Last week’s Great Mondaydact Browser Smasher appears to have triggered some thoughtful commentary among Ye Olde Faithfule on the subject of marriage and matrimony. Specifically, there was some very good discussion around how being a Christian, by itself, is absolutely no guarantee for a stable and happy marriage.

This is true.

There is no point even trying to argue about this issue, when divorce rates among even serious Christians are not that far off from those of secular and nominal Christians. The data on the subject are spotty, as far as I can tell. The largest study on the subject was that (in)famous Pew Research Centre study from 2014, which means the data are badly in need of a refresh by now.

The data from that study were NOT encouraging. US Protestants divorced at rates of around 50% – which, given the US is a mostly Protestant country to begin with, is a big part of the reason why that famous meme exists about how 50% of all marriages end in divorce. And that was, again, 11 years ago. The rates are almost certainly MUCH higher today.

However, that is not the full story. The type of religious affiliation has a substantial impact on divorce rates. Probably inevitably, Christians, of any stripe, who are conservative in their faith, and who actively attend church, are much less likely to divorce, than nominal Christians, or even conservative Christians who do not attend a church.

Why is that?

Because church attendance means fellowship and social connection. And that means a self-reinforcing web of tradition, eyeballs on your behaviour, and – let’s face it – pressure, that stops both men and women from stepping out of line in their marriages.

This, incidentally, is why Hindus in India have exceedingly low rates of divorce. There is COLOSSAL societal pressure on people to stay married, even if their marriages are absolutely miserable, even if there is severe abuse against one spouse (mostly, but not always, the wife), or even in the genuinely horrifying cases of child sexual abuse. The entire subcontinent suffers from TITANIC socio-sexual dysfunction, which is a big part of the reason why India produces such horribly unattractive women and such vast numbers of Gamma males.

But this now leads us to another, even more fundamental, issue with the modern church – which is that the current church is simply not well equipped to teach young men about dating, sex, marriage, and fidelity, in a Biblical and authoritative way:

As the video above points out, a big part of this is generational. Not only do the divides cut across generations, they cut within them.

The Silent and Greatest Generations had a very different view of marriage than their Boomer children do – the Boomers being the most narcissistic, entitled, destructive, selfish, and profoundly evil generation in recent history. Gen-X, being sandwiched somewhere in the middle, became deeply cynical and checked out after watching their parents – many of them early Boomers – getting divorced and destroying the lives of their children in the process. Those Gen-Xers that did get married and have kids, often became “helicopter parents”, as did most of the older Millennials – the ones who did not become completely woke and retarded, the way their younger counterparts did. And, having watched their own Millennial parents fail at the basics of marriage, sex, and fidelity – for Millennials are getting married and having sex at far lower rates than previous generations – Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha appear to be largely lost, addicted to devices, incapable of making human connections, and struggling mightily with identity and morality.

The results of these inter- and intra-generational divides are shocking, and terrible. We now have entire generations of young so-called “Christians”, who attend churches that do not adhere to basic Biblical teachings around what is and is not permissible for men and women.

Indeed, the video above actually elides over a critical aspect of Scripture that most “Christians” feel very uncomfortable about discussing. That is the role of women in the Church.

The Apostle Paul is absolutely clear on this subject in his letters – women are to be silent. They are not to be put into positions of leadership or authority, and they must NEVER be in a position over men. The man is the head of his household, and the woman is to submit to his authority.

When we say such things in public, we are of course excoriated for being misogynistic and caveman-like. Our critics always overlook or conveniently forget the fact that, in those very same chapters of those exact same letters, you will find verses telling husbands to love our wives and give ourselves up for them – to sacrifice our time, money, and even health to protect and preserve our wives. St. Paul admonishes us not to be harsh with our wives, to remember that they are the weaker sex, and to love and glorify them as we do our own bodies.

