Bottom-half marriage is a completely different institution

I almost wrote, “As a marketer…” and then I realized/remembered that right now I’m a full-time writer who also does some marketing (please share this post!).

As a special-interest Autist with many years of full-time marketing experience, what other people care about always lurks in the back of my mind. I care enough about it to consider it when I prioritize the topics that interest me and choose how to frame what I want to write about.

What better place to find out what people who aren’t Cathy Reisenwitz think and care about than the comment section under my latest YouTube short, which I made to promote Us feminists really did kill marriage?

Here’s what @floydbenson7040 had to say:

Kind of offended that you think that its just women that have the say on the decline of marriage. Tell me at what point Marriage has been a "good deal" for men. If your a man and you get married, if you decide that you want out you loose half of everything that you worked for even if the woman has no income. If she decides to leave you the same thing happens. I don't want to assume that there are no cases where women are the main bread winner but in most cases that is not the case. Marriage is down because the values of this land have changed and the reasons to get married are not there anymore. When my first wife left me for another man she worked as a bartender for tips and I worked at a boat factory. I owned a house , two cars and a 401k. her income was about 15% of the household. She got the house, car, childsuport, half of my 401 K and left me with a new truck payment because she tricked me into paying off her car so we would only have ne vehicle payment knowing all along that she was leaving and I could not afford the truck myself. So tell me why Men would want to get married again?

Because I think it will be an interesting exercise, I’m going to attempt to address each of @floydbenson7040’s points.

(BTW, if you want a very fast, free, and easy way to help me, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and like and comment on my shorts soon after I post them so the all-powerful algo gods think my videos “drive engagement” and they should show them to more people.)

Maybe I should record the shorts before scheduling the posts so people who only have one minute and prefer to listen get something out of the emails, even if they don’t actually read them.

Anyway, let’s get into it.

First, I don’t think it’s just women who are behind the decline of marriage. But more women than men have given up on sex, dating, and marriage. So if you’re going to try to figure out why marriage is down, it helps to know who is saying no to it. And, on average, it’s women.

At what point has marriage been a "good deal" for men? For top-half men, I don’t know. I haven’t thought much about it, to be honest. I do think that monogamy benefits the average man more than the average woman, at least in terms of sexual frequency. The average married man has sex more often, on average, than the average single man. Polyamory tends to benefit women more in this arena as well because far more men are willing to have sex with a woman they know is partnered than women are willing to have sex with a man they know is partnered. Again, these are averages.

I’m very confident marriage has always been a good deal for bottom-half men for the reasons I outlined in this post and this post.

It’s true that some men do lose significant assets in divorce. I take issue with a few aspects of your statement, however. First, you write about a scenario in which the man decides that he wants out. It’s interesting to note that wives initiate the vast majority of divorces, at least on the paperwork side.

You also describe a situation in which a husband loses “half of everything that you worked for, even if the woman has no income.” If you get in a situation where you marry someone who never works a job and also never does any of the domestic labor or childcare upon which modern work norms depend and then gets half the assets you acquire as a couple over the course of your marriage in a divorce, I cannot stress to you enough how much that is user error.

Most married women have jobs. The average wife spends far more weekly hours on domestic labor, childcare, and eldercare than her husband, regardless of how many hours each works outside the home. In fact, wives who work more hours or earn more money than theirs husbands put in even more hours of unpaid labor at home than wives who work fewer paid hours and earn less money than their husbands, on average.

As for your theory that a change in American “values” is the main reason behind marriage declines, I just don’t see any evidence to support it.

For instance, the average American has become less approving of divorce in recent decades.

If values were driving declines, why are the declines happening almost entirely among the bottom-half? More educated women are, on average, more likely to marry than women with lower levels of education. (Same for men.) Unpartnered men in the US tend to lack a bachelor’s degree. More affluent people are more likely to marry than less affluent people. Unpartnered men tend to be $21,000 poorer than partnered men and are more likely to live with their parents.

What evidence is there to indicate that the bottom-half individuals share a system of values that is more antagonistic towards marriage than the values held by top-half individuals? I assume the opposite is true. For instance, bottom-half people tend to be more religious, at least in terms of belief. I associate religious faith with a pro-marriage orientation.

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that you were right and the average bottom-half American did value marriage less today than they did, say, 50 years ago when marriage rates were higher. That doesn’t indicate that I’m wrong. It still leaves open the possibility, if not likelihood, that our values changed at least in part as a result of the macroeconomic, legal, and social changes I outlined in Us feminists really did kill marriage.

“When my first wife left me for another man she worked as a bartender for tips and I worked at a boat factory. I owned a house , two cars and a 401k. her income was about 15% of the household. She got the house, car, childsuport, half of my 401 K and left me with a new truck payment because she tricked me into paying off her car so we would only have ne vehicle payment knowing all along that she was leaving and I could not afford the truck myself.”

I’m genuinely sorry that happened to you. Based on what I’ve read, your experience doesn’t generalize to the average American’s.

“So tell me why Men would want to get married again?” The average married man lives longer, is healthier, is less lonely, earns more money, and has more sex than the average single man. When the average man marries, his income increases.

One of my big gripes with conservatives is that they’ll look at all that and claim that marriage causes all these things. No. The reality is that the people who are most likely to get and stay married are the same people who are most likely to be more healthy, less lonely, etc. whether or not they get or stay married. Characteristics like happiness, health, attractiveness, income, education, and community all correlate strongly with each other, and with marriage.

What’s most likely is that people who are already thriving really do, on average, benefit from marrying each other.

That does not at all indicate that marriage will benefit a person who is not thriving. First, as stated, they’re unlikely to marry someone who is thriving. Those people marry each other.

If common sense hasn’t conveyed this to you, conservatives, allow me to say it to you explicitly: Pairing two sick, miserable, poor, etc. people together not only demonstrably fails to confer the same benefits as pairing two happy, healthy, wealthy, etc. people, but there’s good evidence to suggest it actually leaves them worse off.

The fact that most divorcees are bottom-half folks is very strong evidence that marriage isn’t the boon for them that it is for the top-half.

Divorce is another way marriage doesn't benefit bottom-half individuals the way it does the top-half. The average woman ends up poorer after divorce. This belies the myth that women, by and large, are getting rich by marrying and divorcing men. I’m sure it happens. It’s clearly not the norm.

My main takeaway from this exercise is not a new thought for me.

Since I was blindsided by the hatred for single mothers I heard while sitting on stage at the Heritage panel in 2013, I’ve been saying that simply telling poor women to get married is infuriating and unhelpful. It assumes the average poor woman is too stupid to realize that marriage would benefit her, rather than acknowledging her solid, rational, evidence-based reasons for not marrying.

What I’m coming to realize is that I underestimated the scope of the situation.

Marriage is so totally, fundamentally, demonstrably, and measurably different for bottom-half people and top-half people that we might as well be talking about two different institutions. One simply cannot seriously claim that marriage is good, bad, or anything for everyone. It’s just not.

Anyway, much to consider here.

In the meantime, I’ll leave my interested babies with some further reading: