Impairment Begins with the First Marriage: Popenoe's New Study
by James D. Carmine, Ph.D.
Friends don’t let friends marry friends, or drive drunk. David Popenoe’s new study published this week, “The State of our Unions,” demonstrates what most young men already figured out after they saw what their dads went through: If you never marry you never pay the penalty of divorce. Though Popenoe is the national cheerleader for marriage, his new study suggests something very different. As stated in the report:
“The most noteworthy changes this year are the continuing decline of the marriage rate accompanied by an increase in the number of cohabiting couples; a small increase in the percentage of children living in fragile families and born out of wedlock; and a sharp increase among teenage boys in their acceptance of unwed childbearing….”
That’s right boys, if you never marry, you can keep your car and your house and even your retirement. The cost of child support is tolerable, but the violence of joint property distribution is a 90-mile-an-hour car wreck. But what is truly best, is that if you never marry you are more likely to keep the woman you love too. There is no monetary or legal incentive for her to leave you or you her.
What Popenoe is telling us, whether he means to or not is that guys have finally figured out that the divorce industry is a booming predatory industry that eats, for the most part, straight men. If divorce is the retroactive transformation of marriage into prostitution, marriage is the contract that transforms love into slavery. John Stewart Mill in the Subjection of Women called marriage the last form of legalized slavery in the West. Little did he know how right Hegel was too: In any master/slave relationship inevitably the slave becomes the master and the master the slave.
Yes, marriage in this litigious age is dangerous, too damn dangerous for straight men. And today’s young men wisely figured out they only had to resist marriage to escape the twin perils of angry feminism and liberal legalism. But the lesson was never that far away, no further than Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. Yes, women want sex and love too, just like men, and they too will stop all their wars if that is the only way they can have love and sex.
So, don’t give in boys. Don’t do it. Understand the real message in Popenoe's study, stay away from the diamond-ring counter. I know she is beautiful. She always is. But, now, finally we can have love and partnership and avoid the malice of marriage. Boys, just say no… to drugs and matrimony, and whatever you do don’t get nostalgic. If you do, just ask some old guy who lost it all because he signed the document that enslaved him to a life of spousal support, and cold cereal for dinner every night so he can afford McDonald's on the four nights a month he’s allowed to have his kids over for dinner.
Oh and don't just take my word for it take Mark Ruffolo's:
"After three years of marriage, my wife divorced me. Privately she told me she was unhappy and I did not make her happy. Publicly she called me abusive. Blessed with an only son born May 3, 2000, Mark Anthony.
Without due process, but as a matter of routine, after a fifteen minute discussion before a Kane County, Illinois family judge, I was awarded four days every month to parent our son; ordered to pay $2,600 in support; $200,000 of my savings frozen; and, an order of protection entered against me for my wife.
After three years, over one hundred court calls, $150,000 in legal fees, and three jobs, I lost a successful career; involved in a dozen incidents calling for police; imprisoned; filed for personal bankruptcy; car repossessed; and evicted from my apartment, but won joint custody in Illinois to which 17% of fathers win. Last February, however, my wife in retaliation had my visitation suspended, and still the Kane County Circuit Clerk refuses to accept $15,000 in proof of payments as credit for court ordered support paid.
I do not beleive most marriage end with this much drama, however, when push comes to shove, a woman knows that she is king of the castle as she has the courts, culture, friends, and family to support her.
I regret saying, 'I do,' but miss a son and wife."
James D. Carmine, PhD is the Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Pittsburgh's Carlow University.
email: carminejd (at) carlow.edu
Friends don’t let friends marry friends, or drive drunk. David Popenoe’s new study published this week, “The State of our Unions,” demonstrates what most young men already figured out after they saw what their dads went through: If you never marry you never pay the penalty of divorce. Though Popenoe is the national cheerleader for marriage, his new study suggests something very different. As stated in the report:
“The most noteworthy changes this year are the continuing decline of the marriage rate accompanied by an increase in the number of cohabiting couples; a small increase in the percentage of children living in fragile families and born out of wedlock; and a sharp increase among teenage boys in their acceptance of unwed childbearing….”
That’s right boys, if you never marry, you can keep your car and your house and even your retirement. The cost of child support is tolerable, but the violence of joint property distribution is a 90-mile-an-hour car wreck. But what is truly best, is that if you never marry you are more likely to keep the woman you love too. There is no monetary or legal incentive for her to leave you or you her.
What Popenoe is telling us, whether he means to or not is that guys have finally figured out that the divorce industry is a booming predatory industry that eats, for the most part, straight men. If divorce is the retroactive transformation of marriage into prostitution, marriage is the contract that transforms love into slavery. John Stewart Mill in the Subjection of Women called marriage the last form of legalized slavery in the West. Little did he know how right Hegel was too: In any master/slave relationship inevitably the slave becomes the master and the master the slave.
Yes, marriage in this litigious age is dangerous, too damn dangerous for straight men. And today’s young men wisely figured out they only had to resist marriage to escape the twin perils of angry feminism and liberal legalism. But the lesson was never that far away, no further than Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. Yes, women want sex and love too, just like men, and they too will stop all their wars if that is the only way they can have love and sex.
So, don’t give in boys. Don’t do it. Understand the real message in Popenoe's study, stay away from the diamond-ring counter. I know she is beautiful. She always is. But, now, finally we can have love and partnership and avoid the malice of marriage. Boys, just say no… to drugs and matrimony, and whatever you do don’t get nostalgic. If you do, just ask some old guy who lost it all because he signed the document that enslaved him to a life of spousal support, and cold cereal for dinner every night so he can afford McDonald's on the four nights a month he’s allowed to have his kids over for dinner.
