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.]

A Fixer-Upper

My previous post discussed why men weren’t obligated to “buy damaged goods.” This post extends that discussion a bit, towards something related yet different. [I should also mention that this post is open to both men and women.] My general argument can be stated as this:

Don’t marry someone with the intention of making them a better person so that they end marriageable.

Otherwise stated:

Neither men nor women should ever marry someone who isn’t marriageable at the time of the wedding, in the hopes that the spouse can be “fixed” and turned into a good spouse.

In other words, don’t marry a “fixer-upper.”

Now, that doesn’t mean that people don’t have flaws that can’t be fixed. Far from it- we are all damaged to some degree or another. But there is damaged, and there is damaged. Some people, for whatever reason, are simply not fit for marriage at a given time. Perhaps they can be in the future. But that is the future, not now.

Whether you are a man or a woman, you shouldn’t marry a fixer-upper- someone who needs some serious work before they are fit for marriage. Especially don’t marry them with the goal of making them fit for marriage. That is not your job (and frankly, it shouldn’t be). To tie in with my last post, it isn’t your obligation to make an honest man or woman out of someone. That is between them and God.

The way I see it, and I might have borrowed this from some commenter in the past, but when you marry someone you should assume you are marrying them at their best, and they won’t get better from there. So if you wouldn’t want to be married to someone as they are when they marry you, don’t marry that person. [Confusing, I know.]

I invite my readers/commenters to leave their own thoughts on the subject.

Masculine Monday- #7

*Men Only*

If you are a young man in the West right now, I don’t envy you. The culture is at best apathetic to your existence, and at worst downright hostile. And if you are a young man who wants to marry in this day and age, well then… you are truly up #$^ creek without a paddle. Lets cut to the chase here. Young women these days are, for the most part, awful.

Their attitudes? Unbearable.

Their behavior? Often unmentionable.

Their desire for marriage? Low.

Their capacity to honor their word? Most non-existent.

And on and on.

Good women who want to marry are few and far between, and their aren’t nearly enough of them to go around. This means that many young men who want to marry will have to choose one of these two options:

1. Refuse to marry because no worthy women are available
2. Lower their standards in order to marry

This is a difficult choice to make, and nothing I can say will make it any less difficult. I sympathize with those going through this. How could I not, as I am going through it myself? As a matter of recommendation I would suggest the first course of action, but I won’t belittle a man who chooses the second.

At the same time, a man who makes that decision shouldn’t ever feel pressured into doing it. Which brings me to the point of this post:

Men, you are never obligated to buy damaged goods.

No matter what someone tells you, no matter how much they encourage or pressure or cajole you, you do not have a duty to make a woman “honest” by marrying her.

It is not now, and it never will be, your job to rescue a woman from her past mistakes.

When you marry someone you are basically intertwining them with pretty much every thread of your life. The consequences can’t be overstated. So you owe it to yourself, not to mention the people who rely on you, to marry well.

If you choose to lower your standards on your own, that’s fine. But don’t let anyone tell you that you have to do it. Or that you are a wicked person if you don’t. This goes especially for Christian men.

Don’t let Churchian leaders try and guilt you into marrying a low value. They don’t have your best interests at heart. They either are beholden to women and serve them, not God, or they merely see you as a janitor whose job is to clean up the trash. If they make you feel unwelcome if you resist, then find a new church.

Don’t let people use words like charity or forgiveness to try and trip you up. Remember, marriage is about building a relationship with another person and God, about bringing children into the world and raising them right, and it is about you and your wife getting to heaven. Marrying poorly will help you in none of these.

So refuse to be steamrolled into marrying poorly. Marriage affects everything about you, including your soul. Marry wisely, and marry under your own direction, not that of others.

¹⁹ My child, keep sound the bloom of your youth,
    and do not give your strength to strangers.
²⁰ Seek a fertile field within the whole plain,
    and sow it with your own seed, trusting in your fine stock.
²¹ So your offspring will prosper,
    and, having confidence in their good descent, will grow great.
²² A prostitute is regarded as spittle,
    and a married woman as a tower of death to her lovers.
²³ A godless wife is given as a portion to a lawless man,
    but a pious wife is given to the man who fears the Lord.
²⁴ A shameless woman constantly acts disgracefully,
    but a modest daughter will even be embarrassed before her husband.
²⁵ A headstrong wife is regarded as a dog,
    but one who has a sense of shame will fear the Lord.
²⁶ A wife honoring her husband will seem wise to all,
    but if she dishonors him in her pride she will be known to all as ungodly.
    Happy is the husband of a good wife;
    for the number of his years will be doubled.
²⁷ A loud-voiced and garrulous wife is like a trumpet sounding the charge,
    and every person like this lives in the anarchy of war.

