Love & Marriage

Sex and marriage are - shall we say - intimately entwined.

The share of Americans ages 25-34 who are married dropped 13 percentage points from 2000 to 2014. A new book by sociologist Mark Regnerus blames this declining rate on how easy it is for men to get off.

Today's American norms show that very few people need to marry to achieve their goal of having as much sex as they want.

Self-love for men and women is at an all-time high. A 1992 study found that 29 percent of men (and 9 percent of women) masturbated at least once a week. In 2014, 49 percent of men (and 32 percent of women) confessed to doing it at least once in the previous six days. Unsurprisingly, “as frequency of [watching] porn increased, so did masturbation.”

That's sex. Not love.

Love remains elusive for many, if not most, of the American population.

Ironically, the things that drive men to marry aren't what you'd think - the Top 4, according to Match.com:

1. Someone who treats them with respect
2. Someone who they can trust and confide in
3. Someone comfortable with communicating their wants and needs
4. Someone with a sense of humor who can make them laugh

So, since scarcity of sex is not what drives marriage, perhaps we can work on teaching our young women the Art of Being a Wife:

• Being agreeable - disagreeing without needing to tear your mate down
• NOT complaining about him to family, girlfriends, or on FB to a few thousand (or more) people
• Listening to their needs
• Finding the funny in everyday life - not shutting down their attempts to get you out of a bad mood - even if (as is probable) that remark is not that funny
• Focusing on the good that they do - once, early in their marriage, my mother decided to file for divorce. The attorney knew her family well, and said:
• You're entitle to X amount
• Let's take all that we can get
• Let's make him suffer
• After she heard that, she was on the fence (his intention) - she didn't think he was that bad. The attorney told her to go home, and - for one month - think ONLY of his good points. If she still wanted a divorce, he would file.
• Of course, after a month of changing her focus, my mother realized that she needed to make some changes herself. Most attorneys today wouldn't have the perception to realize that this was a temporary feeling, not a complete collapse of the union.

My own husband refers to me as his Partner. We are a team, dedicated to what is good for both of us. Sometimes, the scales lean one way, sometimes, the other. But, the good of the TEAM is the focus.

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