What is man's incentive to marry?

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Doing God’s will, of course, but also sex and family. For good Catholic men, marriage is the only way to licitly have sex and start a family.

You’re right, though, that marriage is deeply disadvantageous for men in modern society, given how many women will abandon their husbands and children on a whim and subject them to divorce-theft bonanzas with the aid of the state. What a mess of things feminism has made. Small wonder so many men prefer porn.
I don’t think that was what the OP meant. Her question was about men, it could equally apply to women.

Your statement about men and women and marriage is true and it is very disrespectful to women and to men.
 
This said, I do wonder abouth the thought process that led you to this connection. Got me a little curious. Anyway…
Oh dear,… yes… my thought processes… :o I do claim there is some coherency to it, but it just might be too subjective. I admit they are hard to follow. Its why I do art- a picture is worth a thousand words after all and I can’t seem to think in a narrow precise simple orderly fashion- like men do.

Which reminds me of this bit:

A Tale of Two Brains youtube.com/watch?v=gH71cbhreQE
 
True… feminism has made a mess of things. Not only for men, but for women who want to be “old fashioned”. If you are a woman who didn’t get proposed to after schooling, you are basically sucked into a system which requires you not to be who you are. (old fashioned) And on top of that, “old fashioned” to many young men means “boring in bed” or “prudish”. These women are not exciting enough to the males- even if they have the body of a porn star.

It looks as if society is truly going to crash- Men with their porn and and women deciding to use their looks for income equates to women being treated as objects, and I suspect rape and violent crime will increase five fold.
I disagree. Your views on men and women in general,are very pessimistic and rather insulting.
Feminism has done a lot of good in this world. I suppose there are some who still fear it - ah well.
 
The benefits of marriage for men are the same as for women. Love, companionship, sex, procreation, stability, comfort, etc…and most importantly the grace to both deal with life’s problems as a united front and to lead each other to heaven.

Marriage is not meant to be solely a financial agreement. Your post seems centered on the monetary benefits of marriage and little else, so maybe that is why your question isn’t making a lot of sense to me. If a man OR a woman is so crippled by the fear of a spouse taking all “their” money, they aren’t ready for marriage in the first place.
I agree.
 
An answer based on observation of myself and other men…

Men marry because they love a woman, and want to have her companionship as a wife, have sex with her, and raise a family with her.

There is often some tension in the second part, ie. companionship, between a man’s and a woman’s expectations. Most men prefer a woman who will run the house and support his career, while many women resist this and seek “fulfillment” in work and other ways (… :rolleyes:) outside the home.

My favourite romance saying is “Women crave intensity, men crave comfort”.
Most men in Australia, in the US or in the world? Certainly not the men in my family, my male relatives, friends. They are happy to support their wives as their wives support them.
 
Studies have shown time and time again that married men are healthier and live longer than single men. Obviously marriage is good for them.

I think the same goes for women. Single women however are better off than single men as single women have larger social support than single men.
 
Hmmmm… I don’t know how to answer you Lorelei12 or faithfully…

Perhaps I’m not sure what it means, and with all due respect, I don’t believe it means just means being faithful to God, and I don’t believe it simply means ‘bringing home the bacon’. I come from a lot of different church backgrounds- mostly Protestant-, so I’ve heard many things as to what it means. Leadership, yes, definitely. But leadership entails that one is over you… and if couples act like equal heads coming together, then I think something is off. ?? It should be clear who is the leader by the way people act and behave around that person. There should be actual submission. I don’t see that with a lot of married women these days. It may be nice, but I’m not sure its what Christ meant.

Yes I know I sound very old fashioned. I will probably get ripped for that.

Perhaps I ought to start another thread and ask men what it means to be “head of the household” in a Christian Scriptural sense. I think women tend to stretch things a bit too far in its meaning these days- even if they are well meaning in doing so… and that has me concerned. I’m just not sure, that’s all, so go easy on me!!!
You can believe what you want and live your life and future marriage the way you want. Some of us do not want one partner in a marriage to head the other. We prefer mutual respect and submission. Men having authority over women is not Catholic doctrine.
 
WIth all due respect, reading in between the lines of your post, it does appear this is your insecurity. When I was 30, I use to think there was a lot of time. One day around 36 I realized that even if I did marry given my age, I would not be able to have the large family I always wanted. (I never saw the point of making all the sacrifices one makes to be a mom unless I could get a lot of kids out of the deal but that is another post). So I decided to accept God’s will. And guess what…At 42 I am very happy and know beyond a shadow of a doubt trusting God’s will is the best thing I can do. Children are great, but I don’t need to have my own to have a great life.

Instead of trying to figure out men (which by the way are just like women in the sense that if you know one you do NOT know them all) why not try and figure out God’s will for you. A lot of people say ‘When I decided to do God’s will, my spouse showed up’. Personally, I think that is hogwash. When I decided to do God’s will, my spouse did not show up but joy did enter my life.

Don’t blame other women putting out for your single status.

