Male infidelity

In this post, I will try to explain why, if you are a married woman, in many cases you should not worry about your husband's infidelity, and in those cases where you should, I will explain what exactly you should worry about. I will deconstruct male infidelity, so that you can understand better what exactly you should worry about and what you needn't worry about.

If you are a married woman, and your husband cheats on you, these are the the things to consider:

1. If you and your husband are of similar age, your sexual power will wane faster than his does. The greater the difference in your ages (him being older than you), the luckier you are: the less likely it will be that he will leave you for another woman. On the other hand, if you are older than he is, he is more likely to leave you for another (younger) woman.
2. The likelihood that he may leave you for the other woman also depends on her attractiveness (age, fertility, looks, etc) and character. Needless to say, if you have nothing to worry about, then you have nothing to worry about.
3. If you do not have any children, he will have less familial ties to keep him in your marriage. A study has shown that marital stability increases with increasing numbers of children, up to 4 (and then plateaus).
4. You should always worry about STDs that your partner may bring and pass on to you. Of course, the degree to which you should worry depends on how promiscuous the other woman is. If she used to be a prostitute, then that's a cause for alarm, but if she is not by nature a promiscuous woman, then there is less cause for worry. Of course you can insist that he get tested, though STDs take time to show up.
5. If you live in a society that doesn't enforce the marriage contract or doesn't impose any penalties for leaving a marriage (such as alimony, child support, etc), then you should worry because it makes it easier for him to leave you.
6. If you married your husband in haste, then be fully prepared to repent at leisure. If you married the wrong kind of man, then don't expect your marriage to last. You will have to put in more of an effort than is usual to keep your marriage together.
7. If the other woman got pregnant as a result of the affair and there is a chance that the state may compel your husband to pay her child support, then you should worry because his resources will be going to support another woman's children instead of your own.
8. If the other woman's husband is the jealous type, and there is a chance that he is a threat to your family, then you should worry.

Is there anything good about male infidelity? This is a difficult question to answer. Women are subconsciously in competition against each other, even while cooperating with each other. There is a fine balance between the two. Women will tend to cooperate when they are fewer in number and men are plentiful. Women will compete when they are more in number and men are scarce. Life can at times be a zero-sum game. If other women's marriages fail, it can be to your advantage, but not always. For example, if another woman's marriage fails (thus reducing her fertility), your children will have less competition when trying to find a mate. On the other hand, your children will have fewer potential mates to choose from.

So instead of feeling righteous indignation if your husband cheats on you, try thinking about the issue rationally. Society might expect you to be indignant, and you can put on a show for their sake, but if you secretly know that there's nothing to worry about, then why sacrifice your happiness for what's "right"?

What is a marriage and what is it for?

In the post-pill era, it has become necessary to clarify exactly what marriage is and what it's for. Why is this necessary? Because there are now so many alternative lifestyles that it has led to conflicts between those who want to be included, and those who want to keep things as they were.

The purpose of marriage has always been for the sole reason of raising healthy children. Many will mistakenly disagree, citing "love", "companionship", etc. The source of this mistaken belief is the ignorance or rejection of the theory of evolution. The means has become the end. In fact, love and companionship are simply the glue that holds a relationship together, hopefully for long enough until the children are independent. In fact, sex itself is now no longer just a means to an end - it is an end in itself.

Those who have children, but nevertheless think that love and companionship are the most important thing are simply doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. Nothing wrong with that. Still, the arrival of children does negatively affect love and companionship in a relationship, so those who value their love and companionship will limit the number of children they have. An endangered species, but not worth shedding tears over.

Those who don't have children will go extinct, so it really doesn't matter what they do or think anyway. They are simply the props or furniture in the stageplay of life. They may get married and be happy together. They may even be a homosexual couple. But in the end, what's the point of being happy if they don't have children? There won't be anyone like them in the future, that's for sure! So it doesn't matter if they want to get "married", because it's not really a marriage in an evolutionary sense.

Some may want to get married and have children but don't want their own, so they adopt. They may be homosexual couples. As before, if the children aren't their own flesh and blood, then they too will go extinct. But they are providing society a service, by parenting some children who would otherwise be a burden on society.

In the past, before the contraceptive pill was invented, sex invariably led to a baby. When this happened, the fate of the child depended on whether it had a father. Because the difference in outcomes (between those children with a father and those without a father) was so big, one thing led to another and marriage was invented. First time, monogamous marriage is the best possible environment in which to raise healthy children. Nothing else comes close.

