A week or so ago I became aware of this article, “Should men get married?” dealing with gender wars and men’s current disinterest in marriage. I read the article and the myriad responses and comments that it engendered… and I can truly say that it disheartened me and shamed me for both the men and women who would behave in a way that produced this much pain and suffering in others… and then shame again for men and women writing in this tone of hate. I have pondered and labored over how to write about this subject… not knowing exactly how to approach it, and  have discovered others have recently gone before me… so that is where I will start.

Bloggers blogged upon it and we are all comparing notes and opinions. Rather than simply commenting on this and that… I thought I would pull together the ideas and reference several bloggers that have already commented. Then in future posts I intend to take a look at specific “comments” and yes… I will voice an opinion…

From the original source: “There is mounting evidence that as men discover the terms of marriage and divorce today, they are engaging in a marriage boycott or marriage “strike”: refusing to marry or start families, knowing they can be criminalized if their wife walks out and how attractive the divorce industry has made it easy for her to do so. ….Sonja Hastings of Fathers-4-Equality says that “no matter how decent, hardworking, and caring you may be as a father, that in the event of separation, you will more than likely not get custody of your child, you will lose up to 80% of all of your assets, you will have to pay up to five times the cost of raising a child, and most importantly you could never see your child again.” In Britain a fathers’ rights group tours university campuses warning young men not to start families. Even one attorney writes a book concluding that the only effective protection for men to avoid losing their children is not to start a family in the first place.”

Captain KJ makes a point of pulling together the themes that are voiced in both the article and the comments:

  • The legal neutering of men when in disputes with women
  • The decline of traditional morals and degeneracy of our culture at large
  • The tearing-down of men, especially by the media — alternately, they are portrayed as bumbling idiots or crazed violence-mongers
  • The knee-jerk response: “Hey, wait, plenty of women are still being victimized! Men don’t have a monopoly on suffering…”
  • The sour grapes response: “My ex-wife was a [fill in the appropriate expletive here] and now I hate all women!”

And Neo-Neocon weighs in on her post: “Getting Married, What’s in it for Me?”

“But I have to say that the level of vitriol expressed in the comments section in response to this article by Dr. Helen at Pajamas Media surprised me and disheartened me, even though I’ve read similar discussions before online. The general flavor of comment after comment there—mostly from men—can be summarized as follows: “The bitch screwed me” with the corollary, “Women are all like that.” The formerly married say, “Never again,” and the never-married merely say, “Never.”

There-in you have the basis of the argument that “all men are evil” and the coinciding argument that “all women are evil.” Now we have set the stage… and that is not my favorite part. Hence… letting others who have gone before… do it for me! Ah… it doesn’t get any better than that!

What is your own opinion?