[This is a reference post, made to be linked to in the future by myself, or anyone else who finds it helpful and convenient. It may be updated over time to include both past and future conduct.]
There is a significant delay right now in the age of first marriage in the US. We are well outside the historical norm, with women now at marrying at roughly 27 and men at 29. As many have pointed out, including myself, this is a disaster with many repercussions. Among them are a huge increase in sexual immorality, an increase in divorce and a drop in the birthrate.
Possible solutions for this problem are outside the context of this post. Instead, the focus is on why this problem developed. Some have accused men of driving the delay in marriage. An example of this can be found in one of Dalrock’s posts, Clearing the Christian marriage-market. Dalrock correctly points out to one “Pastor Wilson” that it is not men (or at least, not primarily men) who are responsible for this. Rather, it is women who are driving the delay in marriage in the US right now. To quote from that post:
He overlooks the fact that women are very open about their desire to ride the carousel for as long as possible before marriage. He also clearly doesn’t understand the realities of the sexual marketplace (SMP) and marriage marketplace (MMP). Young women are the rockstars of the SMP, while young men are near the bottom. Since young women have the power, they set the terms. And what women want* is years, if not a decade or more, of sex with a small subset of the most attractive men before settling for a boring loyal dude. It makes no sense that men would prefer to marry just when their SMP stock is on the rise, and just when the SMP stock of their soon to be bride is rapidly declining.
Now, women need not desire to participate in the carousel, or at least not participate (although they may want to) to delay marriage. They might simply use their twenties for other endeavors. For example, there is the phenomenon of “Good Christian Girls” going on extended mission trips or ministries or the like. Adding up, they can do these for years, and in the process, delay marriage.
If it were men delaying marriage, and not women, then we would see a greater divergence between the median age of men and first marriage, and the median age of women at first marriage. But there is no such divergence. The gap between the two has remained relatively constant over the course of decades. Given that men prefer young women over older women, all else being equal, and given that women prefer men a few years older than themselves, we can determine that this delay is largely attributable to women.
Update 1:
As a matter of clarification, I am speaking about the micro level here. It is individual women choosing to delay marriage, en masse, which is driving this delay. This is not to say that men are not involved in this process. A fair number of men are delaying marriage too- some because they are told to, and others because they don’t need marriage to get their share of female companionship. In addition, fathers play a huge role in this delay of marriage. Many of them are essentially teaching their daughters to act like sons, and encouraging them towards a life path that necessitates marriage. So men are not blameless here.
At the same time, if one wants to fix this problem, and it is a problem, the primary focus needs to be on changing female behavior. Of course, that necessitates that fathers stop giving bad advice to their daughters. But the focus is on female behavior all the same, although covering the penumbra of factors which influence it.
Furthermore, I am not interested in a blame game. Rather, the goal is to identify a problem, and its source.
[ My readers are of course encouraged to offer their own thoughts as well, and any data they have to support it.]
Donal Graeme 
This released early by accident. I won’t retract it at this point, but it is still a work in progress, FYI.
I think it’s kind of a moot point to constantly state the obvious. The “WHY” isn’t asked far enough.
My thoughts are, women are delaying marriage because marriage doesn’t have the same status anymore. Socioeconomic and class factor into this. Marriage used to be a status boost especially for lower-income women, but now it’s an “eh.” When we live in a world where cohabitation is favorable and has the privileges of marriage, of course no one bothers. Plenty of Christian cohabit before marriage, and plenty of pastors turn a blind eye to it.
What kind of women? Secular– who cares? Devout Christian men shouldn’t want them anyway. Devout women from religious communities? It’s unlikely they’d want to delay.
Here’s something I’d like to see discussed– could it be Christians are bad at dating/courtship? There are plenty of stories online about Christians treating a coffee date like some weird job interview. It’s like, relax people. No need to bring the grocery list or check off those boxes, now. The pressure make singleness appear more attractive.
Maea beat me to it. I was going to ask Why?”.Marriage is designed to benefit women and facilitate raising children. If women are putting it off, there is some drawback they are being quiet about.
Maea, your complaints about dating sound familiar. It must be the same for Christians as it is for seculars.
Dalrock is myopic. Women? Sheep. Slaves to their biology, they don’t drive anything but TV ratings. Dalrock should read more Fuzzie:
Small families by choice cannot coexist within traditional marriage for long. Exceptions exist for elite men. But men either offer girls offspring of quantity or she’s gonna be a carousel girl, seeking quality. The wall comes fast. Dalrock forgot God’s first commandment: Multiply. But women won’t. Darwin calls.
