When I first wrote my post How To Pick a Wife, I failed to take into consideration the very real, and potentially devastating legal environment that marriage occurs within. Devastating for men, that is. Marriage is, and remains, the sweetest gig a woman can possibly get, which is the primary driver, I think, behind the MGTOW wars. MGTOW men hate marriage, because it is just so damned unfair to men, given the current environment. Changing that environment is one of the principle aims of the MRM, and one that will happen, although it will take time.
In the meanwhile, for humans who are deeply drawn to pair-bonding (and that’s most of us), here is an updated list of how to pick a wife, aka mitigating risk factors. Many men will never marry, until reproductive, marriage and divorce laws become fair, and that’s a rational response to an irrational bias towards women and against men. I intend no shame towards those men who reject marriage and women outright, although that is obviously not a strategy that is going to work in the long-term. It’s nihilism.
There are ways to make marriage safer. And even bringing these topics up for discussion will let you know very quickly just what your beloved has on her mind. A day for a Princess or a life for a Queen?
Ask her about circumcision
Prepare for a great deal of ignorance, because many women (and men) have given this zero thought at all. A woman who is instinctively repulsed by the thought of harming a child in this way gets one gold star. A woman who declares that a mutilated penis pleases her sense of aesthetics should immediately be shown the door. A woman who mistakenly believes genital mutilation is about sanitation and health is merely ignorant. She should be given an opportunity to learn and demonstrate her compassion for infant boys. Not caring about hurting babies is a deal-breaker, IMO.
Find out her thoughts on abortion
This is obviously deeply personal and complicated. I’m not even sure what I think about abortion, but I have never faced needing one. My chain of thought at the moment is that at some point that little clump of cells divides to the point that a person exists.
There is a difference between this:
And this:
A tiny little brain becomes active, even at a primitive level, and an “I” exists. I would like to see us be able to detect that using prenatal imaging, at which point I am very comfortable banning all abortion for any reason. That is no longer your body, and no longer your choice.
Whatever your personal feelings about abortion, you will be able to deduce a lot from a woman based on her opinions. You can’t legally prevent a woman from aborting your child, so if that’s a deal-breaker for you, you need to find out sooner than later.
Never trust her with birth control
Sorry, just don’t. You are legally fucked if you do. There is no way around that except to take control of birth control yourself.
An exception might be if she has an implantable birth control device because you can physically feel that under her skin. You buy (or acquire) the condoms yourself, and you never let her touch one.
When I was writing this post about birth control sabotage, I poked well over 40 holes in a condom, right through the package. Neither me nor my husband could detect a single one, not even in bright light. Try it yourself.
She never touches the condom. Never leave a used one anywhere she can get it. You will be held legally responsible if she is able to impregnate herself with a used condom. Calculate the value of child support based on your income over the course of 18 years. Think of your used condom as a little pile of cash for that exact amount. Would you leave that cash out where she can get it?
Have emergency birth control on hand. If a condom breaks and she refuses to take it: pray. That is your only option. No matter what happens, never legally marry a woman who refuses to involve you in her reproductive decisions.
How do you want to raise children, if you want them?
My husband I both wanted our children raised at home and we were explicit about that pretty much from day one. We met in MBA school and I agreed to shelve my career ambitions (which I honestly had few of to begin with) to make that possible. It’s a personal decision, but if you are both not on the same page, you need to know that up front. Ultimately, you will have to use your judgement, since she can renege on her side of the bargain, any damn time she likes.
Sign a prenuptial
A woman who balks at a fair prenuptial is, to quote Taylor Swift, a nightmare dressed as a daydream. Prenuptials should include:
A financial settlement that reflects what you have both put in to the marriage
Child custody arrangements
Division of assets based on your mutual earnings
You should only consider getting married in a state where your prenuptial will be enforceable.
I can imagine most women reacting to these conditions:
When you find one willing to consider why these are of vital importance to men, a woman who understands she has a loaded gun and is willing to give you the bullets, that is a woman worth considering.
Many of you will read this list and say oh hell no, and that’s a valid response. For those men who do long for a mutually beneficial marriage that lasts for the long term, or in the alternative, isn’t completely life-destroying, these are vital considerations.
How to choose a wife? With your eyes open and your armor on. It doesn’t guarantee you victory, but it helps prevent the most grievous injuries.
Sad, when war has become an appropriate metaphor for marriage.
Determination won’t matter much. But preparation will.
Most of all, be prepared for a lot of women calling you a misogynist for caring about fairness and equality.
Updated to add: my Facebook feed shows that the video is from that crazy RazorBladeCandy guy who dedicated five hours of his life to describing how much I hate men and wish to enslave them. Apparently he is obsessed with Karen, too.
Karen’s comments are still gold and worth reading.
Someone posted a link on my Facebook page to comments the fabulous Karen Straughan made on a video on YouTube. I didn’t watch the video, so I don’t specifically know what she was responding to, but I found her comments to be very interesting. I’m going to reprint them at length and then try to answer her question.
