Maybe marriage isn't all that pleasant for the man, either

I’m not any more a reader of the Tacoma News-Tribune than I am of the Seattle Times, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t notice what it puts on its front page. Last week there was a photograph of some people partaking in something called the “Annual Polar Bear Plunge” at some place called “Driftwood Point Park” on Lake Tapps, somewhere in the state of Washington. Frankly, the whole thing is moronic, and you wish some of these people would actually get sick like they deserve to. This year, the event had a “wedding” theme, which invited men and women to wear something resembling wedding costumes into the water. Apparently the otherwise bored News-Tribune reporter thought the only thing of interest to report from this event was a couple of self-obsessed divorced women who crashed the party to symbolically remove the “taint” of their ex-husbands. One of them fashioned a “wedding dress” out of an old T-shirt that once belonged to her ex-husband; they also brought along their daughters for indoctrination purposes.

Stories like this proliferate in women’s magazines, network morning shows, afternoon talk shows, supermarket tabloids, and broadcast and print news media. In fact, everywhere you look in the “mainstream” media women are invariably portrayed as innocent vessels of “abuse” by men. Women’s advocates go ballistic when there is even a tiny deviation from this, imagining that even token criticism of women in intimate partner relationships arouses accusations of “patriarchal” bias. I’ve read complaints about how in the movies single dads are as common as single moms—thus “skewing” reality; yet outside of films like Kramer vs. Kramer, the media in both television and films portray relational conflicts almost always in favor of the female viewpoint, while rarely giving detail to the unfairness and hardships of the life of men after divorce court. I am reminded of that every time I walk past the Prosecutor’s Office for the Family Support Division in Kent. The windows of the place are blacked-out so you can’t see who is perpetrating injustices inside. 

The problem is that the perception perpetuated by activists and the media is that men are the “problem,” or at least most of it; any imperfection from the other side is just in “reaction’ to the “faults” of men. Many of these complaints seem relatively petty, such as who does what percentage of the housework; others are a matter of denial. I recall some years ago a study out of the University of Washington which was a kind of “reality show” which examined the interactions between intimate partners. It was reported in USAToday that this study seemed to show that women were just as likely or more likely to incite conflict that could be interpreted as domestic violence (at least under the broad definition usually used); the outrage this sparked from women’s advocacy groups led to “re-interpretation” of the findings, and the study was never mentioned again. 

Yet on occasion you find people like Whitney “Take me to the laaake!!!” Mongiat. Oh sure, her (ex) husband kind of “encouraged” her psychotic fit, but a 30-year-old with the emotional stability of a four-year-old can’t be all that hard to “provoke.” But the principle complaint about the YouTube video release of Mongiat’s tantrum (at least from women) is that it was released to the public at all, exposing the kind of thing that women’s advocates prefer to keep hidden; spending five minutes in the same room with someone like this can be defined as domestic violence. 

Why would any man torture himself by being married to a high-maintenance woman who has such a high opinion of herself that she thinks that the universe revolves around herself? If you don’t kowtow to her every need, then you will never hear the end of a continuous stream of complaints, grievances and criticisms. You can’t do enough to satisfy a person like this; even your own time doesn’t belong to you, but to her “needs.” There is a website called Familyscholars.org which contains a story with the following comment by someone named “Melissa,” a single mother aged 31, who claimed to have many boyfriends. “I just never felt that anyone’s as loyal to me as I am to them. Even when I feel like I’m in a good relationship, there’ll be little things that they’ll do that will make me start wondering, ‘Do they really have my back?’” Isn’t there something wrong here? “Melissa” is 31 and has had “many” boyfriends. How long did she remain “loyal” to any one of them? What were those “little” things that she herself probably exhibited in greater number? If anything, these boyfriends were probably well rid of her changeable, self-obsessed personality. 

And sometimes it never really matters in the first place. We live in a different world than when marriage was a “successful” enterprise. Back in the “old days” what could be done to occupy one’s “off time” seldom went outside the home; how one “amused” oneself was a “family affair.” It was only in stories about the idle well-off or rich did you read about “unfulfilled” women who blamed their “status” on their husbands—except that it is hard to sympathize with people who couldn’t at least occupy their time with helping people in less prosperous conditions than their own (which is why I found Kate Winslet’s character in Titanic less sympathetic than her “bad guy” fiancé). Today, the complexities of modern existence makes one’s useable time for “leisure” a precious commodity. For myself, writing this blog is my second “job,” and I spend more time in research than actual writing; thus I feel fortunate if I have a few hours left over each week, maybe to read a book or watch television. 

It thus comes down to a question of “freedom.” I suspect that many people these days who don’t have time to get to “know” each other marry out of lust, rather than love. When the “lust” has worn off, what is left? Certainly not love. Men, who probably don’t want to go through the games that women insist that they play again, are less likely to seek the conflict that leads to divorce, but women seem more “cognizant” of their loss of “freedom” and more likely than not instigate “issues” that are not meant to have a resolution that satisfies them, other than leaving the relationship. And men have much more to lose than women. Women know that if they “ask” they can get the bulk of community property and a portion of a man’s income—and more if children are involved. And depending on their age and appearance, they can always hook someone else in the same way as before. Some only wanted children to begin with; to some women, children are like pets—they are expected to give unconditional love without making “demands” of their own. 

There is this professor of psychology, Bella DePaulo, who is frequently quoted in the media as an “expert” on why it is just fine being single—for women. But let’s face facts, DePaulo is ugly as sin; while that is no crime, it is as good an explanation for her particular state as any. Nevertheless, unmarried women these days are portrayed as “strong” and “independent,” while unmarried men are still considered to have something “wrong” with them. In 1898, someone named Leon H. Hunt wrote the following in the Atlantic Monthly, and still has a ring of contemporary opinion:

On the whole, it may be conceded that this department of literature is overdone. We want books of quite another description. More interest should be taken in bachelors. Their need is greater, and their condition really deplorable. It is a misfortune to be unhappily married, but it comes near to being a disgrace not to be married at all. Marriage is a perilous undertaking, but what shall be thought of him who hesitates because it is perilous? We may not care to go to the length of affirming that bachelors are cowardly, but we must grant that they are socially nondescript. It is possible to respect a bachelor, but it is impossible to be at ease with him. Not without reason does the world speak of a married man as "settled." There is something final in the condition of a Benedict. You know where to find him, or at least you know where he should be found. But of a bachelor you know nothing. Bachelorhood is a normal condition up to a certain period in a man's life, and after that it is abnormal. He who elects to remain unmarried elects to become queer. It is wonderful how readily most men adapt themselves to the conditions of matrimonial existence. Almost any man can become a fairly respectable husband; but to be a successful bachelor implies unusual gifts. I once met in the Northwest a middleaged writer of verse who gave me four volumes of his works, "composed, printed, and bound" by himself. He said, "This country is crying for a national poet, and I want the job." But he was mistaken. This country is crying for help in taking care of its timid bachelors, help in marrying them off; and if they will not marry, help in getting them well housed and neatly mended. And the greatest need is the book which shall instruct the bachelor how to make glad the desert regions of his solitary existence, how to fill the vacuities with which his life is perforated.

Hunt notes that one “successful” bachelor who lived to the age of 92 only managed this because of his “unattractive” appearance, and his acceptance of that state. But times have changed. There are plenty of ways to rationalize what the consequences of marriage too often are: Loss of freedom, loss of money, loss of children, loss of status, loss of peace of mind. I may have briefly flirted with the possibility, but that was long ago; today, I can’t imagine being forced to genuflect to the perpetually unsatisfied needs of another person when life is so short, and I have so much I want to accomplish.