I and other bloggers have touched on this general issue before, but it strikes me that I haven’t seen the full extent of this addressed directly. Conventional wisdom is that women want commitment and men want to avoid it. All too often the reality is that women want commitment from men, but desperately want to avoid reciprocating.
A comment on Solomon II’s recent post on text game (NSFW) had me thinking about this more. Solomon was able to convince a 23 year old woman to send him a partially nude picture of herself. Commenter Lisa found this troubling:
Classy. Why do I even bother dating. How could I compete with this, being 39 with a child, even if I wanted to?
Solomon II replied:
Yes, this gets male attention, but so do plenty of other qualities that you likely have. Most importantly, this is not what it takes to get long term male commitment.
But unless she is a widow, a former nun who experienced immaculate conception, or divorced with legitimate cause or against her will, why should we assume a 39 year old single mother wants commitment? She has had over 20 years to enter into commitment if she so chose.
The conventional wisdom may be the dynamic for a very small percentage of alphas and a larger percentage of more traditional women, but the reality of the changes we have seen in dating and marriage have been just the opposite. Men have been the ones reacting to women’s lack of commitment and responding in kind.
Example: Shift from LTRs to hookups.
Early in the sexual revolution there was some level of stability for serial monogamy. This was because there was still some inertia keeping women from feeling comfortable hopping from man to man. But over time women have felt more and more free to enter and exit sexual relationships at will.
In reality, what exactly differentiates a LTR from a hookup? Is it fair for a man or a woman to have an expectation that their “Long Term Relationship” will be in tact an hour from now, tomorrow, or next week? Is either party judged for deciding at any moment in the relationship that it no longer exists? If either party can terminate the relationship at will simply by voicing their preference, where exactly is the commitment?
Long Term Relationships actually have no term and no commitment. The only way you can violate the agreement is if you get involved with someone else without a courtesy call to the other party first. Tell me if I’m getting this wrong.
Men are consciously or unconsciously starting to recognize this and acting accordingly. The hookup culture is really just men finally adjusting to the rules women have been playing by for quite some time. Now both will get what they want from the “relationship” for so long as it pleases them, and then end it when they wish. The only question is if it pleases them for an hour, a night, a month, a year, or a decade. As men become wise to the lack of commitment they are in turn withdrawing their investment.
Behold: hookup culture.
What clouds this issue is the near total denial of the reality of the situation. Even in the manosphere I’m not sure the true reality that women are the ones who fear commitment is really universally accepted. The pretty lie is that women do want commitment, but only sort of commitment. Intuitively this is an attractive idea. Why not have your cake and eat it too? But commitment turns out to be much like being pregnant. One can’t be a little bit of either one. But the lie persists. This is perhaps the most important message we need to send young men. Don’t fall for the sort of committed idea women and society would sell you. Don’t mistake having sex with a woman, eating dinner with her, living with her, going on vacations, or a long history with a woman to mean anything but she was horny, hungry, she needed a roommate, she wanted to go on vacation, or she didn’t see another option which struck her fancy. It doesn’t mean anything else. It can’t. Even if you are in love. Once a man understands this and truly internalizes it he can act accordingly.
It doesn’t matter if you like the new rules or not. They are here, and the only wise choice is to stop denying it. My wife’s mother told her when she started dating to not expect any commitment from a man unless she was married or at the very least both were actively and openly planning to marry; You could sleep with him and he would be perfectly justified in leaving you the next day.
We need to start telling our sons the same thing. They should feel no obligation whatsoever to a woman they are not either married to or engaged to, no matter how long they have been with her or what their shared history is. And they should absolutely expect her to act the same way.
Example: Marriage 2.0
We see the same thing regarding marriage. I think there is a federal law requiring that whenever I write a post about divorce that at least one woman loudly worries that women will be “trapped in marriage”.
And by trapped, they of course mean committed.
Marriage 2.0 is just the legal formalization of this kind of thinking. Men’s commitment is legally enforced, while women can no longer even be morally judged for deciding they no longer wish to honor it. Even churches have been cowed into not making moral judgments about those who decide to end their marriage for any reason. As J shared in her comment on my post about the devastating effect divorce has on children:
I think that the reasons religious institutions of various denominations don’t tackle the issue as directly as you would advocate is that they don’t want to be seen as mixing in inappropriately and alienating people. My own congregation has no stated policy on divorce, but efforts are made to support both parties and keep them involved in the congregation and guidance is given to those who seek it. Efforts NOT to take sides are made. I think divorce is a minefield for clergy.
To be fair to J she was only sharing what she had observed, and this sentiment is extremely common when I see divorce discussed even on Christian blogs. If anything her church should be commended for being honest about what its policy is regarding divorce. Most churches speak like Christ and act like Oprah when it comes to divorce.
A fellow blogger (whom I respect greatly) OneSTDV expressed a similar sentiment in a post back in August Eat, Pray, Love: What About the Husband? OneSTDV took issue with a post from Welmer on the Spearhead where Welmer (another blogger I respect greatly) asserted that the author had wronged her first husband by divorcing him without cause. OneSTDV felt that she had harmed society at large by doing this, but that it was taking it too far to say that she had wronged her husband personally when she decided not to keep her marriage vows to him:
Welmer’s “victim” carping assumes this man had a right to be loved, that he was actually worthy of anyone’s ardor. He knows nothing of this man’s venerable or disreputable attributes, yet Welmer presumes Ms. Gilbert’s wronged him in some manner:
like being abandoned by a spouse
If Ms. Gilbert felt as despondent as the novel claims, then she’s justified in ending the marriage. Do I advocate divorce and the attendant idea that marriage is a whimsical decision? Of course not, but sometimes, things don’t work out. Ms. Gilbert did not victimize Mr. Gilbert by not reciprocating his affections; one’s personal emotions (from men and women) are offered as a gift, bestowed upon those we deem worthy. If one parsimoniously refuses to extend such warmth, then too bad. A victim exists if unjustifiably imposed upon by some immoral act or actor, i.e. Madoff. You’re not a victim simply because your wife no longer loves you.
I bring up OneSTDV’s comments only to make it clear how universal this view is. Men need to stop automatically assuming that a woman will feel any moral obligation to him to keep her wedding vows. Society no longer sees it that way, even when it recognizes the moral cost to society and children caused by divorce in general.
Men’s eventual rational response to the reality of the widespread lack of commitment from women will be to stop being confused by the term Long Term Relationship and also to choose not to marry. I think the former can’t happen too soon, but I have mixed feelings about the latter. I personally still advise (beta) men to marry, but only if the woman can demonstrate an exceptional power within herself to keep her end of the commitment. While I mourn the continuing destruction of the institution of marriage, I am also troubled that large numbers of men are marrying women who don’t deserve the honor.
So far we aren’t seeing a marriage strike, but we are seeing a remarriage strike. We are also seeing a change in popular opinion about marrying a woman in her 30s. The fact that the change in attitudes is happening first on the margins makes sense. As this understanding continues to grow we should expect it to eventually impact lifetime first marriage rates as well.
You have hit on a key dysfunction of modern society: the world no longer expects women to honor their commitments to men. Women can walk out as soon as their “FEEElings” demand it and sometimes get paid for the privilege.
I have a slightly simpler view than your post: much like women are histrionic with regard to reserving the right of rejection (“men are supposed to approach ME,” hell hath no fury, etc) women always want to be the first one to walk out of a relationship. Being dumped is the ultimate rejection, because it’s a rejection AFTER you have invested something (you can’t get dumped unless you’re in an LTR to begin with).
If jewelry ads and divorce statistics are to be believed, women are generally speaking the first ones to demand “commitment” and the first ones to want to break it. So, much of their romantic escapades involve extracting ever-increasing promises of “commitment” from a man, which really just provide her security that SHE will be the one to walk out first if she so chooses.
Not to mention that the definition of “commitment” changes, and is always one-sided. If a woman wants to go to the next level (whatever that may be) and he doesn’t he’s “afraid of commitment.” If the roles are reversed, he’s a controlling creeper and she’s being “pragmatic.”
“My wife’s mother told her when she started dating to not expect any commitment from a man unless she was married or at the very least both were actively and openly planning to marry…
We need to start telling our sons the same thing. They should feel no obligation whatsoever to a woman they are not either married to or engaged to, no matter how long they have been with her or what their shared history is. And they should absolutely expect her to act the same way.”
A lot of people I know need to learn this lesson. “Commitment” outside of marriage is a misnomer; as you note, all that is necessary is a courtesy call to break off the relationship. Ethically, it’s nice to let someone down easy and not bullshit the situation, but these are not strictly necessary. Nor does breaking up justify hateful rage or pyrotechnics, vandalism, etc. It’s OK to be disappointed, but life goes on.
the world no longer expects women to honor their commitments to men. Women can walk out as soon as their “FEEElings” demand it and sometimes get paid for the privilege.
Out of sheer curiosity, if we make it harder for women to bail on their commitments, will it just simply force women to avoid any commitment at all? In other words, if we make it harder to divorce, will women just simply stay on the carousel and not even bother with the beta males while creating an epidemic of single mothers?
“Out of sheer curiosity, if we make it harder for women to bail on their commitments, will it just simply force women to avoid any commitment at all?”
No, because they are still (and inherently) dependent on men.
Even when they lack commitment, they remain dependent. I need not spell out how this works.
Making it harder for women to avoid commitment would mean that they would not be able to be dependent without also committing.
As they are inherently dependent, they would have no choice but to commit. Not committing would not be an option.
A comment on Solomon II’s recent post on text game (NSFW) had me thinking about this more. Solomon was able to convince a 23 year old woman to send him a partially nude picture of herself. Commenter Lisa found this troubling
Apropos of that, I noticed it didn’t take long for the bullshit “low self-esteem” explanation to be forthcoming. I actually disagree with those of you who said that lack of esteem is used to explain away lack of self-control, though. Rather, it’s used to explain away the fact that women don’t genuinely want men to treat them as social equals, but actually want to be dominated.
It’s a foundational tenet of feminism that the precise opposite is true, so when Solomon talks down to a girl, totally disrespects her, orders her around, and generally subordinates her, and she responds by getting turned on and happily flashing her perky tig ole’ bitties, feminists *need* to cast it as some sort of pathology or malfunction on her part, because the obvious implication about female desires entails nothing less than the falsehood of feminism.