I’ve seen modern women gape at the mere idea of a family of size. Something the poorest of traditional women take for granted. They should: modern men rightfully won’t risk it. This is what the patriarch traditionally offered (quantity). When she’s young. But that’s not on the menu today. The carousel (quality) beacons her as the next best option.
Summary: Birth control makes modern do-it-yourself marriage obsolete for women. Today’s religious freaks offer a girl nothing she can’t get on her own, plus no real religious authority. She’s dumb, sure. But not that dumb.
Women are delaying marriage because of hypergamy. It’s that simple.
As I stated at Dalrock’s, something external has to push on a 20-something woman to make her actually try to get married. It could be her social circle, it could be social pressure, it could be her age approaching 30. I’ll expand.
College women are surrounded by a social circle that prizes “experience” and independence over marriage, unless said women deliberately place themselves in a smaller subset that prizes marriage. College church ministries would be the logical place for this, because sororities, etc. all are now about “fun”, i.e. sexual action. Women are very influenced by their social circle…
Society is all YuGoGrrl. The societal pressure on women now is to go to some kind of school post high school, get a job, have her fun, then settle at 20. This is crudely referred to as AF-BB, it is an accurate label, and yes, churchgoing women do it, too; they are women first, and everything else second.
Age approaching 30 is what Rollo calls the “epiphany” phase, when a women realizes that she cannot compete with the women under 25 on looks anymore, so now…NOW….she will consider looking at men whom she previously would have discarded. Her hypergamy can be satisfied a bit more easily.
tl;dr
Women are delaying marriage because of their hypergamy. Men are reacting to women’s choices. There is no marriage strike. Pastor Wilson is ignorant of the world around him, he writes like a foolish old man.
Here’s something I’d like to see discussed– could it be Christians are bad at dating/courtship?
Could be. A lot of women over a certain age in the modern world have a 437 bullet point checklist they want a man to meet. A lot of men of any age in the modern world have been so beaten down by feminism that they are in fear of being accused of inappropriate behavior just for breathing too hard.
Then there’s all the fallout from “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”, the “courtship” movement, the “purity” movement, etc. that seems to have taught both men and women to completely suppress any natural femininity (“don’t tempt!”) or masculinity (“Male Gaze! Bad man!’) so that when I see churchgoing people in a social setting they really do act more like brother and sister than anything else.
Plus the churches seem to have become beta factories. The whole “servant leader” notion seems to turn men into total “yes, dear!” doormats. But men like that are not attractive to women, however useful they may be to church and parachurch organizations.
While I was looking for something else I ran across a reference to “Guttentag-Secord”. There’s a book
Bastiat blogger has some details here:
http://bastiatblogger.blogspot.com/2011/10/marriage-supermarkets-guttentag-secord.html
The tl;dr on Bastiat is this: the slightest imbalance in the sex ratio drives women to compete very heavilly for the attentions of men. This is why women in NYC find that sex is expected on the first date, for example, because other women will do so.
This effect is in addition to the “YuGoGrrl” attitude of the secular world that has seeped into a whole lot of churches.
Bottom line: a lot of women in the modern world aren’t going to get a man. Prudent women will find a good man before they are 25 and marry.
Prudent men will screen very, very, very hard for that kamikaze run…
Women are delaying marriage because of hypergamy
Women have always been hypergamous. There were many periods in history where women were expected to be hypergamous, or her family was. Marriage was pragmatic for many. This was to the benefit of her future family and for her security. It had a purpose.
Now hypergamy has no purpose at all. Modern courtship is fanciful, and people think the same way about marriage. What else could make it different?
I thought it was mostly agreed that marriage was a bad idea for Christians and people in general these days, because of a lack of suitable candidates. So why does it matter that its being delayed? I ask out of curiosity, because on the one hand “marriage leads to divorce rape” on the other hand you talk about it like its a thing you still want.
If it were men delaying marriage, and not women, then we would see a greater divergence between the median age of men and first marriage, and the median age of women at first marriage. But there is no such divergence. The gap between the two has remained relatively constant over the course of decades. Given that men prefer young women over older women, all else being equal, and given that women prefer men a few years older than themselves, we can determine that this delay is largely attributable to women.
