Reasons to marry

Dr. Helen asks if any man can name five of them:

This is the question I have been asking men around California that I meet at various blogger and pundit meet-ups for dinner. One dinner guest I sat next to the other night told me he had gotten married last week. We were discussing marriage at the table and I turned to him and asked why he had gotten married. “Can you name one reason a man should get married?” I asked, trying somehow to be polite, but probably failing miserably.

He thought about it for a minute and said “because the woman wants to and he will lose her if he doesn’t.” That sounds more like blackmail to me than a reason. Last night, at another event, I asked other men if they could name five reasons a man should get married. There was silence and then a discussion about the war against men and if that was true or not.

 I am happy to oblige.  In fact, I can even provide five reasons that start with the letter C.

1. Christianity: extramarital sex is sinful and it is better to marry than burn.
2. Children: children require a marital structure for a healthy and stable upbringing and men who want to continue their line are well-advised to marry.  The future belongs to those who show up for it.
3. Civilization: we have an obligation to those who founded and built our civilization to continue it.  Marriage is a vital foundation of civilization.
4. Contentment: a happily-married man is more content, more healthy, and likely to live longer than a never-married man, a divorced man or a widower.  And even an unhappily-married man has the benefit of viewing death as a sweet release.
5. Courage: marriage is a real risk, both emotionally and financially.  It is stupid and dishonest to pretend otherwise.  Men are not women, to live life in a risk-averse manner, and shunning even the possibility of marriage due to the risks it poses is a cowardly, even unmanly, stance.  This is not to say that all marital risks justify the taking, of course, that would be ludicrous.

I don't blame men who are marriage-averse due to the evil family court regime and the way the legal system is stacked against them.  Not at all.  On the other hand, living in fear is no way for a self-respecting man to live his life.  Men need to keep in mind that they do not have to passively submit to the meat-grinding system once their ex-wives-to-be enter into it.  Rather than live as an emasculated half-man in court-imposed serfdom, leave and live as a free man elsewhere.  Join the French Foreign Legion.  Become a pirate.  Become a missionary.  Start a new life in Brazil or Bangladesh or Bangkok.

And remember, marriages do turn out well, and not infrequently.  You may find your wife to be your Biblical helpmeet or your life-partner in crime.  Women may blow up most failed marriages, but they end 80 percent of 40 percent of all first marriages.  That means your marriage has a 2 in 3 chance of avoiding even the possibility of the androsphere's horror stories.