@Badger Nation
I have a slightly simpler view than your post: much like women are histrionic with regard to reserving the right of rejection (“men are supposed to approach ME,” hell hath no fury, etc) women always want to be the first one to walk out of a relationship. Being dumped is the ultimate rejection, because it’s a rejection AFTER you have invested something (you can’t get dumped unless you’re in an LTR to begin with).
I think you are right with regard to popular culture. Women relishing the unilateral power to continue or terminate a relationship is an extremely common theme. This in itself is probably strong evidence that what you are saying is entirely correct. I think at the root it is even simpler still. Women have a biological imperative to secure a commitment from a man to provide for & protect her and her children. They also have a biological imperative to always push for the best quality genes. Everyone seems to agree on this, but I don’t see the ramification spelled out in this way. The oft discussed women’s need for commitment is strictly one sided. The theory fits exactly with what we are seeing. When women behave like animals, this is what they will do. Of course, women and men are more than just animals and can therefore choose otherwise.
The corollary to this I think is that most men (beta men) want to commit to a woman. If they didn’t have this drive they would not stick around to provide for their offspring.
It is an interesting disconnect when you think about it. Beta men want to commit, and women want them to. But women don’t want to commit.
Human culture must have traditionally been the glue that held this mismatch together and prevented women from wasting their reproductive years hopping from mate to mate, with each new male being a very real risk to her prior offspring.
As I’ve said earlier I also suspect that as betas get burned by non reciprocated commitment that eventually they will start to act more like alphas and go for quantity over quality. A sort of evolutionary plan B. We already see it, but I think we would see it even more if the culture weren’t trying so actively to mislead them as to the nature of the bargain they have entered into.
Early in the sexual revolution there was some level of stability for serial monogamy. This was because there was still some inertia keeping women from feeling comfortable hopping from man to man. But over time women have felt more and more free to enter and exit sexual relationships at will.
Actually I think it was more a case of fits and starts. The late 60s and 70s was *extremely* promiscuous. The difference in behaviors between, say, 1962 and 1969 was huge – mores changed quite literally overnight as everything became much more openly sexual. According to men who were of age at the time, this first wave of the sexual revolution was more free-flowing sexually than what came later — and much more so than today.
AIDS then happened in the early 1980s and the 1970s promiscuity culture came crashing to the ground. It wasn’t that people stopped sleeping around, but the wild promiscuity culture of Boogie Nights and so-on died — again, very quickly, because people were scared stiff of getting AIDS. As the 1980s wore on and shifted into the 1990s, promiscuity began to come back, but not like it was in 1970s. The new form was the beginnings of where we see the SMV today –> much more top-focused, much more restricted sex due to hypergamy running wild. What changed? Mainly it was that this was the first generation of young women brought up entirely in the feminist era — full of self-esteem and entitlement, especially sexual entitlement. That has grown deeper and calcified as year after year the culture in general has become more crass and coarse concerning sexuality and especially the sexuality of young women. It seems that every year there is another teenaged “singer” parading around on TV like a stripper, only each year she’s a year or so younger. But in any case, this latest round of the sexual revolution, and what we see today, is really more a direct product of the early 1990s and developments since then than it is of the more free-wheeling 1970s culture.
Another important point was made over at Solomon’s blog, to wit:
Christian girls are no different than non Christian girls. They’re all girls.
This is very true. Not that “all girls are sluts”, but that bad behavior is just as common among “Christian” girls as among others. They hide it a bit better, typically, having a kind of Jeckyll & Hyde thing going on, often fooling the parents and so on. But an attractive church girl is going to be just as susceptible to losing her control, if you want to call it that, around an attractive alpha male as a non-church girl would. The woman in Solomon’s post is not atypical. To the betas in her church, I’m sure she presents as a Godly young woman, but on her way home from church she’s on the text with some guy demanding nude photos, which she only offers token resistance to. This type of girl exists everywhere, really.
Of course women don’t actually have a drive for commitment. The drive in them is the opposite – to find the best suitor until they can find a better one. Is it any wonder why women initiate most divorces? And I bet they end most relationships as well.
But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t force it upon them! Children don’t like doing homework either but that doesn’t mean we don’t force them to do it. Sometimes the hard things in life are not the most fun things. Obviously serious differences should be respected, but not trivial ones. Both a man’s tendency towards laziness and comfort and a woman’s tendency towards fickleness have to be controlled.
Men can treat each other with relative equality because more or less we can expect certain character traits from each other – dependability, tenacity, forthrightness, honesty. When men don’t display these qualities they are punished, in one way or another. Meanwhile we are putting women on the same legal level without expecting the same commitments from them. It’s not in a woman’s nature to aspire to the same moral character traits as men. There was a reason women were subjugated in the past – because when you get down to it, they cannot be absolutely trusted. So you had social mechanisms to control their impulses. Just as there are social mechanisms to control a man’s tendency towards laziness and cowardice. Why can’t we just accept that people are not made perfect and society has a responsibility sometimes to help people against their natural negative impulses toward the greater good?
This American fetish for freedom, individuality and equality has gone too far.
Human culture must have traditionally been the glue that held this mismatch together and prevented women from wasting their reproductive years hopping from mate to mate, with each new male being a very real risk to her prior offspring.
Yes. Monogamy, in terms of “durable, enforceable monogamy”, rather than “at will serial monogamy” (which generally does men no good at all, really), likely developed as a social compact among men which was forced on women. Durable monogamy led to more stable relations among men, and allowed the tribesmen to devote more resources to warfare, governance and other matters important to the tribe, rather than spending most of their energy conniving against each other to secure preferential access to the women.
Durable monogamy is NOT, I repeat NOT, the ideal female mating strategy. Women have fewer reproductive opportunities than men do, in terms of genetic material and gestation time, and this was even moreso the case in ancient times when death in childbirth was much more common. Women are incented genetically to be maximizers for each replicative opportunity – and also not to “put all their eggs in one basket”, quite literally, because of the interest in diversifying risk. However, if they literally ran from Peter to Paul, they would get much less male direct investment — not just financial/material, but also parental — in raising the children, which also decreases their likelihood of surviving and thriving, and therefore woman have an interest as well in keeping a male child investor around. So the female strategy is kind of a blend — get some male investment, but also get a variety of the highest quality male genetic material you can get. Serial monogamy fits that to a tee, which is why it’s what we have with the feminist sexual revolution. Serial monogamy — especially with state-mandated durable financial and parental support obligations for discarded ex-husbands — is by far and away the mating pattern that is most beneficial, in theory, for women who have the ability to move on to access yet more quality male genetic material, or increased quality support. Whether it is realistic for a woman to expect to do so at age 40 is doubtful, as Dalrock has pointed out. But our genetic urges around reproduction did not develop around the idea that we would be having children in our late 30s and 40s. For a younger woman in her 20s, serial monogamy with enforced male commitment is the superior structure, in theory.
Durable monogamy sucks as a structure for most women because it leaves the vast majority of women stuck with “objectively inferior” men in terms of both genetic material and material/parental investment. Polygyny is better for more women than durable monogamy is, which is is probably why polygyny has been so common in human societies. Families with daughters (who were the ones doing the “formal” mate choosing for most of history, not the women themselves) would select polygamy if it offered their daughter an advantage over monogamously marrying a local fisherman, for example. Even better for women, though, is de facto polygyny, rather than de jure polygyny. In de facto polygyny, women can access the genetic material of high status men (together with other women) while relying on other men, either individually or collectively by means of state taxation and transfer payments, for the material support. This is the system we have today — a mix of serial monogamy and soft de facto polygyny. And for most women it’s just peachy that it’s that way.
For most men, durable monogamy is the best system, because it provides more reproductive access to more men than any other system while also lessening (never eliminating) the cuckolding risk — the existential risk that male genes bear as a result of a wayward wife.
As a result of this, one can easily surmise that durable monogamy was something men came up with, rather than women. If it were up to the women, we’d have been living under serial monogamy/de facto polygyny for millennia. Yet the alpha males also gave up a lot when durable monogamy became normative. Why would they do so? Probably because the tribes that were trying it out were killing off the other tribes, because the males had more energy, focus, and interest in doing so than the men in tribes where they were focused on sticking spears in each others’ backs to get fair access to sex.
“The corollary to this I think is that most men (beta men) want to commit to a woman. If they didn’t have this drive they would not stick around to provide for their offspring.
It is an interesting disconnect when you think about it. Beta men want to commit, and women want them to. But women don’t want to commit.”
I’m glad you hit on this, because it came up rather directly in the Casey letter at HUS, which you stealthily quoted a couple of months ago. Among many other disjointed vignettes, Casey cited an incident with her beta-boy where she subtly offered to sleep with him and he declined.
Since I had been in a remarkably similar situation in my beta days, I proffered this explanation: he wants a commitment and an LTR with you, not just no-strings-attached nookie; he sensed that the situation was in flux, and he didn’t want to get his heart broken by going too far. Despite the tendency for men to compartmentalize sex more than women, beta men are like rom-com women – they place great meaning behind physical/sensual acts, especially with a woman they are really interested in.
When I was in that situation, I explicitly rejected the opportunity to mess around (just singles and doubles, btw). It didn’t work out, but I don’t think it had anything to do with whether or not I gave in to the urge to stick my tongue down her throat. She probably would have “pump and dumped” me after a few makeout sessions.
What’s the point? The point is that I believe Casey was unwilling to lay her cards on the table and ask beta-boy for commitment, and in a related point, it seemed like she wanted him to “dominate” her by taking her offer for sex. This would (a) give her the mental comfort/reflexive DHV that he was so possessed with passion he couldn’t help himself, and (b) have HIM make the “commitment” decision for her. You’ve noted, Dalrock, how one of the memes sold to women is things that “just happen” and take the onus off of a woman for being the agent of her life direction. (“It just didn’t work out” divorce fantasizing is one such variation.)
“which you stealthily quoted a couple of posts ago”
fixed it
Great points Badger and Brendan.
What no-fault divorce has done, in the case where a pre-nup is avoided, is that the cards are now held by the woman. She holds the cards over whether the marriage can end, for the male would be financially impacted and would not be so quick to dissolve.
Holding the cards implies then that women have the onus to prove they will be stable and follow through on their oath/commitment. In time, this thinking may start to sink in, but in the meantime, men are blinded to this fact and think it is they who have to prove their worth to a woman. This is only if he holds all the cards – in this case, the woman would be at risk and would require definitive verification of his integrity.
I vaguely remember a scientific study (cannot find a link) posted on some PUA and MRA sites which found that women have a natural tendency to pair-bond and commit for no more than 4-5 years. Bluntly speaking, that is how their hormones operate, and this is the way they have evolved. Their attraction to the chosen man tends to wither after that period, and they cannot help it. They break off the relationship and start searching for another man if they have the opportunity and haven’t completely internalized the culture of monogamy.
The likely explanation is that women in hunter-gatherer communities – i.e. the environment in which people evolved to what they are today – didn’t need a male provider once the child was 4-5 yrs old. It no longer needed intensive care and it could gather and forage with the mother. Children were more robust to begin with, since if they had any genetic defect or lacked a strong immune system, they died in infancy. Thus the mother moved onto another man with her child and got herself impregnated again.
I think you are right wrt LTRs. They are extended one night stands. They become LTRs when the couple has been together through inertia for a year or more, or whatever they consider “long term” to mean, which of course makes it meaningless. It’s hard to feel like modern marriage is really any different, just that it has a government endorsed pretence and fooling one’s self all too often.
[D: Exactly. This is my strong objection to the views that J and OneSTDV voiced. If marriage has no moral weight then it is really just another name for LTR. And LTR is just another name for hooking up.]
Most churches speak like Christ and act like Oprah when it comes to divorce.
That’s why I skipped the Protestant churches. Too wishy washy unless you can find an old order Mennonite church.
Apropos of that, I noticed it didn’t take long for the bullshit “low self-esteem” explanation to be forthcoming. I actually disagree with those of you who said that lack of esteem is used to explain away lack of self-control, though.
Self-esteem is a crock. Extremes at either end is narcissism. Self-worth will stop a woman sending naked pictures of herself to strangers on the internet or riding the carousel in real life. Self-worth and self-control go hand in hand.
Great post, I have a friend in her mid 30s who had three marriage proposals from Betas (she was seeing two simultaneously) but she declined all three because she had her sights set on a millionaire Alpha who had divorced.
Great post, I have a friend in her mid 30s who had three marriage proposals from Betas (she was seeing two simultaneously) but she declined all three because she had her sights set on a millionaire Alpha who had divorced.
I’m missing out on why that would be a problem. Would it be better if she married one of the betas and divorced him a few years later?
[D: Agreed. Better for her to pine away than to be a human wrecking ball.]
@Brendan
Durable monogamy is NOT, I repeat NOT, the ideal female mating strategy. Women have fewer reproductive opportunities than men do, in terms of genetic material and gestation time, and this was even moreso the case in ancient times when death in childbirth was much more common.
I’m not sure this is right. As I think about it more I think maybe it is that women are quicker to move to plan B than (beta) men. This could either be innate or due to our current social environment. My wife and I are still very tightly bonded after almost 20 years, and this isn’t all that uncommon. We are probably more tightly bonded than most, but clearly a large number of couples stay together for life despite a culture egging women on to divorce every minute of every day. Something is clearly keeping many (most?) women married. Just like some men have stronger bonds to family, it would make sense that there would be a distribution across women as well. Some are bound to have stronger pair bonding tendencies than others.
For some reason though men seem to be slower to move to plan B after multiple pair bonding episodes. This shows up in the Social Pathologist’s data. Or perhaps partner count is really a proxy for the weaker pair bonding tendency itself. Maybe being slutty is the trait, and being a slut is the manifestation of the trait.
As for the original point of monogamy not being the best strategy for women, I think it is but the innate push in that direction hasn’t been needed, at least not as strong as it was needed for men. Human children need a very long time to mature, and the likelihood of finding a better mate when older seems highly unlikely even without our extension of reproduction years. Bringing a new male into the home before the children from the last man are gone would seem to be a very big risk to take. If men are cycling wives, wouldn’t the men with the best options still pick the women in their teens and early twenties over the ones in their mid to late twenties who had already given birth to one or more children?
I also wonder if the social pressure on women to stay faithful could itself be the trigger that influences how quickly women move to plan B or not. Absent that pressure, it is evolutionarily speaking a pretty good bet that the social structure has suffered a breakdown and she can’t trust the social structure to deliver the benefits which would typically accompany a more permanent commitment on her part.
Anyway, I’m pretty much rattling off ideas here. There is clearly more we need to fill in.
@Hollenhund
The likely explanation is that women in hunter-gatherer communities – i.e. the environment in which people evolved to what they are today – didn’t need a male provider once the child was 4-5 yrs old. It no longer needed intensive care and it could gather and forage with the mother.
Kicking the man out doesn’t serve any purpose if she doesn’t bring another man in to start the process over though. Kicking out daddy and bringing in step daddy is dangerous to the kids in our highly policed culture. It must have been far more dangerous in more free flowing ones. As I mentioned in a recent post, these are very unusual times. When else in history would women have this level of social protection without social pressure to remain married?
Not only is the strategy risky, I don’t see why the woman would be likely to expect to trade up. She found the first man when she was most attractive. Now she is at least 5 years older and has had a few kids. Why has her SMV increased?
D,
IIRC the study concluded that pair-bonds were mutually dissolved after 4 or 5 years in hunter-gatherer societies – both the man and the woman simply moved on and started looking for new partners. The end result was that these “cavewomen” had multiple children fathered by multiple men. Of course, all this changed with the invention of agriculture, which AFAIK triggered the rise of monogamy.
On a different note: this is pure speculation on my part, but one factor responsible for women’s general strategy of being the first to enter and first to leave pair-bonds is their fertility: it peaks fast and then decreases fast, with accelerating speed. Women are programmed to have multiple children in a relatively short period (from 18 to roughly 27 yrs of age). It logically follows that they try to lock down the first attractive man they find for commitment and are also quick to end the relationship if they discover any fault on his part. Their subconscious is telling them “dump this slob and find someone else, there is no time to waste”.
Dalrock wrote, “But unless she is a widow, a former nun who experienced immaculate conception,…”
Mary, mother of Jesus, was the Immaculate Conception, because she was born without Original Sin. Jesus was the Virgin Birth.
Just wanted to clear that up.
IIRC the study concluded that pair-bonds were mutually dissolved after 4 or 5 years in hunter-gatherer societies – both the man and the woman simply moved on and started looking for new partners. The end result was that these “cavewomen” had multiple children fathered by multiple men. Of course, all this changed with the invention of agriculture, which AFAIK triggered the rise of monogamy.
Exactly. What we had before then was serial monogamy, serial pair-bonds. I think this is the more “normative” state, when you have a relatively unhierarchical group (hunter gatherers as compared with agricultural society), and a strong enough “group bond” such that once the tender years for children are over, the rest of the “support system” can come from the group. In that specific sense, our own state support system may very well be a replication of the much smaller and more kin-based support system of hunter-gatherer tribes, but this time enforced by law regardless of kin bonds. It could very well be that today’s conditions replicate hunter-gatherer society in that specific sense (much lessened need for father to be around once the kids are beyond the tender years due to other sources of support).
I think, D, that certainly people do stay together. That doesn’t really address the issue of what the *urges* are, though. In that sense I think that Michelle Langley (while I disagree with many of her prescriptive conclusions) has it basically right: many women get an itch between 3-7 years in. What they do about that itch depends on a whole host of factors, including moral foundation, upbringing, worldview, the state of the marriage, friends’ perspectives, life stage and life goals and so on. And I would speculate that if a woman is married to an “alpha enough” man, she may not ever get the itch — and that today more men become beta in marriage due to a variety of factors, which can help to bring on, or bring more focus to, the itch. But she makes a convincing case that the itch is present in many women, and that, unlike the male midlife itch, women are not brought up to see this itch as a natural thing which needs to be combatted for the benefit of the marriage, and so many instead see it as a indicative sign of a bad marriage and “go with it”. Much more so than men typically do with their own midlife itch, at least in terms of walking out on their families.
Agreed. Better for her to pine away than to be a human wrecking ball.
Thank you. I feel appreciated. 🙂
Ultimately, I suspect that our point of contention will be based on whether or not it’s possible to prevent women from falling into a point where she only pines for alphas.
Now she is at least 5 years older and has had a few kids. Why has her SMV increased?
Except that it really hasn’t. Arguably, it’s decreased considerably in most cases. While she may have access to alpha males, the access is limited due to the logistics of caring for children and her beauty may have declined somewhat vis à vis other women. So she may have an alpha, but it’s on a short term basis and it’s with a lower grade alpha with less redeeming qualities.
The end result was that these “cavewomen” had multiple children fathered by multiple men.
But how did she care for her children in that type of environment unless one presumes that women would abandon their children in order to mate with the other man and secure his resources. Or were children left to their own devices at relatively young ages when compared to our modern sensibilities?
Jokingly, I’ve said that beta male genes are simply nature’s way of ensuring that there’s a male to care for the single mothers and their off-spring, and I’m wondering if this may be the case here as well.
Höllenhund, 3-7 year figure matches with divorce data that Helen Fisher published in The Anatomy of Love. Cross culturally, outside of arranged marriage cultures, divorces tend to spike at the 4 year mark. IIRC, she speculated on the lack of need for a provider after that period of time. Maybe someone linked to that research?
Interestingly, in the same book Fisher points out that in arranged marriage cultures, divorces spike in the first year but if the couple stays together are often deliriously in love by year 4. This would indicate to me that cultural and environmental cues determine mating strategy rather than just timing.
“But how did she care for her children in that type of environment unless one presumes that women would abandon their children in order to mate with the other man and secure his resources.”
DA, Brendan explained that above. The average woman didn’t abandon her children but they also had a support network to fall back on i.e. her parents, (childless) siblings and older offspring helped raise her children. Until recent times, that has actually been the norm in many cultures. Parents didn’t have to raise children all by themselves. Husbands generally didn’t provide for children that weren’t theirs and nobody expected them to.
Brendan, I read Langely’s book and agree that men and women need to be forewarned about the “itch” or hypergamous instinct. But as has been said women prefer for things to “just happen” and so they would likely resist accepting this, preferring to believe that they just fell out of love with Husband #1 and just happened to start a relationship with #2 shortly thereafter. Men need to be aware of this as well, that this is much more likely to happen if they get lazy or beta in the relationship. (Being beta in society is a different matter; it’s the dyadic power that women find sexy.)
