Different Room, Same Building

[Or otherwise called “Different Faith Tradition, But Same Culture”]

Reader and Commenter Patrick recently left a link to a Catholic blog which goes by the name Traditional Catholic Femininity. The link was for a post titled “Shortage of Marriageable Prospects Among Traditional Catholics.”

To warn everyone, it is a long post. Too long even to even just cut quote from. So I will make an effort to summarize it, if only poorly. All the same, it would be best to read the whole thing. Here is my attempt at a TLDR version:

First off, we have the quotes from another post that are the foundation-

• Too many Catholic women cannot marry, or at least marry well, because there is a real shortage of good, marriageable Catholic men.
• This shortage is because Catholic men think they are ready but are not, and need to seriously up their game.

At this point the proprietress of the blog chimes in, and offers the following:

1. The solution to the problem is for Catholic women to marry older men, preferably 10-15 years older and at least 35.
2. Because women mature faster than men women will find men their age to be immature, so to find mature men they need to look at older men.
3.  All of this means that men are just not ready to be married before their 30s in any way.
4. If you marry an older men he will love you more for it, and be less likely to cheat/abandon you, etc.
5. Men choose mates based on youth and beauty, and women chose mates based on the physical and material security he can provide.
6. This dynamic is proven to work! Look at Joseph and Mary! And see what happened with Adam and Eve!
7. Don’t marry a man just because he is hot, marry because he is able to provide, otherwise don’t marry at all
8. Younger men need to work hard, build themselves up, become leaders, etc.
9.  If you are a younger man and you think you are ready for marriage, you are fooling yourself. You just want a housekeeper you can have sex with.
10.  Only a handful of men who are young are there. Most of the rest of you are losers. Fix yourselves up.
11.  If you are concerned about sexual sin, that just means you are weak and lack self discipline. Learn to control yourself. If you can’t then you are just basically a sexual predator.
12. Oh, and women are attracted to a disciplined and self-controlled man.

That is gist of it.

So what do I think of the post? Well, I think that Elspeth, in her comment to that post, said it well: “This whole screed is filled with bad logic and inconsistencies.”

It is bad. Really, really bad. I mean, where to begin?

You have the standard men bad, women good trope. It disguises itself somewhat by saying it is merely about younger men being immature, but really, it is

You have a misunderstanding about the maturation rates of women and men. The author seems to think it simply means men are slow- rather than understanding it means that men can continue to mature past where women do.

You have a misunderstanding about what women find attractive in men, in a bad way. All of the focus on “Beta traits”, while completely ignoring or down-playing the “Alpha” or Attractive traits.

You have a misunderstanding of both Mary and Joseph’s marriage, as well as Adam and Eve’s.

The author takes time to repeatedly trash younger men. I don’t know about my readers, but I sensed real disdain here. Like visceral disdain.

Oh, and of course a complete misunderstanding of, and a downplaying of, male sexuality.

And did I mention that none of this is founded in Scripture or the writings of the Fathers of the Church or Saints?

So yeah, bad.

Mind you, the advice for women to marry older men is well-intentioned, so there is that. Unfortunately, few will actually listen to this advice, so it doesn’t accomplish much. Instead this post, rather than coming across as advice to women, seems much more like an exercise in bashing men.

And that is where the post’s title comes from. Not that there was ever any doubt, but Catholics, even Big T “Traditional” ones, still swim in the same culture as other Christian faith traditions. And that culture carries with it some of the things I mentioned above. The particular expression might vary, but the ingredients are the same, if you will.

Of course, my readers might have their own thoughts on the subject. I encourage them to off their ideas in the comments below.

The Knowledge Base Spreads

A long time reader and commenter has clued me in to a series on the Orthodox Blog “Russian Faith” concerning attracting a spouse. The first post in the series is “How to Attract a Christian Spouse-Marriage Advice from a Christian Dad.” The author cites my LAMPS/PSALM model favorably at one point, although he adds on a final S to include Spirituality. I think I will respond to that point sometime later, as it is good to understand what my model is, and what my model isn’t.