This is Karen talking:
Here’s why I attack feminism: feminism bills itself as a progressive movement, yet it employs traditional conservative tropes in order to achieve its ends, and characterizes its appeals to the traditional as “progressive”.
Actual conservatism (whether you agree with it or not) is more honest. It says “women are incapable of X, therefore women need protection from Y, and men must provide that protection”. Feminism says “women are every bit as capable of X as men, but men are monsters whose agenda is to keep women subordinate, therefore women need protection from Y”.
Traditionalism says that sex is something men do to women, therefore rape is something men do to women. Feminism says that sex is something that men and women do to each other, but because of the malicious and malfeasant “Patriarchy” and all the men in charge of it and benefitting from it, rape is not just something men do to women, but a conscious process by which all men keep all women in a state of fear. Also, because of the political context, yada yada, it’s just not the same when a woman forces a man to have sex. Yes, we think men and women are equal, but it’s still different, because reasons, most of which have to do with how men created a system that oppresses women for the benefit of men.”
Conservatism said “women are temptresses, and it is a man’s responsibility to not succumb to the seductive nature of women, and if he does, then he’s at fault for defiling his own purity, oh and we’ll probably make him marry her.”
Feminism says “women are helpless victims with no sexual agency even though they should be allowed to climb random guys like fire poles and grind on them because how dare you shame her for expressing her sexuality, and it’s a man’s responsibility to not succumb to his own predatory and rapey nature, and if he does, then he’s a rapist and needs to rot in prison.”
Both ideologies hold men more to account than women. Both ruthlessly exploit conservative ideas about men and women. But only feminism says that it’s about treating both genders equally.
When we are fighting feminism, we’re often also fighting conservatism. But I’m sorry, a shotgun wedding is less bad than 20 years in prison. The acknowledgement that women are “temptresses” (that is: women have sexual agency) is better than the assertion that a woman in an abbreviated latex dress and stripper heels shouldn’t have to endure the “male gaze”. The claim that women are dependent on men and should be appreciative and respectful of the men they’re dependent on is better than the claim that women are independent and need men like fish need bicycles, while women rake in 75%+ of available government benefits that are funded disproportionately by men.
Marriage, even to a harpy, is better than being impoverished paying child support to a harpy who accused you of DV and got you jailed for it and who won’t let you see your kids, and who has you thrown in prison for non-payment because your DV record got you fired from your job, and then claims that she’s all about “equality” between the sexes. I’m sorry, but it is.
Feminism is traditionalism dialed up to 11. When we fight feminism, we’re fighting extreme traditionalism. Moderate traditionalism can wait.
She gets attacked pretty harshly by commenters who feel one must address feminism and traditionalism as mutually complicit in a culture that refuses to care about men. Karen goes on the explain her position a little more clearly:
I think perhaps my biggest beef with feminism is that it has convinced society in general that society hates women and has always hated women, when in reality all societies have largely served women. And they’ve essentially said that men created these societies that hate women for their own benefit and privilege.
This is a smear on the characters of men that I have a great deal of trouble tolerating, and even more so because it is not remotely true, and I doubt it has ever been true.
During the suffragette era, there were political cartoons that showed a sweating, distressed male politician sitting between two pretty young women, one wearing a sash that said “suffragette” and another wearing one that said “anti-suffragette”. Back when universal male suffrage was enduring its birthing pains, the UK put the question to women: do you want the vote? 70% of women said no. Yet Cenk Uygur acted in our interview as if there was no way male politicians would have given women the vote were it not for the suffragettes committing acts of domestic terrorism. He ignored the fact that women themselves opposed women’s suffrage, and that this was a major reason why women got the vote later than men. So literally, a government listening to women was a government that was oppressing them.
I guess what I’m getting at is that both traditionalism and feminism require that men provide for, protect, and sacrifice for women. Traditionalists call that loving women. Feminists call that hating women. This is why I oppose feminism first and foremost–all feminist roads lead to misogyny.
As for going back to traditionalism, I don’t think it’s possible. The toothpaste is out of the tube. As George RR Martin wrote once, the cow’s been milked, there’s no squirting the cream back up her udder.
Then Karen goes on to ask the million dollar question:
I never said traditionalists accept an individual man for what they are. I said “do X, Y and Z and you’ll get respect.”
The difference between traditionalists and feminists is that they both demand you do X, Y and Z. Traditionalists will respect you for it. Feminists will spit on you for it.
You can do what you want. I can understand why you’re upset with me. But I’m not going to lie to you. I’m not going to say there’s some world where you won’t be required to do X, Y and Z. I’m only saying that if you manage to do that, you should be respected rather than shit on.
Like I said to some in this thread, show me an alternative. The alternative depends on convincing society to care about men as much as they care about women. So show me how to make society do that. Show me it’s possible. Show me a society in the boonies in Nepal that made that work, even on a small scale. Show me that it can happen, on a visceral, emotional level.
Traditionalism is bad for men. Feminism is worse. If you were forced to choose between them, which would you pick?
Show me the alternative. How do we make society care about men as much as they care about women? Both Karen and another commenter mention the possibility of artificial wombs – remove women’s reproductive powers and suddenly the playing field gets a whole lot more level. There is something Matrix-like and creepy about the idea of gestating babies in machines, and obviously, that requires a massive amount of technology.