I think it’s driven primarily by female preferences, in terms of not wanting to marry before the “appointed time”, which currently is the late 20s, but has been creeping up. This is a combination of advice from parents, social pressure and individual preferences for most women in their 20s, and when you put all of that together it’s a powerful force.
In the broader culture, two kinds of people determine the terms of relationships: women and the top tier men (the in-demand men). The rank and file of men do not set the terms of their relationships with women, the women do. And so if the women do not want to marry before 28, the marriages won’t happen, unless … a top tier man proposes to her at 23 and she feels she has to take the offer because she may not get another one like that again (that’s where the top tier guys get to dictate their own terms). It’s this way in the Church as well — the Christian alpha may be able to get an attractive Christian girl to marry him at 23 (this seems to be relatively common among Protestant pastors, for example, which probably drives much of their thinking about marriage), but the rank and file Christian beta won’t until she’s in her late 20s. It’s cost/benefit to the woman, and that doesn’t skew toward marriage before the late 20s unless the asker is a top tier man who may not come around again, and therefore the opportunity cost curve differs in that specific situation. Of course the situation can be different if you are in a truly traditional niche — most people are not.
@DJ
I thought it was mostly agreed that marriage was a bad idea…because of a lack of suitable candidates…on the one hand “marriage leads to divorce rape” on the other hand you talk about it like its a thing you still want.
I wonder the same thing, too. Throughout the manosphere, it’s quite obvious people don’t expect women to change and have a very poor view of them. On the other hand, people want to marry because…? If women are inherently terrible what’s the point?
Throughout the manosphere, it’s quite obvious people don’t expect women to change and have a very poor view of them. On the other hand, people want to marry because…? If women are inherently terrible what’s the point?
This corner is the Christian manosphere, in which the male participants are not going to be having sex outside of marriage. So while most guys in the Christian manosphere are very concerned about the current state of marriage, and the lack of suitable women for traditional Christian marriage, eschewing marriage completely means strict celibacy for the men here, and I don’t think most of the guys here feel called to that. They may end up with that, I think they realize, but it won’t be because they were following a call to celibacy.
In the rest of the manosphere, outside the Christian part of it, of course men are not restricting themselves in this way, and so easily dispense with marriage and its risks and simply pursue women for extra-marital sexual liaisons of one form or other. So they’re actually not interested in marrying, because, not being Christian, they will simply behave immorally when it comes to sex, whereas Christian manospherians do not have that option, at least while remaining committed Christians.
I would have thought this would be obvious enough to a Christian reader, but I guess not.
Just the final stage of mourning: acceptance. It’s all for the good.
Here’s my thoughts from 30 years of adult experience, the majority of them as single man.
I’m convinced that it is a myth that there are lots of godly early-20’s women out there who want nothing more than to be married to a godly man. I’ve never seen it, nor have I met anyone who has seen it, aside from pastors who write articles and books on it. What I do see is that there are lots of 35+ women out there who want to be married. If there were lots of godly early-20’s women wanting to married, how much easier my life would have been!
What I did see and now do see is lots of evangelical (can only speak for Protestants) women in their 20’s who were thinking that they perhaps never wanted to marry. Instead they were focused on career and church ministry. I don’t think they were on the carousel, but they certainly weren’t interested in being a traditional stay-at-home wife and mother.
There is a very small contingent of courtship and homeschooler types who are raising their daughters to be traditional stay-at-home wives and mothers. Here the problem is that most of them have unrealistic expectations for a man or unrealistic expectations for how courtship should proceed. In this case, the problem really comes from the parents. So the daughters age into their 30’s because the parents have erected too large a wall for any normal man to surmount.
A third factor is that churches that are serious about faith are pretty small, so often the pool is too small for singles to find a spouse. Too many women in their 20’s have unrealistic expectations for how romance should develop, so they do not resort to matchmaking helps (people or online) until they age into their 30’s.
Purple, great comment.
It was a provable myth when you got to “lots of godly women”!
You don’t think? Minus a convent or a Witch, they’re mutually exclusive.
You don’t think? Minus a convent or a Witch, they’re mutually exclusive.
Wrong, Michael. There are women who want to be married and are NOT on the carousel. They’re virgins even! I know. I live with 3 of them.
Once it’s decreed that every unmarried woman is a slut (Christian or not) while every unmarried Christian man is a saint being passed over by slutty pseudo-Christian women, then I have to agree with Maea: The entire discussion is moot.
What Elspeth said. I have a chaste 20 year old daughter .