He then wrote a follow up post, title Attractiveness: Beauty is Not Just On the Inside. It is very Un-PC in all of the right ways. A snippet from it:

A woman’s physical attractiveness is the most immediate and pressing point of interest to most men. Morally and spiritually, this can be quite dangerous — we all know very attractive women whose spiritual lives are a mess — but attractiveness itself is central to attraction by most men (whether godly or not).

A young lady may be a devout Christian, but if she is not physically attractive, the vast majority of men will pass her over.

This is absolutely true, and something which unfortunately is not taught enough in Christian circles (of any faith tradition). The reverse is of course true for men as well, and is one of the reasons why we have the Christian side of the ‘sphere.

One thing I found very striking about the second post is the photos. They showcase beautiful women who are very feminine and modest in appearance. Not the vulgar “sexiness” the world loves to push out.

I will be curious to see where the author takes the remaining posts. At the same time, I am already pleased to see this kind of article happen. Especially because it showcases my LAMPS/PSALM model and the understanding that goes with it. Hopefully more Christian outlets will take advantage of those kinds of resources in the future.

Overt Versus Covert

Short post today. I hope that my readers will really drive the discussion with this one.

I have been doing some thinking lately how the whole process of actively trying to “woo” someone. There are two main models which are proposed, one of them the more widely accepted model and the other more common around the manosphere. They are:

• Men are the pursuers and Women are the pursued
• Men display and Women choose

I would like to examine these two models, because I am wondering if they are necessarily mutually exclusive. One way of reconciling these two is the following:

Men Display –> Women Choose –> Men Pursue –> Women are Pursued

All of the potential models involve men starting the process. Not really a surprise, I guess. Now to get to the title of the post.

One way that I have been looking at this is that men generally are overt in their actions, and women are covert. For example, men display overtly- they are proactive in their masculine endeavors, for example. Or in their gaining of status/money. And of course, when it comes to actual pursuit, they are definitely overt.

On the other hand, women tend to be covert when they are pursued. They lead men on with IOIs and reciprocal behavior, much of it subtle. The interesting question then, is whether women are overt or covert when they “choose.” A covert approach would be to show subtle interest in a man, such as display IOIs or spend time near him. An overt approach though… I doubt it would look exactly like a man’s.  Probably much less subtle IOIs.

What I would like is my reader’s input. What do you think tends to happen? Which model? And is it usually men are overt, women covert? Or are women just as overt? And does it look different from how men act overtly? Please give your thoughts below. Feel free to throw personal stories and anecdotes around all you want.

 

 

Market Analysis: A Lack Of Confidence

My Market Analysis series continues. Today I want to examine, to some degree, a point I made in Market Watch:

Young men are much less interested in marriage than they were in the past. Having a few more years under my belt since I started blogging, I have seen this more and more. Younger men are just less interested in marriage. The why of this is worthy of a whole post of its own.

I have been thinking over this point for some time, because I knew something was going on, but wasn’t sure what. I am still not certain I have it nailed down, but I will try and address it all the same. [Perhaps this discussion will help fix that.]

While I was thinking this over, it appears that Seriously Please Drop It was on the same wavelength as me. His recent post, Our Fates Are Bound- And Some Good News covered much of what I intended to discuss. So I will quote a great deal from his post. I will start with his second point, because it ties directly to my original observation:

To put it another way: young men have generally ceased to believe what Concept 1 says it is very important that they believe: that they stand a reasonable chance of marrying well.  In response, they work less hard to be eligible husbands.

The standard conservative response has been: No problem, we’ll just lie to them.  Or yell at them.  And that actually worked for a surprisingly long time, but as Dalrock details, that train is running out of steam.

I believe that young men are much less inclined to marry these days in large part because they cannot marry well. Simple cost-benefit analysis, really. The stock isn’t worth the price, and so they won’t play the market, if you will.

