A well written and thought-provoking article by S. G. Cheah has recently been published on the site Evie, which I would like to respond to.
Many people who have bought into the feminist notions about matrimony like to argue against marriage by saying that it’s “just a piece of paper.”
But if you were to follow that line of logic, then the American Constitution is also “just a piece of paper.” The truth, however, is that marriage (like the American Constitution) is a powerful institution enacted to protect our rights as women. Despite what we’re told by feminist propaganda, marriage isn’t a form of oppression by the patriarchy. Rather, marriage is a stalwart triumph for womankind.”
Cheah is absolutely right in her estimation of marriage being a “stalwart triumph for womankind”. Gynocentric marriages, which are all too common, centre the needs and wants of wives, with husbands, all too often, reduced to playing a functional rather than fulfilling role and obtaining his sense of identity from his wife’s approval of his acceptable servitude.
Feminist theory argues that marriage forces the woman into a subservient role to her husband. This is a myth. The fact is, monogamous marriage protects women from being treated as sex objects. In the sexual marketplace, men’s interest normally gravitates towards short-term sexual relationships, whereas women tend to gravitate towards long-term partnerships. This should not come as a surprise. Due to the biological reality of how humans are built, when it comes to sex, the stakes are higher for women than they are for men. The saying “nine minutes for him could mean nine months for her” comes to mind. With the institution of monogamous marriage, a man is legally bound to provide for his one wife and their biological children. Are we really supposed to believe that this is a form of patriarchal oppression?”
There is more truth in this statement – surveys repeatedly show that a majority of women do not find casual sex to be satisfying, and this fact should be commonly acknowledged to help women make good choices for themselves. It should also be acknowledged that a minority of women do in fact find casual sex to be satisfying and they can safely be celebrated too, as they traditionally have been, in art and literature. The worn phrase Cheah repeats “nine minutes for him could mean nine months for her” is an archaic cliché that is no longer relevant with the myriad of reliable contraceptives available for women. A more relevant phrase may be “nine minutes for him could mean 18 years of child support” because, in the sexual marketplace, I believe it to be men who are more significantly at risk from pregnancies they haven’t planned on (because women do have so many options for controlling their fertility that men do not share).
To help you think about this, imagine how different the life of Fantine (from Les Miserables) would have been had she been married to Cosette’s father. The good-for-nothing cad would have been held responsible for ensuring the well-being of his daughter Cosette, saving Fantine from her downfall into prostitution, illness, and death.
Monogamous marriage not only preserves the well-being of children, but it also strongly protects female dignity.”
Female dignity is a glorious thing to behold but I reject the idea that only monogamous married women can exemplify the value. Further, a significant proportion of monogamous wives may not actually exemplify dignity at all – abusive women, self-centred women, bossy women… Can be as monogamous and married as they like and still potentially lack dignity.
Marriage is correlated with better outcomes for children – but it’s not clear to me that the key is the “piece of paper”. Marriage is also correlated with religiosity, and I believe that faithful communities make particularly dedicated families. Separated families, on the other hand, far too often include children without meaningful access to their fathers in modern Western societies.
Societies that don’t have a culture of strong monogamous marriage have several deep-seated issues. In my previous article against polygamy, I cite one of the largest studies on polygamy that shows how in a society where there’s a large portion of men who don’t get to be paired up in marriage, you’ll end up with higher rates of violence, suicide, and social unrest as a result.
A society with a large portion of unmarried men will end up with higher rates of violence and social unrest.
Monogamous marriage significantly reduces the major social problems of polygamist cultures. As the study stated, “In cultures that permit men to take multiple wives, the intra-sexual competition that occurs causes greater levels of crime, violence, poverty, and gender inequality than in societies that institutionalize and practice monogamous marriage.”
To give you an idea, we can see this playing out in the Middle East where polygamy is legal and common. Not only does a polygamous society lead to the subjugation of women, but it also throws off marriage rates for a large portion of single males, which, in turn, leads to a litany of social ills. Hordes of young men who don’t see a future for themselves (as they won’t be able to find wives to form a family of their own) will be seduced by radical ideas to join groups like ISIS where they’re promised access to conquered enemy women who’ll act as sex slaves. We can also observe a version of this problem here in the West today brought on by hookup culture/casual sex promoted by the feminist “sexual liberation” movement for women. In practice, because women decide who their sexual partners will be, only the very few good-looking men will gain access to multiple sexual partners, while a whole cohort of men who aren’t as sexually attractive will have problems finding a sexual partner.”
This is a convincing argument against polygamy – but it strikes me as a stretch to conflate polygamous Middle-Eastern countries with the modern West.
These dejected and bitter men often then turn to weird and self-destructive movements like the MGTOWs and the incels, just like their fellow males in the Middle East who went on to join ISIS. Women are consequently de-valued because they’re treated as mere members of a harem rather than lifelong partners in a marriage. Again, you can thank feminism for the growth of these anti-women subcultures.”
This outrageously offensive conflation suggests to me that Cheah is utterly blind to the experiences of men and boys. MGTOW and incel communities are providing vitally important male-space for men and boys who may have some degree of dejection and bitterness but can find social support and places to speak freely and maybe even some good advice for personal growth and/or preservation within them.
While the feminist movement has empowered women to act with “sexual freedom”, the flipside of that coin is how they have also empowered men to act like philanderers. With the goal of marriage is now on the backburner, men can primarily look at the women they’re interested in not as the potential love of his life and the mother of his children, but rather if she is willing to sleep with him.
And the harsh reality is, as I’ve touched on in my other articles about promiscuity and prostitution, as sex has become cheap, women become more replaceable to men. A wife, on the other hand, is not interchangeable to her husband, which is why she is called “his significant other.” And to attain a man’s fidelity, whereby a woman becomes a significant part of a man’s life, she attains this power mostly from marriage.”
It’s fair to say that monogamous marriage confers power for women. I think it’s time that long term relationships conferred equal power on the women and men involved.
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