@Elspeth, kamandutu,
If I may ask, what steps are your daughters taking toward finding a husband? I’m just curious.
One thing I’ve noticed is that unless someone is attending a mega-church, the high school graduating class is bigger than the entire congregation of their church. Then, when you sift the demographics, you might end up with only a handful of age appropriate suitors.
Wrong, Michael. There are women who want to be married and are NOT on the carousel. They’re virgins even! I know. I live with 3 of them.
Yep. There’s another one right here. We do exist, despite what people around here want to believe. It’s like that question that bothers men so much (and rightfully so): “where have all the good men gone?” The men are in effect asking a similar question: “where have all the chaste women who want to be married to good men gone?” which is identical to the former question. They exist, as do we. You just wan’t to shake them silly for not being willing to recognize you when you’re right there in front of them.
Once it’s decreed that every unmarried woman is a slut (Christian or not) while every unmarried Christian man is a saint being passed over by slutty pseudo-Christian women, then I have to agree with Maea: The entire discussion is moot.
Ditto.
I also have to disagree with the idea that there aren’t plenty of Christian men delaying marriage in addition to plenty of Christian women doing the same. There’s plenty of Christian men that are following the script too: go to college, get a degree, get a good high paying job, get a bunch of money saved up, maybe get a house, make sure the financial ducks are in a row, then time to consider getting married. This is understandable of course, since men are tasked by God to be the provider, that they would want to be set there before considering marriage. But considering it would normally take until the mid to late 20’s to have all of those things sorted out, that’s an obvious delay.
Pretty much the only reason a young man might have to not delay marriage until after he’s accomplished those things is if he’s totally insistent on being married prior to having sex, and knows it would be an extremely difficult time of waiting that long. And such men aren’t super common, including among church going men.
Could be. A lot of women over a certain age in the modern world have a 437 bullet point checklist they want a man to meet. A lot of men of any age in the modern world have been so beaten down by feminism that they are in fear of being accused of inappropriate behavior just for breathing too hard.
Then there’s all the fallout from “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”, the “courtship” movement, the “purity” movement, etc. that seems to have taught both men and women to completely suppress any natural femininity (“don’t tempt!”) or masculinity (“Male Gaze! Bad man!’) so that when I see churchgoing people in a social setting they really do act more like brother and sister than anything else.
Plus the churches seem to have become beta factories. The whole “servant leader” notion seems to turn men into total “yes, dear!” doormats. But men like that are not attractive to women, however useful they may be to church and parachurch organizations.
This was the main topic of my previous blog, The Courtship Pledge which crashed and all the content was lost.
We did a lot of research and produced some good stuff. I have to start re-creating some of it.
Joshua Harris, author of “I kissed dating goodbye” has since distanced himself from it. I spoke to him on the phone and he told me he felt that what people who took it and ran with it turned it into was very dogmatic and not what he had in mind.
The approach itself is not bad, as far as it goes. Basically, he argued that if you focus on self-improvement (making yourself a good prospect for marriage) than you need to worry so much about it.
The problem with that is, the message women get in the surrounding culture is “you have nothing to work on. You are fabulous just because you are a girl.”
If I may ask, what steps are your daughters taking toward finding a husband? I’m just curious.
Every time I hear that asked, I have to wonder what exactly they are supposed to be doing. They are prepared to manage a home. They can cook, clean, and are financially responsible. One has a very large nest egg for the express purpose of having something to bring to the table when she marries. They eat clean, run to stay in shape, etc…
But no, they aren’t walking up to men asking them out on dates or making overt gestures for the purpose of letting someone know they are available. Truth is, women who do that almost automatically signal that they are willing to get physical before marriage. and frankly (let’s call a spade a spade here) the vast, vast majority of men in church as well as out marry women they are already sleeping with.
My girls have been hit with all kinds of ridicule because of their standards, which have nothing to do with “alpha” traits and every thing to do with morality.
I’m not implying that the deck isn’t stacked against men in the general culture, but bottom line is that it is tough for anyone out there trying to genuinely do the right thing. And women like Cassie or like my daughters feel the exact same way as you all do when you here women lament the lack of men.
And women like Cassie or like my daughters feel the exact same way as you all do when you here women lament the lack of men.
Yes we do. Thank you Elspeth – a much simpler way of explaining something I was trying to explain earlier, but didn’t explain so well.
