Ask Dr. Helen: Should Women Get Married?
Dr. Helen Smith’s column, Should Men Get Married? caused quite a stir. Now she looks at the other side of the coin – and offers some tips for women on improving the odds of happiness if they do step up to the altar.
By Helen Smith
Columnist and blogger Don Surber emails to make an excellent suggestion:
Dr. Helen:
I will suggest following up your column on “Should men marry?” with “Should women marry?”
Dear Don:
I concur–we need equal time for women (or the men who are interested in the topic) to get a chance to let us know if they think that marriage is worth the gamble. If you had asked me in my teens or twenties if women should get married, I would have stated a resounding, “No!” But now that I am older and wiser and been married over thirteen years, I have to say from my own personal perspective, the answer would be “Yes” but only if your partner is the right person for you, and you understand what you are getting into.
There have been so many mixed messages over the years for women about marriage from feminists and others who, on one hand tell women to make their own decisions and be independent, but when they do want to be married or do something that goes against the grain of gender feminism are told that marriage is a trap and “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” This is nonsense.
Missing out on marriage because a bunch of “feminists” told you that it is the right thing to do is silly, and there is a backlash against this type of thinking now with the current crop of girls–the Millennials (those born between 1981-1999)–embracing marriage at a rapid rate. Kay Hymowitz, author of Marriage and Caste in America had this to say about how young girls feel about marriage:
In fact, when it comes to families, this generation is as mushy as a Hallmark card. A Harris Interactive survey of college seniors found that 81 percent planned to marry (12 percent already had) at a mean age of 28. Ninety-one percent hope to have children—and get this: on average, they’d like to have three. The 2001 Monitoring the Future survey found 88 percent of male high school seniors and 93 percent of females believing that it is extremely or quite important to have a good marriage and family life. In a survey of college women conducted by the Institute for American Values, 83 percent said, “Being married is a very important goal for me.” Over half of the women surveyed said they would like to meet their husbands in college.
Of course, thinking you want to get married and have three kids is much different from the reality of doing so. Back to the question, “Should women get married?,” my answer is that if having a husband (and/or children) is important to a woman,then the answer is “yes” but only if you really have an understanding of what being married entails. It is not about a big engagement ring that one can show off to friends and family; it is not about a large wedding that makes a woman feel like a princess for a day; and it is not about a meal ticket or a path to a life of leisure. It is about sharing one’s life with another person, a human being, who has flaws just like you on a day to day basis and sometimes putting their needs ahead of your own. It is hard and not for the faint of heart, the selfish or the fickle. But a happy marriage is well worth the cost, for even the most introverted among us have some longing for connection with another person who cares about one’s well-being.
I will close this column with a few tips for women (and yes, there are many tips for men too, but that is another topic for another day) on things I have learned for how to have a happy marriage should you choose to go that route:
1) Encourage your husband to see friends once in a while. Just like you, men need to be with their buddies and have fun. Now, I am not talking here about carousing bars and picking up women or anything. I am talking about going out to have fun with friends, getting a beer and just feeling that he has a life outside the marriage and family.
2) Don’t call your husband continuously on his cell phone to “check up on him” when he is out with friends or others. I have noticed a negative correlation between how many times a man’s cell phone rings when he is with friends and how he feels about his marriage. No one likes to feel they are on a short leash. If a man continuously asks a woman what she is doing, when she is coming home and checks up on her non-stop, we would say he is being controlling. The same holds for women calling men. Again, I am not talking about calling your hubby up to let him know what you need from the store or tell him about an emergency etc., I am talking about calling repeatedly to ask him what he is doing or when he is coming home while he is out with friends or in business situations etc.
3) For goodness sakes, don’t write on your blog or on chat boards about the problems you are having with your relationship. I have seen a number of women do this and then wonder why their boyfriend or husband seems huffy or distant. If you have a problem, be direct and talk with him about it. Don’t spread the information to the world.
4) Finally, just try to treat the guy the way you would like to be treated and treat him like a human being with some compassion and kindness. Expect the same. Repeat as necessary.
So, what do you think, should women get married? If not, why? And if so, anyone have any tips for how women can improve their relationship with their husbands?
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If you have a question you would like answered, please leave it below or email me at askdrhelen@hotmail.com. Your questions may be edited for length and clarity. Please note that your first name only or no name at all will be used to identify your question—if you want me to use your name, tell me, otherwise you will be referred to by your first name or as “a reader” etc.
Helen Smith is a psychologist specializing in forensic issues in Knoxville, Tennessee and blogs at drhelen.blogspot.com. This advice column is for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not purport to replace therapy or psychological treatment.
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Stumble It!
