They say that hard cases make for bad law. Extreme behavior may make for bad descriptions of the state of things in a society. However, I couldn't help but feel that there is something indicative of where America stands, culturally, after watching a show about bridezillas off and on with Rachel yesterday. Those women are insufferable monsters; the culmination of every effort to create the perfect self-centered princess-bitch-goddess.
It's easy to blame the girls because they are so loathesome. If you suppress the urge to reach through the screen and beat them half to death with a golf club for the way they treat everyone around them, you might notice something going on in the background: the father just doesn't do anything. You might be tempted to say that it's because of his wife, but that's not always the case. In some cases, the mother is actually trying to beat some sense into her daughter and the father is actually undermining her, letting the little bitch-princess get her way.
Blame mom and dad equally.
It's easy enough to blame women because they tend to be the ones to walk out first, and in the process ruin everything that a man has built. However, men deserve a lot of blame in their own right. A few generations ago, they stopped disciplining their daughters and grounding them in reality. They're the ones who let their daughters be "daddy's little princess" and in the process allowed them to grow up spoiled in their expectations toward men. I blame it on the Victorian-era myth that women are moral angels, rather than cut from the same genetic and spiritual cloth as men. Fathers just couldn't believe that their daughters were formed from the same depraved nature as their sons.
"Man up." "Woman up."
"Give up!"
Yes, give up. A lot of conservatives cling to yesteryear and the Victorian myths about men and women like a child to a security blanket. "If only men would step up to the plate." I don't see many women ready to pitch. There is so much cultural and legal inertia to changing the culture that it is, at this point, a done deal that on the aggregate, marriage is a failed institution in America. The exceptions prove nothing. Optimism-junky Americans have a hard time facing the fact that marriage has failed as an institution. We are addicted to good news like a drug user to smack. Bad news and truth is like getting strapped down to a chair and forced to go cold turkey.
Too many people benefit now from marriage failing for it to succeed as a broadly-participated social institution. The laws are even skewed now in ways to advance their interests. Put more simply, in general, there is nothing that can be said or done to fix it. The wheel of history must turn for America the way it did for Rome from the moral collapse in the early years of Augustus' reign, to the return of public morals during the latter years of Christianity's rise in the empire.
It's easy to blame the girls because they are so loathesome. If you suppress the urge to reach through the screen and beat them half to death with a golf club for the way they treat everyone around them, you might notice something going on in the background: the father just doesn't do anything. You might be tempted to say that it's because of his wife, but that's not always the case. In some cases, the mother is actually trying to beat some sense into her daughter and the father is actually undermining her, letting the little bitch-princess get her way.
Blame mom and dad equally.
It's easy enough to blame women because they tend to be the ones to walk out first, and in the process ruin everything that a man has built. However, men deserve a lot of blame in their own right. A few generations ago, they stopped disciplining their daughters and grounding them in reality. They're the ones who let their daughters be "daddy's little princess" and in the process allowed them to grow up spoiled in their expectations toward men. I blame it on the Victorian-era myth that women are moral angels, rather than cut from the same genetic and spiritual cloth as men. Fathers just couldn't believe that their daughters were formed from the same depraved nature as their sons.
"Man up." "Woman up."
"Give up!"
Yes, give up. A lot of conservatives cling to yesteryear and the Victorian myths about men and women like a child to a security blanket. "If only men would step up to the plate." I don't see many women ready to pitch. There is so much cultural and legal inertia to changing the culture that it is, at this point, a done deal that on the aggregate, marriage is a failed institution in America. The exceptions prove nothing. Optimism-junky Americans have a hard time facing the fact that marriage has failed as an institution. We are addicted to good news like a drug user to smack. Bad news and truth is like getting strapped down to a chair and forced to go cold turkey.
Too many people benefit now from marriage failing for it to succeed as a broadly-participated social institution. The laws are even skewed now in ways to advance their interests. Put more simply, in general, there is nothing that can be said or done to fix it. The wheel of history must turn for America the way it did for Rome from the moral collapse in the early years of Augustus' reign, to the return of public morals during the latter years of Christianity's rise in the empire.
My first wedding anniversary is coming up on the 28th, and in reflection, I know I'm a lucky man because I married a good Christian woman who comes from a good Christian family. I had a coworker ask me why I'm "so cynical" about marriage, and it's because of the fact that I have come to realize how futile marriage is without Jesus as Lord. Marriage licenses are no substitute for a belief that what the New Testament says about love and marriage is true, and applies to both of you. The fact that so many even in the church just blow these things away as though they are mere opinions, without even making a weak attempt to obey them, is proof enough to me that we are, strictly speaking, fucked when it comes to the state of marriage today on a number of levels too complex to fix in my lifetime (and I just turned 25).
