Marriage Strike!
The
general male population is going on a massive "Marriage
Strike!" A recent
paper from Rutgers University going by the title "Why Men
Won't Commit" found ten significant reasons why men are
avoiding formal marriage while substituting it with cohabiting.
Three of these reasons
stand out amongst the ten. They are:
1.
They can obtain sex without having to get married,
2.
They can enjoy "a wife" through cohabitation,
and a now emerging
as the major "unspoken reason" for doing this:
3.
They want to avoid divorce and its financial
risks.
Of these three reasons, the third one stands out as being
the most significant. Recent evidence coming over the internet
is revealing the reasons--most often heard are that non-marrying
men are in serious fear of financial devastation often encountered in divorce, and of losing meaningful contact with
children afterward. The Rutgers report states: "Many men also fear the financial consequences
of divorce. They say that their financial assets are
better protected if they cohabit rather than marry.
They fear that an ex-wife will 'take you for all you've
got' and that 'men have more to lose financially than women'
from a divorce."
Matthew Weeks in his recent article "The Marriage
Strike" says similar things, "If we accept the old feminist
argument that marriage is slavery for women, then it is
undeniable that--given the current state of the nation's
family courts---divorce is slavery for men." According
to Weeks' math, one in two marriages will fail [the national
statistic is one in seven fail, ending in divorce] with
the wife being twice as likely to initiate the proceedings
on grounds of "general discontent"--the minimum requirement
of no-fault divorce. The odds of the women receiving custody
of children are overwhelming, with many fathers effectively
being denied visitation. The wife usually keeps the "family"
assets and, perhaps, receives alimony as well as child support.
Many men confront continuing poverty to pay for the former
marriage. Weeks conclusion: "Over five million divorced men in America are currently experiencing
the situation I just outlined. Without a doubt, their stories
and experiences are heard by unmarried men. Can anyone
truly blame the men for having apprehension?" In his article
Weeks uses a new term which is catching on--"The Marriage
Strike." While most of the men who go "on strike" are
probably doing it very quietly, others are making a loud
political statement. The Joint Parenting Association
declares "An international 'marriage strike' by men
is set to continue indefinitely until Family Law is reformed
to recognize that fathers love their children too."
Here are some scary statistics, which go from the year 1960
to the year 2000:
The number of
marriages per 1,000 unmarried women from age 15-plus has
declined from 73.5 to 46.5 (cut in half!).
The number of divorces per 1,000 unmarried women age 15-plus
has risen from 9.2 to 18.9 (doubled!).
What we see by these figures is that the number of women
remaining single instead of choosing marriage has grown
significantly, as should be expected with greater numbers
of couples choosing cohabitation over conventional marriage.
(i.e. couples choosing cohabitation show up on statistics as
single adults.) Also included in this group are women who
choose to remain childless or raise children by themselves
(a devastating situation for children).
The number of births per 1,000 women age 15-44 has declined
from 118.0 to 67.5 (cut in half!).
The percentage
of live births to unmarried women rose from 5.3 to 33.2
(600 percent rise in unwed births!).
The percentage
of children under 18 living with a single parent rose from
9 to 27 (300 percent rise in single-parent families!).
How should we interpret this information? It is becoming
painfully obvious that the steep rise in cohabitation has
caused the devastation we find occurring within marriages
and families. The number of unmarried adults cohabiting
with the opposite sex has skyrocketed from 439,000 in 1960
to 4,736,000 in 2000 (a whopping 1000 percent rise!). But
before blaming cohabitation for all these nasty statistics,
let's take a more careful look at the motives behind it.
Let's try to get to the bottom of what's going on here.
Why do people choose this family-devastating alternative?
Who wins in the cohabiting situation during a break-up?
The answer, the man. He can walk
away almost scot-free, retain his assets, visitation rights
if there are children, and only faces child support at best.
The "marriage strike" reverses the tables and all the negatives
brought on by the current unfair bias by Family Courts and
the feminist movement--it reverses the tables on women--but
sadly, not the women who deserve the consequences, those
who have financially enslaved over 5 million divorced men.
