- Adam Lee on whether marriage can survive the continued emancipation of women;
- Thought of the day about who’s making progress and who are against it;
- Short takes on a Republican loonie, on a Christian who advises calling gay men a slur; how Republicans reflexively opposite everything Democrats implement to help people, as being “woke”; and how Republicans favor business over public safely, every time.
Today’s think piece.
OnlySky, Adam Lee, 10 Dec 2025: The end of marriage?, subtitled “If marriage goes extinct, it will be because it deserves to.”
Haven’t read it yet. Why would this be? Among some progressives there’s an idealistic notion that human nature can somehow be overcome. I’m less sanguine about that.
OK then. The article is about the roles of women (and not whether some institution will remain necessary for the raising of children). I’ll sample:
In the traditional picture, men work and earn the income while women manage the household and raise the children. Even though this mythologized scenario lacked equality, at least it had a clear expectation of what each partner is—and isn’t—responsible for doing.
But this white-picket-fence scenario was never a universal reality, even in the postwar era. Today, it’s less realistic than ever. Jobs are more precarious, workers’ rights are under relentless attack, and the price of essential goods like housing, health care and education is ballooning. With America squeezed in the vise of inflation, a stay-at-home spouse is a luxury that increasingly few couples can afford. More and more middle-class families need two working adults just to survive.
In fact, since women are now more educated than men, often it’s women who are the breadwinners in their marriages. They bring in the income that keeps their families afloat.
And yet men still expect the wives to do all the housework; thus marriage is becoming less attractive to women.
And on top of that, there’s the widening political divide between men and women. As women become more educated and independent, they’re becoming sharply more liberal. They want to have their own careers, earn their own money, and be in control of their own lives without having to depend on anyone else or ask anyone else’s permission for the things they want to do.
At the same time, more men, including young men, are being drawn to conservative ideologies that demand their wives submit to them, and that seek to ban abortion, outlaw contraception, even restrict divorce. In short, ideologies whose main goal is to deprive women of autonomy over their bodies and lives.
All these factors converge on one result: increasingly, women are finding marriage unappealing. They see it as a ticket to second-class status where they’re expected to subordinate their own lives and dreams to the desires of men.
Then considering the red states.
The fact that women are becoming less religious is almost certainly another force driving this trend. In the past, religion was the main force smoothing over the mismatched expectations and entrenched inequalities of marriage. Religious beliefs conditioned women to accept subordination as their God-given role. No surprise that, as more women see through these patriarchal lies, they’re less willing to be subjugated to men’s desires.
And how the propagandists are freaking out.
One obvious way to fix the problem would be to urge men to be better partners. After all, it’s rational for women to reject marriage when they perceive it as a bad bargain. You could imagine that religious conservatives, who claim to be pro-marriage and pro-family above all else, would want to redress this imbalance. You could imagine church leaders and cultural authorities telling men that, if they want to get married and have a family, they have to be good husbands and fathers. They have to make their wives’ lives better, rather than dragging them down.
But, of course, they’re not doing any of that.
Instead, they’re intensifying the propaganda. They’re doubling down on their insistence that women don’t need education or careers, and that getting married, ideally young, is the sole path to fulfillment.
The most rabidly misogynist are loudly insisting that giving women political power and economic freedom was a mistake. As disgusting as it is, this is a telling admission: they know the life they’re offering is so miserable that people won’t choose it if given the choice, so the only thing to do is to take away that choice.
So, is marriage doomed?, the writer asks. Not if men can fix the problems with it.
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Related, which I haven’t read:
NY Times, opinion by Michelle Goldberg, 9 Dec 2025: Republican Women Suddenly Realize They’re Surrounded by Misogynists
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Thought of the day, somehow inspired by Trump’s latest speech:
I’m thinking that human progress, in the broadest sense, has been the result of a very tiny fraction of the population, no more than 1% (if not quite the lone genius theory of human history), who make the discoveries and dare to challenge the status quo, while the rest of humanity has trailed along, using those discoveries without understanding them, or actively resisting new ideas and such progress. Currently, those resisting would be the entire Republican party, and all religions. To simplify grossly. They are coat-tailing off the progress that others, the scientists and progressives, have made.
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Short takes.
- Another Republican loonie.
- JMG, 11 Dec 2025 (via ProPublica): QAnon Ron Johnson Backs Using Bleach To Treat Autism
- Christian love!
- LGBTQNation, Alex Gollinger, 11 Dec 2025: Hate preacher demands Christians start calling gay men “fa***ts”
- Republicans seem to have no policy except for opposing everything Democrats do.
- If changing a typeface makes it easier for some people to read, Republicans are against it as being “woke”.
- NY Times, 9 Dec 2025: At State Dept., a Typeface Falls Victim in the War Against Woke, subtitled “Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Biden-era move to the sans serif typeface ‘wasteful,” casting the return to Times New Roman as part of a push to stamp out diversity efforts.
- Similarly, Republicans favor business over public safety. Every time.
- NY Times, 10 Dec 2025: Starting With Formaldehyde, Trump Administration Reassesses Chemical Risks
- Subtitled: “A draft memo from the E.P.A. assumes a safe threshold exists for formaldehyde, upending earlier findings that there is no safe level of exposure to the carcinogen.”
