I saw these charts a while back and scratched out some thoughts... Around ’10 or ’11, I noticed a significant shift in “the relationship marketplace.” I can sum up this shift with two trends I saw in my church circles. First, I noticed that many (not all) average to above-average Christian men in overall quality (e.g. health, looks, ambition, etc) were struggling to get a girlfriend. At first, I thought these guys were just being too picky or had some other major deficiency. After all, there are a lot of lazy foolish men out there. This wasn’t the case with these men. They weren’t the top 1%. But they were quality and had very reasonable (perhaps too low) standards for a girlfriend.
Do you have any specific readings in mind for your post-script about the Westminster Divines viewing undue delaying of marriage (outside of gift of celibacy) as sin? Your specific wording is helpful, and I think drawing out some of these distinctions further would help a lot of young singles - in more conservative contexts - develop a personal heuristic for making decisions around marriage.
Do I posses the maturity and ability to marry? No - Shouldn't date, Should seek maturity and the ability
Do I possess the maturity and ability to marry? Yes - fine to begin seeking a spouse
Do I possess the maturity, ability, and opportunity to get married? Yes - Delaying beyond necessity is unwise at best, sinful at worst
etc...
Anyway if you have any sources in mind when you wrote this section I'd be interested in reading more.
An additional angle to all of this is that in our area, divorce laws disproportionately favor women. Knew a guy who was married with two kids about 6 & 8 years old. Wife had an affair, divorced him, took the house AND he had to pay child support
Basically the women gets everything in the divorce settlement, which gives them an incentive to get married and then leave. This is not lost on young men, who, even when they are too picky, are doing so because ONLY a woman who is highly attractive and highly desirable is worth the risk'
Young man goes to a boomer pastor gets ridiculed because "the women are great". And then he leaves the church. Sad state of affairs...
Encouraged to see something like this is out there.
But, like always, I think its naïve on some issues and points it tries to make.
“Also, it means that a large number of these women are using hormonal birth control and having abortions. Why are women doing this? I think it is tied directly to social media which normalizes deviant behavior and promotes vanity in women. I'm speaking in generalities of course. But I think this is what is going on.”
CHRISTIANS HAVE TO STOP LOOKING OUTWARD TO EXPLAIN NORMAL FEMALE BEHAVIOR. They LOVE fornication. They desire it almost as much as we do. Hypergamy doesn’t care if marriage, relationship, values and morals is on the table, hypergamy can't let a hot guy slip by or get away, so they act on it. A Christian, regenerated women might have the same inclination from hypergamy, but choosing to believe in God’s word and letting that supersede over her desires is proper and indicative of spiritual fruit. It's similar when they try to tell men that we want lots of sexual experiences that its due to trauma or insecurities, when actually, it's way simpler than that, we want to just do it!
If anything, social media (the world) promotes it, creates temptation for it, facilitates it, and exasperates it, but the “it” is in them. The desire is there.
“I think many men don't live up to the ridiculous standards of younger modern women. So, they enter the relationship marketplace, buy a bunch of girls a bunch of meals, get nowhere, and give up. So, who are these women having sex with? Well, there appear to be men who are considered "top-tier guys" by women who are having a lot of casual sex with a lot of women. Messed up, I know. Again, I'm speaking in generalities of course. But I think this is what is going on. This is terrible for society. The key driver to building and protecting a free society is having a familial stake in it. Let me be clear, I'm not saying that these trends are equally present in Christian circles, but they are bleeding over at a disturbing rate.”
-That “bleed over” is hypergamy contextualized in Church and among Christian women. “Christian hypergamy” is women choosing the high-status male (pastor/leader) in church because in the church hierarchy, the pastor is top dawg. Moreover, all the nuances we see in the secular related to women’s mate selection are PROMOTED and excused as preferences.
overall, good article and thank you for shedding light on this.
For more on the sociological side of the sexual marketplace, check out this channel’s content. Lot of great, humorous, albeit sometimes crass, content.
This is so good. This is also being discussed in secular forums when discussing why marriage is declining.
Women are the gatekeeper to sex, as men are the gatekeeper to marriage. Women are able to sleep with men they deem worthy, but those men are not willing to marry them.
They then view other men through the idea that "they can get a top tier husband, because they have had sex with top tier men.
Average solid men who actually want a wife not a sexual conquest, men who are not deemed worthy are left disillusioned when the women they pursue show little to know interest. Most of these solid men are not willing to take on marriage to the woman who has had 20-50 sexual partners by 25 or the single mom with multiple kids who want to settle down.
We live in a time where most 20 year old women have had more sexual partners than their Mothers or Grandmother had in their lifetime.
