To wonder why this attitude towards marriage for men still exists?! [hmm]

[GreenGreenTreesOfHome]

NC for this as I don't want it linking with my other posts.

There was a man on Family Fortunes yesterday, who said he wants to treat his parents to a holiday for their 50th wedding anniversary if he wins some decent money. He said 'my dad has had 2 life sentences, he deserves the break!' He said NOTHING about his mum.

It really REALLY fucking pissed me off. He thought he was funny, Gino just looked a bit and it was pretty much like tumbleweed in the TV studio (with a couple of quiet nervous giggles,) but it made me so furious.

Why is it a 'life sentence' for a man to be married for a long time, but an achievement, and something to be celebrated for a woman? I thought this horrible, wanky attitude had been consigned to the history books.

But no, for men, it's still a tedious chore to be married apparently, and a 'ball and chain' and a 'life sentence!' Yet it's OK for women to be married, and as I say, it's classed as an achievement, and something to be celebrated for HER.

I have heard many times in the past actually, that men are healthier and happier when they're married, and actually get more out of marriage than women do. So why is this bullshit still a thing?

@madisonbridges

If I'd been his wife I'd have walked off on the spot. It's a tv show. You think that all this isn't all previously rehearsed? His mother will have known what he's going to say.

The point is over there, my friend...

FFS

Agree it's misogynistic. But this stuff is insulting to men as well, as if they are animals who are 'tamed' by nagging wives. Or are unable to have meaningful or equal relationships with women. So tedious.

One of the happiest women I know is my aunt who never had kids or got married. As a kid I found it quite perplexing and often felt sorry for her that she'd missed out. Now as an adult I look at her and think she was way ahead of her time!

[quote YungWaffle]@Claudethecat
I'm talking about our current context, because the topic is about our current context.
I'm aware that there are other rationales for marital rights.[/quote]
Your arguments don't seem very current to me at all. I think you have a very outdated view of marriage and of women.

@southlondoner02

Agree it's misogynistic. But this stuff is insulting to men as well, as if they are animals who are 'tamed' by nagging wives. Or are unable to have meaningful or equal relationships with women. So tedious.

I know. Utterly awful on both sides. As if men and women are all brainless animals who have no agency over their lives and just trudge down paths determined for them by society. Just grim.

@YungWaffle

I'm talking specifically about marriage. Even now, lots of women have children outside of wedlock.

For most men, the premise is essentially if either party is dissatisfied with the partnership to the point that they dissolve, the man has to hand over a portion of his assets to his wife, alongside a monthly sum.

It gives one party much more incentive to make the union a happy one (even if this doesn't necessarily play out in reality).

This is in exchange for something that plenty of women would do without the contract.

I don't even know where to begin with this grossly offensive, insulting, and ignorant piece of tripe.

I will say one thing though, if a man is married, NOTHING is 100% HIS. So if they divorce (and in many cases it's because of the mans infidelity or abuse,) then damn fucking RIGHT his wife gets half of everything. Especially as in most cases, she will have sacrificed so much for him and his career, and raised HIS children. Why the fuck WOULDN'T she get half? If anything, she should get more than half!

@southlondoner02

Agree it's misogynistic. But this stuff is insulting to men as well, as if they are animals who are 'tamed' by nagging wives. Or are unable to have meaningful or equal relationships with women. So tedious.

I do agree some shitty things are said to men too, like if a man is packing the shopping at he checkout, the woman will say 'you've got him well trained' and similar.

But that's not what this thread is about. It's about how insulting this shit is to women.

OMG, I read your post literally, thought he'd done two life sentences, probably for murder and that the tumbleweed reaction was a response to his son's lighthearted 'celebration' of serious crime.

Which goes to show that, amongst some of us, this style of 'humour' has died out to such very deadness that we don't recognise it as humour at all.

@GreenGreenTreesOfHome

I seem to have riled you up, but that's entirely my point.
Without marriage, the woman in the situation you describe would get nothing (unless there were children involved).
My mother raised 3 children with 3 different men she did not marry.
It happens.
It made her life difficult, but the outcomes were pretty positive from their perspective.

@yungwaffle you are specifically talking about children, if I divorce my husband there is literally no reason for him to 'hand over a monthly sum' and your damn right i get part of the assets that I have contributed to, you just seem to mistakenly believe they are all his. The senario you are talking about where a man sometimes hands over assets which he has primarily paid into along with a monthly sum are usually divorces including children. They can avoid this by actually looking after their children themselves, fathers who to 50/50 care dont have to pay child maintenence so if a man is handing over a monthly sum its because the woman is doing more than her fair share of parenting

@DropYourSword

I thought this horrible, wanky attitude had been consigned to the history books

Seriously? Yeah, it’s a crappy comment but are you honestly naive enough to think that this short of attitude and behaviour is truly only relegated to the history books? You must know there’s still plenty of crappy attitude remaining and it’s a slow slow grind to improvement.

Considering what has happened to both of my married daughters in the last few years, I’m not at all sure that there is a slow slow grind to improvement.

@20thCenturyFoxes
Awful to think that those gagged women and girls cooperated with the “joke” photos.

And finally: it’s easy to spot the hidden men on this thread, isn’t it?