That is the Biblical pattern of marriage – of two bodies and two souls that join into one, without ever losing the identity and independence of self that each part contains. This is, as the Epistles teach us, a profound mystery, perhaps in some ways almost as profound as the mystery of the Trinity itself.

But the problem remains for young men today: the modern church has failed them.

Those who are married within the Church, find it difficult to relate to those who are not. We can put this down to some extent to “survival bias”, as it were. This is why the advice of men like Our Beloved and Dreaded Supreme Dark Lord (PBUH) Voxemort the Most Malevolent and Terrible, seems to ring hollow to many young single men. He has been married for something like 30 years and has 4 children, so when he tells men to take the risks and get married, he speaks as one who has “lucked out”, so to speak. He rid himself of his previously hedonistic ways, moved away from agnosticism, and found that “unicorn”, that good woman who was (and remains) faithful to him, and who is by all accounts an intellectual sparring partner that he loves and respects.

That is the dream for most men. It is unrealisable for the vast majority of them in today’s culture.

What, then, is the modern church to do?

Well, a lot of it does come back to what Scripture says – and what it does not say.

Scripture makes perfectly clear that marriage is between one man and one woman, before God – NOT government. The State has injected itself into this relationship and completely poisoned it as a result, by giving women rights that do not exist in a Biblical marriage, without commensurate responsibilities. Likewise, the State has placed responsibilities on men that, again, do not exist in the Bible, but has stripped them of their rights.

This is an unacceptable deal. No man should willingly choose to take it.

Unfortunately, if you want to get married, you have to accept these terms now. But that does not mean you have no way to immunise yourself or prevent the State from destroying you.

If you do get married as a Christian, then you must be extremely picky about your partner. Do not allow your desire to have a family and stability, override your good sense. Find a woman from a happy family where the father was involved in her life, and who loved and protected her. As LRFotS MrUNIVAC so rightly pointed out in a recent comment:

If I could give young men advice, it would be:

1) NEVER give in to a “marry me or else” ultimatum. If she pulls that, it’s a massive red flag and you should ditch her and don’t look back. If she really loves you, she’ll back off, but it’s up to you if you now want to take her back and be on edge for the rest of your relationship.
2) RUN, don’t walk, if her mother is her “best friend.” Every woman I knew like that was seriously messed up psychologically, and any conflict will end poorly for you because she will choose her “best friend” over you every time.
3) Also, take a good look at her father, since that’s her model for what a man should be and she’ll always be sizing you up with him in her mind (and sometimes to your face!). If you don’t want to be like him, then get out fast.
4) Listen to your family if you get along with them. They have your best interests at heart and even if they make you mad, they are coming at you from a place of love. I would have saved myself a lot of pain had I done that.

All of this is great advice – especially the bit about having an active and loving father. You, as her potential husband, ARE going to be measured against the only man in her life that she has as a yardstick. That is her father. If her father was absent, or abusive, or cheated, or was weak, or was abusive… well, that introduces a whole host of daemonic influences straight into her head and life that you cannot overcome on your own.

Now, suppose the woman you have found, has some of those problems, but has other things going for her. And suppose you are committed to her and want to have a go at it. What should you do?

Get a prenup.

I cannot emphasise this enough. Back in the days when marriage was a primarily religious institution, and concepts like alimony did not exist, getting married with a prenuptial agreement was like taking a shower while wearing a raincoat. Nowadays, getting married without one is like taking a shower while wearing a plugged-in toaster. It costs a few thousand dollars – and could save you hundreds of thousands in the event of a divorce.

Most of all, do not be under any illusions when you get married. NEVER marry for “love”. The feelings that you think are “love”, are not. They are hormones that mess with your logic and thinking. If you meet a girl that you really like, who is kind, sweet, beautiful, caring, wise, well-mannered, and not too crazy – because, remember, ALL WOMEN ARE CRAZY, by DEFINITION, and NO WOMAN ever scores lower than a 4 on the Crazy axis of the Hot-Crazy Matrix – then wait at least six months.