Instead of eradicating women’s reproductive powers, perhaps we should be considering making men’s reproductive powers equal to women’s? Birth control technology for men would go a long way towards achieving this, but we could affect this change tomorrow by changing two laws:
Reproductive rights for men
Legal presumption of shared custody
I’ve written before about legal parental surrender and allowing men to walk away from children they have contributed genetic material to, just as women may do, but having given the issue more thought, I am convinced that will only lead to increased hatred of men, not less. For a law surrounding reproductive rights to create a society that genuinely cares about men, the law needs more bite. It needs as much bite as the reproductive rights women currently enjoy.
No human child may be born without the on going and affirmative consent of the adults involved.
Gender neutral and perfectly clear. To give birth to a child without the explicit consent of everyone who contributed genetic material should be a felony and the child should immediately be seized and placed for adoption by the state. In the beginning, to be sure, we are going to end up seizing a lot of babies under equal reproductive rights, but it will not take long for reality to sink in: make this choice and you will suffer for it.
And note that no one will be forced into abortions they do not want. If a woman falls pregnant with a child the father does not consent to, she will not be forced to abort that child. She is free to follow her conscience and give birth to that child. She will not be allowed to keep it, but she may give birth to it. Marital status will make no difference. If you do not have the consent of the father, the infant will be seized.
The most immediate effect of a law like this is that a market for male reproductive services emerges. A 35-year-old woman that no man on the planet has consented to reproduce with has a choice: she can pay a man to consent to parenthood. His consent means that he is obliged to support the resulting child so his fee will be:
Child support + ongoing expenses over 18 years + premium for looks, intelligence, height, etc.
That could be a very sweet deal, and men will suddenly be rather valued by women who choose to forgo any efforts towards attracting men into a mutually beneficial pair-bond.
Wanna be a bitch? Have at it. If you want kids, you will pay for it.
There’s step one in creating a society that values men: bring their reproductive value up to the same value as women’s by prohibiting the use of their genetic material without explicit consent. Now on to step two: the presumption of shared parenting. Just as men and women are afforded equal reproductive rights, so too shall they be accorded equal parenting rights.
The genetic offspring of two individuals is the rightful custodial responsibility of both equally.
Wanna break up your relationship? Have at it. But you will not take the children with you.
This also creates a market. Let’s say a woman whom no man has consented to have a child with desperately wants children. She will have to prove her worth to the man by parenting his existing children brilliantly. This is gender neutral, of course. A man who wishes to have more children will also have to parent a woman’s existing children very well to prove his worth.
Both of these laws instantly provide men with something they currently lack under feminist acknowledgements: worth. Of course, men are inherently worthwhile as human beings – I am simply highlighting the fact that feminists ascribe them no worth, and describing that truth, as Karen notes, is not endorsing it.
Women have gotten away with shit from time immemorial because we have the babies. No society can live without us. It is the sole source of our value and always will be. A society in which all women are brilliant engineers and not one of them will have children is a dead society.
Let’s give men the same value.
No human child may be born without the express and on-going consent of the adults involved.
The genetic offspring of two individuals is the rightful custodial responsibility of both equally.
Well, what do you think?
Reproductive equality is the key to making a society that cares about men as much as women. Equality leads to more equality?
This was published on Thought Catalog a few days ago, but I am just getting around to linking it now. By no means an exhaustive list of all the whiny, bitchy pointless caterwauling feminists engaged in in 2014.
There’s also manspreading – men sitting comfortably on a train is just pure, outrageous misogyny. Women never take up too much space on trains. Look at the picture used to illustrate the original story: there is a woman sitting with her knees splayed apart right across from the manspreading offender – and you’ll note the seat next to him is empty! He isn’t bothering anybody! The reality that pretty much everyone sits comfortably on trains is right in front of their eyes and they still can’t see it.
And now we have manslamming – this refers to women who refuse to get out of men’s way on the sidewalk, deliberately run into them, and then blame the men.
Seriously, seriously stupid. Grown women need to be taught the etiquette of using sidewalks? The person moving the slowest moves over. Is it really that hard? It doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman. If you want people to move out of your way, grab some sensible shoes and pick up the pace, bitch.
And who can forget the woman-hating reality of women choosing to use bathrooms to socialize, fix their hair and makeup and adjust complicated clothing – this is also men’s fault. It’s pure unadulterated misogyny that men use bathrooms to pee and get the hell out. How dare they wear clothing that is quick and easy to function in, when it comes to tending the call of nature?
Here are six more ways feminists were whiny, joyless shrews in 2014. The comments are hilarious – feminist haters are pissed at being mocked, but it’s not like they made it difficult or anything.
2015 is sure to bring even more pissing, moaning and whining from the feminist brigade, but it will also bring a whole lot of push back.
Are you sick of these whiny bitches? Me too.
Let’s show feminists the door in 2015. Bye bye now.
Don’t let the bathroom door hit you in the ass on your way out.
judgybitch 