It does not matter what year it is. Jesus never like what He saw in society when he walked the face of the earth but He dies for us on the cross regardless. Just because the prevalent sin today is pre marital sex, it does not mean other generations did not suffer of equally sinful behaviours

Well… I would take that with a grain of salt. When I hear a man say ‘there is no incentive to marry’ deep down I think the guy is just trying to look cool on the outside because he can’t get a girl

CMS
Well and honestly said.👍
 
Hi AnnElizabeth, This is from the CDC (2007) Being married can give a men more years to get close to Our Lord.👍
cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr55/nvsr55_19.pdf
National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 55, No. 19, August 21, 2007 11
Marital status
For those aged 15 years and over, the number of deaths in 2004 of persons who were married was 919,270; widowed, 892,017; never married, 248,424; and divorced, 286,758 (Table 25); see ‘‘Technical Notes.’’ Those who never married had the highest age-adjusted death rate, followed by widowed, divorced, and then married persons. The never-married group had an age-adjusted death rate that was
61.4 percent higher than the ever-married group and 2.2 times the rate for the currently married. Age-adjusted death rates for widowed were 88.8 percent higher than the rates for those who were currently married at the time of death. Divorced persons had a rate 88.7 percent higher than those who were married at the time of death.
For all age groups 15 years and over, death rates for married persons were much lower than those for never-married persons. For ages 15–24 years, divorced persons had the highest death rates, whereas, at ages 25–34 years, widowed persons had the highest death rate. For ages 35–44, 45–54, 55–64, and 75 years and over, those who never married had the highest death rates.
For each marital status group in 2004, males had higher age-adjusted death rates than females, ranging from 26.8 percent greater for the never married to 109.7 percent greater for those married at the time of death.
 
Hmmm… interesting you brought that up. I can see how this ties into things too… And not to bring in another thing to add to the discussion but there is this…

Matthew 6:24
“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

(note here some versions instead of “money” say “mammon” others say “wealth” and others say “riches”- I note that because its not just about dollar bills. Wealth and riches imply luxury, having things.)

And this I don’t understand when it comes to modern women. They say that they can have it all. They have a boss (from their career) and a husband (and children). They say they can juggle this fine, but I would not be able to. If I marry, I am HIS. I can’t be his and also my boss’s. ** If I set it up that way, one of them is going to be shortchanged- severely.** I would then be working for TWO masters and like Christ said, I’m going to either love one and hate the other or vise verse… Or maybe just hate them both because I’m being burned at two ends of the candle, so to speak. (Please, no jokes about being a slave to a man- master is just another word for the one over me, and a husband is the head of the household.)

It would seem to me that for a married woman working they would be serving money and not God. I believe that a married woman should be the helpmeet for her husband- all of her exists for working on behalf of her husband. That is her job. I don’t understand this modern idea that well, husband and wife are equals/partners or the idea that a woman should be able to fulfill herself outside of marriage in a career. Shouldn’t she be fulfilled in being a helpmeet for her husband? And isn’t it kind of like a slap in the face to the man if he provides and she doesn’t want to stay within the home and work on his behalf? And instead she is tied up with her own business, not fully attending to him and his needs and the needs of children? IS this really ‘egotistical’ of a man to want to wish that his wife would dedicate herself to him? (I’m not saying she should worship him as a God) Is this not how Christ wishes for us, His Bride, to do also? Is it not said that if a Christian starts to dedicate themselves to other things that are not God that this displeases Him? If we work for something other than Him, isn’t this idolatry? If we are lukewarm about serving- this also displeases, right?

I can see that I might be -with all I’ve discussed- all over the field and certainly hard to follow (and maybe even a bit nuts), but the way I see it is that all these things I’ve discussed tie in to the crisis we have today.
I am glad the Church does not say that a woman must be the wife you want to be. A woman does not stop being a person in her own right when she marries.
 
Men having authority over women is not Catholic doctrine.
Thanks so far for your posts… I am taking them in consideration. As far as men having authority over women not being Catholic doctrine, would you find documentation of that for me and post that here? In the meantime, I will do my homework as well and look it up.
 
Thanks so far for your posts… I am taking them in consideration. As far as men having authority over women not being Catholic doctrine, would you find documentation of that for me and post that here? In the meantime, I will do my homework as well and look it up.
Thank you for your charitable response. I will send you links. Perhaps you can look at it in a different way as in “where does the Church say that men have authority over women?”
 
I am glad the Church does not say that a woman must be the wife you want to be. A woman does not stop being a person in her own right when she marries.
Hmm… not sure you understood what I was trying to say correctly, or that i was not conveying correctly what I wanted to say. I realize a woman does not stop being a person in her own right. That’s what I meant by the statemtn taht women are not to worship men as if they were God. But I do think that we are supposed to submit to our husbands as the head of the house, that is, he is the leader… not two ‘equals’… but I may be errouneous in stating it that way…

Here I looked it up at least in one Catholic book. This is from “My Catholic Faith” 1949 (I’m going old-timey here since there are those Catholics who are cautious about the new catachism.)

