Why do men avoid marriage?

Katherine Feeney's comments below are of course just another iteration of a familar cry from women in their 30s.  NONE of them seem to realize that current divorce laws would deter any reasonably-informed man from marriage.  The laws make forming a new family after a divorce a matter of extreme financial difficulty in many cases.  Women who want men to "commit" should be agitating for divorce laws that are less destructive to men -- but don't hold your breath waiting for it.

I have been married and amicably divorced four times so am not speaking from sour grapes.  I have not suffered but the stories of those who have are legion

Why are men around my age so reluctant to tie the knot?

Several women I know – all around 30 – are beginning to question the wisdom of the wedding ultimatum. "Either you propose to me by Christmas or we're quits, pal," they say. "We've been together long enough now, it's 'I do' or die.”

They wonder what’s holding up their husbands-to-be. They’re all in long-term, apparently loving relationships. Isn't marriage the next logical step?

Variously, they decide it's not their man, but the men he hangs out with. The single lads; lads who love a night out, aren’t 'shackled' with a ball and chain, and who make fun of supine surrender under his missus's thumb. These are the boy wonders who won't ever 'grow up'.

(Note how marriage is still aligned with maturity. Is a ring really the sign of a more developed individual?)

On that idea, I recently had a conversation with a close man-friend of mine. He may be described as the definitive leader of Lost Boys. At least, he might have been, were it not for the new Wendy-lady in his life. Suddenly, the serial playmaker had found a reason to stop flying and settle down. His band of boys didn't really understand. That was hard. Could he overcome their derision and 'man-up' to marriage?

"I think my boyfriend will get over his friends and we'll get there eventually," a girlfriend, in a different-but-like situation told me recently. "But I think the longer we leave it, the harder it becomes."

This is because of two things, she thinks. One: the diminishing chances his single friends will find a lady of their own and break-apart the dude squad. Two: the increased likelihood their friends, who are already married, will divorce.

Her points are somewhat valid. Based on Australian marriage statistics, there are roughly two 'peak' periods for meeting a life partner. The median age for first marriage sits at around 30 for both men and women (or 29 for men and 27 for women), so the years preceding the big three-zero are optimal match-making time. Then there’s the so-called 'second round' stretch, when a surge of newly single divorcees hit the market. Given most marriages that end in divorce tend to do so after eight to nine years, round two begins at around 36.

What the above fails to mention, of course, is that the number of births outside marriage is rising along with the age of the mothers (interestingly their median age is around the same that for first-time brides), and the crude marriage rate is declining as de facto co-habitation rates are rising. This doesn't suggest that couples comprising a peer group are just as likely to be married as they are de facto, with or without children, but it does suggest a variety of relationship options are presented to people with increasing regularity.

So in one sense, the reasoning that men are putting off marriage because they've seen the broken or bad marriages of their formerly 'free and single' mates is flawed; they may be less inclined to propose marriage because they’ve seen their mates shacked up in circumstances less official which are just as satisfying (if not more).

But then you read articles like this, tellingly titled I was a "male spinster", and you're reminded just how locked in to this marriage ideal we really are. Yes, even blokes. Fact remains; marriage remains our chief expression of love. It is closely linked with an ever expanding scholarship on the attainment of happiness. Not only is this strong reason to bring forward marriage equality, but it's a good reminder to anyone in a relationship treading around the edges of eternal commitment to talk about it, and resolve to abide by the outcome.

Even if that outcome is: Yes to marriage, but not to you.

SOURCE





Most parents don't want homosexual  children, claims Tory MP David Davies

Mr Davies made the claim as he spoke out against David Cameron’s plans to allow same-sex couples to marry, including in some churches.   Mr Davies, the MP for Monmouth, said the plan was “barking mad” and would cost the Conservative Party many of its traditional supporters.

In an interview with BBC Wales, he went on to say that “most parents” would prefer their children not to be homosexual.

He said: "I think most people are very tolerant and have no problem at all if people are gay but, and I hate to say this in a way because I expect it's going to cause controversy, but I think most parents would prefer their children not to be gay, knowing most parents want grandchildren if nothing else."

Some Conservative advocates of the same-sex marriage plan is an essential part of changing the party’s image in the eyes of some voters, who regard Tories as intolerant.

Critics of Mr Cameron’s plans say that they will actually bring the party few new votes while alienating a much larger number of its existing backers.

Mr Davies said: “We're going to lose a large number of very loyal activists who've gone out and campaigned for us over the years and who don't like this idea, so politically it's barking mad”

He said that existing laws allowing same-sex couples to have civil partnerships could be changed to ensure full equality without going as far as church weddings. “I really don't know why we need to go ahead with this at all.”

SOURCE





Lowering the Union Jack is a shameful surrender to Ulster’s gangsters

In a large part of this country, it is against the law to fly the Union Flag from government buildings for 348 days of the year. This has been so since the year 2000. As a special treat, it can be flown for the other 17 days. The rest of the time the flagpole stays bare.

The place where this law operates is Northern Ireland.  I wonder how much longer we shall be able to fly our national flag in the rest of the United Kingdom, or even how much longer that flag will exist at all.

I think this is a shocking fact. I am one of the few British journalists who bothered to read the so-called ‘Good Friday’ Agreement under which this country capitulated to the gangsters of the Provisional IRA, under American pressure.