Furthermore, I believe this is most pronounced among young men who are devout Christians. Now, among the general population there isn’t a marriage strike going on. [n fact a secular acquaintance of mine got married to his long time GF recently. So secular guys still are interested in marrying.] All the same, I think a drop off is happening. However, it is happening the most among the most devout men.

The reason for this? Well, I don’t think it is just one reason.  I suspect a couple are at play. Some possibilities:

• Devout Christian men are much more “picky” when it comes to a mate. They are screening for a variety of personality and character traits that are in short supply. If they are convinced that such options aren’t available, they may just give up and opt out of the market.
• Devout Christian men are presumably more likely to take marriage and marriage vows more seriously.  Looking around, they can see that few do. With that kind of observation comes a natural disinclination to take part in something they perceive as likely to end poorly.
• Female behavior has become increasingly more egregious. Devout Christian men are the most likely to notice this, and to use this to come to a general determination that women simply aren’t worth it these days.

I am sure there are others, and I invite my readers to supply their own thoughts.

Taken together, all of these are indicators that young men are not confident with the market. They see volatility and watered stocks everywhere. In such circumstances, it makes sense to not want to play the market at all. Which brings us to the next point:

Concept 1:  Marriage requires pre-marital cooperation, and therefore intersexual societal trust

Good grooms and brides do not simply appear from the ether.  Eligibility requires work and self-denial from both sexes, for many years before marriage.

Much of the motivation for this work and self-denial comes from the carrot of marriage.  But for this to work, young people must believe that somewhere in the world, their opposite number is doing the same thing.

The Market relies on both men and women to act appropriately. If one sex misbehaves, then the whole market will start to fall apart. Cooperation is key. As a lawyer once explained to me: “the most basic underlying assumption of contract law is that everyone is operating under good faith. If you take away good faith, you don’t have a contract.” What we have right now is a system where at least one side is perceived as acting in bad faith (if not actually doing so in large part).

Dropit sort of sums everything up in this:

What we are hitting upon here is the importance of morale.  We could aptly describe current failures in the marriage market as a cyclical “Morale Crisis.”  We should start talking about this!

He uses the word morale, and it works. Morale is certainly low. However, I think the underlying basis for that low morale is a lack of confidence or trust in the market. People are convinced that the players in the market are not acting in good faith. Let’s examine in further detail this tidy little bit of wisdom:

“Why prepare for marriage? Guys will always be available”

leads to

“Why prepare for marriage?  There are no girls available”

leads to

“Why prepare for marriage?  There are no guys available.”

Examining it in detail, you can see where bad faith leads us towards. Point 1 is all about women acting in bad faith. The realization of this leads men to stop bothering becoming marriageable, because it is clear to them that women aren’t to be trusted. In turn this leads those women who don’t engage in Point 1 thinking to be convinced that men aren’t serious about marriage, and they in turn throw their hands in the air. It is a vicious cycle with no end-point but an utter lack of trust in the opposite sex and in the institution of marriage.

My attempt at a brief summation: Young men, especially devout Christian men, are not inclined towards marriage because they have come to believe they cannot trust their female counterparts. In turn many of the remaining decent women are also coming to believe they cannot trust the men, either. We cannot begin to fix the marriage market, especially among devout Christians, until we fix the trust issues that exist between men and women.

I am going to hold off on further commentary for the moment. In the meantime I hope my readers will chime in and offer their thoughts.

Market Watch

In my previous post, A Poor Example,  I mentioned a post that Scott and Elspeth wrote about how June Cleaver might be unmarriageable right now. What I want to do with this post is make a series of observations based on what they mentioned in their post, as well as in the comments. I will likely expand on it over time, as I have a chance to re-read the comments. This won’t be an in-depth post, but rather more of a list with perhaps a comment or two of my own.

