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Marriage
- What Are Women's Attitudes Toward Marriage?
- Chapter 4 of Fraternizing With The Enemy shows with
research and numerous examples how much contempt many women feel
today for marriage and for married women -- and for men.
Many feminists claim that marriage is nothing more than legalized
slavery. Others say that marriage nothing more than "serving the
needs of a man" or "spending your life pleasing some man."
In one online women's forum, I started a discussion entitled, "Is
anyone willing to defend marriage?" That discussion has continued, off
and on, for months, and not a single woman was willing to defend
marriage. There are some women who will say that their own marriages
are OK, but no one will defend marriage in general as being good for
women -- although many will condemn marriage in general as being bad
for women. It's really a very remarkable development.
One author, Danielle Crittenden, describes it as follows: "The habit
of viewing marriage as a raw deal for women is now so entrenched, even
among women who don't call themselves feminists, that I've seen brides
who otherwise appear completely happy apologize to their wedding
guests for their surrender to convention, as if a part of them still
feels there is something embarrassing and weak about an intelligent
and ambitious woman consenting to marry."
The contempt that many young women feel toward marriage is an
important social problem in America today, with profound consequences
for everyone.
- Why Do So Many Women File For Divorce?
- Fraternizing With The Enemy provides extensive research
and discussion about several questions important to every man: Why
are women negative about marriage? What is the substance behind this
negativity? Why do half of all marriages end in divorce, and why is
that women file for divorce twice as often as men do, and men oppose
the divorce twice as often as women do?
The evidence shows that women in marriage develop a "malaise" that
causes them to question and be critical of almost every aspect of
their marriages. This malaise begins almost overnight as soon as
they're married, and causes women to become extremely self-critical
and self-disparaging. What the husband does or does not do has
absolutely nothing to do with this malaise, and in fact the husband
can't do anything about it. Most men don't even know it's going on.
This malaise takes a toll on many women, often causing depression and
even illness. Even though the malaise is completely internal, a
woman talking to her girlfriends will find it easy to blame her
husband. A depressed woman talking to her girlfriends is going to be
reminded -- frequently -- that if her husband is making her unhappy
she can get rid of him, keep the children and the home, and collect
substantial child support payments.
Because of the recent substantial increases in state-mandated child
support payments, many women essentially cash out of their marriages,
calculating that they're better off collecting child support. She
gets to enjoy the "dance of liberation" (to quote one author), but
the father's life is destroyed, and their children are more likely to
be abused or an abuse victim, to become teen parents, to be involved
with drugs, and/or to be in the criminal justice system.
- How Can I Evaluate My Marriage (or Planned Marriage)?
- Thanks to recent research, men can assess the likelihood that
their marriages will end in divorce, by evaluating the amount of
criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling that occur in
their marriages. A man can take steps to save his marriages, or he
can decide whether it's time to end his marriage, hopefully before
his wife becomes pregnant.
Fraternizing With The Enemy tells you how to use this research
to evaluate your marriage and what you can do to improve your
marriage.
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