Matrimony Meltdown: A Guest Post By Mdavid

Or Marching to the Beat of the Sexual Revolution’s Drum

[Today’s guest post is brought to us courtesy of reader/commenter mdavid. It is presented as it was given to me. I have a few comments on it, but I will save them for the comments section, and leave them out of the OP.]

When considering present-day moral inconsistencies – and they are legion – the tolerance of divorce is one of the most indefensible. Yet we excuse it with surprising uniformity. Liberal and conservative, Christian and agnostic, black and white – we are all unified in our rejection of indissoluble marriage.

This evolution of marriage is not due to an economic cycle or an odd social phase that will be reversed in time. It is a permanent shift away from the religious culture that no longer exists in modern Western society except within isolated, and decisively unmodern, pockets. Consider: a majority of US citizens who marry will experience divorce themselves or have a close relative who does. Divorce is now completely acceptable, often celebrated, and sold as liberating. In fact, the only thing moderating divorce rates today is the rejection of marriage itself. This makes sense: why get married at all if divorce is so common? Why become a statistic? Why not stay free?

It’s important to understand that our acceptance of divorce is merely a logical response to changes in marriage law. What sort of contract can be abolished at the whim of either party – anytime, anyplace, and for any reason? If only one’s student loans were so flexible! The legal hypocrisy is rich; we hold young adults fully accountable for their college debt forever, regardless of means to pay or future life events, while simultaneously allowing marriage to be dismissed without cause. This is truly strange. Marriage used to be the most important contractual obligation one could make, certainly not second to personal debt. And rightfully so. It impacts the well-being of children, extended family, and finally society itself. Even a throwaway comment that you will pay for lunch has more legal accountability than a wedding ceremony. It’s bizarre.

It’s much worse than all that, however. Not only is divorce allowed, it’s encouraged by the law itself. Serving divorce papers to a family breadwinner is typically an immediate financial windfall for caregivers, creating a strong incentive to divorce or at least start thinking about it. And unsurprisingly, women initiate the vast majority of divorces. But nothing is steady-state. As any economic supply-and-demand model would suggest, the supply of quality male (or female) providers willing to marry under such conditions will, over time, become strained. This supply-and-demand concept was seen most dramatically in the now-defunct USSR, where laws provided little reward for productive workers. This created a painful lack of goods, to be followed by long queues of people facing empty shelves. This model applies to the family in the West today.

While people do still like the ideal of marriage, both for themselves and for society at large, the risk-reward imbalance, now enshrined into law, is simply too great for marriage to stay intact. This has midwifed a new era of cohabitation, one that is increasingly childless. While not ideal, this structure makes the risk of companionship acceptable to a growing number of people, especially productive people who are at the most risk. Back to the USSR analogy, cohabitation is the necessary “black market” of today’s marriage economics. Raise the price too high, and people will seek an alternative product.

Easy and common divorce means every marriage now operates under the legal sword of Damocles, where either party is at least subconsciously prepared to cut the thread if it benefits them personally. If you doubt this, just ask your typical bride or groom a few uncomfortable questions: What will you do if your spouse abuses you? Becomes an alcoholic? Quits their job? Realizes they made a mistake and can do better? Truth be told, those approaching marriage today are generally playing the odds that none of these things will actually happen. But when they do (and they do nearly half the time) the whole farce of modern marriage is exposed. And as families continue to shatter, the quality of potential partners in the next generation necessarily shrinks. Broken homes today beget broken homes tomorrow.

So what’s the answer? Should couples stay married in all cases? No matter what happens? Regardless of what they want? Yes. Yes. And Yes. Now, this doesn’t prevent an abused party from moving out. But separation is not divorce; it’s not even close. It’s as far from divorce as sleep is from death. If separation equaled divorce, our servicemen would be mailed divorce papers with their mobilization orders. It is understood people will often act like fools, but why should the law acknowledge their folly by allowing them to dissolve their family upon demand? Is this freedom to remarry really in the best interest of society?

