February 27, 2024

"[T]oo many Americans, too many young adults especially, are either explicitly or implicitly assuming that life is about education, money and especially work...."

"We’ve also seen the falling fortunes of men.... About one in four men in their prime, 25 to 54, are not working.... [T]he rise of expressive individualism since the late ’60s and early ’70s has kind of changed what Americans expect from love and marriage and made them less formalistic in their orientation.... I was talking to a graduate student recently. He had a very clear sense of his plan for schooling and work, and then I said, what’s your plan about marriage and dating? And there was silence.... [P]eople are not being intentional enough about seeking opportunities to meet, date and marry young adults in their world.... And I’ve spoken to a number of working-class women who kind of express concern about their partners or husband’s lack of full-time employment, and his lack of assistance on the home front — just kind of the male malaise, we might call it, is more likely to be expressed in many working class and poor communities...."

Said University of Virginia professor Brad Wilcox, author of "Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization," quoted in "I Said, What’s Your Plan About Marriage and Dating? And There Was Silence" (NYT).

59 comments:

Ampersand said...

This is not going to reverse itself.

Ampersand said...

This is not going to reverse itself.

RideSpaceMountain said...

Modern marriage is a product of modern women. Men had nothing to do with what's going on in the West regarding marriage, relationships, or sex, save that they went along with it willingly down the primrose path to where we are now. In that sense it was a sin of omission, and one that nature will correct, naturally.

Catullus had something to say about the phenomenon 2100 years ago. So did Chanakya, but I can't find the quote:

"My lady vows she'll marry none but me,
Not e'en tho' very Jove the wooer be.
She vows, but woman's oath to ardent swain
Must be engraved on wind or falling rain."

chickelit said...

Why blame this all on men—“male malaise”?

RideSpaceMountain said...

A lot of online banter seems to suggest that the future is alpha-male polygamy. The Pareto Principle is true, and they predict a future where only 5% of the male population is considered 'marriageable' by a solid cohort of American women (let's say 40% +/-). In many ways, this is already happening because that 5% already has a 'harem', they're just not getting married officially.

The desperation will become palpable, just like that killer nurse, Lucy Letby, in London who did what she did from desperation that she would never be married and have a family.

I am reminded of Isaiah 4:1:

"In that day seven women
Will take hold of one man and say,
'We will eat our own food
And provide our own clothes
Only let us be called by your name
Take away our disgrace!'”

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Feminist literature is rife with rejection of marriage and the "nuclear family." Critical Theory is even more hostile to it. Marxism, which infuse so much of the above, has destruction of the traditional family as an explicit goal, as elucidated by BLM and CRT advocates. They have largely succeeded with the black community in the USA and they are succeeding in doing it to the rest of us. Once the women are "out of the game" then marriage is off the table for average men by default. Those factors added to the demasculinization efforts over the years have really marginalized the production of young men with the male characteristics a marriage-minded woman actually wants!

Did the UVA professor discuss any of this behind the NYT paywall? Is it not obvious to anyone paying attention? Did he even read The War Against Boys by Dr. Helen Smith or read her articles?

Original Mike said...

"I was talking to a graduate student recently. He had a very clear sense of his plan for schooling and work, and then I said, what’s your plan about marriage and dating? And there was silence.... [P]eople are not being intentional enough about seeking opportunities to meet, date and marry young adults in their world.... "

IDK, I had a school/work plan, but no "plan", per se, on dating and marriage. If I met someone I was interested in, I asked her out. Is that a "plan"?

RideSpaceMountain said...

Society used to run on men being given happiness and fulfillment early in their lives in exchange for duty later in their lives. Society stopped holding up its end of the bargain so a lot of men stopped holding up theirs. They’re not going to study hard, work hard, buy a house, get married and have kids hoping that playing catch up in their 30s will make up for lost time. That’s over.

The carrot is no longer on the stick and it didn’t take the donkey anywhere near as long to notice as they’d hoped. Nothing will convince a lot of modern men to be what their fathers and grandfathers were. The world now is nothing like the world they grew up in.

I've seen this with a lot of men I served with, several of whom are in their 40s and will remain bachelors. For a growing cohort of men, the 'juice is no longer worth the squeeze'.

chickelit said...