Physically and economically, we don’t actually need each other to the point that monogamy is necessary for survival or even to get ahead. But I think that successful couples do find ways to need each other anyway, such as maintaining sexual attraction, investment of time and energy with children, shared interests that take two (ballroom dancing, maybe, or a side business). Much like the “Millionaire Next Door” builds his wealth by creating an artificial austerity in his financial behavior, perhaps the couples that stay together in today’s climate create/perpetuate an artificial need for one another.
“Jokingly, I’ve said that beta male genes are simply nature’s way of ensuring that there’s a male to care for the single mothers and their off-spring, and I’m wondering if this may be the case here as well.”
A similar suggestion has been made to explain the occurrence of homosexual men.
Summary: Women want to receive commitment, but not give it.
Until the false mechanisms that allow women to behave and reap the benefits for acting irresponsible are taken out, then all this really doesn’t matter. Trying to group men in the alpha/beta category is misleading as well. Artificially taking a large group of men out of the market and making them nothing more than providers while others reap the rewards is a dangerous path to take. And both men and women who think that is how society is supposed to work are only going to bring about a greater danger to themselves and offspring as more men opt out of any social barriers that keep them from acting out.
I’m not responsible to feed society’s bastards yet my money is used just for that. Nor am I willing to commit in this day and age to any American woman because of the insane laws that prop them up for being irresponsible. The only outcome from this will of course be societal dissolution and even retribution as more men follow the same path. There is no other course of action left as women refuse to acknowledge their destructive behavior and the social and legal climate continues to favor it.
There were a couple of great lines in this one:
And by trapped, they of course mean committed.
And this one:
Most churches speak like Christ and act like Oprah when it comes to divorce.
Both of these are very true. I have often said that women don’t really want a marriage, they want a wedding. And they are far more interesting in being a bride than being a wife.
When STDV says the Eat, Pray, Love woman was justified in leaving her marriage if she felt “despondent” I wondered how she decided that her marriage was the source of misery rather than some personal or character deficiency on her part?
Oh well. She was true to herself, and that’s all that really matters, no matter how much carnage we leave in our quest for self-actualization.
One thing I don’t fully understand though is why does women’s fertility follow a course so different from men’s. Why is it that women peak AND plummet much faster than men in terms of reproductive capacity? How does evolution explain that?
“Perhaps the couples that stay together in today’s climate create/perpetuate an artificial need for one another.”
Perhaps we’re at the apex of a debt cycle (Kondratiev wave) and government largess has transferred wealth from men to women making betas obselete. That is until deflation and the depression kicks in, you cant squeeze blood from a stone.
One thing I don’t fully understand though is why does women’s fertility follow a course so different from men’s. Why is it that women peak AND plummet much faster than men in terms of reproductive capacity? How does evolution explain that?
I don’t know how evolution explains that, but I always assumed there was a Divine reason for this. Of course, the genius of the design can only be fully appreciated within the context of a relationship where both parties, male and female have been physically intimate with only one another and no one else. We have seen what out of control creatures women can become in a world where personal responsibility is tossed aside. Men have always been held to a higher standard of responsibility and I believe that’s by design as well. Could you imagine what society would be like if we (women) looked the same way and had the same fertility at 50 as we did at 16, within this scoietal framework? It’s enough to make you shudder!
“Perhaps the couples that stay together in today’s climate create/perpetuate an artificial need for one another.”
Why does the need have to be artificial? As one who has been married for a long time, I don’t think my husband and I have created an artificial need for one another. We have a strong bond and are well aware of how we fill in one another’s gaps. No one is an island. We all need other people on some level. It’s much more satisfying to love and need (and be loved and needed) by someone who freely chose it.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that the need is artificial. Isn’t it better for children and the larger community when families are strong and stable? I’d say so.
The rules have changed. Instead of a cohesive system, we are now turning the mating game into an exploitative system.
Before, men and women would marry young, build a life, and raise children. They would become a cohesive unit. Contribute to society.
Now, both parties are pushed towards exploitation. Women use sex as a means to extract resources, men use resources as a means to extract sex. The problem with this is that the end game is not cohesion and marriage, but more resource seeking and more sex seeking. This is not healthy. How can either of the sexes have a fair opinion of the other if such a large percentage of men and women are users?
The incentives have changed. This is not good.
More on the point of this post: I think women expect up to what they will be allowed. If they are not expected to commit, and encouraged to dissolve a sacred institution because “the spark just isn’t theeeeeeere” then they will do so. Women are not inherently evil or primal, we, like all humans, respond to incentives. If there had been a popular, widely accepted men’s movement that sympathized with men cheating on their wives “cuz her tits saaaaaaaag” then they’d be doing that as well.
Incentives. Social stigma.
Betty Naomi Goldstein (Freidan), Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Shulamith Firestone, Kathie Sarachild, Ti-Grace Atkinson, Carol Hanisch, and Judith Brown. Feminism was a foreign concept. I am saddened we’ve all been duped.
Now she is at least 5 years older and has had a few kids. Why has her SMV increased?
Obviously, it hasn’t, although middle-aged women in our culture want to delude themselves thinking that their experience and intelligence can make up for youth and beauty.
I don’t know how the thing could work in primitive serial monogamous societies, though. With partners changing every four years, the woman would have had an alpha first (when she was young, pretty and without kids), then a greater beta, then a lesser beta. When she was older and ugly (but with reproductive capacity) she would have had an omega.
From the point of view of men, alpha men would monopolize all the hotties in their youths, while omegas would only have the oldest and ugliest women.
This has the advantage that alpha genes were given a priviledged treatment. They were spread between all the younger females (the ones that can have healthier kids) and, as a result, they diversified risk. That makes sense.
But there are two things that don’t make sense:
1. This means that every man was able to reproduce. But the DNA data states that only about the half of men reproduced. Or, to be accurate, a modern person has twice as foremothers than forefathers. How could this be possible?
A possible explanation is that lesser beta and omega’s offspring where weaker than their alpha’s counterparts so they had a lower rate of survival (both because being less healthy – being conceived by an older women- and because their omega fathers had less resources to invest in their survival). So, in a few generations, they or their descendants died without reproducing and their genes were ousted of the genetic pool.
If this was true, omega’s children were a way for nature to play lottery. They had less chance to survive but this chance was greater than zero. This is why they were born.
2. I am not convinced that this strategy was better for women than staying with an alpha throughout all this life. Of course, it was an advantage for the alpha, so he could have dumped her against her will. But, then, why women get the 4-year itch, à la Michelle Langley? Their best reproductive strategy would be to cling to their alpha husband no matter what.
Does somebody know how this works in a serial polygamous societies? This does not make sense to me.
One thing I don’t fully understand though is why does women’s fertility follow a course so different from men’s. Why is it that women peak AND plummet much faster than men in terms of reproductive capacity? How does evolution explain that?
Easy. Women have most of the costs of reproduction. Men don’t get pregnant. The fetus extracts lots of resources of his mother’s body. This means that the mother’s body must be strong and healthy enough to support a pregnancy. This is why older women have menopause. Their bodies are not fit anymore to support a pregnancy. Their lives are best investing taking care of the children they already have. This is also why women get uglier faster than men.
Men are different. Making sperm and dropping it into a woman’s womb takes minimal costs for men’s bodies. This is why older men can do it successfully and nature makes them fertile until an old age.
Dalrock:
Not only is the strategy risky, I don’t see why the woman would be likely to expect to trade up. She found the first man when she was most attractive. Now she is at least 5 years older and has had a few kids. Why has her SMV increased?
Agreed, and it’s also worth pointing out that, in such conditions, the woman is now ~5-15 years away from the end of her expected lifespan in such societies, and even closer to the end of her reproductive lifespan.
Dalrock, SolomonII has found exactly what I was pointing out to you in another thread. That deacon’s daughter is a classic example of an “honest woman”; she’s church going, she surely participated in all sorts of youth activities in her church growing up, no doubt she can recite some Scripture, and she’ll drop her top for SolomonII after a handful of texts, followed by her panties.
I bet she could pass a majority of the tests you list in “how to find an honest woman”, too, and rationalize all the lies that she’d have to tell to do so. Maybe you get my point, now?
Anon,
Male attention is intoxicating. I don’t know why. Probably validation. However, contrary to what most of you think, women have higher brain function. Learning about evolution and evolutionary psychology has really helped me learn why I do/like the things I do/like. Once you know WHY you do things, it becomes easier to act right. Understanding the reptile brain frees the human brain.
But, then, why women get the 4-year itch, à la Michelle Langley? Their best reproductive strategy would be to cling to their alpha husband no matter what.
Does somebody know how this works in a serial polygamous societies? This does not make sense to me.
Real polygyny requires hierarchical societies with unequal distribution of assets and resources — i.e., guys who can afford more than one wife and the offpsring of more than one wife. H-G societies are not generally characterized by high degrees of hierarchy as compared with, say, agricultural andater societies (or our own society, as well).
Therefore, the alphas can’t afford to be polygynous, and as a result not all women can have the alpha as the husband. It’s doubtful that successful H-G tribes featured the most attractive men hogging up the women for mating outside of pair bonds. That would have led to a lot of intra-tribal conflict among the males, making the tribe subject to being overrun by rivals. Some form of relative stability came long in the form of serial monogamy, which later became hardened into durable monogamy as things moved into the agricultural phase, to cut down on intra-male conflict around sexual access, most likely.
So for most women, having a pair bond with the most attractive man/men in the tribe is not on the table. He’s “taken”. She will be relegated to one of the other men of the tribe for pair bonding. She probably doesn’t have that much choice in the matter, either — her parents (or perhaps even just her mother) find the best pair bond they can for her, and that’s that. The “cuckolding” strategy emerges from this as a means for women who are “stuck with inferior male genes” under this system to get access to higher quality genes. This is very risky, because it’s likely that the penalty for being caught doing this was death for the woman. But nevertheless it’s a strategy for getting around a pair bonding system that doesn’t have a strong polygynous element.
As for why fewer men survived, I think that’s fairly easy. Men are more subject to disease, and men also died at very high rates due to more or less incessant inter-tribal warfare. Women didn’t, because women were spoils of war –> you killed the other guys, but not their women. You took their women after you killed them.