Sadly, modern Christianity has been a somber but key facilitator in the game of marriage Russian roulette (if only the odds of survival – 20% – were so good!). Every major Christian denomination – Lutheran, Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian, even the sacramental Eastern Orthodox – now allow for the abolition of a legally enacted marriage (the lone holdout is the Catholic Church, which has responded to the times by creating an even larger problem by winking at invalid marriages and then offering the resulting annulments like candy). What makes the abandonment of marriage by Christians so astonishing is the clear biblical testimonial by Jesus himself that “what God has joined [in marriage], let no man tear asunder.” And lest we forget, He then warns that remarriage after divorce constitutes adultery – and the Apostle Paul flatly states that adulterers will not inherit the kingdom of God. Have Christians read the bible since the sexual revolution?

Until modern marriage is replaced with something more rational, the intact family will continue to fade as a mainstream institution. The resulting decline of male investment in children will lead to less productive and less well-adjusted children. This will be a fearsome political, social, and economic change agent. Family change is multi-generational, so the consequences of modern ideas about marriage and family, which were fully in place by the 1980’s, should become more and more visible throughout our communities every day going forward. And most importantly, young people – but breadwinners especially – should approach marriage and family with extreme trepidation, if at all. This trajectory is now set; only the extent of the damage remains to be experienced. My mind is prepared. How’s yours?

Random Musings and Links- #6

It is another one of those posts filled with links and random (and not-so-random) thoughts on my part. Given time restraints, I won’t be able to respond much to comments for the next day or so, but feel free to chime in despite that. I will try and keep things orderly at least.

I’m going to begin by address something that Deti said in my post Meager Options:

In the past, around 60 or so years ago, [what earlier comments said0 describes how it went down. Typically it was the man requesting (P in V) sex after a few months of dating or courtship, and the woman saying “Ok, but marriage first.” And typically he was giving up more and more resources (time, money, etc.) in exchange for more and more “sex” (kissing, making out, petting, oral, but reserving P in V for marriage). (Let’s not kid ourselves – lots of women were doing “everything but” P in V before marriage, for men they were “seriously dating”.)

What Deti is describing is an attitude held by most everyone in the MMP (yes, that’s right, the Marriage Market Place), including most “Christians.” That attitude is one of bending the rules as much as possible to favor one’s interests. The rules are simple: a woman exchanges lifetime sexual access and exclusivity with a man who in turn gives her resources, protection and status (which we might call “commitment”) for life. And the exchange is supposed to be at the same time. But neither men nor women really want that. Men want sexual access (and even better, exclusivity) without having to provide commitment, while women want to receive commitment without having to provide sexual access or in some instance, sexual exclusivity.

This ties in the whole concept of boyfriend/girlfriend. As Dalrock has explained, the terms were invented in order facilitate this bending of the rules. The whole notion of the celibate boyfriend is a means for Christian women who don’t want to provide sexual access to receives the commitment they want from Christian men. Likewise, many Christian men will use their status as boyfriend as a means for sexual gain for themselves. All of which goes to show why devout Christians should reject those ideas and the mindset behind them.

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, Deep Strength and Ballista have been involved in a spirited debate about headship and authority in marriage. It starts with this post by Ballista and was followed by this post, which Deep Strength responds to here. I don’t exactly agree with either, but I think many of my readers will find them interesting. Here are both sets of posts:

Ballista- Anarchy in the Marriage; Negating Authority in Marriage; Headship in Marriage Implies Authority; Confusing Status with Action- Creating Supplicating Betas

Deep Strength- Headship is not authority in marriage; Headship is not authority in marriage Part 2; Headship is not authority in marriage Part 3

Dalrock explains why women are compelled to take over the Gaming world.

NSR brings the humor. And the beat.

Rollo explains how Yes Means Fear.

As always, Maeve has your baking needs covered. This time, Blueberry Muffins.

Chad discusses Falling on Your Sword.