December 5th, 2007 at 11:48 am
This article is really a no-brainer but it is refreshing to see a columnist remind women that marriage isn’t all fun-and-games and parties and expensive diamond baubles. It’s certainly a step up from the “women don’t need to marry” attitude that women could take men’s support for granted.
That said, her advice falls flat. She advises women to marry the “right” man but no advice on what the right man is or how to find him. A good marriage begins BEFORE the couple meets each other. If they’re total jerks before they met, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll change their ways afterwards. (This isn’t to say that immature people don’t grow up when they get married as many have done so out of necessity.)
December 5th, 2007 at 11:57 am
I am astounded that anyone, and especially a ‘psychologist’, could possibly write a whole column seriously discussing whether a woman should get married and never once, not even a single time, mentioning children. (I know the work you quoted mentioned children but you didn’t).
Families, procreating families, the ones that can and do have children, are the cornerstone of our society. If two people don’t expect to have children then the whole issue of marriage is almost irrelevant. And, by their choice, they have become almost irrelevant to the society.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that, even though you have been married for 13 years, you don’t have children. If you had even a single teenager or older in the house then you would realize that children are the essense of a real marriage.
December 5th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
I agree with Polishknight that Dr. Helen’s advice is superficially pleasing, but “falls flat” with respect to choosing the right man.
This glaring lack of detail is a point of particular interest since many feminized American women tend to spend quite a bit of time with their ankles back beside their ears enjoying themselves with whomever catches their fancy, biding time with their careers or lack thereof as the case may be until……….
……. they decide that it’s time to cash in their chips before it’s too late and try to find a “Poindexter” (successful career-oriented man, if perhaps not a “hunk”) to marry so that she can deny him most or all of that wild sex that she spent a decade or two enjoying while she gets a lock on a meal-ticket.
The upshot of course is that many of them are waiting a bit too long after gravity takes its toll and the 30- and 40-something women realize that they are competing for a smaller pool of marriageable men – that would be the marriage strike that feminists forgot to mention in their “you can have it all” speeches.
While it would have been nice to see Dr. Helen advise women wisely on choosing prospective husbands, the general rule is that women tend to look for affluence in men that they wish to marry.
I doubt if any advice directing women to do otherwise would even be taken seriously by most, given other societal pressures for women to “get what you grab”.
December 5th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
The answer is yes…but not to each other!
December 5th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
yes, Dr. helen..would you recommend women marry the first solid..(”trailor hitch” as Rudov calls them) they can find..or wait it out???
December 5th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Who are women to marry? A Rapist? All men are Rapists, women are told, men are told, the whole friggin’ shebang is told. Such ‘nonesense’ as Dr H (a nice lady I am sure) calls it was spouted by a friggin’ Professor. A woman of course. And, frankly, there is no mixed message there. Perfectly straight.
And for what? To be a housewife? Horrors. That’s slavery, women are told, men are told. Leg irons attached to the stove. Remember stoves?
And why? Hormones? Desires? Delusions, the Feminists say.
“Missing out on marriage because a bunch of “feminists” told you”, may well be the start of a new paragraph but as any housewife will tell you, when you grind shit into a pristine carpet there has to be a hell of a lot of scrubbing to do to repair the damage and Dr H hasn’t reached for the soap. Nor have all too many women who are idly content with the stain in the middle of the room.
You can’t miss the stain nor the pile of shit. It’s right behind the friggin’ Elephant.
December 7th, 2007 at 10:50 am
First of all, who is this mangina who requested the woman’s view? Guess what – you’re in the wrong place, buddy! Oprah’s studio is down the hall and Dr. Phil’s is right next to it! Go get in touch with your feminine side there.
Secondly, why in the world is this “Dr.” Helen allowed to post articles on this site?
Hm, let’s see:
1) Encourage your husband to see friends once in a while.
2) Don’t call your husband continuously on his cell phone to “check up on him” when he is out with friends or others.
3) For goodness sakes, don’t write on your blog or on chat boards about the problems you are having with your relationship.
4) Finally, just try to treat the guy the way you would like to be treated and treat him like a human being with some compassion and kindness.
Wow, what depth! Is this what shrinks charge $150 an hour for? To give advice that sounds like it comes out of the mouth of an eighteen year old?
Modern psychology is a feminized fraud that portrays all women as victims and all men as perpetrators. The MAJORITY of shrinks are our enemy.
December 7th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
..metal man..
Modern psychology is a feminized fraud that portrays all women as victims and all men as perpetrators. The MAJORITY of shrinks are our enemy
..You may be onto something, and there are a handfull of psychologists that are trying to redeem th profession!!
December 7th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
“the selfish or the fickle.”