What is “defy elites” about? Most young women of childbearing age loathe Donald Trump and will double down on Joe Biden. Yet look at those two men’s children. And don’t give me the BS that those leaders’ children were raised by just their mothers. That’s a terrible indictment of Dr. Jill.

Yancey Ward said...

Cows and free milk.

RideSpaceMountain said...

Don’t worry young man! You should work hard in school and get all straight As! Then study hard during college, then get a good job, work hard at it, save every penny, invest it, go to the gym, build social proof, and then maybe when you’re in your 30s you’ll meet a used-up, cashed-out, tatted-up American woman of no value to settle down with.

Be everything she thought you could be! Remember to think about her pleasure. Think of her feelings. Geez. Come on...don’t be selfish.

Jupiter said...

It's called "feminism". According to the people who developed it, those are features, not bugs.

Darkisland said...

About one in four men in their prime, 25 to 54, are not working.

How do they support themselves? Who is paying the rent, food etc?

Some no doubt live off their parents but how many? 20-30%?

Where does the money come from for the rest?

John Henry

RCOCEAN II said...

The idea that an article in the NYT's is going to show you a way to "Defy the elites" is hilarious.

Aggie said...

But this is an easy problem to solve: Incentivize marriage and family-building with tax breaks and other economic benefits. Many countries have done this, and are doing this. Here, it would cause an immediate reaction and protest from all of the most odious special interest groups - the ones that are aligned with Death Cults. That's an easy problem to solve, too - if your political class isn't permeated by spineless, craven cowards.

tim maguire said...

It’s good that we have growing awareness of the ways in which men are being pushed out of the upper ranks of society—women want husbands who make more than them, but they also want husbands who make their money in the feminized office environment, commonly discounting men who work in the trades even if they make a good living doing it.

But what are we prepared to do about it?

Biff said...

OMG! Apparently, I no longer am in my prime! I had no idea!

BitterClinger said...

Reading the Reader's Picks comments on the NYT piece, two things stand out to me:

1. Feminists will recoil from any statement that suggests men should be helped. Comments are along the lines of "Why is the author talking so much about what men need, more recess, etc. and not about women?" Well it's because women don't want a man who is less successful (income, prestige, power) than they are. The discussion of men in the article is about how to make marriage to a man more attractive for women. There is actually no discussion in the article of why modern marriage may be unattractive to men! The entire article is considering marriage from the woman's wants/needs, but the feminists recoil because it suggests that maybe we need to help men if we want to help women.

2. Judging by the number of comments that bring "bodily autonomy", i.e., abortion, into the discussion, AWFL women just really, really, want the freedom to kill their babies.

PM said...

I think the proper order is education, work, then money.

gspencer said...

His book, "Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization"

The elites follow his advice. But they want anyone who's not "elite" to take a different course in life.

Charles Murray pins it down in Coming Apart and his Fishtown (non-elites) and Belmont (the elites),

https://www.aei.org/articles/coming-apart-and-fishtown/

n.n said...

The People and our Posterity

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Building a doomsday bunker with a flammable moat cost way too much.

And that is not even including the in-kitchen renovations.

All kidding aside, something big is coming.

Why are the Waltons selling their stock?

Dave Begley said...

My youngest daughter said to me a few years back, "Nobody gets married until 30." She'll be 30 next year and is unmarried.

How did this happen?

Greg the Class Traitor said...

Gee, men are responding to the assault of (left dominated) society by saying "fuck you, we'll just play video games!"? What a shock!

On the one hand, it's sad, and bad for society.

On the other, it's what this society deserves.

Dear people who vote for Democrats: This is all on you. You create a society where men are devalued, esp. white men, esp. white men without college degrees. Then you expect and hope those men will still do the work to make your society survive.

This is stupid of you. But then, your'e voting Democrat, so we already know you're stupid.

in any event, enjoy the crash

etbass said...

“Nobody gets married until 30.”. And then they wait 3-4 years before trying to have a baby and find it is a problem.

Leland said...

Actually surprised the NYT would publish this.

Marcus Bressler said...

Few men want to marry a girl who has ridden the cock carousel; add in tattoos, piercings, and feminist ideas, and there's not much left. Plan? Stay single; forget marriage and the inevitable divorce and bankruptcy that follows as well as restricted access to your kids.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

why work when you can Hunter Biden your way thru life.