Dream Puppy
Male attention is intoxicating. I don’t know why. Probably validation. However, contrary to what most of you think, women have higher brain function.
Don’t assume you know what I think, and we will get along ok. A lot of people have claimed to be able to read my mind over the Internet in the last 20+ years, but every one of them has been wrong. Shall I remind you what ASSume means?
Learning about evolution and evolutionary psychology has really helped me learn why I do/like the things I do/like. Once you know WHY you do things, it becomes easier to act right. Understanding the reptile brain frees the human brain.
I agree with this statement. One of the reasons I’m here on this site is because of my own investigations into female psychology, for personal reasons, that has led me to various websites ranging from Roissy to grerp. “Personal reasons” includes a lot of territory, some of which I’m not going to discuss. I look at young men and young women that I meet, many of them in college, and I wonder what can be done to point them in the direction of least danger. Perhaps if they both understood their internal, instinct-level motivations they could at least avoid hurting themselves too much.
Which brings me to your mildly snarky observation. Yes, I’m also quite aware that women have a higher brain function, just as I’m aware that too many women use that function primarily for rationalization, rather than rational thinking. Lots of men do the same, to be sure, but in the current legal environment it’s female rationalization that is the more dangerous of the two, from my perspective. As I have pointed out before, women do not come with warning labels. So how are young men to tell the difference between a woman who passes Dalrock’s tests genuinely, and those that are lying & rationalizing? The difference is crucial, because of the price of emotional and financial investment that a man makes in marriage. I’m pretty sure that you know about that price, so we should not have to discuss it. But if you want to, we can do so.
Look, there are a lot of incentives for women today to basically behave in an irrational way, as you surely know better than I do. Right? The young woman SolomonII texted is clearly not being rational, but surely she is rationalizing, and one more time — I bet that she could pass most of Dalrock’s interview for a potential wife, yet unless she changes her ways she’s most likely going to be a wrecking ball for some man’s life as well as her own.
And that brings me back to my point…
“Honest woman” isn’t enough. There’s plenty of nasty skunks in kitten’s clothing, SolomonII has just flushed one out. Any man who is actually looking for a woman to marry needs to know this, and we need further tests to separate the skunks from the house cats. It would be a good thing if men did not have to do this, but that’s unicorn / rainbow territory.
Dalrock, excellent post. I was going to write something along these lines until you hinted to the fact you were working on it. Glad I waited because I think you nailed it a lot better than I could have.
Regardless, the direction of your post is still going in to my New Years Resolutions: There is no commitment until the law says there is, and the law cant say there is until I agree. Of course, cohabitation laws try to change that, but a smart man will avoid de facto marriage per the guidelines of his state.
Back to your article, If I may be so bold as to put words in these young women’s mouths, what I’m hearing these days is: I’m a young fun single woman, and the hookup culture keeps that thrill alive. I’m not really looking to commit to anyone right now, however, I’m going to need YOUR commitment so I have a safety net while I have fun and keep my options open. Failure to comply will bring shaming language from me and my societal backup choir.
I’m still very busy and need to head out shortly, so I can’t respond to all of the comments I would like to. Great stuff all around though. I’m thoroughly enjoying reading the discussion.
@Terry
I don’t know how evolution explains that, but I always assumed there was a Divine reason for this. Of course, the genius of the design can only be fully appreciated within the context of a relationship where both parties, male and female have been physically intimate with only one another and no one else. We have seen what out of control creatures women can become in a world where personal responsibility is tossed aside.
What strikes me Terry is that most Christians seem to disregard biblical teaching on the differences between men and women and the importance of chastity as being outdated, unscientific, etc. But if you show them where evolutionary science suggests the same things, they reject it because it isn’t biblical.
I probably should stop there, but I think there is some logic to the idea that God designed us with the ability to evolve. I’m not talking about buying into the idea of spontaneous life and everything evolving from a single cell, or even necessarily the idea that people come from apes. But we have a great deal of evidence that genetics works, and much of what I read in evolution is focused on the idea that a gene for lactose tolerance spread in this fashion, etc. I’m probably guilty of trying to have it both ways, but I’m more interested in models that help me understand the world better at this point.
It is very true especially of younger girls that they want commitment from men but don’t want to truly commit themselves. I was this way, and I broke a lot of hearts. In my teens and early 20s several guys told me that they loved me (and would marry me), but I didn’t love them. I didn’t want to “settle” for any one guy because I wanted to remain “available” if a better guy came along.
Back then I had no idea about evolutionary psychology or female nature, and I just bought into the mainstream feminist message that you wait until your 30s to get married and have kids. Then I started reading that fertility begins dropping past 25, and that women who wait longer to have children can have lots of problems. In college the prevailing attitude was “you have plenty of time.” Nobody mentioned the first drop after 25, then the big drop after 35.
So I think that plays into young girls’ unwillingness to commit. If they think they have all the time in the world to find that “perfect” man, and give it the ol’ trial run, and maybe settle down in their late 30s, then they would be just “having fun” in their 20s. In my own case I was “looking for love” and didn’t ride the carousel, but in my heart I was always seeking and never finding.
I also received all the wrong messages about romantic love and relationships from mainstream society. For example all the TV shows and movies depict very shallow or dysfunctional relationships between men and women, and it led me to believe that certain abuses were just “normal.” It wasn’t until I met my husband that he taught me what true love is, and what a healthy relationship dynamic is. Fortunately, in the two years before I met him I unlearned a lot of the media and feminist messages, and so I was more prepared to commit fully.
“As for why fewer men survived, I think that’s fairly easy. Men are more subject to disease, and men also died at very high rates due to more or less incessant inter-tribal warfare. Women didn’t, because women were spoils of war –> you killed the other guys, but not their women.”
I’m not so certain about that, Brendan. AFAIK historical evidence suggests tribal warfare as practiced by H & G societies mostly consisted of mock combat, posturing, displays of resolve, “fight to the first blood” and thus wasn’t characterized by the high casualty rates of warfare since the dawn of agriculture. Plus many women died of childbirth, which probably “balanced out” men’s mortality rates to a degree. You’re also assuming that many men died even before they could impregnate women.
One of Roissy’s commenters remarked that women’s higher life expectancy as compared to men’s is largely the result of relatively recent medical innovations and better health care combined with men’s higher mortality rate due to the appearance of inter-state warfare and the Industrial Revolution.
Dalrock:
What strikes me Terry is that most Christians seem to disregard biblical teaching on the differences between men and women and the importance of chastity as being outdated, unscientific, etc. But if you show them where evolutionary science suggests the same things, they reject it because it isn’t biblical.
Well, I’ll be so bold as to suggest that a lot of people don’t really understand the theology they claim to believe in. That’s not intrinsically wrong, because any serious Christian can likely point to one or more aspects of the faith that is simply a mystery. But the truly fascinating thing to me is how much of the fuzzy knowledge that can be found in HBD-based psychology doesn’t contradict my theology at all. Not even a little bit. In fact, the “women are intrinsically more moral than men” kind of pedestalizing that I absorbed as a boy and a young man from church was out of line with Christian theology properly understood.
I have come to believe that most people today, both men and women, truly do not want to face the facts about the innate sexuality of men and women. Men don’t want to admit that they really crave variety, and women don’t want to admit they crave a man who is clearly aggressive and dominant. We all prefer to believe nicer stories; that men have a base sexuality but it can be “tamed by a good woman”, and that women are basically good but sometimes are led astray by bad men. This is a 19th century attitude in many ways that just doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. I see far too many cultural conservative men and women who cling to this notion, even as they admit they are baffled by the very existence of the hookup culture, serial monogamy, single women raising bastard children, and so forth. Well, if your model for human psychology ain’t working, maybe it’s time to get a new one? Nah, people don’t want to do that, because the truth isn’t pretty. On top of that, there’s a whole lot of bad theology out there, not just obvious garbage like the Catholic “liberation theology” splinter group, or the Protestant “prosperity gospel” chain letter. Too many people don’t really want to face the fact that everyone is a sinner, even that pretty 20-something daughter of the deacon…
So we wind up with what Dalrock said: people don’t really want to read the Bible, especially Old Testament books such as 1st & 2nd Samuel, or 1st & 2nd Kings, in terms of what it teaches about the sinful, fallen nature of men and women.
I can pick out an example without a moment’s hesitation, too: David & Bathsheba.
The record of David and Bathsheba is instructive; David wanted a married woman (variety) and used his power to go after her, but it’s worth noting that Bathsheba sure did not resist very much. Reading this story with female hypergamy in mind explains a whole lot that can’t be explained by the “women are more moral than men” pedestal. So the HBD-psychology hypothesis fits in much more accurately with this piece of Bible history, much better than the romanticized notion of women as inherently monogamous; which should we discard, and which should we keep?
Brain scans using PET and MRI show that the physical structure of women’s brains is different from that of men’s brains. Some lobes are bigger in men than in women, some are bigger in women than in men. PET is showing that women process some information differently than men. So the Scriptural teaching that women and men are different, and complimentary fits the science. Feminism, which teaches that women are just men who can have babies, and lately teaches that men are just defective women, does not fit the science…
@Dalrock-
Yes, of course I had “legitimate cause.” Why would anyone get divorced just for the hell of it?
Well, since you have gotten the words out of your mouth, I must say that you have proved your case. The case being that parents have ALWAYS had ABSOLUTE control of their children’s future. ALWAYS. So don’t even think about bucking, child-animal.
That this is a self-serving, and useful from a getting what you wants, point of view has no bearing on why you said it.
Of course, the self-serving aspect of the statement is the only reason why you believe it.
@ Dalrock and Anonymous Reader:
What strikes me Terry is that most Christians seem to disregard biblical teaching on the differences between men and women and the importance of chastity as being outdated, unscientific, etc. But if you show them where evolutionary science suggests the same things, they reject it because it isn’t biblical.
I am not one of those Christians who dismisses out of hand any and all scientific evidence concerning life, biology, etc. I certainly believe that we were created by God for a specific purpose and that there is such a thing as sin and righteousness. So your comment was not offensive in any way at all to me, Dalrock.
Not even a little bit. In fact, the “women are intrinsically more moral than men” kind of pedestalizing that I absorbed as a boy and a young man from church was out of line with Christian theology properly understood.
