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Male Newspaper Columnist Knows When Women Should Marry

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Pizza!Pizza!Pizza!
04/28/09

In reply to Male Newspaper Columnist Knows When Women Should Marry
'Marriage will be there for men when they're ready. And most do get there.'

Really? Has he been on a dating site lately? All the lonely people...
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CordeliaShirley
04/27/09

In reply to Male Newspaper Columnist Knows When Women Should Marry
I would try to laugh at this, but I'm just too disgusted at the idea that I, at 25, would be considered well on my to a doomed life of shriveled, lonely infertility.
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Hana Maru
04/27/09

In reply to Male Newspaper Columnist Knows When Women Should Marry
Okay, so given that the goal of everyone is to get married and have babies, Mr. bravely uncool trend-mapper should note that fertile young women can't make the babies without fertile young men. Men's fertility declines with age too. Hasn't he ever heard of sperm? Henry VIII?
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whynotshesaid
04/27/09

In reply to Male Newspaper Columnist Knows When Women Should Marry
Whatever, Regnerus. I got married at 20 - despite the advice of friends and family alike - and it was a fucking stupid ass move on my part. I had limited life experience, and even less when it came to men. I married the first guy who so much as showed any serious interest in me, and within a couple of years, I found out that I was legally bound to someone with whom I had NOTHING in common. There was no growing-together or shared-experience-of-poverty that could have overcome the fact that I simply did not like my husband.

(This is aside from all of the abuse stuff. I know with a high degree of certainty that, even has there been no abuse in the relationship, I still would not have liked him.)

At any rate, I think there is something to the fact that I know a ton of people whose first youthful marriages failed while their second or third marriages, which they entered in their late 20s and early 30s, are going strong. So there's my sociological data. It's at least as relevant as "My wife and I got married young, and we are still together!" Yeah, I read his sorry article, and all I can say is, I feel really bad for his students.

So STFU Regnerus.
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SomeAuthorGirl
04/27/09

In reply to Male Newspaper Columnist Knows When Women Should Marry
Obviously, I no longer have any point in life or viability. I can just sit and rot peacefully since I've already been married and procreated, right on schedule. I can take my sweet ol' time finding ex-husband number two, someone desperate enough to overlook my decaying body and settle for watching me become ever more hag-like as I roll down the rocky slope of my 30's towards inevitable further dessication and death.

My shriveling ovaries and I salute you, sir!
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Skellatrix
04/27/09

In reply to Male Newspaper Columnist Knows When Women Should Marry
.....and on a lighter note, I read "while men's tends to rise in step with their growing resources (that is, money and maturation)." as: "while men's tends to rise in step with their growing resources (that is, money and MASTURBATION)." and that made me smirk. Masturbation is a valuable resource for everyone!
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Rooo sez BISH PLZ
04/27/09

In reply to Male Newspaper Columnist Knows When Women Should Marry
There's also the fact that this guy "teaches" at the University of Texas. He uses one of his female students as anecdotal evidence of his point. I've been to UT and am a sorority girl myself (not from there), but if he thinks the "get married fast" social culture of UT and the University of Texas are or should be universal, he is delusional.

Also, he describes himself as "fiscally conservative", which I believe can be a euphemism for "completely out of touch with current real estate and financial markets".

Plus, has he taken a look around at the emotional maturity of the guys - some of them way past 30 - who are still playing Xbox in the basement?
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ae
04/27/09

@Rooo sez BISH PLZ: Well, married people tend to be conservative, so it makes sense that someone who advocates conservative policies would want people to get married young. In fact, I heard Ari Fleischer make this argument at an event a few months ago.

Don't even get me started on the lingering immaturity of men pushing their 30s. My last boyfriend was 27, a total tech-geek/gamer type. I stayed with him for seven months because he was a really nice guy, but I couldn't handle the immaturity anymore. I refused to allow myself to pair up with a child just for the sake of getting married in my "prime" years.
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maybeimamazed02
04/27/09

@ManicPixiePoliticalGirl: Amen. Just last week I schooled my almost-30 ex-boyfriend on acting his age. He responded that I was talking down to him. I replied that I had no choice, as he was yelling at me like a spoiled 12-year-old.
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Flackette Goes Retro
04/27/09

In reply to Male Newspaper Columnist Knows When Women Should Marry
WHY IS MARRIAGE A GOAL? Marriage should be something you do when and if you find someone you would like to be married to. Full stop. It is not a goal within itself, especially as it is not the sodding 19th century and is no longer an economic imperative. Marry young, marry old, marry someone of the same sex, don't marry at all - why the fuck should anyone care?
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la.donna.pietra
04/27/09

In reply to Male Newspaper Columnist Knows When Women Should Marry
I've lived in some pretty conservative parts of the country, and I've seen a *lot* of young marriages. I would like to invite Mr. Regnerus to try to pay for a mortgage, a stay-at-home wife, and a kid on the kind of salary your average 22-year-old man makes right now--even in northern Idaho, where mortgages are a lot lower--and make it to age 30 unscathed by divorce or misery.
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Jorie Slodki
04/27/09

In reply to Male Newspaper Columnist Knows When Women Should Marry
I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was 17. Does that mean I had no "market value" to begin with, or that I should have married at 16? And why do resources and maturity increase the "market value" of men, but not women? I want to look at the comment section on the article but I'm afraid.