So here are some of my observations:

• The Market for devout Christians, men and women alike, is awful. I wrote previously on this topic in my Market Failure series of posts. You can read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 via the links. As for who has it worse, I think that is mostly an academic exercise. My gut says men more than women, but not by a huge amount.
•  Geography play a huge role in the difficulties of the marriage market right now. Different geographic locations are more or less favorable to men or women. My suspicion is that where I live the ratio between marriageable men and women heavily tilts to men, and that of course makes the market tougher for men.
• Demographics also plays a significant role. As various Christian groups have splintered, and there is even more separation in belief within groups, the overall pool of eligible mates has dropped precipitously. So while absolute numbers might be up, the actual pool is perhaps smaller than it has been for perhaps even centuries.
• Most Christian parents are not raising devout Christian children. Much less marriageable ones.
• Young men are much less interested in marriage than they were in the past. Having a few more years under my belt since I started blogging, I have seen this more and more. Younger men are just less interested in marriage. The why of this is worthy of a whole post of its own.
• Too many people are doing too little to make marriage happen these days. Marriage needs to be a matter for the whole community.

 

Also, the answer to this:

Is it possible that parents of the last several generations, responding to the cultural cues from blue-pill pastors and other sources have raised both sex children to be pretty useless at “traditional” marriage, and therefore a different approach to finding matches for them may be required?

…is yes and yes.

More to come as I think on it.

Update: A few more observations-

• The market is seriously hampered by the amount of deception going on. The worst lies, from what I have seen, tend to be those that people tell themselves. Self-deception makes hit harder to diagnose problems, among other ills.
• Introverts and shy people are especially vulnerable in the market right now. Given how few effective venues there are for meeting eligible mates, each one has to count that much more. For introverts, that is much more difficult.
• I am among the most the most “pro-marriage” of guys in the Christian manosphere. At least as it applies to my own life. Only a couple might be at the same level as me, such as Deep Strength. I don’t know if that was the case originally, but it seems to be the case now. And even despite my subjective “gun-ho” approach I am still very cautious.

Something Else

Today’s post is a Masculine Monday post. Male commenters only, please. Also, somewhat stream of consciousness as well.

Rollo has a new post up titled “The Something Else.”

If you want to sum up Rollo’s post, it would be in this simple phrase:

If it wasn’t X-Box it would be something else.

The reality of male/female relations these days is driving more and more men to seek out “something else” to occupy their life.

For some it is escapism- merely an attempt to drone out the overwhelming meaninglessness they feel marks their lives.Whether it is porn or video games or something else, they want to blur out reality. There is no drive for something more, something greater. Merely something to distract.

For others it is a genuine desire to find something of meaning and value. To obtain a purpose for life. Some Red Pill sites call this “your mission.” As a Catholic, I recognize that the word they are searching for is vocation. These men are looking for a calling that they can hold fast to and make their own.

Unfortunately, for many the vocation that most will be called to, marriage, seems mostly out of grasp. And for most probably will be (if they are smart, anyways). The problem, from the Church’s perspective, is that there is nothing in place to really help men who find themselves so frustrated. They will instinctively search of that “something” to replace their vocation, but how much is really there for them? Just among Catholics many will not be called to be priests, or monks (in the traditional sense).

It seems to me that the Church needs to adapt to the change in the Marriage Marketplace. There needs to be something for all the young men who will not be able to marry in the years ahead. And probably something as well for the men who find themselves divorced. I’m talking more than some support group. Rather, something more akin to a community, a brotherhood. Something that provides support and doesn’t leave all these men discrete individuals adrift in the modern world.

I suppose some sort of urban monastery might be in order. Not a place for contemplatives, but a communal home where everyone is a “roomie” and can uplift and support his fellow men. I invite my readers to offer their thoughts on the matter. All the same, I am sure that something is needed to help devout men find that something. Many men are drifting away from the faith, and given the cold shoulder the Church is basically giving them these days, it is hard to blame them. Furthermore, creating a place for men without a home might help secular men who are also adrift in the same ocean.

Men are looking for something else, and the Church needs to help them find it.