(Sirach 26:19-27)

The Problem Before Us And The Problem Ahead Of Us

Today’s post features two related but different subjects. Both relate to the Church, but one is focused on the present and the second on the future. The latter gets most of my attention today.

No Place for Men

Rollo, of the Rational Male, left quite a comment recently in Dalrock’s latest post. It is too long to post in its entirety here, so I will instead post just the beginning:

I think it’s high time men acknowledge that modern Christian culture simply does not have men’s best interests as part of its doctrine anymore. Christianity in particular is for women.

Church culture is openly hostile towards any expression of conventional masculinity that doesn’t directly benefit women and actively conditions men to be serviceable gender-loathing Betas.

I recently read a study that our current generation is the least religious in history and I think as far as men are concerned much of that disdain for religion is attributable to church culture’s constant and open ridicule and debasement of men’s endeavors or anything characteristically masculine.

That’s not an indictment of faith, but rather a fairly measured observation of the way feminine-primary church culture has shaped that faith. In the future, any man with a marginal capacity for critical thought will avoid the church and religion for the obvious misandry it espouses; the only religious men you will find will be those raised into a life of religiously motivated Beta servitude.

While Rollo and I disagree about a lot, I agree with him that most churches are hostile to men. Even further, I agree that women have, to a large degree, captured  most churches and re-purposed them to serve women. Most understand this, to one degree or another, and this is partially responsible for the disdain that most men hold for Christianity.

At the same time, I disagree with Rollo that “any man with a marginal capacity for critical thought will avoid the church and religion.” While most churches are like that, not all are. I happen to attend a Church that is anything but anti-male. Masculinity is not only accepted, but celebrated. Women serve the Church, not the other way around.

Mine is not the only Church like that, either. As a Catholic, I can say that most Traditional Latin Mass Churches and Eastern Catholic churches will be a very different experience from what Rollo describes here. The same can be sound for most Eastern Orthodox Churches. The reason why is such churches are, by their nature, counter-cultural. They are deliberately set apart, and this has helped preserve them, to a degree. If a man is looking to sate his thirst for righteousness, I would encourage him to look there.

But in the meantime, I definitely think that most Protestant Churches will be a hostile environment for men. Nor do I see that changing anytime soon. Mainstream, i.e., liberal Catholic parishes might not have that hostility, at least not yet, but they are getting there. Further, they are already geared up towards serving women.  So avoid them guys. Really, just stay away. As Jesus said, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead.”

The New Catacombs

This brings me to my next subject, the future.

I will be honest with you, I think the near future is going to be very dismal indeed for devout Christians. Persecution is coming. The Church is going to contract greatly as people flee it for the comforts of the secular world. In fact, I suspect that the worst persecutors of the True Faith will be our “fellow Christians”, who will use their zeal to bring us down as proof that they aren’t like us.

Now, the Church has survived persecution before. More than survived, it has flourished there. So I don’t really fear it, both in an abstract sense and in a visceral literal sense of what I might experience.

All the same, I am worried. You see, it is more than just persecution that threatens the Church. It is also a dangerous rot within. This rot has many forms, but what concerns me most is the danger to marriage and the family. Those two, which are really just one and the same, are under attack by the general culture. And that attack has been largely successful, even within the Church.

I have seen for myself, and have heard it from plenty of others (through this blog and off-line) the damage that has resulted. Very few young Christians take marriage seriously. Many express little desire to marry. This is especially prominent, from what I have seen, among Christian women. And this isn’t merely limited to “mainstream” churches, but even more traditional ones too.

The Church had to adapt to survive before. For many Christians, that meant huddling in the Catacombs. Well, that option isn’t really available to us this time. Hiding from the secular world won’t help us when we bring their ideals with us. Before the Church had to adapt to a society that wanted to crush it. Now it has to adapt to deal with a society that has struck at its foundation- the family.