Agreed. I think you are right because even a cursory reading of Scripture indicates that women are more easily led astray by our own emotions. Additionally, there are many instances in both the old and new estaments where we see a picture of women as well as men who were highly immoral, deceitful, even violent (see Jezebel). I’ve never quite understood where or how this “pedestalizing” of women crept into the church and came to accepted as the natural order of things. The Bible even teaches that the first sin was committed by a woman.
Go figure.
As for a useful advice for young men. Here it is.
Have a list. Yes guys, have a list of what you want in a woman. That’s one thing most “GET MARRIED!” people will never talk to a man about. Lists, thousand point lists, are for women. Men…. well if they have expectations of their future wife then they are clearly OUT-OF-THEIR-LEAGUE.
Items like:
1.Does she meet my minimum standards of physical attraction?
2.Is she committed to me?
3.Does she respect me in public?
4.Are her parents still married?
5.Does she like my friends?
6.Does she have sex when I want sex?
7.Does she want about the same number of children I want?
8.Does she give me time alone when I want time alone?
9.Do I like talking to her?
Can be on the list. Start with three to five important things. They can be “stupid”. They are things YOU WANT. Howewver, one thing should not be on the list:
1.Her political affiliation. This is pretty easy to change in a woman if you pull her into your orbit, so don’t get hung up on it.
The nice thing about have expectations of a woman you are seeing is that it does something called Qualifying her. This will help your relationship if you successfully quality her. So the women who meets your expectations is even better because you made her meet your expectations. Winning wins even more, losing cuts out a bad catch.
I thought a little verification of my last comment might be in order. From the New Testament (2 Timothy):
For men (that’s mankind, I think) will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power… For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
And no, my fellow female commenters, I do not believe that this is saying that all women are gullible, sin-laden,and led by lust. However, it certainly puts to death the notion that women are inherently innocent,. Interesting to note as well that the Scripture goes out of its way to dismiss the idea that increased knowledge is in any way connected with increased wisdom. That’s relevant to the conversation because we all know that women have begun to outpace men in the education arena at all levels.
“Don’t assume you know what I think, and we will get along ok. A lot of people have claimed to be able to read my mind over the Internet in the last 20+ years, but every one of them has been wrong. Shall I remind you what ASSume means?”
I was yust keeding, meng. Plus, it was more directed at Roissy guys not at anyone in particular.
“So how are young men to tell the difference between a woman who passes Dalrock’s tests genuinely, and those that are lying & rationalizing? ”
Honestly, there is nothing a woman can say that will pass the test, although there is a lot a woman can do. I would advise men to trust only the actions of women, and also her past and how she treats others. I am not that against cohabitation either and it may be a good way for fiances or people in LTRs who are thinking about marriage to see if it is best for them. This is what worked for me, but who knows.
Hope @ 12:15 We have so much in common. I was indoctrinated by the propaganda, then began questioning things. I am happy I was fairly done with my feminist brainwashing by the time I met my husband… he also taught me about true love, compassion, and patience. Part of what makes me happy in my marriage is knowing I made the right choice, not just with the right man, but I did what I have been evolutionarily programmed for. It seems for the best one should follow this path.
The 39-year-old woman should really know better than to compete for that kind of attention with other girls. Admittedly, when I was a teenager I would also post attractively dressed pictures of myself for men online, but I stopped doing that as soon as I realized what a dumb move it was. Not only is it unbecoming, it doesn’t do me a bit of good.
Sure, such antics get a girl attention, but an awful type of attention. Men have zero respect for an “attention whore.” They won’t see her as anything more than a willing body and an easy target, regardless of her other traits. It’s like a crazy drunk shouting in the middle of the street — lots of people will stare and pay attention, but that is not the kind of attention one should crave.
More on the subject of this post, when a wife has committed to her husband, she should not try to extract sexual attention from anyone else. She should not be flirting with other men, keeping orbits of guy friends, or flaunting her body. A grown woman should not be getting “validation” or self-worth through how many men she can tease or titillate. This is also true regardless of her marital status.
It’s one thing if the husband wants her to wear a pretty dress, but another thing if she goes out of her way to shove her cleavage in other men’s faces. A woman who is truly committed to her husband sends signals of total unavailability to other men. Unfortunately in modern times, women are encouraged to act and dress as “sexy” as possible. It has become a competition between women to see how much sexual attention they can command, and this is considered “empowering.” It is yet another dismantling of traditional commitments in the name of women’s freedom.
[D: Another great comment Hope!]
@Terry – I didn’t mean artificial in a perjorative sense. What I meant was a need that you construct versus needs imposed environmentally or biologically. Like the blue-collar millionaires in the “Millionaire Next Door” who have a need to save that supercedes their need to consume, I think the successful husband or wife has a mindset that sees their spouse as necessary in their lives, despite that fact that they would survive a split physically and eventually financially.
I’ve been married a long time, too. I don’t deny that people need love, that they need sex, that men also need respect and women need a man they can respect, a man they can follow, and on and on. But those aren’t survival needs. If you, mentally or emotionally, place them in the same category as survival needs, you find ways to get along.
“This is the system we have today — a mix of serial monogamy and soft de facto polygyny. And for most women it’s just peachy that it’s that way.”
And yet Western women don’t seem to be happier than 30 or 40 years ago.
@ Terry – I like that example from Timothy. Another passage of scripture, from Proverbs, asks “Who can find a virtuous woman?” not “A virtuous woman? They’re everywhere!”
@ Brendan – have you read any of Peter Frost’s stuff on polygyny in H/G and agricultural societies? This is a recent one:
http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2008/02/polygyny-and-human-evolution.html
Apparently, H/G have less polygyny than do primitive agricultural societies – it depends on growing seasons and what sort of game is hunted.
@Lisa
Yes, of course I had “legitimate cause.” Why would anyone get divorced just for the hell of it?
My point was not to assume that you lacked legitimate cause, but to question the default assumption that you were looking for commitment. However, your comment seems to question the very possibility of frivolous divorce, which doesn’t make your case very well.
@Terry
I am not one of those Christians who dismisses out of hand any and all scientific evidence concerning life, biology, etc. I certainly believe that we were created by God for a specific purpose and that there is such a thing as sin and righteousness. So your comment was not offensive in any way at all to me, Dalrock.
I was assuming from your other writings that you held the biblical view. I was just pointing out the irony that the vast majority of Christians disregard the biblical view because they see it as unscientific, and the scientific view because it is unbiblical.
Their core belief is actually feminism in that case, although most would probably deny this with passion.
Actually Dalrock, I the Bible fully supports the notion that 1) men and women are very different by Design, 2) women have inherent weaknesses that have been in play since the garden of Eden, and men have an inherent weakness for women as demonstrated in the same narrative.
The Scripture I referenced above and the one Dex referred to are just two among many that reveal the folly of feminism’s assertion that gender is a social construct imposed on us by male chauvinist patriarchs.
In short, I believe the Biblical view supports the Scriptural view. You were correct in your assumption that I hold the Biblical view. I think in modern times we have conveniently forgotten that many of the most well accepted scientific advances in history were put forth by men of great faith; that religion and science were not always mutually exclusive.
Galileo, Descartes, Isaac Newton, Einstein, and many others were all men of the Christian faith. One of the sad realities of modern Christendom is the way we have declared science evil. I certainly understand why, since so many modern scientists are committed to using science to disprove the existence of God, but to the Christian extreme is often just as troubling.
I meant to say:
I believe the Biblical view often supports the scientific view.
Another typo!
So for most women, having a pair bond with the most attractive man/men in the tribe is not on the table. He’s “taken”. She will be relegated to one of the other men of the tribe for pair bonding. She probably doesn’t have that much choice in the matter, either — her parents (or perhaps even just her mother) find the best pair bond they can for her, and that’s that.
This seems likely but it still does not fit with the 4-year-itch women have. If she has the best pair bond possible (whether chosen by her parents or not), why has she the urge to find another man, who can only be less alpha than the one she has (because her SMV has decreased with age and kids).
Cuckolding and/or polygyny make sense in a primitive society. But I don’t know how serial monogamy could work.
Biology aside, when you’ve had the older generations of men consistently leave their wives for a “younger model” (and flaunt it), it doesn’t really encourage a young woman to commit. Nothing guarantees that the husband won’t leave you when you get older. Many good wives, who have invested in their husbands and children for years, have been left no matter how good they were. It makes the younger woman more “free thinking” and unattached because she will try to protect herself.
[D: These women have every right to protect themselves. I’m simply suggesting we make sure men fully understand the new rules. I’d write more about this, but I and a group of the guys are taking our wives to the latest divorce fantasy movie where older men dump their wives for a younger model.]
The current gamers and boys just wanting sex doesn’t help either. It shows the boys for who they are. You don’t wanna commit to guys who are players, gamers, who just use women for sex. That whole mentality cast a shade on the potential of normal relationships. Just like a husband’s “midlife crisis” or infidelity destabilizes the trust in the life long monogamous marriage. The odds against having a normal, life long monogamous marriage are just too big. So then why stress about it.
Another thing.. if guys don’t want to be stuck with having to marry “older” girls.. then why don’t they marry young? Why do they drag it out so long and do not marry and have kids earlier when it’s natural and like most people did in the generations past? Once they reach the age of 23, they are pretty much ready to settle. But this is not what they choose to do. Then they wait until 30 and guess what, the competition for very young women has become much fiercer. I wanted to commit and marry a guy and have kids when I was 23 (him 26) but he scolded me for this, because he wanted freedom. He took my years, I was so blind in my love that I would have done anything for him. Now he is a 32 year old loser who is complaining that the “young chicks” won’t take him. The thing is is I wouldn’t take him either, because when you get older you become more sober in your assessments of the opposite sex and become more pickier (as opposed to when you are young and driven by pure love).
[I don’t have sympathy for losers complaining about the outcome of their own life’s choices, be they men or women. However, I see a lot of blogs by women 30 and over carping about how men don’t want them any more. Or older women complaining that men don’t appreciate their fabulous career and shoe collection or the other man’s child they have. I don’t see any by men like the one you describe. If you ever find one I’d love to see the link, if nothing else for variety’s sake. I’m sure they exist, but my guess is they don’t attract the same following.]
In those archaic women must have been a much higher valued resource because the survival rate was low. Women died a lot in childbirth and children died too. They must have had to fight for any womb and mating opportunity they could get. This is not the case now, when people just have 1-3 kids and those are pretty much guaranteed to survive.