Dropit delves into the nature of Ambiguity.

Free Northerner hosts a guest post about how men can avoid sex starvation in marriage. He also exposes some of the hypocrisy and ignorance of those decrying the “campus rape epidemic.”

Martel, who is busy writing his book, asks for some help increasing his knowledge of children’s literature and other media directed at them by the popular culture.

Allamagoosa looks at The Time and Place for Hierarchy.

I also want to address this comment left at her blog by someone named Ashley:

I’m in this situation with my significant other. Both of us are in professional school and in our twenties and the way our lives are scheduled, we couldn’t even get married until one of us graduates or after one of us takes our board exams for medical/dental school. But that’s like another 2-8 yrs and we would both be ~30 yrs old. And I want to have children so we’d have very limited time to enjoy each other sexually as a married couple. What is our solution? We don’t really have one. Either we push to get married early on or “foreplay” to relieve sexually tension. I know we aren’t suppose to “foreplay” but its very very unlikely going to lead to sex because besides the whole Christian ideal, an unwanted pregnancy is 100X feared with our schooling.

 First off, “foreplay” is probably not acceptable Christian behavior based on what she is hinting at. The way I look at it, if you aren’t comfortable explaining in graphic detail everything involved to all your friends and family… God probably doesn’t approve (at least, until marriage). This approach is a surefire way to come to sin, and in fact the mindset hints at a sinful attitude already (finding ways to “cheat the system”).

Second, delaying children is not a wise plan. It really isn’t. Mrs. ktc explains why you should Have Children.

Also, she has responded to my post Proposing A Question with her own post, Proposals. This brings me to the topic of marriage proposals on bended knee. I have yet to hear a good reason why men should do them. Mere expectations or custom at this point are not enough. This alone is reason enough for a man not to do it. But even more than that, bending the knee is a sign of supplication and (as those familiar with Game of Thrones will recognize) surrender. For all the talk about how essential it is for a man to start off strong by proposing to a woman, this runs entirely counter to that. Who the woman in question is doesn’t matter- as a custom it just has no merit. I invite my readers who disagree to explain otherwise, of course. But at this point proposing on bent knee is not something I’m ever going to do. And I will tell any woman I court as much. If she cannot accept that, then in my view it demonstrates she wasn’t a good candidate to begin with.

Be Feminine Not Feminist tells women: Don’t rob your children of their Daddy.

At Peaceful Single Girl this post demonstrates the damage caused to children by divorce.

Apparently Sigyn is having some real trouble with depression and could use your prayers.

Stingray explains yet another reason to homeschool.

At the same time, homeschooling isn’t easy, as Elspeth will tell you. Much of the problem is that we aren’t aligned as a community towards supporting homsechooling and mothers who stay at the household. The old support networks are gone, and were an essential part of the process.

Elspeth also discusses the difference between being unmarried and being single. I describe myself as unmarried, not single, and my reasons match up with those expressed at her blog.

Eviscerating the faith through decrying “Paulinity.” I’ve seen some of that applied here in the ‘sphere before. Mostly by men who want to engage in fornication. But I’ve seen a few women argue it as well, often to escape any requirements or duties placed upon them (especially in marriage).

I’ve argued before about the risk associated with women with tattoos, and here is yet more support for my concern.

Update: Red Pill Set Me Free talks about how a woman, any woman, however high-value, can become Ruined.

Q & A

Tonight’s post is dedicated to answering a few of the questions that I’ve been been asked since this blog started. They have been left as comments, or sent to me via e-mail. Some I’ve answered before, and I will try and include a link to those answers. Others might have been addressed only obliquely, or not at all.

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Question: Is this a Game blog?

Answer: No. This is not, nor has it ever been, a “Game” blog. While I accepted its legitimacy for a while, I’ve come to realize that Game, if it can even be defined, is not something which can be supported.

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Question: Hey, I thought this was a Christian blog, so why are you talking about sexual attraction and the kind of stuff Pick-Up Artists talk about?