@yungwaffle

Without marriage, the woman in the situation you describe would get nothing (unless there were children involved).

Without marriage if a couple have paid into a mortgage they would share the assets on splitting
With marriage if the couple have paid i to a mortgage on splitting
Without marriage if a couple have children one of them may be resposible for child maintenance
With marriage if a couple have children one of them may be responsible for child maintenece

I wonder if you are not in the uk and I am? Because in the uk spousal maintences is highly unlikely so i dont know what other monthly sum you are referring to other than child maintence which is a legal requirment not a post marital one

And yes there may be some women who get married, dont work and then get a share of the assets on divorce, buts its a vanishingly rare number baring health issues or having to relocate due to their partners work (military partners etc)

He said 'my dad has had 2 life sentences, he deserves the break!' He said NOTHING about his mum.

I find that really incredibly offensive in terms of joking about life sentences, tbh. Life sentences. Think about that. Just in the past couple of years we've seen news about crimes and life sentences and arguments around tariff points and Warboys and Pitchfork and all the other cunts whose names I don't want to type, and it's NOT BLOODY FUNNY.

Was Bob Monkhouse presenting this episode of Family Fortunes?

Because it sounds like something from the early 80s school of 'humour'.

@IBelieveInAThingCalledScience

It's especially ironic considering countless studies have proven that single women are happier than single men and married men live longer than their single counterparts.

Evidently men have a lot more to gain from marriage than women.

This has been pretty much debunked, actually.

@GreenGreenTreesOfHome Yes exactly these kind of comments! We've discussed marriage and decided it's not for us. We've been together over a decade, have a child, a mortgage and are very happy. Yet I still get lots of 'jokes' and genuine sympathy that he's never got down on one knee to 'make an honest woman' of me.
I'm not anti-marriage per se but I do really dislike a lot of the antiquated traditions around it. E.g, a woman 'waiting' to be asked like it's some sort of prestigious honour to be bestowed by a man. The 'giving away' by the father of the bride, the wearing of white to signify virginity...

Yes all about the suffering of the "Ball and Chain” caused by "her indoors” and “She who must be obeyed”

I find the whole culture of "lol I hate my spouse" SO SO SO weird.

There was a piece in the NYT yesterday where this woman basically said, I hate my husband, marriage is awful and requires compromising, he is the most annoying person in the world (I'm paraphrasing, but it was about 1500 words about how annoying he was). It was so weird. Don't stay married to someone you dislike that much? Stop pretending it's normal to despise the person you're married to?

It's here: thankfully all the quote tweets seem to point out that in heterosexual culture there's a really fucking weird trend of it being fine to say you hate your spouse.

I think it stems from men especially not wanting to be seen as 'soft', but it's weird. I don't see what's funny about pretending you don't like the person you're with.

@ArblemarzipanTFruitcake

Was Bob Monkhouse presenting this episode of Family Fortunes?

Because it sounds like something from the early 80s school of 'humour'.

Do you remember when he got his folio of jokes nicked from his car?

Apparently it was a DeLorean and it went back to the early 1970s.

And finally: it’s easy to spot the hidden men on this thread, isn’t it?
Unhide them and tell us who they are.

It was a joke? Not very funny to me. No one laughed. Don't really see the problem.

Bet the bloke who said it felt like a right idiot, though.

@Toomanyradishes
I think for some reason you believe I'm arguing that men shouldn't have to share their assets with their wives or pay for their children, which I'm not.
My point is that marriage usually (because of the way marriage and social norms play out) means that men, in aggregate, end up having to pay more than they would if they were not married.
The "benefits" of marriage for the wealthier partner (offspring, sex, companionship) are often provided without marriage.
From that perspective, it's easy to see why some men will represent marriage as the outcome of a game that a man has lost. That has nothing to do with my personal views on marriage.
I'm currently the higher earner in my relationship for one.

Sickening and completely not funny. Poor bloke, married to a woman who has no doubt raised his children, sacrificed her career prospects and pampered to his needs for 50 years - and let’s not forget that rape within marriage was only a crime from what, 1991? Bet she had a wonderful life having “snagged her man” and having to work her arse off at home with no recognition, but poor guy, despite his freedom out there in the workforce, he couldn’t be happy, if only she had let him off the leash there would have been so many young busty beauties just gagging to leap into bed with some middle aged random - er, no, not even the Sun tries to peddle this nonsense any more.

The patronising idea that men are always the financial losers in divorce needs to be debunked as well - plenty of women out earn their partners these days, or need recompense for the financial losses incurred in raising children. This ridiculous concept that all men are doing women a favour by marrying them is outdated. It should be a match of equals, and if a man feels financially hard done by on a division of assets by a court after divorce then he’s either a fool or a misogynist.

Yeah, I agree. It’s a shit attitude perpetuated by sad men. This is why I found myself a man grateful for our joint commitment to the relationship. It helps that his family absolutely does not tolerate this kind of attitude and would wipe the floor with him if he ever said something like this. I feel sorry for women stuck with men the likes of this kind.

Oh please. Don't delude yourself that participants on those shows are behaving or speaking spontaneously. The whole show is scripted and directed. Every " amateur contestant" has been primed coached and rehearsed by the producers, fed lines written for them to say , and probably trotted them out several times to camera until the studio producer has got the right "take".