The Shrinking Gap- The Conundrum of Female SMV and Marriage

My latest post, which examined how male attractiveness increasing with age is thwarted by the current nature of the marriage market, prompted a female reader of mine to contact me. She agreed with my assessment of the state of the MMP for men, and then offered her thoughts on how things worked for women. I thought they were excellent points, and she graciously allowed me to integrate them into a post. The first part of this post will be quotes from the two of us, mostly hers, with some of my replies. The second part will be an analysis and summary of the points raised earlier.

I.

My reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, said this:

[As a woman it] may be, or rather, it is simple enough to attract a man in your age bracket that displays good overall LAMPS simply by being young and in shape while dressing and acting in a feminine manner. But that only gets my foot in the door. Once the serious talks begin, then there is a completely different set of things that I have to consider.

I think one of the more common situations I have encountered is a man who, nearing or in his early 30s, is ready to settle down with a woman younger than himself. But similarly to situations Red Pill men encounter with various women, he has already “lived his life,” so to speak. He has had numerous “relationships,” ONS’s and everything in between with various women usually starting from high school moving forward and he may have been heavy into the party/club scene which typically means he was also probably heavy into drugs/alcohol. Add a kid or two to put the icing on the cake. Then finally at some point in his late 20s/early 30s he “grows out of that phase” and wants to settle down and take his life and faith seriously. Now keep in mind, these are men in the age bracket to which I am directed to open my search. This search can continue well into my mid to late 20s where by then, my overall [SMV] and fertility are beginning their decline.

When I remarked that she was one of the few women who seemed as cautious of a man’s history as (aware) men tend to be of a woman’s history, she added this:

It’s common Red Pill knowledge what a fast lifestyle in ones twenties can do to woman, ranging from poor overall health, an inability to bond to one man, an overall jaded worldview and the list goes on. But I view it as more of a general thing: one’s past, man or woman, effects your future for better or worse. And speaking from a strictly Christian perspective, I’d be mistaken to attempt to hitch my wagon to a man that had his share of pump and dumps before deciding to settle down in the same way a man would avoid a woman with the same history. A lot can be said for forgiveness and repentance, but a man’s past still counts. At least for me, anyway. That goes equally for sinful misconduct outside the sexual arena, as well. These things can often times be clear markers of different character or personality flaws that may show up further down the road and should I be married to such a man and these patterns or behaviors rear their ugly heads… what can I do?

I responded with these observations:

You make a great point that there are really two different searches someone is conducting. The first is to search for someone who wants to marry, and the second is to search among those who want to marry for someone worth marrying.

…

I suspect that the reason why the kind of men you describe are common is because those men who never engaged in the party or hook-up have “checked out.” They eschew dating in general, most likely because they were burned one too many times by women.

…

It seems to be a general conundrum that both men and women face: those who are willing to marry are not worthy, and those who are worthy don’t want to marry.

Those were the most relevant parts of our conversation. This brings us to part 2.

II.

In my previous post, I explained the dilemma that men faced:

The older we get, the more attractive we become to women, but at the same time, there are less marriageable women available to us.

Women face a different situation, one that on its face seems quite a bit worse: Their SMV decreases over time, and there aren’t necessarily any more marriageable men available to them over time.

Women have the advantage of starting off in a better position than men, and that is a considerable advantage, to be sure. But in the current MMP it isn’t so much of an advantage as it could/should be. Younger women who want to marry young find that men their age don’t tend to want to marry. At least, that is what I have heard from my younger female readers, including the one who inspired this post. In this sense, younger men and women are alike; both eschew marriage for the time being. This is unfortunate for young women looking to marry, because younger men tend to have less baggage (just as younger women tend to have less baggage). Those younger men who do want to marry tend to be less attractive, and often are poor choices in other ways as well.

Once you start to look at the older cohort of men you find that they are more attractive, and more eager to marry. On the flip side, they oftentimes have a lot of baggage from their wild and crazy years. While most men don’t build up the same amount of baggage that women do on the carousel, it can and will affect them nonetheless. Most of the men who don’t have baggage fall into two camps: those who chose not to accumulate baggage, and those who couldn‘t accumulate baggage. The first group is a small percentage of the population, and hard to find (at least, that is what I’ve heard from my female readers). The second group are often poor choices for marriage, because their lack of baggage is largely a result of deficiencies on their part. Also, many of them might not be interested in marriage to begin with, and the absence of baggage arose from the fact that they have left the field and no longer play the game (think MGTOW).

So all in all, for a woman looking for a good man without baggage to be her husband, the pickings look slim indeed. Much the same as it is for men. To repeat myself, those who are willing to marry are usually not worthy, and those who are worthy usually don’t want to marry. And this seems to be the case for men and women.

Thus we get the conundrum that marriage minded women face in the present age: They start out near the peak of their attractiveness, but are in a race against the clock to find marriageable men before their attractiveness fades so much they no longer interest those men.

 

Update: In case it wasn’t clear enough in the main post, this post is written from the perspective of some of my female readers. I don’t necessarily think that all of the observations are correct, but I assumed them to be true for the sake of argument in this post. It was either that, or call them liars. Despite that, I think the ultimate conclusion is still accurate.