Oh and don't just take my word for it take Mark Ruffolo's:
"After three years of marriage, my wife divorced me. Privately she told me she was unhappy and I did not make her happy. Publicly she called me abusive. Blessed with an only son born May 3, 2000, Mark Anthony.
Without due process, but as a matter of routine, after a fifteen minute discussion before a Kane County, Illinois family judge, I was awarded four days every month to parent our son; ordered to pay $2,600 in support; $200,000 of my savings frozen; and, an order of protection entered against me for my wife.
After three years, over one hundred court calls, $150,000 in legal fees, and three jobs, I lost a successful career; involved in a dozen incidents calling for police; imprisoned; filed for personal bankruptcy; car repossessed; and evicted from my apartment, but won joint custody in Illinois to which 17% of fathers win. Last February, however, my wife in retaliation had my visitation suspended, and still the Kane County Circuit Clerk refuses to accept $15,000 in proof of payments as credit for court ordered support paid.
I do not beleive most marriage end with this much drama, however, when push comes to shove, a woman knows that she is king of the castle as she has the courts, culture, friends, and family to support her.
I regret saying, 'I do,' but miss a son and wife."
James D. Carmine, PhD is the Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Pittsburgh's Carlow University.
email: carminejd (at) carlow.edu
12 Comments:
Poor fools you Americans are, soft too. The ruthless mohamedan will teach you men to make your move in or out of marriage first.
It helps to have a long courtship period, if make sure you have a compatible finacee.
Men and women get married too quickly, and do not really study their proposed spouse's character.
It also helps to study the spouse's family.
IF people put as much effort into choosing their life partner as they did making other decisions, the divorce rate would go WAY down. Of course, society contributes by not regarding divorce as a negative anymore.
Happily married for 14 years, and hoping for another 50 (at least).
Your American marriage and family is doomed because of:
#1 Being soft on your women.
#2 Being slaves to feminism.
#3 Swallowing the lies of Divorce.
#4 the state gets into the marriage business
Marriage should be the sole matter of a religion. The state makes marriage contracts an ever changing charade of a contract.
Excellent article.
Darren
www.cooltools4men.com
I agree with the article. We need to have this type of information presented in federally funded "Men's Studies" courses in every university in the US (in a similar fashion to Women's Studies courses).
The main reason a lot of men and women get married quickly is because the woman usually pressurizes her boyfriend into getting hitched. After all, who ever heard of a guy moaning "My girlfriend is afraid of committment, I just want a big wedding and to settle down, boo hoo!" No, it's always the girlfriend who wants to become a wife. Who can blame them when marriage allows women to put their feet up and retire to the sofa in front of daytime TV and live off hubby's wages...which she can still do once she's booted her husband out after a year or two of marriage.
Marriage...
Worst. Institution. Ever.
Women's expectations are interesting. The Wedding Day is the best day of her life - presumably it goes downhill after that.
When the relationship goes from courtship to cooperation, the ladies are no longer the center of the world, and that does seem to get them upet.
I advised my sons to find a woman that you are sure would take a bullet for you, and have a long courtship, then don't get married - just live together. If you are still sure she would take a bullet for you after 30 years, consider a wedding.
There is an even more compelling reason for men to decline to marry than avoidance of divorce: an archaic paternity law from the 18th century which is still on the law books in most states.
The (polite) name for the law is "Lord Mansfield's Rule", which states that a child born in wedlock is the biological offspring of the husband.
Even if half of the DNA of the child is from another man.
This rule is the law of the land in about 45 states. The other states typically allow challenges to the paternity of the child for only a few years after his birth.
If a child is born to an unmarried couple, the man has the right to demand a paternity test. If the DNA test is negative, he's off the hook and is not legally responsible for that child.
If a child is born to a married couple, the husband is automatically guilty of fathering the child in 90% of our states. No trial is granted. No DNA test is conducted. No appeal is allowed.
Marriage actually places a man in a legally inferior position. It's the only way a man can be forced against his will to pay support for a child which he did not father.
Meanwhile, the biological father walks away with zero responsibility for the child he created via adultery. Nice work if you can get it.
A truly ruthless man who wants to maximize both the number of his progeny and his bank account would be well advised to avoid dating single ladies. He should only impregnate the wives of other men. From a legal point of view, he cannot be the father of any children who are born to the wives of other men (unless he's in one of those five states with modern laws).
Most experts estimate that around 10% to 20% of all children are not fathered by the man whose name appears on the child's birth certificate. No scientist dares to conduct a rigorous scientific study of the subject for obvious reasons.
Are these the "family values" which our lawmakers proclaim to love before every election?
After reading all this, I'm STILL getting married.
A few points of interest.
Marriage per se is not the problem, divorce is. Obviously however, you need to be married to get divorced.
Unfortunatly, not getting married is no great protection. CS can be and is charged to unmarried fathers,
the difference being that they don't even theoretically have any right to parent. Married dads theoretically
have such a right, but in practive it's up to the mother whether she lets the dad see the kids or not. And
since they get more CS when the father does not see his kids, many mothers 'just say no' to visitation and
tell the kids that dad does not love them.
That being said, the greatest danger is getting married to an American woman. Your best bet is finding a woman
from a more traditional culture, where family is important. They still exist, I know, I married one. But don't
assume that any woman from such a culture is not simply after your money, quite a few are.
Today, fatherhood is pretty much criminalized, but while in an intact marriage, you can still parent.
As for the so-called family courts, they are not real courts, the Constitution holds no power there, and
while justice is not supposed to take sides, that's all family courts do.
I would love to see them challenged on a Constitutional basis, as well as the slavery they impose at gunpoint
and the re-institution of debtors prison for dads.
How long do you think it will take before the states realize that cohabitation is a cash cow, too?
This is what I meant in the forum when I said that marriage, as an institution, was dead.
Post a Comment
<< Home