With Disney raising our daughters, the influence of feminist entitlements and government sponsored economic incentives to divorce….how many women in western culture truly fall out side the category of “the selfish or the fickle.”
December 8th, 2007 at 10:40 am
virtue….1/2 of 1/10 of 1/100 of 1 percent……..or less!
for the record… the don who asked for this article sure as hell wasn’t donnieboy57!!!
December 9th, 2007 at 10:46 am
There is a new study just released by the American Psychiatric Association about women and how they feel about their asses.
The results are pretty shocking:
1. Only 5% of women surveyed feel their ass is too big.
2. 10% of women surveyed feel their ass is too small.
3. The remaining 85% say they don’t care; they love him; he’s a good man and they would have married him anyway.
December 10th, 2007 at 11:21 am
I should add that the majority of today’s women are selfish, self-centered entitlement princesses who care only for their careers and immediate gratification and are unfit for motherood.
December 12th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
It does not appear that young women of any age are embracing marriage. Illegitimacy is at record levels. That is a good measure of where marriage stands.
Secondly, young men will not participate in marriage until the divorce system is reformed and moved to a “responsibility-based” model. For forty years, men have married women “until death do us part”, until she changed her mind. This most often occurs shortly after the birth of a second child, and corresponds in time with the marriage being long enough to get the lion’s share of a property settlement. Two kids = one whopping child support order.
This situation is out of women’s hands now. Men have made their move, and they won’t change their minds until marriage is restored as a protected and valued institution at the policy level.
December 16th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Dr Helen: I am appalled that it took you to #4 to talk about respect and, when you did, it was with the amazing sentence, “Just try to treat the guy the way you would like to be treated.” Does this take some special effort like trying to treat terrorists the way you would like to be treated?
One of the major problems, Dr Helen, is that American have enormously inflated egos and expectations. Both are going go crashing into reality when women discover the facts of life not as taught in some women’s studies program but by time. By that I mean that women will be subject to the draft we will eventually need to defend ourselves in the new China, Islam, Russia world. They will also discover that work in our society is not the breathless, fun-thing of having a career as nit-wits like Bonnie Erbe describe but making numbers or quotas, fearing lay-offs or doing mind-numbing tasks to eat. And men will want to have less and less to do with them. As Stephen Baskerville advises young men correctly, “Dont Marry, Don’t Have Children”.
American women of the past 40 years have no education in how to respect and love a man. I don’t think I’m the only man to have picked up the non-verbals signals women throw out which indicate that men are stupid and easily dealt with because lying for many women is easy or because they believe that men don’t dare challenge them.
Well, women aren’t looking too good these days. Sen Clinton is giving a wonderful lesson in self-destruction, Secretary of State Rice, whom I like , is not looking to astute and the Hollywood gang are, pardon my bluntness, just a bunch of sluts.
The glory days are over. Women are going to learn what their feminist mentors never told them about the dark side of life.
April 10th, 2009 at 6:35 am
wow, a lot of bitter guys posting here. but then again, it's on mensnewsdaily. before you point fingers at women, why don't you look introspectively and ask yourselves what you want in a woman. do you want an educated career woman? do you want a housewife? i tell you one thing. you can't have both. you're going to have to pick one…or at least one role from the woman at any one moment. women are tired of being expected to fill both roles fully at the same time. yes, they can try to balance the two, but so should YOU. either you are a wealthy guy who wants a housewife who will take care of the family & home exclusively, or you are a moderately successful guy who wants a moderately successful wife to share in all responsibilities with. what is the deal with all these moderately successful guys who want to marry women who will not only pull their own weight but also pick the slack of the husband in the home? that, my friends, is why women are scared of marriage. they are afraid of getting used just like you men are…just in different ways. true balance must be learned and achieved in a marriage for it to be long-lasting and successful.
oh and another thing, stop being lazy. stop being slackers who just "get by". have some ambition. and stop watching sports all day and playing video games when you could be doing something productive with your time. if a woman doesn't respect you, you know what, maybe you haven't earned her respect. ever thought of that? either that or you are a pushover who can't stand up for yourself, which goes back to you not being to earn her respect. too many guys nowadays don't carry themselves in ways that would earn my respect. or they are too timid to go after a girl, which could translate into being too timid to do a lot of other things in life. for lack of a better phrase, grow a pair.
and lastly, the respect goes both ways. so many guys nowadays have little respect for women and use them until they are ready to settle down. but then when they are ready to settle down, they wonder why they have to deal with women who are jaded by men. hmm, maybe because those women were played by guys like you in the past who didn't respect them. as the jewish tradition goes, if you treat a woman with respect and give her the world, then God will give YOU the world. so maybe men should step up and make the first move in that department. good luck guys.