I’m not implying that the deck isn’t stacked against men in the general culture, but bottom line is that it is tough for anyone out there trying to genuinely do the right thing. And women like Cassie or like my daughters feel the exact same way as you all do when you here women lament the lack of men.
Yep.
I tried to solve this problem with my big idea and everyone thought I was crazy.
I kind of hoped you had an answer(regarding what she should be doing). I’m at a loss as to how I can help. My eldest is a couple years younger than your eldest and as I didn’t start early enough trying to counteract the prevailing social script, she’s not exactly open to marrying young and getting on with life.
The thing I’ve noticed is that once out of school (she sat out this year and is going back in the fall), her social circle has shrunk precipitously. Truth be told, my social circle isn’t exactly teeming with eligible young men. Of the young men I know personally, none are Christian or even religious.
The men that would be near her in age at church have all gone off to college elsewhere, and even though our church is larger than many, there are/were at most only a handful of young men(under 30).
Kind of a disjoint reply, but I hope it clarifies things a bit.
Sure. 3% of Americans wait until marriage to have sex.They do exist. In contrast, 12% have HIV. Groovy, baby! It’s almost the weekend!
Truth be told, my social circle isn’t exactly teeming with eligible young men. Of the young men I know personally, none are Christian or even religious.
The men that would be near her in age at church have all gone off to college elsewhere, and even though our church is larger than many, there are/were at most only a handful of young men(under 30).
Kind of a disjoint reply, but I hope it clarifies things a bit.
That’s crystal clear, anonymous_ng. It sounds a lot like where we are except our girls are totally open to marrying sooner rather than later. The oldest (21-year-old) said this morning: “You guys didn’t build a lot of connections for us.”
We didn’t. Since we found each other on our own (married in ’94 when I was 22), the notion didn’t even occur to us until it was late in the game.Things were different. We know better now (with our younger kids) and we will do better. But our three young adult daughters really are in a sticky spot.
At least they are still relatively young, so there’s that.
Michael:
“12% have HIV”
What what WHAT?! 12% of all Americans, more than 1 in 10, have HIV??
Tragedy of the commons. Everyone likes to pick the flowers, but few are willing to grow them. They demand fresh flowers, now.
Stay thirsty, my friends.
Tragedy of the commons. Everyone likes to pick the flowers, but few are willing to grow them. They demand fresh flowers, now.
Stay thirsty, my friends.
Huh?
Elspeth, Cassie:
I’ve had this discussion before with you, here on this blog and elsewhere.
Yes, I think chaste Christian women do need to start asking men out. I do think they need to start being more forward about wanting Christian men. I think they need to ask their parents to start helping them find Christian men for marriage. I think chaste CHristian women need to be more forward and proactive in this area.
Christian men who try to approach Christian women are at risk of nuclear rejections, complaints to the pastors of “harassment”, and humiliation at their home churches. Christian men are harangued left and right for being either sex crazed perverts, or unattractive wimpy milquetoasts.
They are also being lied to left and right. They’re being told that their faith, their emotionality, and their sensitivity are sexually attractive to Christian women; and that there are fundamental differences between Christian women and nonChristian women. They’re told that Christian women have something special about them that causes them to not be attracted to good looking, fit, attractive, arousing, masculine men. They’re told that Christian women are, by nature and training, are sexually attracted to mewling, emotional, sensitive, kind, nice, and good-hearted men. These things just are. not. true. at. all.
It doesn’t help that many Christian men are not physically attractive, of course.
Michael Kozaki:
“12% have HIV”
Do you have a source for that? The Center for Disease Control at
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/statistics/overview/ataglance.html
says
CDC estimates that 1,218,400 persons aged 13 years and older are living with HIV infection, including 156,300 (12.8%) who are unaware of their infection.
1,218,400 / 300,000,000 = 0.0041, or about .4 %
Again, your source, please?
Most Christian women under age 25 are not looking to get married unless everything is absolutely PERFECT. The man, the jobs, the living arrangements, the location — everything has to be firmly in place, and THEN, and only then, will a young Christian woman start considering marriage.
The man has to be perfect in every way — good looking, fit, attractive, with options, and earning good money. She has to have her job set. She has to have the living arrangements they both want. They must both be living where they want to live. The debt must be manageable. It is only at this point that a young woman (Christian or not) will even consider marriage.
These women aren’t against marriage. It’s just that they are not willing to endure any challenges or hardships whatsoever in order to have it. Everything has to be absolutely perfect, or they won’t do it.
