Why would any American male get married in this day and age?

Whoa whoa whoa, back the hell up. Whose fault is it if they don't have a job? Do their husbands bar their exit from the house to go on job interviews? Does the husband dictate that the woman can't work? Women are free and empowered, this isn't the 50s. Also, that 80% number is closer to low 70s, but it is also flawed because it is from a study done back in the 70s that didn't control for hours worked, job type, likelihood of mortality (I'll give you one guess which gender enjoys an over 90% share of on the job fatalities) experience, education, overtime, and a whole host of other factors. It turns out that after everything is controlled for, the difference is less than 1%. That's about as equal as it gets.

People act like house work is a full time job, cripes. If a woman is cleaning up more than a man, it's because she values cleanliness more than he does. That seems perfectly fair to me, that someone who values something more puts more into it. It's not like he's forcing her in some master/slave relationship to be his domestic servant.

Your handle is apt, but for the wrong reasons; the only myth here is that when a man works and a woman doesn't, she is somehow the disadvantaged one. Free room and board and all I have to do is clean a house to my standards, knowing they are higher than the other person's? Sign my ass up...

I got married because my wife's toothless, overall-wearing pappy and her beady-eyed, inbred, hillbilly relatives pointed a shotgun at me when they figured out I had knocked her up.

dadfasdfasd wrote:

This is only *my* case, but my wife makes everything *easy* for me: I would otherwise dress like a slob, eat out of a can, drive a wreck, and live in a hovel--because I just don't care. She takes care of all the quotidian details and schedules my home life: I go to work and ROCK (yes, yes I do) and bring home the bacon. Then I spend lots of time with the children hiking, coaching, and stuff like that.

Without my wife, I'd be a schlub (although, according to the above referenced article, that might not count against me; It *does* help that my wife is fit and pretty, yes, yes it does).

^^Yeah, I don't need a woman for any of that. I know how to cook (very well), I keep a clean home, do my own laundry, my own schedule, etc. I am not looking for any of that in a relationship (whether marriage or not).

Let's face it, men are just as desperate as women to get married. It's just that men don't admit it to themselves.

You clearly have not read any actual studies involving workplace and gender--only watered down popular media references to pseudo research.

Also, you take for granted that free, rational actors are the architects of human social experience. People do not CHOOSE the gender into which they are interpolated from birth. Our subjectivities are structured within a very specific and highly gendered social context. This gendered context permeates these message boards. Some good examples: the considerable animosity directed at Kara Goucher for returning to training so soon after having a child. Many argued that she was an irresponsible mother who should be staying at home. She "chose" to get back to work, and was subject to terrible sexist scrutiny as a result. Another example is the outrage directed at the pregnant woman who ran the Chicago Marathon. Your thread is yet another.

Nobody is free, you fool! Did you miss the whole Occupy Wall Street thing? Everybody's opportunities, choices, and subjectivities are constructed within a complicated field of identities, including race, class, gender, ethnicity, age, etc. These things have a very real impact on our reality--both material and symbolic. To suggest that Second Wave Feminism has repaired gender inequality is like saying the Civil Rights movement ended racism. It's a fantasy.

If rearing children and cleaning house is so cushy, why DON'T you sign your ass up? Men are free too, right?

dadfasdfasd wrote:

This is only *my* case, but my wife makes everything *easy* for me: I would otherwise dress like a slob, eat out of a can, drive a wreck, and live in a hovel--because I just don't care. She takes care of all the quotidian details and schedules my home life: I go to work and ROCK (yes, yes I do) and bring home the bacon. Then I spend lots of time with the children hiking, coaching, and stuff like that.

Without my wife, I'd be a schlub (although, according to the above referenced article, that might not count against me; It *does* help that my wife is fit and pretty, yes, yes it does).

Wow. Lucky lady, your wife.

No offense, but ever wonder why she keeps herself looking good?

Funny, I was thinking the same thing when I read your post.

We have the ability to defy expectations, independent of how others view those actions. I didn't say a woman wasn't under certain pressures to be a homemaker, but how she chooses to react to those pressures is up to her, as are a number of choices that a man has to make, or a black person, or a rich person, or a Minnesotan, or a Frenchman, etc. We aren't free to be considered as we like, but we are free to act as we like.

My original post does not address women. It addresses men, and the legal and social implications of getting married... which incidentally does not have to be to a woman. Keep an open mind.

I deny neither pervasive racism or sexism. Differences in both race and gender are distinct and real, but any rational thinker understands that they are functionally irrelevant. There are always more differences within groups than between groups. Progress has been and is being made towards this rational understanding. All that said, your point here and my response to it are irrelevant to this thread's purpose, which doesn't ask about women's role in some marriages, but why a man should or shouldn't marry. The answer to that question may involve women, but it doesn't have to.

The option hasn't been offered to me. It isn't offered to most men in this day and age. Most women are turned off by a man who earns less than they do.

I am a guy and I would love to meet a terrific woman and marry her. I just haven't met her yet. My fear is that I never will meet her. But I definitely want to get married someday.

Fellas, thoughts on this? Have any of your wives used sex as a bargaining chip to get something they wanted? Has this trick been more effective since she started icing you out?

"[Dr.] Davis reminds women that one of the more effective ways to get a husband to be more considerate and helpful is to seduce him. She counsels a group of female clients who complain of angry, critical husbands to "pay more attention to their physical relationships with their husbands," to "be sexier, more affectionate, attentive, responsive, and passionate." Darned if the old bag of tricks doesn't work like a charm—the ladies arrive at the next therapy session giggling and thrilled with their new powers. To many contemporary women, however, the notion that sex might have any function other than personal fulfillment (and the occasional bit of carefully scheduled baby making) is a violation of the very tenets of the sexual revolution that so deeply shaped their attitudes on such matters. Under these conditions, pity the poor married man hoping to get a bit of comfort from the wife at day's end. He must somehow seduce a woman who is economically independent of him, bone tired, philosophically disinclined to have sex unless she is jolly well in the mood, numbingly familiar with his every sexual maneuver, and still doing a slow burn over his failure to wipe down the countertops and fold the dish towel after cooking the kids' dinner. He can hardly be blamed for opting instead to check his e-mail, catch a few minutes of SportsCenter, and call it a night."

BWAHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Keep trolling

One angry bit-ch here. Ha ha loser!