafied. Feminism has had an altogether destructive effect on today’s male. With no clear vision of a true masculine sense of self identify as to relating to a woman, far too many men are left feeling both entitled and unaccountable for their behavior simply because male self identity as defined by the feminist is nebulous at best.

Apologies for impression I left. I would rephrase the initial post a little bit differently on reflection.

Shalom

.

 

[Xantippe]

What!? You mean men don’t want to marry a **35 year-old Strong Independent Womyn **who has more “conquests” than Casinova and a bad attitude, only to live under the constant threat of divorce and financial ruin if he “emotionally abuses” her by asking for sex more than once a month?

Edit: I should also add the caveat that of course Not All Women Are Like That and I’m sure the single digit virginity rate past 21 among girls doesn’t include a single Catholic girl ever and every woman who reads my comments is literally the Virgin Mary herself.

Aren’t 35-year-old single women mostly divorcees?

 

[Marie5890]

Marriages just a couple of generations back was a way of being economically stable. With women now very able to take care of themselves, financially speaking, that reason for getting married for many women doesn’t exist

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Aren’t 35-year-old single women mostly divorcees?

I hope you’re being humorously sarcastic there…

 

[Xantippe]

I hope you’re being humorously sarcastic there…

Nah, I’m actually serious.

Nationally, the median woman is getting married for the first time at 27, so a 35-year-old never-married woman is not the norm.

I know that the national press loves running articles about sad 30-something single women wringing their hands over Mr. Big, but those are almost always stories about New Yorkers or other big coastal cities. Interestingly, even Washington DC (which is the “state” with the highest median age at first marriage), the median for women is 29.8 and it’s 28.8 for both NY and Massachusetts.

womc.cbslocal.com/2015/11/17/the-average-age-of-marriage-in-every-u-s-state/

There actually seems to be a pretty hard ceiling of 30 for the median, even in areas with painfully high cost of living.

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

There are feedback effects here. When most women don’t signal their readiness for marriage in their 20’s, many men pick up on those signals and don’t bother to work hard enough to prepare themselves either. And that persists through their respective 20’s. Student loans and job availability compound the problem with their sizable influence in discouraging preparation efforts. Now the typical career woman is in her 30’s and listening to her clock, but not enough men caught up. Or else they don’t want any part of her. Peter Pan gets attacked vociferously here and elsewhere, but many attackers miss that most Peter Pan men see their lifestyle as a rational response to the far less forgiving environment they find themselves in our current culture. Personally, I did the hard work, I once regularly disrespected others who didn’t; now I sympathize with them more than I used to though their ways will never be my ways.

I have stated before that outside of the Amish, there is almost no man living in America who hasn’t experienced the financial and personal devastation of divorce either first hand or through watching a father, uncle, brother, cousin, best friend, etc. go through the wringer. Upper middle class and higher economic status and/or Catholic seem to have the best odds of avoiding divorce but even their rates are nothing to be proud of. Hence it’s always in the back of my head when I get interested in a woman and I’m sure many other men looking for marriage are thinking about it too. People still get married, just not at the rates they used to and that is testament to the culture we find ourselves in.

The current statistics on college enrollment are spelling future disaster for a lot of women because most women will not marry down and then they have the gall to complain there are no available men. No sympathy here. Men don’t marry down as much as they used to either as there is too much financial risk involved. So marriage is becoming stratified by class as well, not as much mixing as there used to be.

 

[joeybaggz]

. I don’t think John Wayne is a good example of how to be a man either.

Who is; Richard Simmons, Phil Donohue, Al Bundy??

 

[Xantippe]

There are feedback effects here. **When most women don’t signal their readiness for marriage in their 20’s, many men pick up on those signals and don’t bother to work hard enough to prepare themselves either. **And that persists through their respective 20’s. Student loans and job availability compound the problem with their sizable influence in discouraging preparation efforts. Now the typical career woman is in her 30’s and listening to her clock, but not enough men caught up. Or else they don’t want any part of her. Peter Pan gets attacked vociferously here and elsewhere, but many attackers miss that most Peter Pan men see their lifestyle as a rational response to the far less forgiving environment they find themselves in our current culture. Personally, I did the hard work, I once regularly disrespected others who didn’t; now I sympathize with them more than I used to though their ways will never be my ways.

[snip]

The current statistics on college enrollment are spelling future disaster for a lot of women because most women will not marry down and then they have the gall to complain there are no available men. No sympathy here. Men don’t marry down as much as they used to either as there is too much financial risk involved. So marriage is becoming stratified by class as well, not as much mixing as there used to be.

If the median US woman who gets married is doing so at 27, is it really fair to say that “most women don’t signal their readiness for marriage in their 20’s”?

dailydot.com/irl/average-age-marriage-by-state/

One thing that really pops out at me looking at the state-by-state list is the close relationship between cost of living and median age at first marriage (with some anomalies). It’s if anything a bit of a miracle that Massachusetts couples marry as early as they do with the median home there now costing over $400k (and $560k in Boston). Even just a 10% downpayment would require scratching up $40k.