I’ll just leave this here:
They are also being lied to left and right. They’re being told that their faith, their emotionality, and their sensitivity are sexually attractive to Christian women; and that there are fundamental differences between Christian women and nonChristian women. They’re told that Christian women have something special about them that causes them to not be attracted to good looking, fit, attractive, arousing, masculine men. They’re told that Christian women are, by nature and training, are sexually attracted to mewling, emotional, sensitive, kind, nice, and good-hearted men. These things just are. not. true. at. all.
There is a fairly ubiquitous type of FB meme that goes around. The basic premise is usually something like:
“A real man will remember to take her on walks, hold her hand, ask about her day–surprise her with flowers. She wants to know that you are thinking about her and she has your attention.”
Every time I see this form of stupidity (there are a million versions of it) I make this comment:
“Make sure she already thinks you are hot, Hot HOT!!!! Otherwise, you are just a creeper.”
I get lots of likes from the men.
And yet Deti…I (or my girls) have attended 4 weddings in the past 3 years of women under aged 25 who married under less than ideal circumstances. All Christians, but only one we’re fairly certain wasn’t sleeping with the groom before the wedding. None of the men were particularly hunky, either.
They’re told that Christian women have something special about them that causes them to not be attracted to good looking, fit, attractive, arousing, masculine men. They’re told that Christian women are, by nature and training, are sexually attracted to mewling, emotional, sensitive, kind, nice, and good-hearted men. These things just are. not. true. at. all.
It doesn’t help that many Christian men are not physically attractive, of course.
My girls have been very up front that they want someone like their dad in terms of masculinity/confidence. Like mother like daughter because I went for someone like my dad in terms of masculinity/confidence. But they also are pretty up front (well, two of the three), that they don’t necessarily see going for a guy as handsome as their dad as a good game plan. Too risky, not something they think is wise: “no offense to you, Mom, but”…
And that was a direct quote up there. True Christian women are looking for a Mr. McDreamy. It’s not true that most Christian men are any less physically attractive than any other men. That’s not even partly true.
@ deti
I’m with Elspeth again. I’ve seen men who are less than perfect that got married, which means the women who married them weren’t expecting perfection. I also almost married someone in my early 20’s who was certainly not perfect, nor were the circumstances perfect.
And men certainly aren’t immune to seeking out perfection before they’ll be willing to marry someone. I’m not even talking about morally either, I’m talking about the extra stuff. You wouldn’t believe some of the reasons I’ve been turned down by good Christian men.
>the Christian alpha may be able to get an attractive Christian girl to marry him at 23 (this seems to be relatively common among Protestant pastors, for example, which probably drives much of their thinking about marriage), but the rank and file Christian beta won’t until she’s in her late 20s.
It’s the “rank and file Christian beta” that I’m concerned with here. There are many, many more of these men than there are Christian alphas.
Here’s the dynamic between the Christian betas and their age peer women. The Christian beta has lived a life of near-total celibacy. He’s probably not a virgin, but he has had sex with maybe one woman. He feels terrible about this, because he sees it as sin (it is) and a moral failure. He is constantly told that his sexual desires are evil, sick, perverted, violent, criminal, and borderline rapey. He is told that someday, if he is lucky, a paragon of virtue he attends church with might take pity on him and might deign to go on a date with him.
He feels he has done everything he has been told to do: be nice. Be kind. Wear his heart on his sleeve. Be emotionally open and available. Spend money on his dates. Be fawning, mawkish and obsequious. Give her everything she wants. And he is frustrated and bewildered that none of it has worked. All he has ever wanted to do is be a husband to one woman so he can obey God and have sex in the holy bonds of marriage.
Bottom line — these men are HOPELESSLY unattractive. They don’t know how to be attractive, they have given themselves up completely in the hopes that they can be whatever some woman wants them to be, so he can get married and finally have a normal sexual relationship without feeling so damned guilty and condemned about it.
Now, consider the Christian woman of roughly his age (late 20s, early 30s). She is empowered, sharp, and wizened from her years of working and dating. She’s been on plenty of dates. She has had a couple of long term relationships. She had sex with both of those men because she really thought they were headed to marriage. She had a whirlwind relationship with the guitarist on the church’s praise team. That lasted about 3 months. Best sex of her life.