Answer: Because sexual attraction matters to everyone looking to get married, Christian or not. In an age where people largely choose their own mates, a person’s sexual attractiveness plays a huge role in determining whether they can get married or not. By ignoring this for so long, the Church has only made the marriage situation worse in the west.

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Question: Wait, I thought this was a Red Pill bog… so what is all this Christian stuff doing here?

Answer: While I cover topics that generally fall under the umbrella of “The Red Pill”, I am also a Catholic Christian. That belief system is not something that I simply set aside when I cover topics which aren’t normally addressed by Christians. As far as I’m concerned many “Red Pill” topics are of great concerns to Christians, and so I approach them from a Christian perspective.

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Question: Why do you hate women?

Answer: Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t hate women. In fact, I happen to like actual feminine women quite a lot. In fact, I find their presence (both virtual and real) to be quite enjoyable. Truth be told, I’m not very good at hating anyone (trust me on this, I’ve tried).

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Question: Well then how come you want to subjugate women in marriage then?

Answer: I don’t want to subjugate women in marriage. I am a Christian, and as a Christian I recognize that wives are called to subject themselves to the authority of their husbands. That is a far cry from subjugation, given that their husbands at the same time are required to love them as Christ loved the Church. If anything women are getting the better end of the deal. Plus that requirement is for their own benefit, as it will help make their husbands more attractive in their eyes.

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Question: But why do you talk so negatively about women?

Answer: It is important to keep in mind that this blog is aimed primarily towards men. Women are welcome, of course, but my principal audience is men. And men talk and interact in a very different manner from women. If that makes women uncomfortable, so be it. I’ve explained this in a more complete fashion in several different posts. Here is one of them.

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Question: What is with your name?

Answer: I explained the rationale behind my name in this post.

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Question: You keep using weird terms and words like SMV and FI and Hypergamy- what do they mean?

Answer: I wrote a post defining some of the terms that I use here.

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Question: What do you have against feminism and feminists?

Answer: Feminism is one of the greatest frauds perpetrated upon mankind. It has no foundation in religion, science or reality, and has wrecked countless lives in its long existence. Feminists, at best, are useful fools and at worse callous monsters who don’t care whom they hurt so long as they get the society they want. Never mind the fact that they can never actually have what they want, and the process of bringing it about will bring civilization down around us.

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Question: Why is it that someone as smart as you is a Christian- surely you know it’s superstitious nonsense?

Answer: That superstitious nonsense has done a far better job of predicting our present social devolution that science has. Its explanations of human nature have been proven correct time and time again. Likewise, the moral code and social order that Christianity supports is demonstrably the best means of checking the excesses of human behavior and providing the stability necessary for orderly and non-stagnant civilization.

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Question: How can you call yourself a Christian when you refuse to forgive women who have sinned (sexually) in the past? Don’t you know that God has forgive them?

Answer: To begin with, to forgive someone I would need to be sinned against. If a woman has fornicated with someone else, then besides a general sin against the church community, she really hasn’t sinned against me. So there is nothing to forgive, really. And yes, God has forgiven her for her trespasses. But just because the spiritual consequences of her sin may be gone, the physical/temporal consequences are not necessarily wiped away. The worldly effects of some sins last well beyond the point of repentance. For sexual sins, a woman’s ability to pair bond can be damaged, or she could even be an Alpha Widow.

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Question: How come all of the men here are cold, insensitive and uncaring jerks?

Answer: For the most part, none of the men in this part of the internet wanted to be that way. They were forced to become cold and uncaring, often out of necessity. Some were unjustly divorced by their wives, their marriages and families torn apart by women who cared more about their own enjoyment and “feelings” than their marriage vows. Others have undergone years or even decades of sexual denial at the hands of their wives. Many have hearts of ice as a result of years, decades for some, of rejection by women, who ignored them to chase after bad boys instead. Yet more have become cold as a result of despair arising from an inability to find worthy women to be their wives. The truth is that most men are romantics at heart, including the men around here, but the women in their lives crushed that right out of them.

