Its been in my mind to be a more proactive matchmaker. If marriage is good for all of us we should all have some skin in the game, even if it includes awkward "would you be interested in a set up" asks. A friend did this for me and im convinced id still be single without it. On the preparing men for marriage front i have 2 sons and i joke that making them marriage ready is my highest calling... But im also serious. Of course my daughter, with her power point birthday parties, thoughtful friendships, savings account and sewing classes will be a catch. But who is there to catch her? This summer im hosting 4 interns at my non profit from university of notre dame. The 2 men will be doing childcare and engaging each week in conversations about human dignity and care. I asked for men specifically because the kids at the shelter i run need men in their lives, and these men need to offer care and be challenged on their choice to be finance majors. Im in it to win it, for my daughter and her smart thoughtful friends to have reasonable mates as much as anything!!
As someone who met my husband “the old-fashioned way” through mutual/church friends, I suspect that participation in old-fashioned IRL institutions and social gatherings of various degrees of structure goes a long way toward facilitating marriages.
To elaborate: I don’t just mean meeting people simpliciter. IRL participation in social groups is about how we work through conflict, what a shared goal is and how we pursue it together, what we do in the in-between-times, … all the things that marriage and relationships are made up of.
On reflection it’s kind of a Captain Obvious thing to say. Relationships beget relationship skills? Whoda thunk?? But on the other hand, if, for example, I choose the grocery pickup option solely to avoid small talk at the checkout (don’t hear what I’m not saying about social anxiety, napping babies, contagious illness, and the like) then I’m self-deceived if I think I can make small talk with a spouse without cultivating that skill in other human relationships.
As far as making more men marriage-ready earlier goes, I have a thought that applies to both men and women, but which exposes an issue that I think hits men harder.
These days, in both American secular culture and the Catholic subculture of which I am a part, parents do a lot of choosing for their children. In the culture in general, parents choose to keep their children safe, protect them from failure in school, ensure they get into a good college or degree program, have a nice job, etc.--it's a bit of the bulldozer parent phenomenon talked about by people like Jonathan Haidt. In the "serious" Catholic subculture (often but not always overlapping with homeschoolers and either the trads or the JPII conservatives), parents also tend to protect their kids, e.g. from technology and movies deemed inappropriate, and to make a lot of choices for them, for instance giving them a lot of guidance about getting into the right Catholic college (i.e., the one that will ensure they keep the faith). (From what I've seen and heard peripherally, other religious subcultures tend to do the same, so this is not just a Catholic thing--and frankly, as the secular examples show, I don't think it is just a religious or nonreligious thing either.)
The intentions here are pretty much all good as far as I can tell, but one unintended effect is that you can get a lot of 25-year-olds running around who have never had to make a serious decision on their own, without parental input. That's not to say that they are lazy: they've may well have worked really hard at school, extra-curriculars, and jobs--but it's all hard work on a largely preselected path. They're not unmotivated either, or not in the traditional sense--but they're never learned how to develop their own motives and pursue them--so in a very radical way they are motiveless. They may be motivated to marry, even, but finding the particular person who will be THE motivating force for the rest of their life is another matter. If a kid has never had to choose a college course, how to we expect him or her to suddenly turn about face and make the hardest choice that most of them will ever have to make: WHOM TO MARRY? Is it really so shocking that they're all stumped? And the same thing goes for choosing a career, etc., just with slightly less existential urgency.
It's a little bit easier or at least less obvious among women for a couple of reasons. One, I think, is that while some women prefer to be the romantic pursuers, most of them prefer to be the pursued; and indeed, most men prefer to do the pursuing. That means that the onus of choosing whom to pursue is just not hovering over women in the same way as it hovers over men. I think also that women are constantly making small choices in the personal relationship sphere all the time any way--just because we are on average more sensitive to and aware of others' emotions--and so at least in the area of romantic relationships, we've had more involuntary practice than guys. And for better and for worse, few people really expect women to be as decisive as men about job/post-school stuff, so that our general indecisiveness isn't as apparent.
It’s a good point! I want to give credit to the community where I live where there are more free range kids (some of them homeschooling) and they take on big, no-adult projects like an all female Shakespeare production on someone’s wraparound porch.
Ahhh I want to see that production! I hope the young women in question have seen the really excellent Pyllidia Lloyd movies (I've only made it through Julius Caesar, so far, but it was well worth it).
I think there are some cultural scripts that could stand to be rewritten, such as the belief that marriage is the capstone to young adulthood and not something that can help form you. When I talk to people in my parents’ generation, I am struck by how often they talk about being young and poor when they first got married, and figuring out life together. In my generation, it seems like the cultural script is that you have to figure out yourself first before you can be a good partner. Perhaps this echoes another comment in this thread about the need for relationships in general to help us grow up - we can’t grow and develop on our own.
