Thursday, October 19, 2006

Who benefits from marriage? Part I

Who actually benefits from marriage? Is it the men, as feminists say, or is it the women who benefit, as Men's Rights Activists like myself assert?

Due to my upbringing and feminised education, I had never questioned the idea that women don't benefit in marriage, and that marriage is a social construct designed to give men a slave and a cook, nothing else. However, hard as it was, after growing up and seeing the evidence around me, I began to question the popular belief. When I started reading the father's rights and anti-feminist websites, I threw the belief that only men benefit from marriage in the trash.

Now, after reading the article in the NY Times about the marriage strike, and the comments associated with that article, I decided to rethink my beliefs.

First of all, let's tackle the issue of whether men benefit from marriage. According to feminist dogma, marriage serves the man by having the woman serve him.

Here's a quote: "If a woman can earn her own living, the idea of working outside the home and then coming home to do the lion'’s share of the domestic duties loses its appeal pretty quickly. And she is less likely to be forgiving and tolerant of the kind of machismo that her grandmothers accepted as the price of being supported. While this may seem to represent a kind of evolution, the evolution is social, not biological. Men aren'’t necessarily sharing in this social evolution; women have changed the rules on them and they don'’t seem to have caught up with it -— or perhaps they are not interested in catching up with it!"

Leaving aside the heavy dose of shaming and blaming in the quote, we see that the message is that the man is a drag on the household.

Here's another quote: "Marriage is an outmoded, feudal institution no longer relevant for women. The feminist critique of marriage from the 1970s is still germaine. Marriage is a bad deal for women who are expected to work outside the home, plus raise the children, plus clean the house, plus be available for sex. Men, on the other hand, benefit tremendously from marriage for the same reasons. They work only one job, get a maid, a nanny, and a sex partner. When women have actual economic options, they are clearly chosing to remain single. It'’s better for them financially. Women will still be fine emotionally outside of marriage because they know how to create emotional support networks; they give and receive comfort on a daily basis. As a society, however, we raise men who cannot meet their own emotional needs outside of leaning perpetually on a wife. Marriage as an institution, if it is to survive (and the need for that is debatable) must become equitable for both women and men"

According to the author of this quote, women don't have a sex drive. They only have sex because the man wants it, and since they were dependent on the man financially, the woman does not have sex according to her own free will - in short, all sex is rape. What seems to be common among feminists is that they believe that women can not give consent. They seem to think that women don't really want to have children, keep a clean house, take care of their children and their husband, essentially they think that all women are like themselves - fat, lazy lesbians who live in filth and don't care about anyone but themselves. (Cheap shot!)

There are a couple of points in the post that I do agree with - society does encourage women to create support networks while men are supposed to be the problem solvers. If a woman goes to another woman with a problem, they might chat about it and not solve it, but if a man goes to another man with a problem, his masculinity will be questioned and he will be seen as inferior as the other man will solve his problem. And of course, there's the old double standard of men being afraid to be seen together for fear of being labeled homosexual while society encourages women to hang out together.

Now, does marriage benefit women? Continued in Part II...

9 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "..since they were dependent on the man financially, the woman does not have sex according to her own free will - in short, all sex is rape"

    The reciprocal of the quote above, that feminists don't consider, is ... "since they (men) were dependent on women sexually, the man does not work according to his free will - in short, all work is psychological/emotional rape."

    Ideally, a marital contract should not have to be enforced legally. Unfortunately, feminists have given women the opportunity to abuse it as per the first quote above using the Mackinnon logic.

    It's time for the courts to either separate the personal from the political or consider the reciprocal quote above.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "If a woman can earn her own living, the idea of working outside the home and then coming home to do the lion'’s share of the domestic duties loses its appeal pretty quickly. And she is less likely to be forgiving and tolerant of the kind of machismo that her grandmothers accepted as the price of being supported. ."

    I find this quote to be true. I've been on both sides of the fence. It is much easier to respect a man when he fulfills his duty of supporting the family financially, allowing the wife to nurture and guard the home and children. Otherwise it is easy to get into the whole, "What about me syndrome" and fair share squabbling.

    I've never understood the whole spouse rape thing...sounds like on oxymoron to me, emphasis on moron. I have never seen the sense in denying ones spouse, that is plain stupid.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jammy said...
    I find this quote to be true. I've been on both sides of the fence. It is much easier to respect a man when he fulfills his duty of supporting the family financially, allowing the wife to nurture and guard the home and children.