She has had plenty of male interest. She’s turning men away, not like her slutty friends outside of church, but she says “no” a fair bit. Her faith is real to her, though, and she really does want to marry and have children. She knows she has to get realistic because none of the other men panned out, and time is running out. She genuinely does not want to get into a sexual relationship unless she really thinks it’s headed to marriage. However, she has high standards. She wants a good man, with a good job (to support her when she quits her job to stay home with the kid(s)). She wants a Christian man to love her like Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. She wants a man “strong in the Lord”. She wants a good looking man, but that’s kinda sorta less important now that it is time for her to get serious about having kids.
Those two people are coming at marriage from very, very different places, with very different expectations and different wants and needs. He wants an attractive woman so he can finally have sex and please God. She wants a nice man so she can finally marry, have kids and please God.
See the problems?
Her lack of physical attraction is going to make her miserable. She’s basically a Christian alpha widow. His dashed expectations of a normal sexual relationship will make him miserable. He’ll want sex. She’ll condition, limit, restrict and deny sex. The real reason, of course, is her lack of attraction.
That’s the problem here. And let’s not sugarcoat it — most men and women in churches now who are marrying are not virgins. most have one or two premarital sex partners other than the ones they marry.
Deti: Yes, I think chaste Christian women do need to start asking men out. I do think they need to start being more forward about wanting Christian men. I think they need to ask their parents to start helping them find Christian men for marriage. I think chaste Christian women need to be more forward and proactive in this area.
This isn’t very submissive behavior, and from what I gather a lot of men are looking for women who are very submissive before marriage, somewhat meek, “docile” if you will. It’s hard to picture this woman asking out a man to dinner. Also, traditional Christian women have been taught that men are the ones who do the chasing, not the other way around.
Kozaki:Naive. It’s not due to “unrealistic expectations”. It’s by deliberate design. Culture leads, religion follows. That’s why it’s called CULTure.
Why do I get the impression this point isn’t taken seriously?
A lot of the comments continue to validate my views on Christians and dating. No one knows how to date anymore. They assess the opposite sex like a USDA inspection. That my friends, is an unrealistic expectation. Attraction isn’t always instantaneous, either. Young people nowadays don’t know how to gauge attraction because they’re used to instant responses, ie. social media.
@ Elspeth:
“they don’t necessarily see going for a guy as handsome as their dad as a good game plan”
Which doesn’t mean there is anything special about Christian women. They STILL want good looking, fit, attractive, arousing, masculine, handsome men; and do not want flabby, average looking, unattractive, unarousing, not-so-handsome men. They’re women, you see.
“True Christian women are looking for a Mr. McDreamy.”
Yes, I agree.
Or perhaps you meant to write “”NOT” looking for a McDreamy”, in which case I disagree.
Your own daughters want a man like their father. And by your account, you are very very sexually attracted to your husband. Most men want to be married to women who think of them as such. Most men are not married to such women.
“This isn’t very submissive behavior,”
Well, someone’s gotta do something. Women in church need to make it as easy as possible for men to approach and ask. Women in church need to make it clear that men aren’t going to get nuked if they ask out some girl at church.
Women in church need to make it as easy as possible for men to approach and ask. Women in church need to make it clear that men aren’t going to get nuked if they ask out some girl at church.
I agree. It goes back to my point on dating. A lot of men think they’re going to get nuked because there’s too much pressure on the first date, or because of the USDA inspection.
If there’s something a woman can do, is if she’s interested in a guy to just have coffee or lunch with him. It’s a simple casual meeting, not planning the wedding. I’m well aware of how young womens’ imaginations get carried away.
The ubiquitous nature of social media can’t be ignored– and how it’s influenced the landscape of the marriage pool and dating.
“Well, someone’s gotta do something. Women in church need to make it as easy as possible for men to approach and ask. Women in church need to make it clear that men aren’t going to get nuked if they ask out some girl at church.”
Right and its not the men because men aren’t leaders or anything.
IOW, someone has to fill the void and if men are too wussy to take the initiative, take risks, be a leader then I guess women are suppose to. If women have to make it as easy as possible they are being the leader. They clear the path, they set the stage but I guess that fits in nicely with the women are the gatekeepers meme. Men aren’t bold enough anymore to go out and get what they want and instead they pussyfoot around waiting for this submissive dream girl to show him the way. Part of being a leader is being fearless and if women are that scary then I really suggest a man skip marriage altogether. Its no wonder women have gained so much control in so many fields and they will keep that until the men get over their fear.