I have 3 sons 22, 19, and 16. I am deeply aware that of the challenges facing both sexes are facing, but for them I struggle with sadness knowing what the marriage landscape is becoming.
Do you have any specific readings in mind for your post-script about the Westminster Divines viewing undue delaying of marriage (outside of gift of celibacy) as sin? Your specific wording is helpful, and I think drawing out some of these distinctions further would help a lot of young singles - in more conservative contexts - develop a personal heuristic for making decisions around marriage.
Do I posses the maturity and ability to marry? No - Shouldn't date, Should seek maturity and the ability
Do I possess the maturity and ability to marry? Yes - fine to begin seeking a spouse
Do I possess the maturity, ability, and opportunity to get married? Yes - Delaying beyond necessity is unwise at best, sinful at worst
etc...
Anyway if you have any sources in mind when you wrote this section I'd be interested in reading more.
See the answer to WLC #139:
https://reformedconfessions.com/westminster-daily/08/17/
An additional angle to all of this is that in our area, divorce laws disproportionately favor women. Knew a guy who was married with two kids about 6 & 8 years old. Wife had an affair, divorced him, took the house AND he had to pay child support
Basically the women gets everything in the divorce settlement, which gives them an incentive to get married and then leave. This is not lost on young men, who, even when they are too picky, are doing so because ONLY a woman who is highly attractive and highly desirable is worth the risk'
Young man goes to a boomer pastor gets ridiculed because "the women are great". And then he leaves the church. Sad state of affairs...
Encouraged to see something like this is out there.
But, like always, I think its naïve on some issues and points it tries to make.
“Also, it means that a large number of these women are using hormonal birth control and having abortions. Why are women doing this? I think it is tied directly to social media which normalizes deviant behavior and promotes vanity in women. I'm speaking in generalities of course. But I think this is what is going on.”
CHRISTIANS HAVE TO STOP LOOKING OUTWARD TO EXPLAIN NORMAL FEMALE BEHAVIOR. They LOVE fornication. They desire it almost as much as we do. Hypergamy doesn’t care if marriage, relationship, values and morals is on the table, hypergamy can't let a hot guy slip by or get away, so they act on it. A Christian, regenerated women might have the same inclination from hypergamy, but choosing to believe in God’s word and letting that supersede over her desires is proper and indicative of spiritual fruit. It's similar when they try to tell men that we want lots of sexual experiences that its due to trauma or insecurities, when actually, it's way simpler than that, we want to just do it!
If anything, social media (the world) promotes it, creates temptation for it, facilitates it, and exasperates it, but the “it” is in them. The desire is there.
“I think many men don't live up to the ridiculous standards of younger modern women. So, they enter the relationship marketplace, buy a bunch of girls a bunch of meals, get nowhere, and give up. So, who are these women having sex with? Well, there appear to be men who are considered "top-tier guys" by women who are having a lot of casual sex with a lot of women. Messed up, I know. Again, I'm speaking in generalities of course. But I think this is what is going on. This is terrible for society. The key driver to building and protecting a free society is having a familial stake in it. Let me be clear, I'm not saying that these trends are equally present in Christian circles, but they are bleeding over at a disturbing rate.”
-That “bleed over” is hypergamy contextualized in Church and among Christian women. “Christian hypergamy” is women choosing the high-status male (pastor/leader) in church because in the church hierarchy, the pastor is top dawg. Moreover, all the nuances we see in the secular related to women’s mate selection are PROMOTED and excused as preferences.
overall, good article and thank you for shedding light on this.
For more on the sociological side of the sexual marketplace, check out this channel’s content. Lot of great, humorous, albeit sometimes crass, content.
https://www.instagram.com/hoemath?igsh=YXYxNGQ0YjhhbnBu
This is so good. This is also being discussed in secular forums when discussing why marriage is declining.
Women are the gatekeeper to sex, as men are the gatekeeper to marriage. Women are able to sleep with men they deem worthy, but those men are not willing to marry them.
They then view other men through the idea that "they can get a top tier husband, because they have had sex with top tier men.
Average solid men who actually want a wife not a sexual conquest, men who are not deemed worthy are left disillusioned when the women they pursue show little to know interest. Most of these solid men are not willing to take on marriage to the woman who has had 20-50 sexual partners by 25 or the single mom with multiple kids who want to settle down.
We live in a time where most 20 year old women have had more sexual partners than their Mothers or Grandmother had in their lifetime.
I have 3 sons 22, 19, and 16. I am deeply aware that of the challenges facing both sexes are facing, but for them I struggle with sadness knowing what the marriage landscape is becoming.