Views on the Status of Marriage

Bonsai, not to put too fine a point on it, but your brother is either a nutcase or trolling you. From the sound of it, maybe both — Don't waste your energy trying to convince him. He'll find some reason to dismiss any studies you can find, and anecdotal evidence will mean nothing to him.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Um, no offense, but don't bother. Any evidence you pull up, he will probably dismiss out of hand. He sounds like his mind is already made up and there's probably nothing you can do to change it. I'd really love to hear what happens when he preaches about these ideas in front of your parents. I'm sure they'd love to be accused of cheating because they're not manly/womanly enough for their 40+ year marriage to last.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

I found it funny that your brother connects being faithful with manliness and alpha males. The belief is mostly the opposite with other people.

"Alpha males are unnatural for humans, can you explain that?"

Sorry I took so long to respond. Basically, in a pack-based society, the leader in a group is usually the biggest or strongest member. While groups of humans do tend to end up with a leader (not in all cases), the leader is more likely to be the fastest thinker or the most charismatic. In fact, the stereotype for humans is that the big strong guy is probably not all that bright. And the leader in a given group is equally likely to be male or female (not counting groups consisting of a single gender, of course), unless some members of the group are adamant against it.

And this is an anecdotal type thing, but I've met people who try to adhere to the "alpha male" standard. They tend to be rather unlikeable because they seem to have a sort of belief that they are superior to everyone else, and people hate that.

Not Three Laws compliant.

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And thus no American male with half a brain would go within a mile of a wedding.

Things aren't as bad here as they are with you, but they are still pretty one-sided. Which is why my wife knows that if it all goes horribly wrong she'll end up under the patio [insert evil laugh].

Pshaw! What use is a wife who can't defend the homestead while I'm out pillaging?

edited 14th Jan '14 1:14:02 AM by InverurieJones

'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'

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My parents have been married for nearly 25 years, living together for a few years before that, happily. Despite having two kids (my brother and I) with learning disabilities, and living with two dying grandparents (dad's father, mom's mother) at different points, so its not like they had it particularly easy.

They have what I suppose you would call an egalitarian/teamwork thing going on, definitely not what your brother would call a traditional marriage. They both trust each other to manage the others affairs should one of them run into trouble (trips, sickness, dealing with crazy distant relatives, etc).

Funnily enough a priest/marriage counselor was positive that their marriage wouldn't last a decade because my mother was too assertive. Didn't turn out that way.

My dad spends every other month at sea (Canadian Coast Guard) and my mom works 9-4:30 and has always worked apart from a few months of maternity leave and a bout of job searching.

Reading your latest posts about your brother's blatant double standard regarding sex... I think he's hopeless. If he at least practiced what he preached (traditional gender roles and family structure and all that) you might be able to work with him but now he just sounds like a self centered, indulgent, egomaniac rather than particularly conservative or anything.

edited 14th Jan '14 10:17:01 AM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

I guess his sexism is not based on actual beliefs then and he can be safely assumed to be a General Purpose Asshole^TM.

Just curious, but who or what else does he demean specifically?

All of Them. The concept of unequal marriage is pretty much dead.

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So as you can see, I definitely want more data, more info, more anecdotes on non-traditional marriages and how they turned out, good or bad. As much info as anyone can give, please.

How the hell are sexual harrassment laws misandrist? That assumes that men can't help it and should be allowed to harass. That is misandrist.

And why is he not pissed at the far more widespread misogyny too? Seems very small minded and egoistic.

Sounds far more fascist than libertarian.

That's because those men are hurt in their egoes I pressume. And they're hurt because douchebags like your brother demean men who are not in charge of "their" women.

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The custody laws are simply sexist against both. It just assumes women stay home with the kids and men don't. The very thing your brother wants.

But how does this affect men more? It works the other way too. A woman making a stupid joke to a man, faces the same consequences. Again, only if your brother assumes men are more prone to harassing can those laws even be considered to be "against" men (actually not because protecting people from harm is more important than letting people harm others). It's your brother who is a misandrist in addition to a misogynist. He wants every man to adhere to his ideals of masculinity. Libertarian this is not.

The laws are probably different here in the US than in Switzerland. Here, there are ones that are biased against men, such as laws on domestic violence (the woman is assumed to be the victim, but statistics show that women are sole victims only slightly more often than men are, although women tend to be seriously injured more often). Maybe if our laws were truly egalitarian and just let the chips fall as they were while saying "you both have the same rights, and if one of you is better at certain things than the other, or worse at them, or whatever, then so be it", there wouldn't be the massive backlash we have here in the US.

Our average marriage length is 8 years, for marriages that end in divorce. Granted, divorce is higher in the conservative states than the liberal ones - as is suicide and domestic violence. But it's high, higher than the UK (average marriage length: 11 years), even though the UK is a more liberal country in many ways. Not to mention, IMO, a far more effeminate one.

Yes, he says "being a libertarian means not having to agree with everything they say", but he is a weird form of "libertarian" as he clearly hates libertarian principles. His constant comments about "this equality bullshit" started out complaining about attempts to force parity, but gradually grew to include anything that goes against the "alpha male" "girly girl" ideal of his.

Anyway, hard data or more personal anecdotes on marriages would be very much appreciated.

edited 14th Jan '14 1:18:15 PM by BonsaiForest

The divorce rate for Turkey (highly patriarchal society) and Iceland (highly egalitarian) are the same.[1]

Interesting. Without the marriage rate, however, it's hard to make sense of the data. In other words, how many marriages end in divorce? How many divorces compared to marriages? That would shine more light on the data. If it was about equal for both countries, then that would say a lot more.

For the record, studios show that, over the past hundred years, one hundred percent of marriages in your country have ended in either divorce or death.

Tragic, isn't it?

edited 14th Jan '14 2:50:42 PM by Rem

Fire, air, water, earth...legend has it that when these four elements are gathered, they will form the fifth element...boron.

Honestly, I don't see the problem with divorce. It's a perfectly natural thing to happen. Rather than trying to stop it, we should try to solve the associated problems. Like making sure single parents can get by.

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I'm more surprised your brother wants to let women work at all. He clearly doesn't think things through.

I agree with Cassidy. Not all people are made to be with someone for the rest of their lives. Sometimes people change or simply want something new. And some don't want to get married at all. Pressing everyone into this mold is just another form of making everyone in one image against their will.

Ok, what... Ask your brother how many kids raised by single parents don't become killers. Or how many killers grew up with stable families.

Your brother is grabbing at every basic fallacy in the book.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

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I should point out the concept of an 'Alpha Wolf' rarely if ever exist in nature. It was a misconception that was popularised from faulty data on captive Wolves and hasn't been observed in natural pack groups in the wild.

I'm sure it is totally accurate metaphor about human interaction however.

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