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  • Marriage and its pitfalls....

    Found a really interesting article on the internet.

    From the Fox news network...

    Why do fewer people marry?

    According to a 1999 National Vital Statistics Report from the CDC, 7.4 per 1,000 Americans married in 1998. From 1990 to 1995, the marriage rate dropped from 9.8 to 7.6. Different sources render other statistics but the trend remains sharply downward.

    There is never a single or comprehensive explanation for complex phenomena that are rooted deeply in human psychology. Non-marriage is a particularly difficult issue to address because, as a recent paper from Rutgers University entitled "Why Men Won't Commit" explains, official sources are scarce. "The federal government issues thousands of reports on nearly every dimension of American life. ... But it provides no annual index or report on the state of marriage." Much of the discussion of the motives surrounding non-marriage must be anecdotal, therefore, relying on statistics to provide framework and perspective.

    In examining reasons for the current decline of marriage, one question usually receives short shrift. Why are men reluctant to marry?

    The Rutgers report — admittedly based on a small sample — found ten prevalent reasons. The first three:

    — They can get sex without marriage;

    — They can enjoy "a wife" through cohabitation; and,

    — They want to avoid divorce and its financial risks.

    As a critic of anti-male bias in the family courts (search), the reasons I hear most frequently from non-marrying men are fear of financial devastation in divorce and of losing meaningful contact with children afterward. (Such feedback is anecdotal evidence but, when you hear the same response over a period of years from several hundred different sources, it becomes prudent to listen.)

    In a similar vein, the Rutgers report finds: "Many men also fear the financial consequences of divorce. They say that their financial assets are better protected if they cohabit rather than marry. They fear that an ex-wife will 'take you for all you’ve got' and that 'men have more to lose financially than women' from a divorce."

    Increasingly, men are stating their reasons for not marrying on the Internet. In an article entitled "The Marriage Strike," Matthew Weeks expresses a sentiment common to such sites, "If we accept the old feminist argument that marriage is slavery for women, then it is undeniable that — given the current state of the nation's family courts — divorce is slavery for men."

    Weeks provides the math. One in two marriages will fail with the wife being twice as likely to initiate the proceedings on grounds of "general discontent" — the minimum requirement of no-fault divorce. The odds of the woman receiving custody of children are overwhelming, with many fathers effectively being denied visitation. The wife usually keeps the "family" assets and, perhaps, receives alimony as well as child support. Many men confront continuing poverty to pay for the former marriage.

    Weeks concludes: "Over five million divorced men in America are currently experiencing the situation I just outlined. Without a doubt, their stories and experiences are heard by unmarried men. Can anyone truly blame the men for having apprehension?"

    He uses what has become a new term — at least in the mouths of men: "the marriage strike." Most of the men who go "on strike" undoubtedly do so quietly but others are making a loud political statement. For example, the Joint Parenting Association declares, "An international 'marriage strike' by men is set to continue indefinitely until Family Law is reformed to recognize that fathers love their children too."

    The apprehension of men — along with other significant factors — is dramatically changing the face of marriage and the family. The best statistics we have indicate that, from 1960 to 2000:

    — The number of marriages per 1,000 unmarried women age 15-plus has declined from 73.5 to 46.5.

    — The number of divorces per 1,000 married women age 15-plus has risen from 9.2 to 18.9.

    One impact: The presence of single women has increased remarkably — women who must choose either to remain childless or to raise children by themselves.

    — The number of births per 1,000 women age 15-44 has declined from 118.0 to 67.5.

    — The percentage of live births to unmarried women rose from 5.3 to 33.2.

    — The percentage of children under 18 living with a single parent rose from 9 to 27.

    Some point to the steep rise in cohabitation as causing the devastation of marriage and families. The number of unmarried adults cohabiting with the opposite sex has soared from 439,000 in 1960 to 4,736,000 in 2000. But blaming cohabitation misses the point. Why do people choose that alternative?

