By Helen Smith
It seems that fewer and fewer people in
general are getting married these days, and even fewer men seem interested. Men
no longer see marriage as being as important as they did even 15 years ago. "According
to Pew Research Center, the share of women ages eighteen to thirty-four that
say having a successful marriage is one of the most important things in their
lives rose nine percentage points since 1997--from 28 percent to 37%. For men,
the opposite occurred. The share voicing this opinion dropped, from 35 percent
to 29 percent." Why?
In the course of
researching my new book, Men On Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage,
Fatherhood, and the American Dream - And Why It Matters, I talked with men all
over America about why they're avoiding marriage. It turns out that the problem
isn't that men are immature, or lazy. Instead, they're responding rationally to
the incentives in today's society. Here are some of the answers I found.
1. You'll lose respect. A
couple of generations ago, a man wasn't considered fully adult until he was
married with kids. But today, fathers are figures of fun more than figures of
respect: The schlubby guy with the flowered diaper bag at the mall, or one of
the endless array of buffoonish TV dads in sitcoms and commercials. In today's
culture, father never knows best. It's no better in the news media. As
communications professor James Macnamara reports, "by volume, 69 percent
of mass media reporting and commentary on men was unfavorable, compared with
just 12 percent favorable and 19 percent neutral or balanced."
2. You'll lose out on sex.
Married men have more sex than single men, on average - but much less than men
who are cohabiting with their partners outside of marriage, especially as time
goes on. Research even suggests that married women are more likely to gain
weight than women who are cohabiting without marriage. A Men's Health article
mentioned one study that followed 2,737 people for six years and found that
cohabiters said they were happier and more confident than married couples and
singles.
3. You'll lose friends.
"Those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine." That's
an old song, but it's true. When married, men's ties with friends from school
and work tend to fade. Although both men and women lose friends after marriage,
it tends to affect men's self-esteem more, perhaps because men tend to be less
social in general.
4. You'll lose space. We
hear a lot about men retreating to their "man caves," but why do they
retreat? Because they've lost the battle for the rest of the house. The Art of
Manliness blog mourns "The Decline of Male Space," and notes that the
development of suburban lifestyles, intended to bring the family together,
resulted in the elimination of male spaces in the main part of the house, and
the exile of men to attics, garages, basements - the least desirable part of
the home. As a commenter to the post observes: "There was no sadder scene
to a movie than in 'Juno' when married guy Jason Bateman realized that in his
entire huge, house, he had only a large closet to keep all the stuff he loved
in. That hit me like a punch in the face."
5. You could lose your
kids, and your money. And they may not even be your kids. Lots of men I spoke
with were keenly aware of the dangers of divorce, and worried that if they were
married and it went sour, the woman might take everything, including the kids.
Other men were concerned that they might wind up paying child support for kids
who aren't even theirs - a very real possibility in many states. On my blog, I
polled over 3200 men to ask how they would react to finding out that a child
wasn't theirs after all. 32 percent said they would feel "anger and fury
at the mother," 6 percent said they would feel "depression," 18
percent said "anger and depression," 2 percent said "none of the
above," 32 percent said "angry at the system that forced them to
pay," and only 2 percent "didn't care." One man commented that
his ex-wife had taunted him with the knowledge that his 11-year old son wasn't
actually his: "I was angry at the mother...I severed all ties to the boy.
Some may see this as a failing. I see it as self-preservation, and to those
that ask the question of whether or not the courts will make a non-biological
parent pay child support, pay attention: YES THEY WILL! They see you as nothing
more than a source of cash for the child. It seems that a person in these
situations should be able to sue the real father for child support."
6. You'll lose in court.
Men often complain that the family court legal system is stacked against them,
and in fact it seems to be. Women gain custody and child support the majority
of the time, as pointed out in this ABC News article: "Despite the
increases in men seeking and receiving alimony, advocates warn against linking
the trend to equality in the courtroom. Family court judges still tend to favor
women, said Ned Holstein, the founder of Fathers & Families, a group
advocating family court reform. "'Family court still gives custody
overwhelmingly to mothers, child support overwhelmingly to mothers, and courts
still give almony overwhelmingly to mothers and women,' he said. 'The family
courts came into existence years ago in order to give things to mothers that
mothers needed," he said. 'The times have changed and the courts have
not.'"
7. You'll lose your
freedom. At least, if you're charged with child support that you can't pay, you
can be put in jail - and if you can't afford a lawyer, you don't have the right
to have one appointed because, according to the Supreme Court, it's technically
a civil matter, never mind the jail time. Fathers and Families found that it's
the men who are jailed rather than women: "A new report concludes that
between 95% and 98.5% of all incarcerations in Massachusetts sentenced from the
Massachusetts Probate and Family Courts from 2001 through 2011 have been men.
Moreover, this percentage may be increasing, with an average of 94.5% from 2001
to 2008, and 96.2% from 2009 through 2011. It is likely that most of these
incarcerations are for incomplete payment of child support. Further analysis
suggests that women who fail to pay all of their child support are incarcerated
only one-eighth as often as men with similar violations."
8. Single life is better
than ever. While the value of marriage to men has declined, the quality of
single life has improved. Single men were once looked on with suspicion, passed
over for promotion for important jobs, which usually valued "stable family
men," and often subjected to social opprobrium. It was hard to have a love
life that wasn't aimed at marriage, and premarital sex was risky and frowned
upon. Now, no one looks askance at the single lifestyle, dating is easy, and
employers probably prefer employees with no conflicting family
responsibilities. Plus, video games, cable TV, and the Internet provide
entertainment that didn't used to be available. Is this good for society?
Probably not, as falling birth rates and increasing single-motherhood
demonstrate. But people respond to incentives. If you want more men to marry,
it needs to be a more attractive proposition.
Clarification:
From author Helen Smith: "I talked only with heterosexual men about
marriage for the book. It did not include same-sex marriages. However the
dynamics of same -sex marriage would be a fascinating study for future
research." -- HuffPost Eds.