Under 164. Duties of Married Life
  1. For its type and model, marriage has the Mystical Union between Christ and His Church. The husband should love his wife as Christ loves the Church, with a holy and supernatural love, as his own self. **The wife should love and obey her husband as the head of the family. **
it goes on to say…

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church” (Eph. 5: 25) “Wives be subject to your husbands, as it is becoming in the Lord” (Col. 3:19) In explaining the meaning of this latter passage, Pius XI his encyclical on Christian marriage says: “This subjection does not take away the liberty which fully belongs to the woman both in view of her dignity as a human person , and in view of her most noble office as wife and mother and companion: or does it bid her obey her husband’s every request, even if not in harmony with right reason or the dignity due her as wife…But it forbids that exaggerated liberty which cares not for the good of the family; it forbids that in this body which is the family, the heart be separated form the head, to the great detriment of the whole body, and the proximate danger of ruin. For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place of ruling, she ought to claim for herself the chief place in love”
 
…And this I don’t understand when it comes to modern women. They say that they can have it all. They have a boss (from their career) and a husband (and children). They say they can juggle this fine, but I would not be able to. If I marry, I am HIS. I can’t be his and also my boss’s. ** If I set it up that way, one of them is going to be shortchanged- severely.** I would then be working for TWO masters and like Christ said, I’m going to either love one and hate the other or vise verse… Or maybe just hate them both because I’m being burned at two ends of the candle, so to speak…
Is this not also true of a man who works for an employer, instead of for himself? It can, but it does not need to.

How can it be avoided, you ask? Well, my husband and I avoid it by considering the job of one to be the job of both. His job is also my job; my job is his job. We both work for the good of the entire family. Remember…it is not your husband or your employer who is your master. It is the Lord who is your master, whether you marry or whether you don’t, whether you have a job that pays money or whether you do other work.

The main thing, then, is to choose your career knowing that if you marry you will conduct it from a single life shared with a person with whom you will hope to be a parent, as well. That doesn’t close off this career or that career, but it does close off conducting a career in your own way instead of in a way arrived at by joint decision and joint consent.

I say this married to someone in a career that has a very high divorce rate. I believe that it has made a great difference to my husband to know that I see his job as our job and the sacrifices he makes at work to be sacrifices he makes on our behalf as a family…we accept his sacrifices because we see them as our sacrifices. He is not torn; he is supported. That has made all the difference.

The would-be “career person”, especially if she is a woman, has to realize that this attitude is not the norm. There is a lot of “my career” and “your career” thinking among couples, whether two-earner or single-earner. That is a recipe for a lot of discontent, and I think it is a recipe for a heightened risk of divorce, too.

The main thing, then is this: To marry someone who has an attitude that “I am not my own.” The less they go around thinking “mine” and “what’s in it for me?”, the better. Neither should their life revolve around you, but rather your relationship will evolve to revolve around what you are called to do as a couple. That is a person with whom you can found a good marriage and a sound family.
 
As a man my incentive to marry was a part of my continued faith journey. I felt the Lord calling me to marry my wife to care for her and help her grow in holiness. Marriage is a vocation, not just something you eventually do in life. Raising a family is the fruit of marriage and a father’s role is irreplacable in the lives of his children for many reasons. I think the big issues society is having today is a result of a lack of fathers influence in kids lives. So while a good Catholic man would always strive towards holiness and follow the Lord, why wouldn’t I listen to His call? Also, marriage helps me to grow as well because my wife constantly points out my short comings that I somehow overlook myself. It helps me contiunally try and convert my life to be more like Christ. Men shouldn’t look at today’s problems and say well apparently the world’s “good enough” without me, so I won’t bother. Are we supposed to be content with being “good enough”? No a real man (and I’m far from this, but trying) says I can help make this world better by serving others.
 
Furthermore, continuing on from my previous post… If a woman loves her job and her career, she isn’t submitting to the head and she is not doing it for the well being of the family. she is doing it for herself, and that is to great detriment to the family!!!
 
Furthermore, continuing on from my previous post… If a woman loves her job and her career, she isn’t submitting to the head and she is not doing it for the well being of the family. she is doing it for herself, and that is to great detriment to the family!!!
To love your job and to make sacrifices in it for your family are not mutually exclusive. If a priest loves his parish, does that mean he is not in submission to his bishop? No, it does not. He could hate his parish and be rebellion from his bishop, and he could love his parish and yet be willing to submit to whatever obedience to his bishop calls him to do.

Remember, too, that a husband is not the head of his household like a secular monarch. He is at the head of his household as Christ is at the head of the Church. He is not there to make everything revolve around what he wants for himself. He is there to make it possible for everyone to constantly be realigned with the will of the Father. Of course it is possible that this will include making sacrifices himself so that his wife can do work that God ordained for her to do. The thing is that everyone in the family has to have this attitude. Where there is one wage-earner and one person who takes care of everything else, it can be more easily hidden that this is not the model, but hiding the truth doesn’t change it.
 
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