Realize, it is Family Courts and
these feminist women who are directly responsible for having
set a counter-movement rolling in direct reaction to these
injustices which have been wrought on five million American
men. The men are fighting back in the only way they
can--and all women and the very future of the family in
America and the British countries
are at stake and suffering as a direct result. Family
life in this "modern society" we find ourselves living in
is crumbling as a direct result. The men are only reacting
to a clear and present evil in the legal system. But cohabiting
hurts women and children, not the men. The statistics show
this, they don't lie. Sex outside of marriage hurts women
and children far more than men. But this situation will
not come under control until women--married women--are no
longer allowed to put men into financial-legal slavery.
Isn't it time for a truce? Isn't it time both men and women
learned how to make marriage work? Women devastating men
financially and legally/Men going on "Marriage Strike" which
denies women all legal rights--both of these actions fail
to correct the fundamental problem--and instead both actions
are destroying the very fabric and building block of our
society and nation--the American (and yes, British) family
unit.
The next question we should ask ourselves, and
this is important folks:
Who has fallen down in providing the answers to this
problem and a dynamic example of the way marriage ought
to be? Who has failed to
show a way out of this devastating quandary, this marital
quagmire, this stalemate we're increasingly finding ourselves
in? The answer: The Christian church. Isn't
that amazing? You would think the Christian church in America
would have the answer, and that it would be dynamically
applying it, showing the way out of this nasty problem that
is inflicting huge woes on our society. But sadly the
same high divorce rates and broken homes are reflected in
Christian families throughout the United
States (and yes, Commonwealth
countries was well). If you are a Christian,
you owe it to the whole non-Christian community you live
in to actively know how to have a happy, fulfilling marriage--one
bubbling over in happiness. Now let's get personal. Do
you? Is your marriage happy and fulfilling, bubbling over
in happiness--the kind that makes your neighbors look over
at you in envy, wishing it were so in their marriages?
God is not going to judge the non-Christian community so
much for their ignorance and misguided reactions in the
current marital situation. They truly don't know any better,
they don't use or believe in the Bible with all it's
wisdom, the wisdom of the Eternal God who designed and created
man and woman. Besides, they're already being judged and
penalized by the fruit of their actions. No, God is going
to judge those who should have known better, those who have
direct access to the solution to this nasty problem. Ask
yourself, can your next-door neighbor look at you and your
spouse and see a marriage bubbling over in happiness and
contentment--and be somewhat envious? If not, you need
to do something about it right now. You are in obvious
ignorance on the fundamental knowledge of how to have and
promote a happy marriage. God doesn't view this as an option
for the Christian couple, but an obligation we have to set
a proper example to our non-Christian neighbors in the communities
we live in. So if your answer to that question is "No"
or "I'm not sure that my marriage is all that happy", log
onto the link below and learn the ABC's of having a happy,
fulfilled marriage, a marriage that will bubble over in
happiness and contentment. Just click on: http://www.UNITYINCHRIST.COM/christiangrowth/HisNeeds_HerNeeds.htm
and apply the wisdom of God's Word to your own marriage.
The editor.
[If you would like to help empower the Christian church,
helping her to set the right example of just how our marriages
ought to be: 1) (if you're married) Log onto the link above
and apply it, that's the first thing, and 2) (and this 2nd
point includes everyone) Forward the url of this article
on to all your online Christian friends--and don't neglect
your pastor on this list. This is how we can all pitch in and help solve this problem--at
least as far as within the Christian church, the Bride of
Christ in this essential area. Use the "Send this article
to a friend" feature located at the bottom of the left-hand
navigation bar of this article. As the society around us
goes down into this hellish cohabiting/divorce pit, we as
Christians must be climbing out of it and set the example
of how it's done. I've provided the answers, the necessary
material, the rest is up to you. God's watching. He sees
you reading this. What are you going to do about it?]
