I cannot add anything to what J David, Basil, and Peter have already said. Why in BLAZES would I want to go through all the mental & emotional abuse your typical bitch brings to the table these days? Why?! I couldn’t come up with a good answer to that question, so I shall remain single, HAPPILY single…

MarkyMark

Don’t you think a message of “WOMAN! DO AS I SAY OR I BEAT YOU!” (backed up by burqas, Honor Killings, et al) would appeal to the hindbrains of men who’ve gone through what J David and Peter have?

Femmies, beware of crapping on (male) somebody day-and-night; if they ever get power over you (as is true of most human cultures throughout history), the word for the day is going to be “revenge”. There may be a Muezzin calling from the Kaaba, promising not only protection for men, but payback — with interest.

Why would I bother marrying that? Or more accurately, since all the above happened to me, why would I make that mistake again?

You want to find the problem here? Look in the mirror. A pox on all of you.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the concept of the arranged marriage. That cultural inertia even carried the US through the 50s. You got married. That’s what you did.

Consider it from the other side. Are most married people happy being married? You state that most would love to be a perfect relationship, which is probably true. But are most married people happily married, in their imperfect daily-grind relationships?

Given that 50% of marriages fail, I believe the answer is “no.” Add to that the number of people who are in bad marriages – abusive or just plain unloving – but stay because of economics, or religion or whatever. However you slice it, it is not the case that the vast majority of people are just so happy with marriage. (Or do you think people are perfectly happy in marriage except for that last year spent with the lawyers?)

Look at what is going on in Japan today. The men want to get married, but the women don’t want to sign up for the lives their mothers had. Marriage – and the role assigned to women – hasn’t changed all that much in Japan, but women’s expectations of life has changed. So they aren’t getting married.

For the record, I am 47-year-old single lesbian. Single in that I am not in relationship at the time. I live on a boat. While there are a few single women living aboard boats, mostly I see single men and few couples. Its funny, but since we are all doing what we want to do (except for the few spouses dragged kicking and screaming aboard), most of us are as happy as people get. Life is about pain and joy, and marriage – or so it seems to me – doesn’t insulate people from the pain, anymore than it increases the joy in life. You might get a different kind of joy, but I can say the same thing about my life.

You see I always get this argument… “I would be happier if [fill in the blank].” I can’t tell you how many people – friends, family, relative strangers – want to argue that I would be happier if I “turned straight.” When I guy tells me this I tell him to find the perfect man and sleep with him, if it turns him gay, then I’ll at least consider sleeping with the guy one time.

Here are some other arguments.

“Married people are happier.” Single are A) not home when the survey people come calling, B) are sleeping off the effects of last night or C) never answer a survey. (I fall into category “C” when I am not in “A”)

“Married people live longer.” Married people live safe lives. They don’t ride motorcycles, jump out of airplanes, get into small boats and sail out-of-sight-of land at quite the same rate as single folks. Do other crazy things that singles are like to do. Of course they live longer. (And having seen the end-of-life medical treatment several times for my mother, aunts, uncles, grandparents…. I’m not so sure I want to live that long.)

1) Nothing triggers the “OOOOOO! MY SOULMATE!” reaction in a woman like an abusive creep. (“He’s so (gasp) EXCITING!”) Funny that when a man hates women so much all he can do with them is abuse and harm them, suddenly he’s irrestistable to them.

2) As I’ve heard it used, “Soulmate” is NEVER the one you’re married to. “My Soulmate” is ALWAYS the one you’re screwing on the side.

Whole books are written on the cultural shifts affecting the marital relationship in the Western world, but for me personally it is partly a mere logical approach(mixed w/ a touch of “incurable romantic”)that contributes, to the greatest degree, to my ambivalence toward marriage.

I make a living based on correctly figuring odds, and I am rewarded or punished based on how objectively-accurately I do so. The odds of “successful marriage”(NO DIVORCE, mutually edifying relationship, minimal conflict, etc…)are SO LOW, as to be a FOOLISH risk, especially when I have additionally figured in live personal experiences and experiences of friends and family. The assets at risk, actual and figurative, are ENORMOUS! I risk peace-of- mind/usefulness to fellow citizens/ALL of my property, and possibly even offspring. The laws are crafted to encourage women to raise children w/ the gov’t as “father” while confiscating all of my assets and handing them over to the “ex” as part of the bounty on my head.

As a “Man”, I am a bumbling idiot/fool/lecher/ selfish/helpless, unable to function mentally without a women butting in at every possible juncture, as constructed by the now “feminized” culture… But, in fact, I am numerically well in the minority, as there are substantially more women than men. Men do NOT have a “biological mandate”(I have no womb, no “period”, no real time limits in which I must produce, and no physical need for protection, or emotional drive to develop and maintain a social/emotional network, no breasts to feed children I am driven to produce, etc…), and as long as I don’t think with any part of my anatomy beyond the head on my neck, I have capacity to say “NO!” for the rest of my life, if need be, but I can only say “Yes” once and then have surrendered my total latitude of self-determination to another person.

Since I do not “need” an in-house cook/maid/ sex toy/therapist/ego booster, I find a smug satisfaction in not being subdued, “trained”, “domesticated”, “tamed”, or otherwise conquered. As long as the net gain for changing my status to “married” is not perceived as being substantially greater than my net loss (and that includes REAL potential “losses” as well) no woman has given me close to adequate reason to take the awesome risks involved in surrender.