On a more practical note, we could try to start having more parties and inviting people to hang out who don’t normally see each other (cross-polllinate your friend groups, if you will).
These days, it's common for people to engage in sex without marriage or commitment. Women need to learn to use the power of our desirability to teach men to commit, specifically in the timeline of intimacy. When my husband and I started dating, I was clear that I planned to remain a virgin until marriage. We did not kiss on the first date, French kiss before both of used the word "love," cuddle above the waist before we were engaged, or engage in more prolonged cuddling before we had set a wedding date. This timeline led to LOTS of conversation (about sex and a multitude of other matters, including faith), as well as an incentive to both of us to focus on serious decision making. I was 21 when we met, he was 24. We married 11 months later. That was 54 years ago.
I don’t know if sex without marriage is necessarily always the problem with women not getting married. Speaking as a young woman (24), the only men I know who are remotely marriageable are already married (so definitely not marriageable). I don’t know if the act of getting married helps make them more responsible or if they are married because they were already more mature, but either way, I can understand the situation of being ready and wanting marriage and family, but not having options for a partner around. I feel like I will either have to find someone at least 5 years older than me or wait around for an unknown amount of time for the men my age to grow up. But I don’t think that lack of maturity is all that related to premarital sexual activity. If anything, premarital sex is just another symptom of immaturity, though most of the guys I know aren’t sexual active, nor would they want to be before marriage. That fact alone doesn’t make them marriageable though.
I clearly can't comment on your situation, but in my experience twenty-something women are, on average, atrocious at *identifying* the marriageable men around them.
There's the additional challenge that, for many people (myself included) the overwhelming message about approaching women with romantic intent was that it was a minefield that would get you identified as a predator/douchebag... So I didn't.
Luckily, my wife
1) Had a 30-something woman's taste in men in her early twenties; and
2) Was comfortable doing the pursuing/making the situation clear.
As a lesbian I’m not pro marriage(or particularly against it). But I think we need alternatives. A few women living together in a shared space could easily raise children as single moms. Many other advantages to small women’s communes, ie for women fleeing abusive marriages. And it would strengthen women’s bonds. If a woman meets a man she wants to marry she moves out.
Its been in my mind to be a more proactive matchmaker. If marriage is good for all of us we should all have some skin in the game, even if it includes awkward "would you be interested in a set up" asks. A friend did this for me and im convinced id still be single without it. On the preparing men for marriage front i have 2 sons and i joke that making them marriage ready is my highest calling... But im also serious. Of course my daughter, with her power point birthday parties, thoughtful friendships, savings account and sewing classes will be a catch. But who is there to catch her? This summer im hosting 4 interns at my non profit from university of notre dame. The 2 men will be doing childcare and engaging each week in conversations about human dignity and care. I asked for men specifically because the kids at the shelter i run need men in their lives, and these men need to offer care and be challenged on their choice to be finance majors. Im in it to win it, for my daughter and her smart thoughtful friends to have reasonable mates as much as anything!!
> intervene to facilitate marriage
As someone who met my husband “the old-fashioned way” through mutual/church friends, I suspect that participation in old-fashioned IRL institutions and social gatherings of various degrees of structure goes a long way toward facilitating marriages.
To elaborate: I don’t just mean meeting people simpliciter. IRL participation in social groups is about how we work through conflict, what a shared goal is and how we pursue it together, what we do in the in-between-times, … all the things that marriage and relationships are made up of.
Elizabeth, I love love love that last point.
On reflection it’s kind of a Captain Obvious thing to say. Relationships beget relationship skills? Whoda thunk?? But on the other hand, if, for example, I choose the grocery pickup option solely to avoid small talk at the checkout (don’t hear what I’m not saying about social anxiety, napping babies, contagious illness, and the like) then I’m self-deceived if I think I can make small talk with a spouse without cultivating that skill in other human relationships.
As far as making more men marriage-ready earlier goes, I have a thought that applies to both men and women, but which exposes an issue that I think hits men harder.
These days, in both American secular culture and the Catholic subculture of which I am a part, parents do a lot of choosing for their children. In the culture in general, parents choose to keep their children safe, protect them from failure in school, ensure they get into a good college or degree program, have a nice job, etc.--it's a bit of the bulldozer parent phenomenon talked about by people like Jonathan Haidt. In the "serious" Catholic subculture (often but not always overlapping with homeschoolers and either the trads or the JPII conservatives), parents also tend to protect their kids, e.g. from technology and movies deemed inappropriate, and to make a lot of choices for them, for instance giving them a lot of guidance about getting into the right Catholic college (i.e., the one that will ensure they keep the faith). (From what I've seen and heard peripherally, other religious subcultures tend to do the same, so this is not just a Catholic thing--and frankly, as the secular examples show, I don't think it is just a religious or nonreligious thing either.)
