Six Reasons Why Men Are Avoiding Marriage, with Helen Smith, Ph.D.

today more and more men are choosing not to go to school not to get a job and not to get married if similar numbers of women were doing the same someone would raise the alarm but since men are the ones opting out the problem has been mostly met with silence some books say that men are just a bunch of lazy stoner frat boys who are acting immaturely in reality men are acting rationally and opting out of education work and marriage because in all of these areas the penalties are high and the rewards are low each of these areas has its own problems and is important in its own right but for now we'll just look at why men are avoiding marriage and fatherhood the first reason that men don't want to get married is that they'll lose respect in the past a man wasn't considered a true adult until he was married and had children today however husbands and fathers are the butts of jokes and the media constantly portrays them as buffoons and bumbling idiots the second reason is that they'll lose out on sex men who cohabitate with their partner but aren't married have much more sex than their wedded counterparts recent studies have also found that cohabitate errs are happier and more confident than married couples the third reason that men don't want to get married is that they could lose their children and their money men are aware of the dangers of divorce specifically that the courts tend to favor mothers men only get custody of their children 10 percent of the time and overwhelmingly are responsible for paying child support and alimony the fourth reason is that men will lose their space once a man gets married he's relegated to the dirtiest part of the house the Attic the basement the garage the entire house is supposed to be a shared space but the rise of the man cave means that the home is increasingly becoming the domain of only the wife and children the fifth reason that men don't want to get married is that they can lose their freedom if a man gets divorced and can't afford child support he can get locked up on any given day there are almost 50,000 people in jail due to child support arrears most of the mail for example in Massachusetts 96% of the people incarcerated for unpaid child support are men the final reason that men don't want to get married is that the single wife is better than ever in the past single men were looked at with suspicion but this is no longer the case there are plenty of 40 year-old bachelors employers look favorably at employees with non-conflicting family responsibilities dating has gotten easier and premarital sex is no longer taboo on top of this there's more to entertain single men today than there was in the past with video games cable TV and the internet providing diversions not previously available to recap men are opting out of marriage in addition to education and work at alarming rates this isn't due to laziness but due to rational choices where men no longer see the value of participating in these areas people respond to incentives so if we want more men to marry it needs to be a more attractive proposition

Channel: Encounter Books

Views: 1,502,109

Rating: 4.7980156 out of 5

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Id: BoXQf2f2Yxo

Length: 3min 37sec (217 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 03 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/juiceyb]

There are so many reasons. Marriage is expensive and most of us know it. The fact that you're most likely to end up in divorce is another factor. It begins with one expensive party and ends with an expensive divorce. Then you got the fact that most of us are working a crazy amount of hours to live comfortly. Online dating still takes a lot of energy and time which we don't have much of. And being a child of divorce parents, you don't want to bring a life into that bullshit.

[u/JACK931]

I'm happily single. End of story

[u/danielbgoo]

I don't know that this is a problem only men have, so much as gen-y/millennials in general.

She also kind of left out the fact that marriage doesn't seem like a particularly viable option because none of us can afford to so. Traditionally marriage is something that happens when at least one partner has their shit figured out and has a stable and predictable career. But since basically no one has that anymore, it makes sense that there's now a major readjustment in why and when people are getting hitched.

[u/rodzilla72]

From what I've seen at the age of 32, most unmarried women I went to school with either married in, or right out of college, if they graduated. Most of them are working on 2nd and 3rd marriages now. They usually average about 2 kids. I would never get married to a woman with multiple kids and marriages under her belt. The risk is way too high of getting fucked over.

[u/nixnix]

Very few people can "opt-out" of work.

Unless you're subsidized by someone else (typically family), you need a job that pays enough to cover basic bills.

... Whatever trends we see today, I think most of them reflect a lack of choices, rather than a newfound preference for one over the other.

[u/ProjectShamrock]

I'd be interested in seeing the author of this make a video explaining why women don't seem to get married much anymore either. It's obviously a two way street but I suspect the general reasons women don't want to marry is different in some way.

Also, it would be interesting to see why more college students are female as opposed to male at this point in time. I don't think there's likely to be a difference in available funding or anything, so what is it that causes men to no longer view college as an option, as opposed to how women view it?

[u/digdog303]

I want to get married :.(

[u/SoundProblem]

I am 37. I grew up with a younger (by 15 months) brother, and two cousins who lived close by (one older than me, one younger than all of us.)

My older cousin got married ten years ago. He and his wife have two children, and a huge house that I'm pretty sure they are still paying for. He is rarely ever home, because his job keeps him out of state for most of his time. I see these people every year around Christmas time, and every year they look more and more stretched thin, with their pleasant attitudes seeming more and more put-on and forced. Still, according to the way most of my family thinks, they're "doing life correctly."

Now, both my younger brother and cousin, two guys who never seemed to take dating very seriously to begin with, nor have thy had many serious relationships (or at all, really,) have both seems to fast-track themselves down the "Whoa, I'm in my mid-30's, it's really time for me to to settle down and get this wife/family thing on! in the last year or so. (Thank god for sites like OKCupid!) The bro, who's never left the nest, is dating a relatively young woman, who's also never left the nest, but there is talk of marriage, so of course, according to my family, they're on the path to "doing life correctly." My younger cousin's lady is already moving in with him after little more than a year, and apparently my aunt likes to throw around things like "when they get married, etc." in conversations. Again, they're "doing life correctly," according to the "working class hero/blue collar" Boomers of the family, who I've only ever seen as completely miserable with their "correct" lives, 80% of the time.

Then, there's me. 37. Went to school, got my BS, tried over the course of 4 years to get my own little startup business up and running. I failed, and then some. Also, I have already had 3 rather big, rather serious romantic relationships in my life, in which I made every single mistake you could possibly make (up to and including moving in with one of them after a mere 6 months of dating.) I still feel as if I have something more to contribute with my work, despite many many failures. That, coupled with my previous romantic history, I just can't find it within myself to ever want to get fucking married. To anyone.

All that considered, yes, I am the biggest loser on the face of the planet, according to wise and decidedly miserable Boomers that populate my family. I have no steady S.O. let alone one I want to "wife." I have no mortgage bleeding me dry. I have no children bleeding me dry. I have no job where I am forced to work for tons of shit I can barely enjoy in the first place. For all my failures, for all my "deadbeat, loserish" thing, the future and all its many possibilities is still open to me. I still have the option to set down roots on my own terms, and things have been steadily looking up lately.

Yet I'm the loser in this scenario. Go figure. I don't know what the mindset is in other countries, but this "nuclear family" shit that still clings to US culture like a cancer is so ass-backwards that it's too tragic to laugh at. I dunno, that's just my two bits.

[u/Djandyt]

the media constantly portrays them as buffoons and bumbling idiots.

this is so true. I mean, even the opening scene of I love you Man sticks in my head, where all of the wives talk shit about their husbands "No one is gonna cheat with a Jew Fro and a tiny penis"

tell me why I as a man would want that?