[D: Welcome to the blog, but it would help if you would pick a pseudonym. If you prefer, I can assign you one; I’m thinking Scooter, Skippy, or Sport.]
Terry…”One of the sad realities of modern Christendom is the way we have declared science evil”…is this really true? I’m not a Christian myself, or for that matter religious at all, but my perception is that Christians declaring science as evil is a phenomenon limited to a pretty small proportion of the Christian denominations and population.
Einstein was not a Christian. However Robert Grosseteste, the 12th century founder of the scientific method, was. He was Bishop of Lincoln and a loyal servant of the Catholic Church.
I think what the Bible says about men and women and what science (evolutionary psychology) says about men and women have a lot in common. Original sin or evolutionary psychology – often it seems to amount to the same thing. Men and women have innate strengths and weaknesses. Both sexes.
@ David Foster:
You make a good point. My assertion that Christendom has declared science evil is probably exaggerated. However, I do believe that in our attempt to uphold the Biblical principle that in God’s eyes, everyone of us has equal standing regardless of race, gender, etc., many inthe church balk at any suggestion that men and womenare different and have different roles.
The main point of contention between the church and science is evolution, of course. I am believe fully in Creation and that the first man and woman were fully adult, walking upright, and intelligent.
However, that’s not to say that there is no type of evolution within the animal kingdom or even within human beings. The various ethnicities that exist point to the reality of human evolution and adaptation. If Adam and Eve were the first man and woman, then the people scattered around the globe with different skin tones, eye shapes, climate adaptations and such clearly exhibit some type of evolutionary activity among humans. Of course in the church today, any mention of the word evolution is tantamount to balsphemy.
That was my point when I said science is often considered evil by people of faith.
Oh yeah, David Collard, Einstien most certainly was a Christian. His faith was often wavering and wobbly, but he had it.
No, Terry, Einstein was not a Christian. At best, he was a Deist. And he always identified as a Jew.
Neither scripture nor science support egalitarianism. At least in terms of gender. (I hate using that word, but sometimes “sex” sounds wrong in context.)
I’m looking at 2nd Samuel, verses 2 – 5 in detail. This is King James Version (Tyndale) because that is what I read.
2 And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman [was] very beautiful to look upon.
3 And David sent and enquired after the woman. And [one] said, [Is] not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?
4 And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house.
5 And the woman conceived, and sent and told David, and said, I [am] with child.
When this was taught to me years ago, the emphasis was clearly on the sin of David. No question about it, this is fornication and a sin. But no real mention was made to our class of Bathsheba’s clear willingness to engage in adultery, it was all but passed over.
So what do we have here ? An attractice, married woman is washing herself (bathing?) in plain view of part of the palace; she’s displaying herself but only to potential high-level Alphas. When one sees her and sends for her, she shows right up and gets herself pregnant. So she was in the ovulatory part of her cycle when she just happened to find herself showing her wares off to the palace. Cuckolding her husband with an alpha by flashing him during her ovulation? This could easily be found on Roissy’s site…
Some person said:
A man who has been a player in his 20s and hasn’t had any major career setbacks will simply DESTROY a 23 year old “competitor”, because that 23 year old man is ONE YEAR OUT OF COLLEGE AND IS LIVING IN HIS HARDLY FURNISHED APARTMENT. The 30 year old man’s career, his wealth, his experience with women, and his age at that point, give him a huge and crushing advantage.
The reason why a 30 year old MAN doesn’t complain about “competition” from 23 year old MEN, is because he doesn’t experience competition. You feminist idiot. Sure, at some point he may have experienced, like once, losing to that hypothetical 23 year old. Like one time.
What he is MAD about, is that the women how told him to buzz off for over a decade now want him to marry them for about five years, given them a few children, and then they can hit the eject button.
Is that clear enough, cupcake?
The ideal is for the man to be fairly well established and about 30, and for the girl to be about 25 at the most. She will be at her peak of attractiveness and very nubile.
Worked for my wife and me.
Or older women complaining that men don’t appreciate their fabulous career and shoe collection or the other man’s child they have.
I suspect in the case of these older women, while some are playing a magical game where they magically realize that they need beta traits more than alpha traits after being dumped too many times by a certain age point, I think there are some women who are duped by anecdotes and the media about magically finding somebody that will love them for who they are while disregarding other traits that men are looking for in a woman. So they really do think their career is attractive or that their kid is a benefit to a relationship. In other words, he’ll love me despite my flaws or because of them since it’s true love and he’s my soul mate.
“I think there are some women who are duped by anecdotes and the media about magically finding somebody that will love them for who they are while disregarding other traits that men are looking for in a woman. So they really do think their career is attractive or that their kid is a benefit to a relationship. ”
Some women?
I’m doing the online dating thing and I have read thousands of profiles of single women between 35 and 55 years old.
You could power an entire continent with the strength of those rationalization hamsters.
Headline from a classic profile – “Waiting for Thomas Crown” [Pierce Brosnan in a particular movie role, emotional porn for women]
This from an overweight single mom who claims to be 45 years old but looks much older.
Online dating is fucking hilarious!
Dalrock that was the best article I have ever read on the subject. Some of the things you wrote about I had a sense of and knew but I have never seen it all put together like that. This article needs to get out.
So:
King David was a heartless alpha.
Bathsheba was a calculating slut.
And poor Uriah was the poor beta sent off to battle.
In the end, when David is confronted with his sin, he has enough of the truth of God in him to see how wicked he was.
Know what? Uriah died as a more honorable man than David did.
Side note: I wonder if Uriah knew all along what happened, and that was why he refused to go home to his wife even though David urged him to.
Me
Don’t assume you know what I think, and we will get along ok.
Dream Puppy
I was yust keeding, meng. Plus, it was more directed at Roissy guys not at anyone in particular.
Ok, we’ll get along fine.
“So how are young men to tell the difference between a woman who passes Dalrock’s tests genuinely, and those that are lying & rationalizing? ”
Honestly, there is nothing a woman can say that will pass the test, although there is a lot a woman can do. I would advise men to trust only the actions of women, and also her past and how she treats others.
Agreed. This is pretty much what I have been fishing for in this thread. My mother and father both told me growing up, although at different times in my life, Actions Speak Louder Than Words.
I am not that against cohabitation either and it may be a good way for fiances or people in LTRs who are thinking about marriage to see if it is best for them. This is what worked for me, but who knows.
I have a lot of mixed emotions about cohabitation. First up, to any observant Christian or Jew, it’s just sinful and wrong. That said, various members of my family and friends have done so, and several went on to get married. The statistics on divorce among couples that cohabit did not look so good when I investigated some years back, the failure rate (after 5 or 7 years, can’t recall) was worse than those couples that never cohabited, but there was no causal factor as I recall. And that study used older data from the 70’s and 80’s if I remember. It is all pretty fuzzy, frankly.
There are a couple of things that one can say about cohabiting: it should not be for an open ended period of time, and both parties should agree not to bear children outside of marriage. Although in the modern, Marriage 2.0 world, I can see how a young man would not want to put a time limit on the safer condition of cohabitation.
@David Alexander
I think there are some women who are duped by anecdotes and the media about magically finding somebody that will love them for who they are while disregarding other traits that men are looking for in a woman.
I’ll echo Zammo’s thoughts on this. The rationalization machine is actually quite elegant to watch in action. Check out the comments on this advice column where Thag is doing yeoman’s work.
Greyghost: Thanks for the compliment. I thought about suggesting this post to Welmer, but since it has One’s criticism of him I thought posting it on Spearhead would be a bit of “let’s you and him fight”.
I wonder then why I have been the one to end all my relationships? The evidence is in the sheer number of women I’ve left in my wake who absolutely loathe me…lol.
The other thing this makes me think of is my baby-mama…..she’s turning 39 this year. Still good looking enough, however she has two children from two different men. Her only option is low-life thugs, which is basically what she dates now.
Whereas I am the same age and was banging a 23 year old a little while back.
Interesting stuff. The difference being that I walked out on the baby-mama because she is bat-shit crazy.
“The difference being that I walked out on the baby-mama because she is bat-shit crazy.”
Ah, the bat shit crazy girls. The pharmaceutical companies can’t keep up!
“Now he is a 32 year old loser who is complaining that the “young chicks” won’t take him.”
I am forty. My last girlfriend was 29. My current girlfriend is 27. I am not very attractive and I am not an alpha. If he is not able to have a 23 year-old-chick, he is certainly a loser.
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For the vast majority of human prehistory, mating was cosanguinous. So the abusive stepfather phenomena would have been severely diluted by the fact that his new spouses children with the previous mate are actually biologically related to him already and he has some kin-based incentive in their survival.
As for the longevity of male fertility being evolutionarily adaptive; men are the drivers of evolutionary change. Men are more wildly genetically divergent than women. For selection pressure to be effective, the small subset of advantageously adapted men would need to be capable of producing a disproportionate amount of the offspring, requiring a near lifetime of fertility. In a scenario where men and women had somewhat equal fertility windows, evolution would probably occur to slowly to exploit existing niches.
“Early in the sexual revolution there was some level of stability for serial monogamy. This was because there was still some inertia keeping women from feeling comfortable hopping from man to man. But over time women have felt more and more free to enter and exit sexual relationships at will.”
Society, including men, has always forced women to commit to one man, rather than go around, hunt for men and seduce them for fun, thinking that they would look cheap and easy, even though women are programmed to have many different partners of the opposite sex, unlike men. But then women who avoid commitment face more social and physiological consequences, even though they’re not allowed to express feelings of commitment. There are several reasons why commitment aversion is bad for women. The top reasons is that her partner could become very possessive/obsessive or stalkerish, (It happens a lot to women who won’t commit and hop around from man to man for fun.), she could be raped, kidnapped, and/or even killed by some other strange man, and also her biological clock will tick and that she is messing with her ability to have children.
And also, guys, if a woman doesn’t want to commit, don’t make her. She’ll obviously think you’re trying to control and possess her. And if she leaves you for another guy (or is seeing another guy) and end the relationship, don’t stalk her (or even sue her if you’ve met her on an online dating site), either. It happens a lot to women who end relationships and go for another man. Believe me, every guy I’ve rejected and/or left, either tried to sue me (those I’ve met on online dating sites), stalk me, or simply call me hateful names like tramp, skank, or slut. In other words, guys can’t take rejection very well. They’re pretty harsh.