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Question: If you are a Christian, how come you see marriage as just an exchange of goods and services?

Answer: The short answer is that I don’t. As for a longer answer…. It is important for women to understand that men are able to compartmentalize things in their head in a way that women either don’t or can’t match. We can talk about marriage in transactional terms one minute, and then examine it from a sacramental perspective in another, and then debate its relation to Christ and the Church in a third. I would very much advise my female readers to be wary of projecting female thought processes onto myself, and the men around these parts. Men and women are very different- we think differently, we perceive the world differently, and we react to stimuli differently. So don’t assume that when we say something that it means the same thing it would if a woman said it.

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Question: How come, if this is a Christian blog, you let pick-up artists and their like comment here? Why the hypocrisy?

Answer: My allowing someone to comment here is by no means an indication that I approve their lifestyle or share their beliefs. Sometimes a different perspective can be a valuable thing, if only to illustrate a point I am making. As a general rule, I let most people comment here, so long as they are civil and respectful to other commenters.

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Question: Well then, how come I can’t comment here? Why did you ban me?

Answer: I have banned very few people on my blog. If you cannot comment for some reason, it might be that you are included in my spam filter. Its possible that you ended up there by accident. If you want to comment but cannot, feel free to e-mail me and I will look into it. You can reach me at d0nalgraem3 -at- gmail.com (no spaces or hyphens, just use the @ symbol. Also, that is a zero in the name).

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That is what I have for now. I’m sure I think of more soon, and add them to this post. In the meantime, if my readers have any more questions (preferably ones that can be answer in a paragraph or two), feel free to mention them in this comments of this post.

Unbalanced Equation

When I wrote my post Victory or Defeat I was expecting that there would be some strong disagreement with a few of the arguments that I made. In particular I was expecting opposition to this statement of mine:

The “Women Against Feminism” are, despite thinking otherwise, still actually feminists. They just don’t realize it. They are rebelling against the more visible and extreme “strains” of feminism right now, but fail to realize that they are still believers in the older, less virulent strains.

However, there was far less disagreement than I expected. Commenter Denise went the furthest with this comment, but even that was more of a round about attack on some assumptions I was (apparently) making. I suspect the lack of disagreement is because my blog is a low-traffic one that collects relatively few trolls or individuals opposed to my views.

But enough of that. I wanted to expect on a relatively short but important comment left by Lovelyleblanc7, who is clearly wiser than her years would suggest. Here is what she said in response to a comment of mine:

WAF, MRAs, and feminists are all the same. They shoot themselves in the foot. These days, MRAs are starting to become worse than feminists, which is saying a lot.

The part in bold is what it important to understand. More than important, vital, to understand what is going on and why our culture is in its present condition. LLB7 has correctly diagnosed that (radical) feminists, WAF and MRAs are all essentially the same, although they may not realize it. They are just different flavors of the same thing. You see, they are all proponents of the same societal outcome, despite being, on paper, vehemently opposed to one other.

MRAs and WAFs are Egalitarians- they argue for equal treatment of men and women by society.

Radical feminists (as opposed to the more mundane types) are Female Supremacists- they argue for superior treatment of women by society (although they sometimes try and disguise that fact).

Totally different, right? Wrong. Here is the catch: Egalitarianism inevitably leads towards the outcome of Female Supremacy. Egalitarian philosophy, when applied to society and culture, creates conditions that will naturally push society towards the outcomes and views espoused by radical feminists.

Egalitarians argue for a society where everything is balanced. Where men and women have equal power and rights. In their minds a society organized this way is the fairest, most stable and the most likely to succeed. WAFs and MRAs oppose radical feminism because they see it as unbalanced, and unfair to men. They oppose patriarchy because they see it as unbalanced, and unfair to women. It is their earnest belief that an Egalitarian society is one that is best for everyone. Here is what a graphical representation of it might look like:

The equality point is balanced, and hence, optimal. Power is distributed in society equally between men and women. Society is stable and everyone benefits. Feminism and Patriarchy, on the other hand, are unbalanced. When a society reaches those states it quickly slides into oppression of one sex or the other. Hence the need for the balance point of Egalitarianism- it keeps that oppression from happening.