Realistically, could a 22-year-old couple manage that without substantial help from the Bank of Mom and Dad?

So, yes, young couples in high cost of living areas really do need to get their ducks on a row before settling down, if they ever want to own a home, and that is particularly the case if they are young Catholics who may well wind up having a new baby every other year for the foreseeable future.

Even in blessedly moderate cost of living TX, the median home now costs about $170k (the US median is about $189k). Again, that means that the Texas couple needs to have $17k cash just for the downpayment, while nationally, the median couple needs about $19k just for the downpayment.

The Practical Conservative has written a lot on the subject of women and college. Basically, it’s very hard these days for non-college women to get married.

thepracticalconservative.wordpress.com/2017/05/23/college-educated-women-are-having-all-the-babies-these-days/

“Women who have some college education and especially who are married have a majority of the kids these days (since 2007). This is kinda true even among black women, the college educated ones have a significantly lower OOW percentage and also represent a supermajority of married births since 2007. And with white women, percent married and percent college educated are identical shares of their total births since 2007, about 70% each.”

" The only ladder left is the college one and if a woman at least jumps for a rung and falls down with a busted rung of credits without the credential, she still has a better chance of getting married before the babies come than if she never tries.

“So telling women in aggregate to not “do college” or complaining about them taking classes and not managing to finish enough for a degree is in effect saying that you don’t want kids, plural, in wedlock, to remain the bulk of births.”

Basically, for the average (non-Amish) US woman, there isn’t a trustworthy road to marriage that doesn’t involve college. It is very, very difficult for a woman to get married in the contemporary US without education and at least some sort of attempt at a career. And that goes double or triple for black women.

A woman who is a decent earner/has a good education can both support herself and has a good shot at marriage. A woman who doesn’t have either education or a decent career is up a creek, both with regard to supporting herself and marriage prospects.

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

I’m a woman and I didn’t see any practical benefit in those things in my twenties either, so I wouldn’t blame a man for feeling the same way, especially nowadays when a lot of people don’t even get done with college till they are 23 or 24 or 25.

My mother also encouraged me and the young men in the family (her nephews) to wait until we were past 30 to “settle down”, as she did. Seems to have worked out well for all of us.

On a practical note, marriage, especially in a communal property state makes things more complex and adds a number of downsides compared to the single state. For instance, if still in college then combined incomes might become the basis for financial aid, creating a financial fiction. Or a few years later of both are earning good wages ($95k each) even in high cost of living areas they pay more taxes than two singles.

 

[faithsmind]

Marriages just a couple of generations back was a way of being economically stable. With women now very able to take care of themselves, financially speaking, that reason for getting married for many women doesn’t exist

Yes, I think the necessity of a legal marriage relationship has been lost. It’s now seen as this overly feminized romantic and frivolous public dedication… thingy of puffy white dress nonsense. Less and less is it about respect and responsibility, a legal, public contract which protects dependents of the relationship.

And I think, too, that the majority of these young, marriageable men were most likely exposed to porn during adolescence, and most of them probably have a very heavy addiction that hasn’t encouraged much else to bloom in their life.

 

[ATraveller]

Who is; Richard Simmons, Phil Donohue, Al Bundy??

Not many in Hollywood come to mind unfortunately. Jim Caviezel.

 

[twf]

On a practical note, marriage, especially in a communal property state makes things more complex and adds a number of downsides compared to the single state. For instance, if still in college then combined incomes might become the basis for financial aid, creating a financial fiction. Or a few years later of both are earning good wages ($95k each) even in high cost of living areas they pay more taxes than two singles.

I’m not convinced that being able to buy a house should be the measuring stick for “ready to marry” - though that seems to be the prevailing opinion on CAF.
With the most basic detached houses going for $1.5 million plus here in Vancouver, and rising by the day, I honestly have no interest. Let’s say I had $2 million cash right now. I’m sorry… on principle alone four walls and a roof aren’t worth that much money to me.
My wife and I live in a housing co-op. We are shareholders of the co-op and the co-op owns the complex. Our 930 square foot unit is more than enough space for our little family and there’s a huge shared yard with playground etc in the back. Of course if we had 5 kids instead of one… I guess we would have to leave Vancouver.

 

[NonTimendum]

Only 20% of all adults 18-29 are married.

 

[Beryllos]

…
I don’t think John Wayne is a good example of how to be a man either.

Who is; Richard Simmons, Phil Donohue, Al Bundy??

Not many in Hollywood come to mind unfortunately. Jim Caviezel.

How about Donald Trump? Now there is a real man for today’s world!

 

[ATraveller]

I’m not convinced that being able to buy a house should be the measuring stick for “ready to marry” - though that seems to be the prevailing opinion on CAF.

It shouldn’t be.
Who’s ready to marry? A 25 year old wealthy fund manager with an ego problem who binge drinks, consumes party drugs and street races during weekends OR a 25 year old who is humble in character, renting an apartment, works at a locally owned café and is just managing?