Howard said...

RideSpaceMountain: you don't quite have that right. The betas are on top now. They're the ones that succeed in the legalistic construct of civilization. True alpha males have trouble navigating those Waters. The only billionaire I can think of that seems anything like an alpha male is Elon Musk. The poster boys for this is of course Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. I mean really, could you imagine going on a Viking raid with any of those captains of industry and technology? Every last one of them is blanket party material.

Mason G said...

"How did this happen?"

Because that's what women say they want.

Mason G said...

"The entire article is considering marriage from the woman's wants/needs..."

Not just "the entire article" and "marriage", most of society today is focused on a woman's wants and needs. No wonder so many guys are checking out.

lamech said...

The author being interviewed states:
"We also just have fewer norms governing dating, sex, co-resident marriage. I’m not saying go back to 1955. But there isn’t really much in the way of common cultural guidance to sort of help script the transition from being single to being successfully married in our culture."


Analogous sentiment:
So what Jefferson was saying was "Hey! You know, we left this England place because it was bogus. So if we don't get some cool rules ourselves, pronto, we'll just be bogus too." Yeah?
-- Jeff Spicoli

rehajm said...

They were drugged as boys so they would be compliant with a female oriented learning environment. Then they tried to compete in secondary education that had a thumb on the scale for girls. Employers must be dominated by female workers or risk suffering the wrath of government and leftie elites. Now with the newfound career success disproportionate to their numbers, working women demand high quality men consistent with their positions- and he’s gotta be hot. We deserve it…

An innumerate society can’t seem to figure it out. Blame the boys, they say. Same shit we used to hear about women…

Smilin' Jack said...

Western civilization is DEI-ing itself to death. Maybe some of the best parts (the science and technology) will be preserved in Asia, as Greek and Roman civilization were during the Dark Ages.

Jake said...

Isn't this how natural selection works?

Enigma said...

Odd how this source now parrots Jordan Peterson and Elon Musk -- both recently tagged as 'conservatives' when they are just old school functional people trying to optimize lives and improve outcomes.

The current state of affairs is 100 years in the making, and mostly driven by technology. The Silver Screen films with girls fainting to Rudolph Valentino begat the Rat Pack and Playboy generation, which begat "now it's my turn" Women's Lib, which begat social media isolation and self-conscious anxiety. Lots of 30-year-old virgins will be 40-year-old virgins too.

This ends when many people die off, be it through suicide, avoiding babies, or violence. The breeders then inherit the Earth. My bets are on the Mormons and Amish and global traditional religions for the long game.

RideSpaceMountain said...

American women, of any color or ethnicity, are the most entitled, pampered, cajoled, elitist, narcissistic, and vapid females that have ever existed in history. There is no parallel anywhere in the human condition to the 'Yas Qween Slay' phenomenon. The ancient sages were right. Female solipsism, left unchecked, is a civilization killer. It destroys all price discovery, dissolves incentives, and creates a culture of gossip and fear.

This is going to come to an end. American women will be reacquainted with reality, probably not far in the future.

Larry J said...

There are a lot of young men who have seen their fathers and friends destroyed by divorce and who want no part of marriage. It's hard to blame them.

chickelit said...

The blame and the fault for this tragic Western situation is the insistence that male and female marital roles must equal AND identical. That is core feminism. Feminism
Invented the two income trap.

Quaestor said...

"Actually surprised the NYT would publish this."

Does Sulzberger sense a turning of the tide? Has there been a boardroom revolt? Anyone who can read a leger could have predicted the money men would not endure the idiocy forever.

The Vault Dweller said...

While I'd like to say this is all because of Modern Feminism and about 30 years of institutionalized discrimination against men, I think modern culture encourages a kind of laissez faire, fairy-tale idea of marriage. Too many young people expect that they will just find someone and that person will be the perfect match. Young people lack the appropriate level of earnestness about marriage. Once people get to 19 or 20 finding a spouse should be at least as important a priority as finding a career. Obviously there are exceptions, but for a good say, 80% to 90% of young folks this should be a priority. Our culture does a horrible job at emphasizing the value of marriage. I think this is partly because of feminism, but not the whole I'm a strong independent woman and thus don't need a man nor a bicycle because I'm also a fish, but the part where it is considered bad if anyone feels badly about their choices or life situation.