    A significant number of men are loudly stating their reasons: anti-male bias in the current marriage law and in the family courts. Solving this piece of the "marriage crisis" is not difficult. Allow people to draw up their own private marriage contracts, without government law acting as a third party; have unbiased family courts adjudicate breaches of contracts.

    If men participated equally in forging the terms of the most important commitment in their lives, perhaps they would cease to view marriage as a form of indentured servitude and divorce as slavery.


    Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com and a research fellow for The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. She is the author and editor of many books and articles, including the new book, Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st Century (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She lives with her husband in Canada.




    Wonder when Wendy is going to divorce her husband....
    Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

    "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

    (more comments in my User Profile)
    russbo.com



  • #2
    Smart-Alec Comment on this one:


    Love is blind, and marriage is the eye-opener.

    Uwe

    Comment


    • #3
      I have a lot of friends getting married or recently married.... but not as many as my oldest sister did when she was my age... and not even close to what happend in my parents day...

      The word marriage has changed a bit to a lot of people...

      Oh, and something needs to be done about divorce court... A friend of mine is recently divorced.. explained his finances, he had one kid with his ex, which he sends support for, plus alimony... which is rediculous, plus he doesn't get to see his daughter except for when he decides to 1) fly her out or 2) drive 17 hours.... but even though his ex lives with her current boyfriend, they won't prob. get married so to keep that income coming in etc...
      she is a bitch using the system.. even though it is her that had the mental breakdown, found a person to talk to on the internet, then moved near him.. now lives with him...
      practice wu de

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      • #4
        You want to hear some horror stories about divorce, you should look in the medical community.

        Strictly incredible, what goes on sometimes...
        Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

        "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

        (more comments in my User Profile)
        russbo.com


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        • #5
          Strictly incredible
          I could only imagine the amount of money involved...
          practice wu de

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          • #6
            hey

            anyone ever think men like ghengis khan and atilla the hun the so called "scourges of god" were neccesary?

            sometimes i think all the crap in this world is to much to handle, just thinking of it sometimes really messes me up emotionally

            i just think sometimes..itd be better off if someone just started killing and raping and pillageing in mass numbers, so maybe people would get a grip on whats really important..

            but i dunno

            whatever..readin to much about ghengis khan i think
            "did you ask me to consider dick with you??" blooming tianshi lotus

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            • #7
              I knew this physician who got divorced in the early 1990's, back when medicine was really a high paying job. His wife, as is usual and customary, got a divorce settlement which equaled half of his net income, plus some other expenses. The problem really started when Klaus's income, after the Hillary health care fiasco of 1992 or so triggered the emergence of money hungry, and, powerful, HMO's. His income dropped by about a third, and eventually, over the next few years, settled down to about a half, or even less, than his early 1990's income.

              He basically couldn't afford to pay his wife's alimony. He went back to court a few times to explain to the judge that his income had dropped by over fifty percent. The judge, in his case, a female, really didn't care. Didn't alter his alimony. His wife claimed that she had a lifestyle that she had to support.

              Klaus eventually stopped paying his wife. He was threatened with jail time, but, having exhausted his savings, had no other money with which to pay his wife's monthly alimony. He eventually ended up in jail.

              Soon thereafter, he claimed bankruptcy, and developed another career.

              Only one of the few horror stories I've been witness to. And, remember, these horror stories don't just last months.

              They go on for years. And years.... When a woman is looking at more than twenty thousand dollars a month free income, they don't go away very fast.
              Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

              "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

              (more comments in my User Profile)
              russbo.com


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              • #8
                God damn!

                Thats enough to put you off marriage.

                I cant understand this world sometimes. Id go with ghengis khan and atilla. Any biatch ****s with me id just chop her up and f**k her...

                but probably in the reverse order.

                :hap

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                • #9
                  than twenty thousand dollars a month free income

                  Holy begeezus batman, thats one hell of a lot of money. Just under a quarter mil a year in alimony, thats got to be depressing.
                  practice wu de

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