So next time you are trying to decide whether some relationship is a marriage, remember that the key ingredient is children. There must be children, or atleast an intention to have children. Otherwise it's not a marriage.

The four kinds of love

I am reading a book called "Why Marriage Matters" by Glenn T. Stanton.

The author explains how there is not just one, but four different kinds of love: eros, philia, storge, agape.

Eros is physical attraction and passion, but it can also be more than that. It need not necessarily be a blind attraction to just anyone. Its object can be a specific person.

Philia is friendship that you feel towards your friends. Philia may be the same as "platonic love". When those who we love in this way are absent, we find life less fulfilling. We feel this way about those special people who we would choose to watch a movie with, walk on the beach with, or share our joys and troubles with.

Storge is familial love. It is love between family members, neighbours, and community. It is a kind of "glue" that keeps the tribe together.

Agape is unconditional love, or love under will. This is distinct from the other three, in that it requires effort to maintain. It cannot spontaneously happen - it can only be created and sustained by a conscious act of will. It cannot be sustained by emotion. This love often acts against emotions, which are transitory. It goes against human nature. This is the kind of love that sustains a marriage through thick and thin, in good times and in bad. He quotes Eric Fromm:

"In contemporary Western culture ... love is supposed to be the outcome of a spontaneous, emotional reaction, of suddenly being gripped by an irresistable feeling."

"One neglects to see an important factor in erotic love, that of will. To love somebody is not just a strong feeling - it is a decision, it is a judgement, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever." (1)

He continues:

"A true promise means something only in the context of the possibility that we would not naturally produce the thing promised. We promise our love and commitment to our spouse because we recognize that it is not likely to sustain itself upon our original emotions. Our love is sure to be imperfect because we ... are imperfect. In this context, we make a commitment to our beloved to continue the hard work of refining and cultivating our love."

"The recognition of this aspect of marriage is imperative because it goes right to the heart of why so many marriages don't last. Marriage is hard work and takes a commitment to our spouse and to the idea of marriage." (2)

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References

• 1. Eric Fromm, The Art Of Loving (pp. 55-56)
• 2. Glenn T. Stanton, Why Marriage Matters (pp. 166)

An impending shortage of women

I predict a massive shortage of marriageable women in the near future, if there isn't one already. My prediction may seem a bit strange, especially since in many western liberal democracies, there are more women than men. But the key word here is "marriageable".

Generally speaking, in any monogamous society, it is expected that most men and women who are born in some generation should pair off with each other, even taking into account that men are generally attracted to women a few years younger than themselves, and women are generally attracted to men a few years older than themselves. Over the long term, this system should more-or-less reach an equilibrium. For most people, there will be a man for every woman, and a woman for every man.

Over the last few decades though, women's liberation 'liberated' men from having to commit, 'freed' women from marriage, and often 'unshackled' women from having a family. Regardless of whether it is men or women who are at fault, the end result is that this situation has made a very large number of women unmarriageable: older, less attractive, emotionally damaged, less fertile, less feminine, cynical, jaded, career-driven and less able to devote time to family.

What's less apparent is the fact that while feminism has left huge numbers of women of the last few generations unmarriageable, men were often not affected to the same degree. A 40-year old single woman is unmarriageable. A single man of the same age is eminently not. Often a 40-year old single man is objectively more marriageable than a much younger man, even if we are socialized to believe otherwise.

Unfortunately, under the current feminist regime, women start to become unmarriageable rather early in their lives. Inappropriate sex-education, hormonal contraception, pre-marital sex, casual sex, cohabitation, higher-education, career, etc. take their toll and all of these put women on the slippery slope to unmarriageability. They are only able to get off that wild ride once they reach their thirties and their biological clocks start ticking loudly enough.

What the future holds may be this: men of those generations that suffered under women's liberation (lets call it Generation A), seeing that there are slim pickings of women in their own generation, will look to the following generation's women (Generation B). And these women of Generation B (the intelligent ones anyway) may happily oblige. And where will Generation B's men look for women? Their own women are pairing off with the men from Generation A. And a lot of the other women in Generation B are fast becoming unmarriageable thanks to feminism. Large numbers of men will face a life of singledom, and society will face significant costs associated with having large numbers of single males who have no chance of having a family.

I suppose there is also an impending shortage of men, because even unmarriageable women do want to eventually marry. But the men may not happily oblige. This is not as serious a problem as the shortage of marriageable women, however, because single women are capable of leading more functional lives than single men are.