How does the Church manage when many of its youth don’t want to, or can’t marry? For the confessional faiths, Catholics and Orthodox, where will the next generation of clergy come from? Conversion might bring new people in, but rarely are they young couples with a growing family. No, what conversion might do is slow the Church’s shrinking. But until this marriage crisis is resolved, I don’t see it stopping, much less growing again.

I was talking with a priest recently, and he remarked that what the Church needs to turn it around is more good men to marry a good woman and raise a large family of devout and orthodox Christian children. He mentioned that men need to take charge of their families and demonstrate how the faith is meant to be lived out. I agreed with him on this. But then I asked how can we expect things to turn around if good men *can’t* marry good women. I pointed out how few women were actually interested in marrying. He acknowledged this, and really didn’t have an answer for me.

And that really is the crux of it- there is no answer for this. Not now, anyways. We are off the map now, in uncharted territory. The Church needs to find that answer, and soon.

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.

Reference: Men Refusing To Marry Non-Virgins Won’t End The Hook-Up Culture

[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.]

Numerous solutions to the hook-up culture have been offered in the ‘sphere. One such solution goes something like this:

If men refused to marry non-virgins (with a few potential exceptions) then women would no longer participate in the hookup-culture.

Here is one example of such a statement:

Hookup culture is a great example. It could end tomorrow if the Church told the young men in the congregation not to marry nonvirgins except under special circumstances. It sends an indirect message to the girls that they’ll be held accountable for their behavior and offers no pre-made rationalization that will work.

Unfortunately, this would not work for a number of reasons. The hook-up culture would not end if Christian men refused to marry non-virgin women, it would not end even if all men refused to marry non-virgin women.

Here are some reasons why:

1. Women do not have the same sense of time that men do. They are not, as a general rule, as forward thinking. Thus, they are less likely to consider the long term consequences of their actions. Therefore, many will fornicate even if they “know” the consequences, because at the time they won’t be thinking about them.
2. Many women will believe (and this will have the strength of a religious conviction) that an exception will be made for them. They will be sure that the “right man” will come and marry them despite their past. Or they will be convinced that they will meet, somehow, the criteria to justify an exception. This will be the case even if there are no exceptions made.
3. Women are, in their fallen state, naturally inclined towards sins and wrongdoing. Their Appetites lead them towards such temptation. The soul, through the Natural Law, might feel a pull towards marriage. But for most that pull is not, in and of itself, enough to overcome the demands of the flesh. This means that the “lure” of marriage will, for many, not be strong enough to overcome immediate desires.
4. Many women, if given the choice between no marriage but he chance to have sex with attractive men, and marriage with little or no choice of that being with a truly attractive man, will choose the former. The “goods” of marriage are less than they used to be, and in the present environment women do not feel the same push or pull towards marriage as in the past. Hence, the hook-up culture is an attractive option for them. Especially with the removal of social stigma for it, and for its consequences (bastard children).
5. Many women will believe that they can “cheat” the system by hiding the fact that they are not virgins. Plastic surgery and other devices can cover up or temporally hide the physical signs of past sexual activity. They can combine this by hiding their indiscretions. That means not keeping obvious boyfriends and engaging in secret hookups. Or perhaps keeping such behavior far from home, perhaps even overseas. That minimizes the chance of witnesses and someone talking.

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.

 

 

Tuesday Tips- #1

Today begins a new guest series by reader and commenter Michael Kozaki. It will take place on a semi-regular basis on Tuesdays, and will provide a place for him to state and argue for a counter-cultural Truth. The first in his series covers a subject I’ve addressed recently:

Life Is Suffering

…we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles…

 
I was able to vote before I really understood that life is suffering. What can I say? I was the product of my culture.

 
Few Christians embrace suffering nowadays. A thumbs-up, therapeutic Jesus is in vogue. No historic follower of Jesus would have recognized this guy. For good reason. The “therapeutic” or “feminized” Jesus is not the Jesus of the Scriptures nor of the Church. He’s a pagan god, forged in man’s image.

 
Donal is currently writing about suffering. I don’t intend to steal his thunder by going into detail. But there is simply no other way to start a series on countercultural living than to acknowledge that the desperate, futile, sniveling attempt to avoid suffering is the root of nearly every problem with the modern lifestyle.