    I also agree, but feminists have redefined marriage. Now, most women expect the man to fulfill the obligations of the traditional man (protect and provide) as well as some of the obligations of the traditional female (housework). The provider part is also indirectly enforced by alimony and child support. Meanwhile the wife has the option of working or not working. Women in a marriage usually work at easier, more flexible jobs than men so it is obvious that they would do a lion's share of the housework, since the man is working harder and pulling down the income needed for the family to survive.

    More and more men like me are deciding that marriage is not for them if it is going to be redefined in such a way. I would probably marry if today was October 19, 1946. However, it isn't and we have to live within the framework of today's laws and expectations.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Whenever I see a women agreeing about the imaginary massive workload that they have to do, I laugh.

    Firstly, the majority of women cannot cook, so you get junk food.
    Secondly, the majority of households have the latest appliances that just about does it all for you.

    Most married women have a PART-TIME job, lucky to work 20-30 a week at most.

    So how much effort does it take to clean a house, sweet fcuk all.

    But like all women, let's get some mileage out of it as we are such victims. Dream on.

    When the wife repairs the car, I do the dishes except i have a automatic dishwasher, or used to.
    Living on my own and preferably so, I would be lucky to spend 4 hours a week doing it all.........

    Women are just getting lazy, who needs em!

    Here's a good example of what women are about..

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qoOgy3zMd8&NR

    ReplyDelete
  6. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ok, rewritten to add the fact that I totally get the idea not to get personal about generalizations. However, since that last comment seemed a result of my comment, I am adding the following:

    Wow ChristianJ....I feel your heat. I'm sorry to see there was no blog attatched to your "profile". And Junk food? That is definitely the product of feminism. I wasn't taught as a young girl to cook because as a product of a single-mother household whose mom was an endentured servant to minimum wage, she wasn't around to teach me how to run a home and take care of a husband. That was never modeled. Thanks be to God that through online mentors I learned that and a whole lot more!!

    Anyhow, I was agreeing to the fact that women are better able to respect rather than demand from their men when they are able to guard and guide the household. I wasn't even touching on the "massive workload" you mention.

    It may take your 4 hours to run your one person-pad ChristianJ, now multiply that by 8 and you are getting close.

    Actually it is a lot of work to run a household for a family of 8. To have peace and order so that my husband can drop by with someone at any time of day and not be embarrassed! To have a menu plan for the week ahead of time. To have clothes and food available to him throughout the week. To guide his children and train them so they don't turn out to be delinquents. To be sure they do their schoolwork, and allow their friends to play over so that I can oversee what goes on. To watch over his home. To carry out his wishes when he is absent. To have things organized and well-run. I'm not complaining though, without work you can never really enjoy those down times or times of relaxation.

    I'm sure there are a lot who take advantage and don't love their families enough to give a rat's tail about any of it. They don't realize their depravity. They don't realize how unworthy they are. They don't realize what the Savior did for them. When they truly learn this, they will be so grateful their lives will HAVE to change drastically.

    I am not trying to convince you how you choose to live your life. You are in charge of that. Ok, off my soapbox.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ah....Yes. The Old "you have no idea about raising a family" routine.

    I do not have a problem with women staying at home and running the household.

    But I do have issue with the fact that women make such a huge meal out of it.
    (Current wages for SAHMums is $134,000.00 per annum).
    Salary.com said if they got paid, stay-at-home moms would pull down $134,121 this year -- a raise of $2,650 from last year's theoretical salary.,


    I raised 4 kids under five and a looked after a sick wife, but I do not rant and carry on about as most women "we are such victims" constantly do.

    ReplyDelete
  9. "Women will still be fine emotionally outside of marriage because they know how to create emotional support networks; they give and receive comfort on a daily basis. As a society, however, we raise men who cannot meet their own emotional needs outside of leaning perpetually on a wife."

    Oh my...

    So, why then is a woman nagging all the time?

    Getting angry when after a hard day I forget to ask "how was your day"... ??

    etc etc etc... no f**king end to this...

    Ah then, god beware, you start talking about your day, which was not an easy one, and one or two things went astray, or you just are troubled in your mind...:
    "Dont whine.. be a man... bla bla bla..."

    If men are solely reliant on wives emotionally, then I can tell, wives suck at this support.

    And if a woman cannot leave the husband alone with her endless nagging, then the "out of marriage support network for women" must suck too....

    Never ending story.

    Hipocrats, all.

    ReplyDelete