Marriage is in open retreat

Texas sociology professor Mark Regnerus pushes his new book in WSJ:

Marriage in the U.S. is in open retreat. As recently as 2000, married 25- to 34-year-olds outnumbered their never-married peers by a margin of 55% to 34%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 2015, the most recent year for which data are available, those estimates had almost reversed, with never-marrieds outnumbering marrieds by 53% to 40%. Young Americans have quickly become wary of marriage.

Many economists and sociologists argue that this flight from marriage is about men’s low wages. ... Another hypothesis blames the decline of marriage on men’s fear of commitment. ...

My own research points to a more straightforward and primal explanation for the slowed pace toward marriage: For American men, sex has become rather cheap. As compared to the past, many women today expect little in return for sex, in terms of time, attention, commitment or fidelity. Men, in turn, do not feel compelled to supply these goods as they once did. It is the new sexual norm for Americans, men and women alike, of every age.

His theory boils down to saying that men are too selfish, and women are too generous.

This is a blue pill theory.

Marriage was redefined, and now it is less appealing to both men and women, for different reasons. These were deliberate policy changes, and not the inevitable result of technology. There has been a leftist movement to abolish marriage, and it has largely succeeded.

Dalrock explains, along with his own criticism of Regnerus:

Margaret Wente at the Globe and Mail* asks where all the good men have gone. ...

What Wente doesn’t understand is that timing is everything. From an economic point of view, women are dividing up sexual access that traditionally would have been reserved only for their husband into two blocks. The first block contains their most attractive and fertile years, and it is dedicated to no strings sex with exciting badboys. Then, once women reach what Rollo calls the epiphany phase, they want to bargain sexual access in their remaining (older and less fertile) years for maximum beta bucks.