Common interests

I used to think that the kind of woman I'd like as a wife was someone who had interests in common with me. I think this is what most people are looking for.

Other people think that it's better to not have common interests. These people feel that it's better to do different things because that way they will have more to talk about. But I don't see how you could have a meaningful conversation with your significant other about something that they are not particularly interested in. I have also met a few people whose marriages failed because of different interests. Face it, when you both are off doing different things, then you two are more likely to come into contact with other people who will threaten your marriage.

But while I think that having common interests is a good thing, I now believe that it's not quite as simple as that. I think it's a better idea to have a combination of: the same "social interests" but different "skill interests".

What do I mean by social interests? Anything social that both of you enjoy doing, and which enables you to spend time together. For me, it's dancing. I would like to meet a woman who enjoys dancing as much as I do. For other people it might be sports, or bike-riding, etc. I think that for the majority of people, those who do things together stay together. I know of several real-life examples.

On the other hand, you are better off with someone who has different "skill interests". These are activities that you have a talent in and enjoy doing by yourself. Some examples: cooking, working with cars, gardening, computers, etc. While these things can sometimes have a social aspect (you might attend a computer convention or a gardening expo or whatever), exercising these skills gives pleasure even when done as a solitary activity. If you feel that you need the presence of other people in order to enjoy some activity, then it's probably not a skill interest. For example, I don't consider cooking to be a skill interest, because I only gain pleasure from it when there are other people in the kitchen as well. If I'm cooking by myself, then it's a chore.

So the idea is that when a man and a woman come together, each having a different set of 5 skill interests, then they are bringing a total of 10 different skill interests to the table. If on the other hand they both had the same set of 5 skill interests, then they are only bringing 5 skill interests into the marriage. The more skill interests brought into the mariage, the less the need for expensive outsourcing.

When looking for a potential wife or husband, I don't think it's a good idea to go to those places where people usually go with the aim of meeting single people, such as bars. Chances are, you won't meet many with similar social interests. In fact you might meet people who are wont to lie about their interests, just as job interviewees do. The best way to meet people is to just do the things you normally enjoy doing, and eventually you will meet someone you like. If they're there it probably means that they like being there and are enjoying the activity, ie. they are not faking. It will also give you an opportunity to observe them and their interactions with others, which can be useful clues in determining their marriageability.

However this doesn't always work, and my own case is a good example. I enjoy folk dancing, but it's something that only old people do. The average age of the folk dancing community is probably 60. I'm an anomaly there because I'm considerably younger (34) than most people there. There is more I could say, but I won't right now because it's not the right time.

So if you're not having success in your current social activity, you might have to try a different social activity to see if you can expand your list of social interests. Thus I tried african drumming and newer forms of dancing. But even though I enjoyed these activities immensely, I still felt a bit alone in these communities, so for me they weren't really "social activities". So I gave them up and went back to folk dancing.

Marriageable age

Before feminism, a man would be considered to be marriageable in his late teens or early 20s. He would have done some schooling and then perhaps apprenticeship in some trade and would be earning a family wage. He knew what was in store for him and what was expected of him. Of course not everyone followed this format, but most men were ready for marriage by their mid 20s at the latest.

Nowadays, a lot of men aren't ready for marriage until their early 30s. The average age at first marriage is now around 29 for men.

While the average age at first marriage is 29 for men, this is not to be confused with "age of marriageability". Since a large percentage of first marriages end in divorce, and since most divorces are initiated by women, it is likely that a lot of men are unmarriageable when they marry. So the average age of marriageability is probably a couple of years beyond 29. In any case, many men "grow up" by their mid-30s, and by that time are reasonably successful in their careers. Experience in the workforce adds up and their earning potential and wealth increases.

On the other hand, the average age of marriageability for women has gone in the opposite direction. Before feminism, a 25 year old single woman would have been considered to be quite marriageable. In Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte marries at the age of 27. True, she was considered by some of her contemporaries to be an "old maid", but still, her marriageability would not have been in any doubt.

What did "marriageability" of a woman mean in Jane Austen's day?

• She had domestic skills and could look after a home.
• She wanted children.
• She was a virgin and she had not had any ex-boyfriends or husbands
• She didn't have children from previous relationships.
• She had not cohabited with anyone.
• She didn't have any emotional baggage.
• She didn't have a career.
• She didn't have student debts.

By these standards, a woman living today, of the same age as Charlotte (27) when she married Collins, would be woefully unmarriageable - and the passage of time would only make her more so.