I know that we released hundreds of grisly criminals, destroyed our security apparatus and withdrew the Army in return for various unsigned and unenforceable promises from Sinn Fein and the IRA.

But even I did not know that this was one of its effects. Our national flag, you see, might offend someone. That is also the excuse for its recent removal from Belfast City Hall, which has led to so much bitterness and turmoil in that city.

But the reality is this. You haul down your flag when you surrender. And it was a surrender.  I was amused to see that Mrs Hillary Clinton, that nasty hard Leftist now aiming for the White House, had her vote-winning visit to Northern Ireland spoiled by the flag riots on Friday.

How can you have riots and peace? The great pretence, that giving in to organised crime brings peace, was for once exposed. Northern Ireland’s poor and weak have never been so subject to intimidation and gangsterism, and I wonder if I will live to see the (sadly inevitable) day when Irish troops are putting down Orange riots on the Protestant Shankill Road, probably caused by illegal displays of the old Union Flag. Peace, indeed.

The squalid history of this event is a warning we refuse to heed and which is barely known here.  I saw it happen, in Washington DC, astonished by the brusque and scornful treatment of my country by a nation I had foolishly seen as an ally.

I remember one very senior White House official letting  slip to me that she thought of Britain as a sort of Serbia, just another place to intervene in, as Syria is now. I have laughed at the phrase ‘Special Relationship’ ever since.

I followed Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams round the USA, as this coffin-faced apologist for violence and terror was feted and adulated by Americans who would have shrunk from him had he spoken for any other cause but the Irish one.

I annoyed him so much with my inconvenient questions  that he publicly said I should  be ‘decommissioned’ and –  on the one occasion we were ever alone together –  showed me his less diplomatic, less humorous side.

What was this about? Mrs Clinton’s husband Bill needed working-class Roman Catholic votes to win the White House, votes his party had lost by backing abortion.

So he discovered the Irish cause, about which he knew  little and (I suspect) cared less. He also took a lot of Irish-American campaign money. In 1993, Irish America, which these days means some very big business, tired of waiting for results and demanded action.

And so he acted, and so we were forced to make a shameful peace with the IRA, and haul down our flag over part of our own territory.

By the time the whole thing’s finished, St Patrick’s Cross will have to come out of that flag, and the harp will depart from the Royal Standard.

I think that when countries suffer defeats, they should admit to them and grieve over them, not pretend they have won. That way lie more defeats and more humiliations.

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The Cowards and the Courageous

The behavior of the western media can only be described as cowardly. That news is not going to surprise any honest, fair-minded person. Anyone can see the glaring spinelessness in their reporting (or lack thereof) on the beleaguered freedom-loving souls in Egypt today.

When thousands of people demonstrated against President Mubarak in January 2011, all major western media outlets sent reporters to Egypt, where they reported day and night. It was mostly inaccurate and biased, but at least they were reporting.

Now that an Islamist government—which was falsely installed by the military council—is in power, there is deafening silence. As even more young, educated democracy seekers are wounded and killed than in the Revolution of 2011, the media still cannot be lured from its hiding places.

Even after the Islamist President Morsi declared his dictatorship, western media said nothing. Well, nothing except for the occasional comment to support him and his push for total control—all the poor guy needs is the power to cleanse Egypt of the vestiges of the Mubarak regime. The media ignores the fact that government employees make up a majority of the country and can be categorized as vestiges of the Mubarak regime.

I get it: the western media is scared. Most, if not all, are intimidated and fearful of Islamists. But no one buys their claim that they only fear being accused of Islamophobia. They really fear for their lives, and for their profits. And that fear is the root of their cowardice.

When the Director General of the BBC was asked why they had tried so hard to not offend Muslims, especially when they had often treated Christians with scorn, his honest answer was: a Christian has “broad shoulders” and can take it, but an Islamist may complain by saying, “I am loading my AK47.”

As the power of fear and intimidation grows worldwide, the slippery slope of appeasement will make the leftist western media obsolete as a news source. An uninformed public will remain blissfully ignorant until it is too late to stop the media from becoming a dangerous tool in the Islamist’s pocket.

Already it feels like I’m living back in Egypt during the 1960s when most of the nation’s media got their cues from Nasser. They would attack whom they knew Nasser wanted attacked. And they would remain silent on certain deadly issues if they knew he wanted them to close their eyes.

Today’s protestors represent the best of Egypt. They are Muslim men and Christian men. They are veiled women and unveiled women. They are united in a love for their country and disdain for what their Islamist president is doing to it.

Unlike western media, they have shown courage time after time. They protested last year at enormous risk to their lives. Now they protest again make sure their courage has not been for nothing.

But Morsi is an Islamist, and the media fears the Islamists. And Morsi is President Obama’s ally, and the media loves the U.S. president. That leaves the protestors out in the cold with the TV cameras turned off.

The people of the West need to learn from their beleaguered freedom-loving Egyptian compatriots who are shedding their blood for true democracy.

The people of the West need to wake up from their slumber, follow the example of the Egyptian protestors, and rise up against the deliberate deception of the western media.

It is time for the people of the West—for all truth-loving people—to boycott the cowards and support the courageous.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,  DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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