I try and shy away from posting heady stuff here, because my target audience doesn’t want complicated philosophy lectures. (they want memes, man…) Sometimes I just have to go there.
Down below, Jason (who has an account here, and who has contributed regular articles before) writes some stream-of-consciousness stuph in the comments that’s pretty interesting.
On shifting notions of marriage…
No man in here is married to a woman like this, needless to say…..looks like this. She exists, sure. No doubt….but she isn’t married to you, would never date a man like me and frankly has the time to do this (ie she doesn’t work…..and is married to a man who can comfortably provide on all levels). She isn’t married to the local guy in the church who has a mid level programming job. She is married to an executive.
I’ve seen photos of Derek’s wife. She’s not a huge fat beast, and she’s not ugly. The fact that you or I don’t consider her a hardbody 9/10 doesn’t matter much, because there’s only one man on earth she needs to stay attractive for, and he doesn’t seem to voice any complaints.
I could offer all the hottest skank-ho sluts on Tinder five-hundred bucks to try and seduce Derek for a night of no-strings fun, and I would bet money that he would laugh in their faces. Even if Hugh Hefner wouldn’t hire her as a playmate, she’s Derek’s playmate, and in a patriarchal society, that’s all that matters.
I could argue that in 1960 this was more common…..not because “feminism” or “chivalry” ruined everything….but an average guy who finished high school in 1955 after his two years service in the military could come back….get a half decent job in the local carpet mill, manufacturing plant, apprentice in the trades, or off to college / university (if he indeed was in the top 20% academic wise in high school)and marry a woman like this and provide for her. The cost of living was much lower, the US economy was growing at a whopping 10-12% a year (and we cheer today about how great things are if it grows at 3% a year)
Jason takes the classically Marxist position, that historical events are a direct result of economic factors. In this particular example, I agree that there has been a change in the meaning of marriage, and I don’t think he’s far off the mark, but I think it is shortsighted to shotgun all social problems as ultimately financial.
Consider the phenomenon of wimminz social praxis. Note that in 1960, there was a significant sense of shame attached to divorcing your man. People in that era who divorced each other (men and women alike) were seen as pathetic losers, irresponsible morons, and untrustworthy philanderers. A wimminz in 1960 would be shunned by all her friends, the day after she went down to the divorce court. A wimminz in 2019 is celebrated by these same useless cunts, and the few married females in these social circles are goaded and egged on to cash out and join the party.
Jason seems to contend that females in 1960 were more willing to marry a diesel mechanic because the average wage of a diesel mechanic could provide more disposable income and consumer goods to a woman. I’d argue that a significant factor is (again) social feedback from wimminz’ peers. In 1960, the 19-year old female who wasn’t married was considered a loser. In 2019, the 19-year old female who is married is considered a loser.
The woman in this picture…..her husband is not working as an auto mechanic at the local Ford dealer. No way. Her husband is not a carpenter. My dad was a lifelong Union carpenter, and a certified millwright, foreman for large jobs in the Upstate New York region….and a sought out craftsman for cabinets. The house I grew up in, he built in 1970. He even poured the foundation. The house btw sold for almost a million dollars in depressed rural northern New York State…….that’s how customized and well built it was.
To be clear, I don’t know the woman in the photograph. Apparently she has an instagram feed where she promotes the sort of traditionalism many in these parts admire. If she’s countercultural enough to do that much, I think it’s entirely possible that she’s married to a working-class guy.
Jason is assuming that all the carpenters and plumbers of 1960 went on welfare or got hooked on Vicodin and are now in the gutter. I think it’s just as likely that these men are now retired contractors. I’ve taught math to welders at community college. My students in that particular course all landed union gigs where they soon made more money than I do. If I could be married (and I’m sure that I could) then there’s no economic reason they can’t be (and many of them are.)
I don’t deny the existence of the social problem lamented by men like Jason. I just don’t buy into the idea of the primacy of economics. If I were able to grant one-hundred married men a million dollars each, it wouldn’t solve their marital problems. In contemporary society, it’d probably just add more incentive to the skanks they married to go down to the divorce courts, and get those papers filed.