The Presumption Against Marriage

June 10, 2004

No writer that I know, and I am absolutely no exception, has the right to speak as an authority for all men.  No matter what I say about honor and pride some guy somewhere is going to spend his last dime on a dominatrix or propose to a coke whore.  There’s no getting around it.  It’s a fact.  We can quibble and pretend dominated males are exceptions but there are legions of guys out there who will put up with any abuse that a woman sends their way.  That being said, I would like to address this column to those not pining for the submissive’s chair or anxiously awaiting a girl on a white horse who’ll allow them to pay off her car note and college loan without saying thank you.

The fundamental question is, “Should a man nowadays get married at all?” 

My take on the issue is that the appropriateness of marriage has to be determined on a case by case basis but that presumption, in this day and age, should always be against marriage.  To put it more simply, the tie cannot go to the runner.  Men, when in doubt, walk away.  If you have serious reservations about a woman and you marry her, a number of things may happen.  One of them is good.  Your negative intuition could turn out to be wrong and you’ll end up having a wonderful, blissful life with your bride.  Unfortunately, lots of bad things could happen as well:

1. Your intuition was right and she divorces you.  She thereby acquires half, if not

all, of your assets and possessions.  The state is thoroughly biased against men and seems to have no threshold for its love of male suffering.  This is a very real and tragic possibility.

2. Your intuition is right and she’s unreliable.  You experience strange men calling the house and hanging up should you be the one to reach the phone first.

3. Your intuition is right as your experiment with paying for her college education ends in her befriending evil radical feminists who call the house and scream “rapist” at you as a greeting.  They then follow up this pleasantry with asking if their “play kitty” is home.

4. Your intuition is right and she spends money like a gay party boy on Fire Island leading you slowly but gaily into Chapter 7.

5. Your wonderful children to be get aborted as she decides they’d take up too much time during the day.

6. You spend all your free time with her at the mall or, far worse, with her family and friends.

Well, you see my point.  It’s bad scenario a-go-go.  So, in the spirit of the boss from the film Casino: “Why take a chance?”

That’s easy for me to dismissively say but then there’s tons of dopes like this writer who are smart enough to know better but then get married anyway.  When I got engaged at Christmas time, Eric Ericson emailed me and said something to the effect of, “Have you lost your mind?”

As it turned out, I had not.  I sanely and soberly weighed the pros versus the cons and determined that this particular woman was unlike all the others I had met and that she gave me the best chance of fulfilling my dream of fathering a couple of little critters and having a faithful, intelligent person as a partner.  Yet, even with such a rational determinations made in advance, the situation changed and in April I found myself in the midst of an ugly soap opera on which I turned out to be only a temporary, non-recurring character.  I was written out of the series before summer hit.  For the future, I’ve decided, that unless its near-perfect there is no way I’ll get engaged again.

My decision is not respected by many of the women I know who attempt to use what I call “shame-based” therapy as a means of coercing guys like me into finding a wife.  I am at the point where I can vigorously beat back their attempts to manipulate me but I thought I’d share my responses the reader in the hopes that my words can be of benefit in case they encounter similar harassment. 

First, I say that the situation had changed with men and women.  It used to be that when a man got married he got a deal.  A woman would remain faithful to him or, at the very least, cook and clean for him.  You’d get something in exchange for what you brought to the table.  Today, men get very little in comparison with the past.  I have met no end of women who ask in advance if I cook because they themselves do not.  When I tell them that I cook everyday they are quite impressed (although I leave out my belief that pre-made salads, brats, and pizza are the height of fine dining). 

Promiscuity is another issue.  The promiscuity of the modern female makes marriage a very dubious proposition indeed.  Who the heck wants to marry a girl that’s had more sleeping partners than a bed at the Motel 6?  Not me that’s for sure.  I’d rather die a cold and lonely death than marry a skank–Paul Craig Roberts produced a magnificent column on this phenomenon a few years ago.  I’ve never understood the argument that “all their experiences make them good in bed” either.  If they’re attractive, how good do they have to be?  If you ask me, no amount of tricks she’s learned can make up for huge “Tyrone” that her ex-boyfriend had tattooed upon her back (and he was smart enough not to marry her).  

Another huge factor to me is the obesity epidemic.  While I acknowledge that its not really an epidemic by most definitions, weight increases seem to heavily effect married women.  I’m 34 years old now and I’ve met countless females who ballooned to MGM proportions after getting hitched.  To me, this is deplorable.  I knew one who showed me a picture of her when she was 22.  She was better looking than most movie stars.  Her body was hard and trim and her face was pure allure, but by age 28 she had gained 65 pounds and wore pants that William Perry could have fit into.  I’d look at her husband sorrowfully when she talked of having children.  The act of conception with her would have required the courage of St. George.  No mere oral dose of Viagra would do.  It would require hypodermic injections to get old Bumpty into Humpity form. 

My last argument is also my most recently derived one.  If its at work where I’m getting harassed about my lack of romance (read: susceptibility), and it usually is, I tell them: “I have plenty of masters here.  Why do I need one at home?”  No more accurate words could be spoken.  I’m ordered to do things all day long at work.  When I get home I want to relax.  I’m not going to waste time doing unnecessary chores or shopping for things I do not need.  The homage we domestically have to pay to our wives is outrageous.  Why are they my boss?  Here’s what I say now, “Let’s take an IQ test and if you win then you can tell me what to do.”  I’ve had no takers yet as I’m not giving out a big enough point spread.

In summation, with women, unless they’re without flaw, my advise it to ride the train for as long as you can but let some other sucker pay for its maintenance and servicing, and always make sure you get off of the route before it reaches matrimonial terminal. 

Bernard Chapin