Thanks for writing this. As a single guy struggling with these issues himself, it's comforting to have someone agree with me.
May God bless your marriage and may it be exceedingly fruitful. Having a proper, Christ-centred marriage is a rare thing indeed. I thought my last girlfriend might have been the one, but it turned out she wasn't.
And now I'm stuck with that longing for companionship in a world where women and men alike show horribly distorted and twisted concepts of what relationships are.
Men are to blame too. I wouldn't place all the blame on the fathers. Part of it is the sex-saturated culture men live in and adhere to. Everywhere men look, we are bombarded with sexual imagery, and so we seek sex.
In order to get it, men have to pursue women. Men are giving them way more attention than they deserve, putting up with personality flaws in order to simply get sex. Women learn that all they need to do is look pretty and the guys fall all over them. The entire relationship culture has ceased to be about who people are. For men, it's about extracting sex without commitment, and then for women, it's trying to filter through all of the attention for the man that will offer something more. However, women continually get attention from men, so they don't consider that perhaps they need to continue to grow as individuals. All the attention men provide women with stifle the women's growth as people.
My honest, sincere approach cannot compete with a deceitful, manipulative approach unless women realize this is happening. In my experience, very few do. It is incredibly disheartening.
"Too many people benefit now from marriage failing for it to succeed as a broadly-participated social institution."
Mike, this is so true. When my ex filed for divorce, there wasn't a darn thing I could do to stop or even slow down that train. Once set in motion, it was impossible to stop. What's worse, the legal regime dangled enticements in front of my ex that lowered the costs, both personal and financial, of her breaking her commitment and destroying my family.
"If only men would step up to the plate"
I hear this refrain a lot, and I really get tired of it. Men are not afraid of commitment! They commit all of the time, 2.2M times per year to be exact, hoping against hope that their number won't be called. Women to the tune of ~1M+ per year renege on their commitment; that's the engine that's the prime mover in the decline in marriage. Plus, as the saying goes, there's no need to lease the cow if the cow's just handing out free samples, hoping that some stupid wanna-be-steer will sign out a lease anyway. Getting free sex only helps the decline in marriage along.
"My honest, sincere approach cannot compete with a deceitful, manipulative approach unless women realize this is happening."
In my observation, most women don't want honest. Honest is boring. They want the fairy tale romace, which is why honest normal guys who would treat them well and make good husbands will never measure up.
Speaking of that 2.2m number. After reading his comment to me on that post of yours about 2.2m suckers, I went to MarkeyMark's blog to see what's up with that guy and GOOD LORD. Either he hit the unholy jackpot or something... ain't no way a good Christian woman would go within 20 feet of him now if his blog is any indication of his attitude toward all women (I saw him rip on even traditional Christian marriage).
Probably too much time spent hanging around with the Funky Bunch.
Mike, I used to be fairly bitter about what happened to me and my family. In the months that followed the surprise kidnapping of my kids across the country, when I had house full of furniture, kids clothes, a crib, etc, it was very lonely and embittering.
It was easy to look at the divorce data, how guys get worked over in court, etc, and then point the finger at all women saying "you suck!"
But you're right, that's not Christian, nor is it true to the data. In the end, being pissed off and off-putting, while it may feel good for a little while, won't help a guy heal. Or get himself a Godly woman with which to make a home or a family with.
I get enough of that from the water that we have around here. Fear and trepidation is a break from the queasiness :)
I agree, marriage is a failed institution. It brings out the worst in men and women now.
Let's hope that marriage joins feudalism, usury, and indentured servitude on the dust heap of history.
Yeah, that's it, it's marriage that's the problem and not many of the people who take part in it...
Marriage declined for 2 reasons:
The first you stated, the legal institution is now set against it
The second and more important reason is that the Mangina's (Like yourself) continue to get married and support the institution even though you know it's failed because "my wife is so wonderful, she's different." Yeah right. You're screwed, you screwed yourself even though you knew marriage was a sham.
There will be no change in Marriage until the institution is completely dismantled and rebuilt. That means if you want it to change, you have to say NO to it until it is fixed. If you still get married these days, you are nothing more than a big blubbering Mangina.
Says the guy who probably just runs around fucking women while not committing to anyone of them, thus exacerbating his own way, by providing fodder for the anti-marriage culture. Guys like you are every bit your own part of the problem.