Do not rush. You have time. Never forget that men age like wine – women age like milk. You are the prize, because as we age, we gain wealth, experience, skills, power, respect, and recognition. Women start out rich and get poor fast – men start out poor and get rich slowly.

If you do get married, remember to treat marriage like a business, in which you are the Founder & CEO, and your wife is the COO/CFO. The two of you need to have regular meetings and discussions on what is going right, and what is going wrong. When something goes wrong, after all the yelling and screaming is done, then you MUST come to some sort of agreement on how to proceed forward.

This will entail compromise of some kind. If you are not prepared to make compromises on some things – especially those concerning your time – then you are not ready to get married.

This applies equally to women, by the way. There was a divorce in my own immediate family over the last few years, and in my view it happened because the woman in question did not want to compromise over where she lived and around her lifestyle.

As for the women – denial of sex to your husband is an absolute red line. Doing so is a profound violation of your marriage vows and your role as a woman. Never, ever use this, even as a threat. If you do so, then you have unleashed actual violence within your marriage, and you alone are responsible for its failure.

This goes for men too, by the way. The Bible makes clear that wives must not deny their husbands – but husbands, likewise, must not deny their wives. It is fine to say “not tonight, dear”, in a respectful and calm tone, provided there is a clear indication that intimacy will follow at a later time, and that the delay is for a legitimate reason. No good man can hate a wife who says “no” in a respectful and humble way – else he is not a good man.

If the business venture fails, then remember one very critical thing, which several of Ye Oldies around here can back up:

Men recover better from divorce, in the long run, than women do.

Several of the men who read that poast from two Mondays back, have been divorced. Two of them got divorced in the last 3 years. To a man, all of them are better off today than they were with their old ladies. And those women are in serious pain because of their own decisions.

Without going into details, let us just say that I saw the same thing in my own family.

This goes back to the way men age. We get better with time, all the way through to our seventies if we take good care of ourselves. Just look at The Putin – he is an extreme outlier, for sure, but he has a schedule that would put men literally HALF his age into an early grave, and yet he is considered the ALPHA among Alphas in Russia. He has almost surely fathered more than one child out of wedlock with at least one beautiful woman – whether he has or not, is between him and God, I do not concern myself with such things. But all the evidence points to a man who is very good with children, and who treats women with utmost respect and kindness.

My final word on the subject is that Christians are absolutely called to marriage. MGTOW is profoundly anti-Christian and anti-Biblical. It does not work, except to promote ever greater division between men and women – which is precisely Satan’s intent.

Now, for those men who have been through failed relationships and marriages, and who want nothing more to do with women – that is an entirely different story. Those men took the risks. They suffered the consequences of failure. They took responsibility for their own failings, and paid a terrible price. THOSE men have earned the right to check out of the sexual and marriage market places. I do not criticise them, at all.

I DO criticise, in the strongest terms, the men who are afraid to take any risks whatsoever. That is deeply unmanly. It is feminine in the extreme. There is nothing wise or sensible about it.

So, if you do get married, do your best to find a good woman. Do your best to find a good church, too – fellowship is a fundamental aspect of the Christian life. This is something I struggle with immensely, because I am surrounded by weak-kneed liberal Protestant denominations (the kind that have literal female pastors), which I despise, and by Roman Catholics, with whom I have profound disagreements on fundamental points of Scripture. Indeed, as far as I am concerned, the modern Roman Catholic Church is basically an apostate one.

None of that changes the need for having a church around you. None of it changes the need to read the Bible every single day. The Bible is the Word – it is your sustenance. The Church is the table upon which that sustenance sits – you must respect it as such.

And, in the event that you do have daughters – first, my deep sympathies. Second, make sure you teach them that their highest calling in life is NOT an education and a career. It is to get married young, preferably between 20 and 25, and to have at least 4 kids, while supporting a good man to reach his maximum potential.