PS--Yes, that is Jemaine Clement with me in my photo.
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Flackette Goes Retro
04/27/09

@Jorie Slodki: For real. My "market value" in terms of assets and resources has increased markedly between the ages of 18 and 29.
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whynotshesaid
04/27/09

@Jorie Slodki: You should have just killed yourself. Duh. Your whole worth lies in your uterus, didn't you know?
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jollydolly
04/27/09

In reply to Male Newspaper Columnist Knows When Women Should Marry
He's so fake-apologetic about it - "unfortunately" women's market value declines..."we can't will it away" etc. etc.
a) you could fight it off in print and declare it bogus
b) you've admitted you have no stake in changing the situation, because as a man, as you age, your increased market value for women allows you to access the high-value younger women, so you have no credibility when sounding regretful about the whole sorry situation.

Today I feel sympathy and solidarity with women who pursue 'anti-aging' products. Normally I totally opt out of that, but does my future romantic happiness now depend on looking, acting, and seeming as young as possible?
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whynotshesaid
04/27/09

@jollydolly: LOL, yeah, I caught all of the CYA stuff - the parenthetical "unfortunately," the clause that he knows people who are in their 40s who aren't ready to marry...as I said upthread, the whole piece was a rhetorical fail.
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Flackette Goes Retro
04/27/09

In reply to Male Newspaper Columnist Knows When Women Should Marry
Mr. Smarty Pants columnist: the 20-21 marriage rate was only standard in the 1950s. Ages were much higher before WWII, so it's not like the 20th century was always dominated by young marriages. Also, men ages 20-21 today are generally doofuses.
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whynotshesaid
04/27/09

@Flackette Goes Retro: Yeah, but you are supposed to marry an older guy when you are 20-21, because older guys are the ones with the cash and the job and the security.

See how it all works out so nicely? The woman gets a walking wallet, the man gets an eternally younger woman. It's a win-win situation!
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nakedscience
04/27/09

In reply to Male Newspaper Columnist Knows When Women Should Marry
Oh no! I'm almost 28 and NOT MARRIED, nor do I have any plans to EVER get married! What will I ever do with myself, being happy being single and all?! OH NO.
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maybeimamazed02
04/27/09

@nakedscience: Ha! I think we're the same person.

I replied to an earlier thread--I'd love to sleep with the "wrong guy" right now. If only I could find one...
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missnicolec
04/27/09

In reply to Male Newspaper Columnist Knows When Women Should Marry
I wish all the time that guy's sperm started to go bad past a certain age, that way we girls could gripe about how their rotting sperm just won't be able to reach our eggs when they get past 25.
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Rooo sez BISH PLZ
04/27/09

@missnicolec: Actually, it DOES.

There is a conversation about it upthread, and there's stats you can google on it.

But the mainstream papers don't want to talk about that, b/c

1) it would ruin their sensationalist angle and

2) it would actually point out that men have reproductive "flaws", just like women, based on age -- and that would ruin men's general marketing plan of themselves as the "sought after" gender.

Sometimes I have to hand it to the men. They have us so running around cleaning up after them, and fighting amongst ourselves for them, that we never stop to question the foundations of their PR.
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Flackette Goes Retro
04/27/09

@missnicolec: It does! Chance of pregnancy goes down and chance of birth defects goes way up with older fathers.
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whynotshesaid
04/27/09

@missnicolec: There is. Which is why I asked my husband (47) to get his little dudes checked out in anticipation of us having babies in a few years.

Of course, his doctor declined to have him tested, saying that I as the woman am more likely to be the problem (even though I am still six months away from 30). This, despite my concern being not "can we conceive?" but "if we conceive will our child grow up to be autistic or schizophrenic?" But it seems as though the convention wisdom of men that can produce healthy sperm infinitely while women shrivel up and dry out at 35 has penetrated even into the medical field, who I should think would know better.
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Treece
04/27/09

In reply to Male Newspaper Columnist Knows When Women Should Marry
Ladies, I hate to say this but I agree with him. I am now 40. I get older and fatter but I have some women who are now interested in me. I tend to like a certain kind of woman who do not seem to like my type, but at least I have women to talk to now.
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jollydolly
04/27/09

@LawrenceLiverless: You agree with him that women should marry early instead of 'waiting' and pursuing a career?
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Rooo sez BISH PLZ
04/27/09

@jollydolly: Somehow, I ... don't think you want to get drawn into this particular conversation with this particular person. Ths

"I tend to like a certain kind of woman who do not seem to like my type"

is a particularly telling quote.

Just a hunch.
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Treece
04/27/09

@Rooo sez BISH PLZ: No, I can't speak for women but as a man, I am becoming more attractive to women by being older and having a steady job. That is all I meant. I suppose the other comment was that sometimes it seems like we can't have what we really want.
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whynotshesaid
04/27/09

@LawrenceLiverless: I have no idea what that has to do with his insistence that a woman's optimal age of marriage coincides with her ability to drink legally. But thanks for showing up to congratulate yourself on your middle-age sexiness anyway.
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Rooo sez BISH PLZ
04/27/09

@whynotshesaid: *snerk* I appreciate your gentle humor, even thought I have yet another sneaking suspicion that our "post-host" might not.
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whynotshesaid
04/27/09

@Rooo sez BISH PLZ: Yes, I am sure you are right, but low hanging fruit...I couldn't resist.
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