 
This quest to sidestep suffering is nonstop. It has pulled Jesus off the crucifix. It sidesteps fasting. It mocks the confession of sins (yet spends thousands on shrinks and medication). It winks at abortion. It celebrates birth control (while paying thousands for fertility treatments and importing cheap labor). It ignores gluttony (and spends lavishly on diets). It consents to divorce. If you think about it, every one of these cultural trends have a singular reason: to avoid suffering. At any price. And it never works. We merely trade pain today for pain tomorrow.

 
My favorite example: Christians traditionally displayed their God in all His crucified agony and glory, front and center, in their churches. Moderns hate the real Jesus. Why? They hate suffering. They are ashamed and repulsed by Jesus’ supreme act of passionate love.

 
If you hide from suffering you can never be truly happy. Why? Because love – and salvation – demands suffering. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. Our whole earthly life is a story of suffering that ends in the ultimate earthly catastrophe: physical death. We can either accept this and embrace our cross, or give God the finger and refuse to become who we were born to be.

 
Avoidance of suffering is why so many people’s lives and relationships degrade over time. But in the end (if not long before the end) we will suffer no matter how hard we try to hide. So why not embrace suffering? And live a life worthy of it?

An Errant Brother… Or Something Else?

Hearthie is questioning when and where to call out Apostates. This is a good question, although I might merely think that because I ask it myself often enough (or something close to it, as you will see later). There are some things I feel pretty comfortable calling folks out on, but other matters less so. This post is going to be something of a stream of consciousness response- far less thought out than I normally go for. I don’t have the time for that, sadly, so I will For the sake of convenience, I am going to loosely follow the format of her post in my response.

I want to begin with this little snippet:

…the level of apostasy becomes absurd

The thing is, I’m not really sure there are “levels” of apostasy. To be an apostate means to leave the faith. From Merriam Webster:

1. 1:  renunciation of a religious faith

2. 2:  abandonment of a previous loyalty

Either you leave the faith, or you don’t. Perhaps you do it in secret, but still, you know in your heart that you are out. What I think that Hearthie is mostly talking about is heresy:

a belief or opinion that does not agree with the official belief or opinion of a particular religion

Of course, an apostate can promote heresies. But heresy can have different levels to it, depending on how far from the Truth it is. Continuing on:

But on the other hand, perhaps we’re doing a disservice to the public by not calling out those who call themselves Christian while having no adherence to the Word whatsoever.

I think we often are. Our Lord and Savior told us that the Truth would set us free. It stands to reason that the opposite is the case, and lies therefore enslave us (to sin, I would imagine). They might not see their chains if someone else doesn’t point out to them where they are in error.

Is this a thing where some folks are gifted with the calling out, and some folks gifted with the chilling out – as parts of the body of Christ?

Yes, I think that correcting/rebuking others is a spiritual gift. At least, doing it effectively is. Not everyone is called to do it, at least regularly. We all still might have to do it from time to time.

Is there a line beyond which one cannot cross before every Christian should refuse fellowship and communion until repentance is reached?

Yes, there is. Several lines, actually. Although that is me speaking as a Catholic there (I imagine my Orthodox readers would mostly match up with me on them). Where those lines are is the subject of another post (or the comments).

Can we differentiate between the folks who are in grave error, and potentially apostate vs. those who are unquestionably out of the family?

Yes, I think we can. Some lines are so clear that there really isn’t any debate (denying the divinity of Jesus, for example).

Of course, many of us make small errors, perhaps even frequently. Often those are the easiest to correct, especially if done gently. This is where humility becomes so important, and why I think it is essential to having a strong spiritual life.

But these dudes are *still alive* so there’s still hope of their coming to repentance.

Yes, as long as they are alive there is hope for them. Even better, if they repent then they can also make this public and undo some of the damage they have done.

That’s all I have for now.

Called Out

I have been following the discussion in Deepstrength’s latest post, Women teaching women in Church. A longer post is in the works for Thursday which is aimed at the central point of DS’s post, the teaching role of Women. However, the discussion got me thinking about another subject, namely, how in Protestant circles it seems to be a frequent occurrence for Pastors/Ministers to “call out” the men in the congregation (I suppose this can also be happening in Catholic parishes, but I’ve never seen it).