 

An Unsettling Evaluation- Part 2

I want to thank my readers for their response in my post An Unsettling Evaluation. In my first post, I mentioned that I would create a post for my female readers, or those who knew women who might benefit. That is what this post is for. Here are the questions again, slightly tweaked:

• As a woman, should you care if a man is settling for you, assuming that he has been chaste?
• Does it even make a difference that he has been chaste?
• How do you find out or realize this is happening?
• What should you consider if you find yourself in this scenario?

I invite my readers to try and answer them to the best of their abilities. At the same time, I would like to keep the conversation focused on this particular topic.

One thing to note- I didn’t really clarify “Chaste” in my first post. Might be worth exploring a bit in this post and revisiting in that post. After all, virgin doesn’t necessarily mean chaste, which is as much of the heart as anything. This is especially topical when you have things like pornography, which can have a significant impact on a married couple’s sex life.

An Unsettling Evaluation

In the past couple of days I have been carrying on a discussion with a reader of mine about my “The Way We Met” series. The principal topic has been the question of “settling.” It was prompted by his observation that a number of the more traditional minded Catholic unmarried Catholic women are in their late 20s and early 30s. [The how and why of that is not the topic of this post.] From his perspective they at least seemed outwardly chaste.

What he was curious about was the effect of their settling versus a woman with a long and/or troubled “history.” Here are some questions he asked:

• As a man, should you care if a woman is settling for you, assuming that she has been chaste?
• Does it even make a difference that she has been chaste?
• How do you find out or realize this is happening?
• What should you consider if you find yourself in this scenario?

Those are his questions, slightly rephrased. And good questions they are, too. I invite my readers to try and answer them to the best of their abilities. At the same time, I would like to keep the conversation focused on this particular topic.

[Note: In a couple of days I intend to create a post in reverse of this- advice for women about men settling. Mayhaps it might be useful for some of my female readers, or women they know.]

Reference: Women, Not Men, Are Driving The Delay In Christian Marriage

[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.]

Reference: Improving The Sexual Attractiveness Of Christian Men Won’t Cure The Christian Marriage Crisis

[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.]

It is widely recognized in the ‘sphere that Christian men, as a whole, tend to be unattractive and unappealing to women (Christian and secular alike). Under the PSALM/LAMPS model they fair poorly. They are for the most part raised that way, with everyone from their parents to the Church to society in general contributing to this deficiency.  Many posters and commenters, myself included, have dedicated themselves to helping Christian men overcome this.

At the same time it is recognized that there is a serious crisis in the Church when it comes to marriage. Divorce, while lagging behind the general culture, is still increasingly prevalent. Furthermore, the number of those who do marry every year diminishes. The median age of marriage has continued to climb, even among Christians.

This problem has been tied to the fact that most Christian men aren’t sexually attractive to women. While it is certainly a factor, the unfortunate truth is that even if Christian men were to become sexually attractive for the most part, the crisis wouldn’t end. Here are several reasons for this:

1. Christian women don’t want to marry, or at least, don’t want to marry young. They are following along with the culture embraced by secular women, and delay or avoid marriage. Christian men becoming more sexually attractive doesn’t mean that the hearts of Christian women will be changed and they will turn towards marriage.
2. Marriage is an increasingly dangerous legal landmine for men. It offers less than ever in terms of incentives, and the costs are higher than ever before. Even if Christian men became more attractive and knew they could gain a wife, they might view the risk as worthwhile.
3. Tied to the previous point, even if Christian men are more sexually attractive, that does them little good if the Christian women around them are not marriage material. The quality of Christian women has dropped precipitously in the last century (alongside that of men), and this impacts the marriage market. Even if a man could attract a woman, or more than one, the ones he attracts might not be ones he finds worthy to marry.
4. Parents and friends, Christian or secular, often discourage their children from marrying young. This has the net effect of discouraging marriage in general, and I would argue, also increases divorce in the aggregate.
5. Poor teaching about marriage also is a factor in this crisis. When young people are misguided when marriage is concerned, it is only natural that things won’t go well.

This list is not exhaustive, and likely will be added to over time. Those who feel that they have additions to make to it may do so in the comments.