Women commit nothing

It is deeply ironic that men are generally considered the commitment-phobic sex when it is easily observable that the main reason they tend to increasingly avoid making commitments is because they are forced to take them very seriously. Women, on the other hand, superficially appear pro-commitment, but this only holds true so long as there is no substantive and quantifiable aspect to the commitment for which they can be held accountable. It's rather fascinating to see the way in which marriage has been transformed from an institution wherein wives were expected to provide actual "marital duties" to one in which sex is now widely considered to be at the sole and unilateral discretion of the wife while the husband is not permitted any reliable expectation of it, much less right to it. Consider the following question, and more importantly, the subsequent advice provided:

Q: I have been with my partner for two years and we are talking about getting married. But, he says he won’t commit himself to me (or anyone) unless there’s a firm deal in place about how often we make love. His marriage and last relationship ended because both women lost interest in sex. He says he wants an undertaking that we would have sex at least twice a week, unless one of us is ill or away. I hate the idea of sex becoming a duty rather than a pleasure. Shouldn’t love be unconditional?

A: It’s very daunting to say that you’ll be up for sex twice a week, whatever happens, even if you are feeling depressed, or menopausal, or pregnant or exhausted. And no individual can guarantee how they will feel about making love five years in the future, let alone ten or 20.

Indeed, why not ask your man how he would feel if his flag was at half-mast and you promptly dropped him. The truth is that you could make a deal on regular sex with the best of intentions and still find that circumstances change and you can’t fulfil the terms of that agreement.

Your partner must know this sex pact is unenforceable.

In answer to the question about love being unconditional, the reality is that marriage is surfeit with conditions, all of them imposed by the state. But the exchange is nicely clarifying, as the advice columnist is not only saying that the singular aspect of a marriage that literally makes a marriage a marriage, the one and only thing that a married man does not have license to obtain elsewhere at will, is not guaranteed, but even a woman's signed and written agreement to provide an agreed amount of sexual favors would be worthless.

Whether that is legally correct in all current jurisdictions or not, her answer summarizes why it makes absolutely no sense for men to marry any longer. From the material perspective, the current form of legal marriage amounts to trading a massive, long-term, government-enforced financial commitment for quite literally nothing except whatever a woman happens to feel like granting at the moment... which happens to be exactly the same thing to which any other man is equally entitled. Unless and until the concept of marital obligations are restored, paternal rights are enforced, and unilaterally imposed divorces are banned, men should staunchly refuse to enter into any relationship that can be construed as legal marriage. While I am happily married, believe very strongly in the positive importance of marriage to society, and conclude it is the optimal structure of relations between the sexes, the legal aspects of it have now been so perverted that I can no longer recommend it to any other man with a clean conscience.

Consider the following statistics. The average American watches 2.7 hours of television per day, or 1,134 minutes per week. Durex reports that married couples have sex an average of 98 times per year. Since the average sexual encounter takes 7 minutes, then the average couple spends about 13.2 minutes per week on the structural foundation of their marriage, or less than one-eightieth the time they spend watching television.

The prospective husband of this woman, who has been twice-burned in the past, is only asking for a firm assurance of what is likely less than a half an hour per week - one television show's worth of time - and yet she is balking at agreeing to even so small a material commitment. Therefore, he would be wise to refuse, even under pain of lifelong celibacy, to put a ring on her finger, because it is all but certain that if he is foolish enough to do so, he will discover the joy of being thrice-burned.

And as for the idea that neither of them will know how they feel about the other in 10 or 20 years, that has been true of every single married couple since the invention of the institution. If you cannot commit to having sex twice per week, then you should never, ever, even begin to consider getting married and it would be best for everyone if you were forced to wear a blue icicle on your clothing so that the opposite sex could have a reasonable idea of what they are getting into with you.

Men must always keep in mind that if a woman commits nothing material to a relationship, she has no grounds for complaining about a man doing the same. If you are coming under pressure to marry a woman, simply tell those putting pressure on you that you are perfectly willing to make a legally enforceable material commitment that is equal to the legally enforceable material commitment made to you. Since that is not possible under the current legal regime despite its claims to equality under the law, it is an easy means of successfully deflecting the social pressure to marry.

To paraphrase Dalrock, no man should feel any social or moral obligation to marry in a legal environment where the “commitment” is predominantly one-sided and can be effectively terminated with a single telephone call to the police or a divorce attorney.