With the most basic detached houses going for $1.5 million plus here in Vancouver, and rising by the day, I honestly have no interest. Let’s say I had $2 million cash right now. I’m sorry… on principle alone four walls and a roof aren’t worth that much money to me.
My wife and I live in a housing co-op. We are shareholders of the co-op and the co-op owns the complex. Our 930 square foot unit is more than enough space for our little family and there’s a huge shared yard with playground etc in the back. Of course if we had 5 kids instead of one… I guess we would have to leave Vancouver.

Sadly no one wants to fix the problem of foreign buyers buying up properties with no intention of actually living in them or even renting them out, driving up the costs for people who do need a place to live or more room. This is happening in many more urbanized places around the world unfortunately. Older people would see a decrease in what they’ve invested in and politicians regardless of party would be afraid that much of the ‘economic growth’ in such places since 2008 would be revealed to be a sham. So nothing gets done.

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

If the median US woman who gets married is doing so at 27, is it really fair to say that “most women don’t signal their readiness for marriage in their 20’s”?

Fair point, but it’s later than it used to be. I still think women who marry by 25 are better off if they’ve vetted their husbands. I know that women can have babies into their 40’s, I even know a few of their kids. But realistically the 20’s are the best time, women in their 20’s tend to be more fertile and in better shape than their older sisters, and their babies tend to have fewer complications.

The Practical Conservative has written a lot on the subject of women and college. Basically, it’s very hard these days for non-college women to get married.

thepracticalconservative.wordpress.com/2017/05/23/college-educated-women-are-having-all-the-babies-these-days/

“Women who have some college education and especially who are married have a majority of the kids these days (since 2007). This is kinda true even among black women, the college educated ones have a significantly lower OOW percentage and also represent a supermajority of married births since 2007. And with white women, percent married and percent college educated are identical shares of their total births since 2007, about 70% each.”

" The only ladder left is the college one and if a woman at least jumps for a rung and falls down with a busted rung of credits without the credential, she still has a better chance of getting married before the babies come than if she never tries.

“So telling women in aggregate to not “do college” or complaining about them taking classes and not managing to finish enough for a degree is in effect saying that you don’t want kids, plural, in wedlock, to remain the bulk of births.”

Basically, for the average (non-Amish) US woman, there isn’t a trustworthy road to marriage that doesn’t involve college. It is very, very difficult for a woman to get married in the contemporary US without education and at least some sort of attempt at a career. And that goes double or triple for black women.

A woman who is a decent earner/has a good education can both support herself and has a good shot at marriage. A woman who doesn’t have either education or a decent career is up a creek, both with regard to supporting herself and marriage prospects.

This dovetails with what I said about men marrying down. Once upon a time they were more willing to do so, that’s mostly gone now due to the financial risk inherent in doing so. A woman who can support herself is a justification for much lower, much fewer or often no alimony payments.

Child support still has to be negotiated and paid; this is often part of why custody battles can be so intense: the ex-wife who can’t get alimony is looking for more of the income stream she had access to when married and the children are her pathway to it, but the ex-husband wants to minimize that by taking more physical custody.

Divorcing someone in or close to a man’s own income demographic tends to be less disastrous financially for him than marrying someone from a clearly lower income demographic. That’s not a Catholic attitude, but it is the realistic one for the culture we live in. That kind of rational response thinking on the part of men is what is on display in those quotes you take from The Practical Conservative. To blame men for this is disingenuous, we’re just responding to the disincentives in front of us, that should be addressed instead.

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

Sadly no one wants to fix the problem of foreign buyers buying up properties with no intention of actually living in them or even renting them out, driving up the costs for people who do need a place to live or more room. This is happening in many more urbanized places around the world unfortunately. Older people would see a decrease in what they’ve invested in and politicians regardless of party would be afraid that much of the ‘economic growth’ in such places since 2008 would be revealed to be a sham. So nothing gets done.

It isn’t just foreign buyers who influence the markets, AirBnB has had a rather deleterious effect in high rent neighborhoods. Somewhere I saw a link to a paper studying AirBnB effects on available rental stock in New York City. The numbers blew my mind, I will say that. It’s a huge complaint in San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver as well.

 

[Book_Worm]

This thread is one of the worst I have ever read, and on CAF, that’s saying a lot.

So Limbaugh has decreed that men have been emasculated? Well, you’ll pardon me if I give him all the respect a four-time divorced drug addict deserves in the area of male-female relationships.

Women are no longer financially dependent upon men. They can have careers and provide for themselves. Women are no longer willing to settle for the self-absorbed, misogynistic man who is looking for a subservient wife, who will gaze at him adoringly no matter what idiotic clap-trap falls from his lips. Real men (and in my book, thrice-married John Wayne didn’t fall into that category) appreciate intelligent, well educated, independent women. The fact that there are a good number of men who listen to what Rush Limbaugh has to say may well be one of the reasons women are reluctant to marry.