This is a nice, neat picture. Everything has a place, and it shows that Egalitarians are smart, reasonable people with the best interests of everyone in mind. Too bad this picture is misleading. And not just misleading, but flat out wrong.

It is wrong because the balance point, the optimal distribution of power between men and women is not at the center point, the point of equality. Rather, the balance point is off to the right, towards the male side of power distribution. Here is a graphical representation of how civilizational stability really works:

This graphic demonstrates why Egalitarianism will ultimately, and always, lead towards the radical feminist position. You see, at the point of equality society the slope of social progression is already turned downwards. A society that reaches this point is already on the slide towards the oppression of men and social instability. Egalitarianism is just a stop on the path towards radical feminism and the oppression of men.

Why is the balance point towards the right side of the equation? The Feminine Imperative, of course. For those not quite sure what that is, here is my attempt to define it:

A biological impulse within all human beings which causes us to favor female interests over male interests within the overall social group.

The FI is not all powerful. Social condition, aka Culture, can override it to some degree. Individual men can be especially selfish and oppose efforts to divert resources towards women. But even when there are forces acting to suppress it, the FI yet remains, always pushing, always asserting itself. Unless active efforts are put in place to restrain it, it will insert itself into all aspects of human endeavors.

Now, the Feminine Imperative is not an evil thing. It has served a valuable biological purpose in the early stages of human history, by ensuring that resources and protection were afforded to women to the degree necessary to ensure the survival of the species. But outside that context of day-to-day survival, the Feminine Imperative is dangerous, as it unbalances the overall equation. Favoring female interests over male interests on a massive, organized scale, which is what civilization is all about, means that you will get a system where men are marginalized and ultimately oppressed. Kind of like the present system.

Only by having the overall distribution of power favor men can you ensure that the Feminine Imperative be sufficiently restrained that it won’t lead civilization into oblivion. A number of bloggers have addressed this before. Here is one piece by Free Northerner. What he, and many others, refer to as patriarchy is merely a balanced equation- a system where the distribution of power favors men so that the FI is restrained, yet women are protected from abuse and oppression at the hands of men.

The WAF don’t realize this. They think that they are being fair, reasonable and just women. Sadly, they don’t realize that their push for “equality” is a well-intentioned but misguided effort to keep in place a system which will, if not checked, bring about the very things they claim to be against. Those who oppose “setting back the clock” because they don’t want to give up what they’ve gained from feminism and Egalitarianism don’t appreciate that they cannot keep those powers and yet have a harmonious society. Culture and societies are dynamic, not static. They are ever moving. Either they give up those rights, privileges and powers and restore balance, or they accept that our culture and society will continue to slide towards a despotism of the petticoat.

For those of my readers who are Christians, you should be able to make the connection between this graphic and [accurate, proper] Christian teaching and doctrine. Various powers granted to men but not to women aim to stifle the worst of the Feminine Imperative, as well as other negative aspects of female behavior.  Various protections and guarantees granted to women mean to protect them from the worst aspects of male behavior.

Oh, and for those women (or even men) who don’t care if men suffer as a result of women’s new-found power… understand that the new gravy train is of a limited duration. Once a civilization veers too far from the balance point and ends up in oppressive territory, it starts to collapse. The Balance point is also the point of the greatest stability for a civilization. The further away you get from it, the less stable a civilization becomes. Where does it all lead? Just ask Thomas Hobbes:

In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.”

[I lost some of what I wrote on this post. I’ve recovered what I can for now, but I know I’m still missing a few things. I’m uploading this post as is, but expect it to be altered and updated when/if I remember what was lost.]