The ubiquitous nature of social media can’t be ignored– and how it’s influenced the landscape of the marriage pool and dating.
I agree with this. The potential pool is huge, which makes the church pool really wanting by comparison. It also makes everyone much pickier. After all, if there are tens of thousands of singles online, isn’t it more likely to find a match there than in a relatively (or absolutely) small pool of your church or even group of nearby churches? The pool size seems suffocatingly small at churches, and is in comparison to online or other avenues for meeting people, but if you have Christian criteria, it’s harder to date online or in other venues. The disintegration of community life and the mobility of everyone has also impacted this in that fewer people are available to introduce through groups of extended friends circles or dinner parties or the like, which people used to do, because these people were “pre-vetted” by the social group. Much of that culture has fallen by the wayside with the downfall of community behavior which has resulted from the huge increase in mobility due to the economy. It’s harder on everyone, but on people who have very specific criteria like Christians, it becomes exceptionally daunting outside of some very small and specific niches. Maybe that’s where it’s going: go niche, or go home.
The ubiquitous nature of social media can’t be ignored– and how it’s influenced the landscape of the marriage pool and dating.
Several churchgoing people I know of have married partners they met via one of the online services, such as eHarmony or ChristianMingle, etc. One woman was willing to move over 1,000 miles and marry a man slightly shorter than she is. Another woman moved 500 miles and married a divorced man. Moving away from family is a concession. Marrying a less than perfect partner is a concession.
People, both men and women, all too often have higher expectations than they used to, IMO because of social media.
Novaseeker:
The potential pool is huge, which makes the church pool really wanting by comparison. It also makes everyone much pickier. After all, if there are tens of thousands of singles online, isn’t it more likely to find a match there than in a relatively (or absolutely) small pool of your church or even group of nearby churches? The pool size seems suffocatingly small at churches, and is in comparison to online or other avenues for meeting people…
In many denominations the typical church is on the order of 100 people, most of them either married couples, married parents with K-12 children, or empty nesters. That makes for a lousy pool to fish in. Larger churches are better pools to fish in, but as I’ve commented here and elsewhere the churches seem to have become beta factories, stamping on masculinity pretty much without limit. That tends to make churchgoing men less attractive to women; this shouldn’t even be a topic of debate by now, should it?
And this leaves aside the more subtle effects of social media, where women can get plenty of validation and attention from men in an at-arms-length kind of way via texts/facebook/tumblr/twitter/etc. that provides a dopamine hit in the brain sorta kinda like a real, human interaction.
Returning to marriages in under-35 people:
The other marriages I’m aware of were between people who met at a college and married either while in college, or right after graduation. In several cases they met in some on-campus Christian organization. It would appear that one good time to marry is in college, however I work with college students and quite frankly, many of the women want to marry “someday”, but not soon.
Which reminds me, some of this back and forth is just the same old “some” vs. “all”. There cannot be any doubt that women in the US are delaying marriage; the average age for women at first marriage is now 27. That’s the aggregate, the “women as a big group”. The fact that there are women who marry younger than that, the fact that there are women who want to marry younger than that doesn’t change the fact. It’s women as a whole who are delaying marriage in the US, not men. Blaming men for the follies of women may be fun, but it doesn’t fix anything.
Blaming men for the follies of women may be fun, but it doesn’t fix anything.
Does anyone care about fixing anything?
Does anyone care about fixing anything?
Some do. Some don’t, and would rather just complain. Which are you?
Anon Reader, I meant 12% with HIV don’t know it. You posted my source, CDC. Sorry, I’ll type slower next time.
I’m LMAO here. Seriously, that’s funny.
Sorry, ladies. When I was dating I could tell you exactly what your number was in 3 seconds from 100 ft. Ten minutes later I could tell you if you were marriage material (90% got nuked in those 10 min). I even nuked my wife (too liberal) but she eventually got serious once she saw how grim the alternatives were.
From the above convo above I learned something: I never thought about the “denomination size” issue. I guess RC are lucky here; it was one of my many “USDA inspection items” (not to date, but to avoid being nuked). But a lot of the girls I dated just happened to be RC even outside of any religious context. I guess I just like Irish and Poles.
Kozaki: When I was dating I could tell you exactly what your number was in 3 seconds from 100 ft.
You should teach young men how to do this, so they can avoid getting nuked.
Anon Reader, I don’t promote licking of wounds as a life strategy. I was raised to get up and dust off my skirt.