“Now he is a 32 year old loser who is complaining that the “young chicks” won’t take him.”
Young chicks can’t stay still with one guy. They run around from guy to guy like crazy. They want a guy close to their age with the same energy level.
And also, men are even duped by the media and other anecdotes, thinking that they will magically find a woman who will love them for who they are, disregarding other traits that women look for in a man.
I’m coming into this one late, but I had to offer a comment anyway because this post is simply too truthful to go without more recognition. I wish I had figured this all out earlier.
We do tend to go on and on about girls wanting commitment, guys not wanting it, etc. I’ve found that in real life, the female desire for commitment is significantly lower than advertised. Most girls in my age group(I’m a sophomore in college) run at the first sign of formal dating. They might like you, but they’ll avoid a guy who tries to show investment too early. It scares them. The most effective strategies for attracting female company involve very little investment(drinking and beer pong, among other more juvenile activities) because they’ve casual, fun and do not “threaten” the girl. At this point in life, I’ve quit taking girls to dinner. I won’t do it again, now or after I graduate, and now I understand why so few of my peers have been doing this. There’s no point in investing that much effort, and in most cases girls will take it as a sign to either run from you(fear of getting locked down early and losing out on the chance to have fun) or use you(“I’ve found a chump”). It is never a positive. Unless you’re EXTREMELY high status(read: higher alpha), women by and large aren’t going to desire commitment from you and even then a lot of that desire will disappear once they’ve snagged the alpha and “tamed him”, unless he has very strong LTR game.
I’ve also found that even in this environment, there are plenty of girls who are in love with this idea of commitment, but not the practice. They love the validation that comes from male attention, and they will seek it out in a way that almost makes you think that they want commitment. However, whenever one of these men tries to commit to them, they get shot down or just never really get past the hookup/short term relationship stage. Why? No one man can satisfy their desire for attention. They’d rather enjoy the fleeting attentions of numerous men than the devotion of one, so commitment is really never on the table. In the validation-centric culture we live in, this attitude is very common among women.
Athlone,
That’s a great insight. One of the big problems with youth, and especially young women, is liking the idea of something a lot more than the thing itself, or liking something’s benefits without wanting to bear the effort necessary to get it. People are sold from a young age on the virtues of marriage and “commitment,” without really being told the sacrifice and work it takes to make good on those investments.
We’re having a debate about “Type” at Haley’s Halo. One of the problems with women insisting on a “type” is that it is often the thought process of “this is who I think I’d be compatible with and/or want the lifestyle he has and/or my friends will approve.” Then they find the person who fits their “type” isn’t all he’s cracked up to be, or he has negative factors that come along with the things that match the “type.” (One classic example would be women who want to date a wealthy guy, finding out too late that getting wealthy requires an awful lot of work that involves not being home for dinner.)
“In other words, guys can’t take rejection very well. They’re pretty harsh.”
As opposed to the alternative? Shakespeare didn’t pen the words “hell hath no fury like a man scorned.”
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The truth is, every woman doesn’t want commitment. Women are only out for sex and fun. And the next thing you know, it completely backfires more often than it does with a man.
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Even if a woman shows great integrity, I will never sign myself into slavery. The legal threat will always be there, and even the nicest and sweetest woman will realize she has the full support of the law and society behind her in a divorce.
Until laws are reformed, and the mechanisms that keeps women’s hypergamy in check are put back in, marriage in any form is hazardous to men.
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Omg… I’m cross eyed from even skimming this dark ages nonsense… Guys… Improve yourselves, Stop talking about “young chicks and girls these days”… spot your own blatant sexism and stop acting surprised … Start treating your girlfriend as the equal she is, and maybe you’ll have a prayer of a woman staying with you!
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Please listen. Your answer girls
Your model of the world lacks wisdom and clearly contains a child-like mentality based on self-destructive self seeking based on instant gratification. This shit ‘culture’ you speak of is self destructive in nature because it’s been determined by corporations who utilize the main streams of media to send its messages which are based on wiring individuals up at the core to seek instant gratification, which is self destructive by nature, and ultimately compromises all long-term healthy thinking and behavior patterns for a continuous endorphin-rush shot in the arm from the next new lay, drink, smoke, shot, joint.
There is a cause and effect correlation between why divorce is on the rise and why depression is as well. And why in recent time people have begin spending more then they make on average in America. It’s because as these sheep you are a child in an adults body who has been so babied by society that you don’t know up from down and left from right in terms of what is right and what is wrong for you, in terms of overall fulfillment and a truly amazing life.
So keep jumping from one to the next, to the next, thinking you’ll find that ideal like you saw on television, and have seen in that candy-coated package and magazine front since you were watching television ads when you were five years old.
Society is as a collective living in a dream it creates for itself. And most the time you’re asleep on some level in it… So am I.
We’re all shooting projections and when we attach to them and identify with them we begin to lie by nature because we’ve gotten stuck in a trap of trying to define and freeze the never-ending, ever changing even flow of life.
Don’t do that. And don’t believe what this blogger has to say either, because it’s a tiny partial and inaccurate perception in many cases of reality and as then can be seen as but a perception and not the truth.
Further, why reinforce someone’s childhood paychology that they couldn’t let go of and are now well into their 20s and 30s now and is still living by it. Sad.
You are asleep, and you need to wake up to this bullshit, you’re living in.
Patrick —
What exactly is your critique of Dalrock’s post? Wasn’t clear to me.
@Badger
I think Patrick must have been responding to a different post, or perhaps even a different blog.
Regardless what it was responding to, its not clear. I sense a sort of 99%-er seething with anti-corporatism and that sort of thing, which is nothing more than this generations rage against “the man”….nuthin to see here
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Well most women nowadays like sleeping with different men, and just can’t commit to just only one.
I have made my share of mistakes in life during my 33 years on this planet, but I have always remained consistent in the area of love. I find that my love grows exponentially as the years pass, and I begin to love my significant other as if she were a part of me. I have had a couple amazing relationships in the past 13 years, and both relationships lasted over 5 years. (I’m currently 33 years old.) During those relationships, my love, respect, and thankfulness for my girlfriend (and fiancee, once upon a time) continued to grow stronger and stronger each and every day I spent with her. Once I make a solid commitment to love someone, my love for her simply grows, and I’ve found that I begin to love everything about her. I have never fallen out of love with anyone, and I believe it’s because I accept that people will change over time, but if you love someone for who they are at their deepest level, you will forever treasure that person, and the temptation to be unfaithful will nearly disappear. I believe in LOVE as it is defined in the Bible, and if more people truly believed in that type of love, relationships would last a lifetime. I have been broken up with by the two women I loved with all my heart (and I still care about both of them very much). Unfortunately, I put so much trust in the girls I loved, that the heartbreak has been incredibly devastating. I suppose I’m naive to believe that everlasting, unconditional love is normal – but I simply can’t understand how someone can “fall out of love”. To me, love is the most precious part of life on this earth, and in my heart and soul, love never fails and it is never ending. I am still friends with my ex girlfriends, and they both tell me that “I am a wonderful, incredible man…”, but they both “fell out of love” with me. Sadly, many of my friends have truly loved their girlfriends, but almost all of my friends have been “dumped” or traded for a “frat boy” type of Alpha male. It breaks my heart. I would have given my life for the girls I loved, but I have never found anyone who can reciprocate my love.
Many women nowadays like dating different men all the time and can’t settle with just only one.
This is EXCELLENT! For some reason however you can only get this type of honesty if/when a woman or man writing on the topic is confronting it head on, in the case of a woman needing, PLEADING for some sort of absolution for her actions. Other than that, the prevailing wisdom is that men are pigs, wanting to run away at the drop of a hat, leaving the wife and kids to fend for themselves on the street corner as he sits in his loft with his 20-somthing girlfriend. MOST ALL “scholarly” articles are written with this disposition, well anything relating to the marriage crisis that is….
Excellent work again, i think this, THIS, is the focal point of the matter. THIS is where we are headed. This is the problem. Men have grown up to think women love them, that they WANT their commitment, but just as soon as she has it, she sees weakness and is in the market for a man with greater utility. The sad fact is, women have support no matter their decision; whereas men seem to be demonized NO MATTER THEIR propensity to be on the receiving end of it? IT’s a no win, and FRUSTRATING AS HELL! Just read that article cited above? This woman is saying she defends marriage, and isn’t saying it’s pointless nor should it be treated that way, BUT then goes on to say, “if you don’t feel like it, you have every right to bounce!” and who the hell are you to feel bad about it? It’s your job to support her decision. No matter that women for centuries have lost and found that love for the same men over and over again, likewise the men. That’s… as you put it, commitment. What we have is NOT commitment, but well? I have no idea.
Well since many women have their Careers today which they’re so very independent and Don’t need a man in their life anymore but are so very greedy and selfish too unfortunately.
Not only is it wrong to hop from one person to the next and break up a marriage, just because it isn’t convenient for the significant other to remain married. It is also a great and terrible sin where we are counted all as abominations before God who created us, we should never leave a marriage just cause we want more stuff to gain or we want to see how it feels to sleep with someone else. Turn back to God and repent, He loves you all that he will pull you from the darkness your in. An adultery atmosphere where people willingly submit their flesh to pleasure is a path that only leads to death. Seek Jesus while he may still be found, the time is drawing near don’t waste this chance to know God, he has been waiting for his children with a love that will never fail, his love is satisfying to both body and soul. Jesus loves you all, surrender it all before him and confess him as lord and he will make you a new creation. All pain will be no more you will have life abundantly and a joy that surpasses all joy anyone that is in Jesus Christ is a new creation. Step away from sin you are so much more than the mistakes made, God gave his son Jesus Christ that all would be free from sin it was God’s son Jesus Christ that died on the cross he was laid in a tomb and he rose from the dead. The pleasures of the flesh and of this life lead to death though Jesus Christ is the way the truth and the life and whosoever believes in him shall have Eternal life.
Well most of the single women out there nowadays just don’t know the meaning of Commitment to begin with since they just can’t be faithful anymore anyway. Many marriages have been destroyed by these kind of women since it is now unfortunately all about them. So for many of us good men looking for real love today has certainly become a real challenge for us especially with the kind of women that we will be dealing with today as you can see that have become so horrible as well. Most of the women now just don’t have any respect for us men at all and no manors either which tells the whole story right there.