Harun said...

What did we learn about encouraging little kids from the McMartin Preschool case?

mccullough said...

The Matriarchy ruins everything

mikee said...

Men accepted the feminist idea that women do NOT need a commitment of marriage to share sexual pleasures. Men accepted the feminist idea that women do NOT need a man to support them economically. Men accepted the feminist idea that only women are required to raise children, the men are toxic in their masculinity. Men accepted the feminist idea that women do NOT need a man at all, any more than a fish needs a bicycle.

What are the complaints about? Men accepted the feminist ideas presented as progress for women. As I recall, women insisted. And now women are unhappy they can't find a man who wants to marry them, partner with them economically, raise children with them, instead of just having a one night stand after meeting them on Tinder?

I'd call this an unintended consequence, but I don't think it was.

Todd said...

Right... What is so wrong about being stupid, poor, and lazy anyway? At least one of the two main political parties would love it if more of the population were like that. Easier to control that way.

Narr said...

Kind of a lot of kind of from the good professor. FWIW I would probably have gone silent too if one of my profs had presumed to ask about my sexual or romantic life.

RSM says that "Society used to be run on men being given happiness and fulfilment early in their lives . . . ."

But that must have been a different society than I came up in.

My son will be 39 soon, and finally making halfway decent money at a specialty woodwork shop, and AFAIK he is sexless. He had plenty of time to see what degrees can do for a person, and chose--finally--not to pursue one. Likewise, he can see his parent's marriage, and those of some of his friends, and has chosen not to follow.

But we never expected him to set the world on fire. (Or himself.)


JAORE said...

Way back in the late 1980s was a single guy. I had a comparatively good job, an engineering education, a house and a car.

Finding women was easy. FWIW I resisted a lot of temptation. I was looking for (and mercifully found) a strong, independent woman.

I can not imagine the same situation where most college grads are women. Many men don't work and on and on.

The alpha males must be feasting. Why would the predatory side of the alpha males consider marriage?

loudogblog said...

"He had a very clear sense of his plan for schooling and work, and then I said, what’s your plan about marriage and dating?"

I'm seeing a theme today about teachers delving inappropriately into their student's personal lives.

RideSpaceMountain said...

@Howard

I love that your first and primary association with a man's level in the socio-sexual hierarchy is his net worth, and that Bill "I like little girl feet" Gates, Mark Zuckersperg, and Jeff "stop calling my wife a tranny!" Bezos are 'alpha'.

If understanding were a tree, you'd be a bush.

RideSpaceMountain said...

The USA is now one giant Human Resources Department, with a willingly neurotic gynarchy to support it. They all married Big Daddy Government thinking Big Daddy Government won't let them down.


I believe they will be very very wrong. But hey...you hear about women staying with abusive husbands all the time. Maybe they can change him! /sarc

rehajm said...

Enjoy your cats…

John henry said...

Bezos too. I think $8 billion so far this year.

He could pay 50%in taxes, put $4bn under the mattress and pull out $10mm/yr for walking around money.

John Henry

RideSpaceMountain said...

Remember Jenny from Forrest Gump? Jenny is literally the Jungian archetypal profile for the modern American woman. The era in which the movie is shot is even symbolic because that's exactly the time - 60s and 70s - when the shift happened. Jenny's Rumspringa runs her around all over the place, searching and latching onto anyone and anything representing masculine power, finally realizing that all of them were false gods so she can return to her most devoted orbiter, who happens to be retarded (they did this intentionally), with a child and god knows what STDs.

This is how Generation X and early millenials were created. Millions and millions of Jennies.

Scott Gustafson said...

"This is how Generation X and early millenials were created. Millions and millions of Jennies."

Didn't Obama make a short film about the life of Julia?

Wince said...

The Godfathers - Birth, School, Work, Death

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QO5dcW0P75M

Been turned around till I'm upside down
Been all at sea until I've drowned
And I've felt torture, I've felt pain
Just like that film with Michael Caine
I've been abused and I've been confused
And I've kissed Margaret Thatcher's shoes
I've been high and I've been low
And I don't know where to go

Birth, school, work, death
Birth, school, work, death

And heroin was the love you gave
From the cradle to the grave
Boys and girls don't understand
The devil makes work for idle hands
I cut myself but I don't bleed
'Cause I don't get what I need
Doesn't matter what I say
Tomorrow's still another day

Yeah, I've been high and I've been low
And I don't know where to go
I'm living on the never, never, never
This time it's gonna be forever
I'll live and die, don't ask me why
I wanna go to paradise
And I don't need your sympathy
There's nothing in this world for me

JK Brown said...