I got to thinking about this whole “calling out” process and its roots. Jesus calls out several specific groups in the Gospels. Among them are the Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees. However, He keeps this either very specific (individuals, or members of groups like the aforementioned) or very general (everyone). I cannot recall a single instance where Jesus called out men, as a group, or women, as a group. Admittedly, my knowledge of Scripture still needs improvement. So I am asking my readers if they know of any examples that I might have overlooked.

It seems to me that Jesus never did any such thing, in part because it would be destructive, not constructive. This is because it would set men and women against each other. The Devil was/is the one who set women against men, and men against women. God wouldn’t do such  a thing. At least, that is how I read it. I am curious to hear what others think.

Selected Sunday Scriptures- #104: Rise Up!… And, Er… Ignore The Elephant In The Room

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

(Genesis 1:27)

While this blog is focused first and foremost on masculine matters, I devote plenty of time to discussing women as well. There are a number of reasons for this, but the most important is the simple fact that the fates of men and women are intertwined. One can only change men so much before further developments are impossible without affecting women as well.

Sometimes this can be forgotten, both by men outside of this neck of the woods, and by those within. Here is an example of the former. A quote:

In our culture today fathers are becoming less and less a part of our children’s lives and the absence of fathers has led directly to the downfall of Christian culture in America. Currently, 40 percent of American children do not grow up with their biological father.

That number is on the rise as more and more couples choose the lifestyle of cohabitation and decide not to get married at all. Since the men in those relationships are not bound by any marriage vows, they feel less responsibility to stick around, especially if the marriage or childrearing starts to get tough. What are the results of fatherless homes? Let’s take a look at the statistics:

The author goes on from there to talk about the perils of fatherless families. He is absolutely right in this, of course. But at the same time, he missed the huge elephant in the room: divorce. Now Dalrock has covered this blind spot plenty, and I don’t feel it necessary to repeat his many, many posts on the subject. However, this blind spot is not unique. There are others.

To get an idea of one, lets look at what this author talks about next:

Now this absences of fathers in everyday does not only apply to the demise of domestic life. In fact, what we are also experiencing in our culture is the absence of fathers in the spiritual life of the home, even when the father is present in the family. As pointed out by Doug Barry in his “Battle Ready Rally,” we typically praise our grandmas for passing on the faith in our family. We almost never hear about fathers or grandfathers passing on the faith to their children. Typically, “church” or “religion” is viewed as something reserved for women.

…

These Polish men failed to see that their primary responsibility as head of the household was to fight the spiritual battle for the lives of their family. As Saint Paul says in Ephesians 6:12, “For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens.” It is our duty as fathers to fight that battle and to be a firm foundation for our family. If we don’t do it, our society will continue to crumble around us.

All well and good. I don’t disagree with his general argument- Christian men do need to lead the spiritual life of their families. But as I indicated earlier, the author here is missing something important, something essential. What is missing?

Well, leadership, of course. He mourns the loss of spiritual leadership. But if a man is not a leader in other ways in his family, how can he flourish as (much less be encouraged to be) a spiritual leader. And where does this take us? Why, authority in the family, naturally.

²² Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. ²⁴ As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. ²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶ that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. ²⁸ Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, ³⁰ because we are members of his body. ³¹ “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” ³² This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the church; ³³ however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

(Ephesians 5:22)

Men cannot fulfill their role as spiritual leaders in their family if the rest of their leadership is cut off at the knees. How effective will a man be if the children see his wife, their mother, constantly rebel against his leadership? I think we all know the answer to that.

Ultimately, the real blind spot here is to the way that the Church treats men, husbands/fathers in particular. The lack of respect, the lack of support for a husband’s authority, all of these undermine any desire or efforts for men to be the spiritual leaders of their families.

As Deep Strength and others have pointed out, men (like women) respond to Incentives. this applies to actions within marriage, as well as before or without. Now, does that excuse men who don’t try to carry out their duties? Of course not. But the blame is not only theirs to share.

⁵ “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; ⁶ but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

⁷ “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the man by whom the temptation comes!

(Matthew 18:5-7)

If we want more men to act as spiritual leaders in their families, the Church needs to stop treating men like trash. It needs to encourage and admonish, yes, but also respect and acknowledge. Further, women need to be taught to encourage and aide their husbands in being leaders, rather than be taught to belittle them and usurp their authority.

Male and female He created us. The behaviors of both need to be addressed if we want to see positive change. Ignore one sex entirely, and you will never get very far at all.