Did Feminism Break the American Marriage?

Would any sensible man marry a feminist? At a time when large numbers of American women make feminist ideology their credo, more and more American men are either choosing not to marry or are traveling to foreign countries to seek out women who actually want to be wives.

Tyler Durden (a pseudonym) analyzes the situation in the Zero Hedge blog. And Melissa Kearney of the University of Maryland has written a new book, The Two-Parent Privilege, analyzing the trend away from marriage and from two parent households.

Fewer and fewer couples are bothering to get married, and those that do are generally more educated and more affluent. Kearney explains that children who are raised in two-parent homes are at an advantage over children who are raised in broken homes. 

It would be a cosmic irony if we discovered that women prefer wealthy spouses who allow them the freedom to spend more time with their children and less time at the office. As it happens, fewer and fewer men are today capable of shouldering that burden.

One needs to mention that highly educated women often attend universities where they largely outnumber eligible men. This means that they are in a difficult competition and that they might find that being more feminine and less feminist works to their advantage.

Since feminism has promoted the singular importance of careers, women today are loath to admit it when they do not have careers. 

For his part Durden takes a look at Passport Bros., men who are traveling to foreign countries in search of wives. Naturally, good feminists are horrified by this eventuality, declaring such women to be weak and subservient. Of course, denouncing foreign women feels self-serving, because it probably is.

One notes that these men are not seeking mail-order brides and might not even be seeking wives who are marrying them to get a green card. Many of them are willing to settle in foreign countries, the better to have more traditional wives.

And yet, Durden remarks, men from other parts of the world are not flocking to America to marry feminists. No great mystery there.

Durden points out that when it comes to finding husbands,  American women have largely unrealistic standards. 

While most women are mercenary by their biological nature (hypergamy), American women tend to be the most expensive. Studies show that the majority of women around the world prefer a man with a larger annual income, but the magic number for a man to be desirable in the US is in the six figure range, preferably 200K and above, which is in the top 5% of earners.  However, the median income for men in the US is around $60,000.

Add in expectations of physical attributes (height above 6ft and physically fit) and the pool of single men that western women desire plummets to around 1% or less.  The mental disconnect between what women think men should earn vs the national average is delusional.  They have limited their options down to finite group of potential partners while never asking themselves what they bring to the table in return? 

It is hard to accept, but feminism seems to have produced a large cohort of women who insist on their own financial independence but who are seeking out men who can support them. If such is the case, we are dealing with a contradiction in terms, one that leaves them unmarried.

This brings us to the salient point:

The female fantasy of trapping “Mr. Big” and living a life of luxury and ease while also remaining “strong, independent and sexually liberated” is a specifically western feminist trope.  And though it seems to run contrary to the feminist ideal, it makes sense from their point of view.  

It feels like a contradiction:

Feminism treats men as oppressors, but ironically it also treats them as a utility to be used.  Why not shame men into being submissive and acting as breadwinners if possible?  This double standard is causing American men in the middle of the financial spectrum to leave and look elsewhere.          

Moreover, and one hesitates to echo Durden’s point, but many of these women have sexual histories-- as the phrase has it.

Sexual liberation has long been a staple of feminist culture. Presumably, women have a right to be just as promiscuous as men are. This has spawned hookup culture and has taught men that, on this most essential sign of spousal loyalty, women cannot really be trusted. 

The promiscuity and lack of personal responsibility promoted by feminism also plays a major role in the fading marriage prospects of women in the US.  Studies show that women with extensive sexual histories and more sexual partners tend to have less happy marriages once they settle down.  

A bad habit is hard to break. Women who have learned how to have casual encounters with multiple partners have more difficulty renouncing their past in favor of monogamy. Besides, most men do not prefer women who have extensive sexual experience. If they start asking where she learned those sexual tricks, they will not find an answer that improves her chances of being a wife.

Now, Durden thinks that feminists do not want to have happy marriages. They want to exercise power over men. It is fair to say that if your marriage becomes a power struggle it will be headed for divorce court. 

He does not say it but too many feminists have gotten themselves trapped in a narrative, specifically the narrative of the Revolution, of the overthrow of patriarchy and capitalism.

They are playing out this grand historical drama in their personal lives. They do not consider men to be partners, but consider them representatives of the patriarchy, to be called out for their male privilege on an everyday basis, in the kitchen.

They want to politicize their personal lives, generally ruining the taste.

Durden notwithstanding, it is less about the power and more about the politics. For having politicized their personal relationships feminists have written themselves out of the marriage game. By now most men understand that a woman who announces her adherence to feminist ideology is not wife material. In truth, if she is a good feminist she will roundly reject the role of wife anyway.

Feminism is less about having a stable home and more about having a home filled with constant psychodrama. It is less about being a responsible spouse and more about being an independent, autonomous, liberated woman.  It involves advancing a cause, not finding domestic harmony. And that means, not being a wife. It also means not cooperating, not conciliating, not compromising, not negotiating. 

Whether or not large numbers of men are quitting the country in order to find wives in foreign lands, I do not know. But, the larger point seems clearly to be true. Fewer and fewer Americans are getting married. Fewer and fewer children are being brought up in two parent homes.

If we ask ourselves how we arrived at this point, the answer must be that more and more American women have embraced feminism and have made marriage into yet another front in the political battle with the patriarchy.

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