And I’ve spoken to a number of working-class women who kind of express concern about their partners or husband’s lack of full-time employment, and his lack of assistance on the home front — just kind of the male malaise

So, if you are a man who might have "male malaise" the simplest solution is to not marry or encumber yourself with a wife or partner or kids. Problem solved. Single men don't need a lot for a happy life. Seems like many men have and are opting for that solution.

The problem seems to be that many are starting to realize that men not working themselves to death in marriage means less cash for those who live off tax dollars, whether they be poor or professors.

Butkus51 said...

Leave it to the beaver

Hassayamper said...

Men have caught a lot of criticism from women over the years for using the 0-10 scale to rank women's beauty. But what is Tinder if not a real-time Dutch auction, paid in the coin of subjective rankings of attractiveness? The Ebay of love... What can it teach us?

There has been some remarkable research performed on data from the dating apps. I think it has dried up recently because the results were often not flattering to women, but while this data was available, it was truly remarkable to see how unrealistic their expectations were.

It turns out that if you poll men on the desirability of a large sample of women, the results will be a relatively symmetric Gaussian bell curve. The median and mode will both be at 5, and there will be only a handful of 10's and 1's. Half the women will end up on the left of the peak, and half on the right. If the male suitability for marriage according to women's estimation followed the same distribution, it would be a statistical validation of the notion that "there's someone for everyone."

But that's not how it turns out. The curve for women's rankings of men is drastically skewed in a way that men's rankings of women are not. Women consider the median male to be somewhere between a 2 and a 3, and rank 70 or 80 percent of them below 5. If we scale it to the Tinder universe, the most attractive decile of men gets a 20% favorable response rate after "swiping right" on a woman's profile. That might sound bad to those unfamiliar with these new social institutions, but it's actually terrific. Considering how easy it is to flip through Tinder profiles, those top dog males are able to drown themselves in pussy pretty much any time they want. By contrast, the fifth-decile/median male gets less than 1% response, and the bottom three deciles get practically none.

This so-called hypergamy, or womens' tendency to be willing to share unfaithful but higher-ranked males with other women while ignoring lower ranked males who might be objectively more of a match with their own suitability, undermines the institution of marriage from both ends. In the days before dating apps, effortless casual sex, the Pill, and no-fault divorce, a top-decile male would have put some effort into wooing a top 1% or at least top 10% woman to be his wife, and then would be likely to stay married to her for decades, or forever. But he can now keep a harem of women in the top 3 or 4 deciles at his beck and call for no-strings-attached sexual favors, making him much less likely to "buy the cow" than he would have been previously. Even the bottom-half women will find it possible to move themselves up the scale to the increasingly desperate middle-ranked men, leaving no realistic prospect of love or marriage at all for the bottom-ranked 30-40% of males.

There's a lengthy paper discussing these phenomena at this link:

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/2506bda6ca9a8b7ce8b3c54b4/files/1a8cc94c-6198-4f3d-b27d-8a6060ed6c5d/Tyro_Dating_Market_Thesis_Final_For_Twitter_Pub_v2.pdf

Note particularly the graphs on pages 5 and 6.

I am lucky to have bagged a top-decile woman and stayed married to her for over 30 years. It is not working out nearly as well for our adult children. Outside of very intentional and traditional religious minorities, no one seems to have an answer for this problem. Say what you will about Mormons, but they are going to inherit the Earth at this rate (along with Amish, Muslims, and Orthodox Jews.)

Tina Trent said...

Moynihan noticed this more than 50 years ago.

Come on. It's way past feminism. It's pure immorality, theft, dysfunction, and greed now.

Given a choice between staying unmarried and having me, and you, and you, pay for a "family's" living, healthcare, utilities, food, phones, and other goodies is the main driver behind these trends. Sure, some rich idiots call it freedom or alternative living or something, but it's a tiny minority.

The rest do it just to rip us off.