The intentions here are pretty much all good as far as I can tell, but one unintended effect is that you can get a lot of 25-year-olds running around who have never had to make a serious decision on their own, without parental input. That's not to say that they are lazy: they've may well have worked really hard at school, extra-curriculars, and jobs--but it's all hard work on a largely preselected path. They're not unmotivated either, or not in the traditional sense--but they're never learned how to develop their own motives and pursue them--so in a very radical way they are motiveless. They may be motivated to marry, even, but finding the particular person who will be THE motivating force for the rest of their life is another matter. If a kid has never had to choose a college course, how to we expect him or her to suddenly turn about face and make the hardest choice that most of them will ever have to make: WHOM TO MARRY? Is it really so shocking that they're all stumped? And the same thing goes for choosing a career, etc., just with slightly less existential urgency.
It's a little bit easier or at least less obvious among women for a couple of reasons. One, I think, is that while some women prefer to be the romantic pursuers, most of them prefer to be the pursued; and indeed, most men prefer to do the pursuing. That means that the onus of choosing whom to pursue is just not hovering over women in the same way as it hovers over men. I think also that women are constantly making small choices in the personal relationship sphere all the time any way--just because we are on average more sensitive to and aware of others' emotions--and so at least in the area of romantic relationships, we've had more involuntary practice than guys. And for better and for worse, few people really expect women to be as decisive as men about job/post-school stuff, so that our general indecisiveness isn't as apparent.
It’s a good point! I want to give credit to the community where I live where there are more free range kids (some of them homeschooling) and they take on big, no-adult projects like an all female Shakespeare production on someone’s wraparound porch.
Ahhh I want to see that production! I hope the young women in question have seen the really excellent Pyllidia Lloyd movies (I've only made it through Julius Caesar, so far, but it was well worth it).
I think there are some cultural scripts that could stand to be rewritten, such as the belief that marriage is the capstone to young adulthood and not something that can help form you. When I talk to people in my parents’ generation, I am struck by how often they talk about being young and poor when they first got married, and figuring out life together. In my generation, it seems like the cultural script is that you have to figure out yourself first before you can be a good partner. Perhaps this echoes another comment in this thread about the need for relationships in general to help us grow up - we can’t grow and develop on our own.
On a more practical note, we could try to start having more parties and inviting people to hang out who don’t normally see each other (cross-polllinate your friend groups, if you will).
These days, it's common for people to engage in sex without marriage or commitment. Women need to learn to use the power of our desirability to teach men to commit, specifically in the timeline of intimacy. When my husband and I started dating, I was clear that I planned to remain a virgin until marriage. We did not kiss on the first date, French kiss before both of used the word "love," cuddle above the waist before we were engaged, or engage in more prolonged cuddling before we had set a wedding date. This timeline led to LOTS of conversation (about sex and a multitude of other matters, including faith), as well as an incentive to both of us to focus on serious decision making. I was 21 when we met, he was 24. We married 11 months later. That was 54 years ago.
I don’t know if sex without marriage is necessarily always the problem with women not getting married. Speaking as a young woman (24), the only men I know who are remotely marriageable are already married (so definitely not marriageable). I don’t know if the act of getting married helps make them more responsible or if they are married because they were already more mature, but either way, I can understand the situation of being ready and wanting marriage and family, but not having options for a partner around. I feel like I will either have to find someone at least 5 years older than me or wait around for an unknown amount of time for the men my age to grow up. But I don’t think that lack of maturity is all that related to premarital sexual activity. If anything, premarital sex is just another symptom of immaturity, though most of the guys I know aren’t sexual active, nor would they want to be before marriage. That fact alone doesn’t make them marriageable though.
I clearly can't comment on your situation, but in my experience twenty-something women are, on average, atrocious at *identifying* the marriageable men around them.
This comic really sums it up: https://www.reddit.com/r/lotrmemes/comments/n5h92n/a_sweet_loyal_guy_with_cooking_and_gardening/#lightbox
There's the additional challenge that, for many people (myself included) the overwhelming message about approaching women with romantic intent was that it was a minefield that would get you identified as a predator/douchebag... So I didn't.
Luckily, my wife
1) Had a 30-something woman's taste in men in her early twenties; and
2) Was comfortable doing the pursuing/making the situation clear.
So now we're happily married with kids.
As a lesbian I’m not pro marriage(or particularly against it). But I think we need alternatives. A few women living together in a shared space could easily raise children as single moms. Many other advantages to small women’s communes, ie for women fleeing abusive marriages. And it would strengthen women’s bonds. If a woman meets a man she wants to marry she moves out.