Wagner’s Response to TGC’s Morris’s Review of “Non Toxic Masculinity” – and Morris is Incorrect About Singleness, Among Other Issues

Wagner’s Response to TGC’s Morris’s Review of “Non Toxic Masculinity” – and Morris is Incorrect About Singleness, Among Other Issues

TGC is the same group that brought us all that cringe, weird book about sex called “Beautiful Union,” whose author claimed that sex can point us all to God, which is a disaster for those of us over 30 who are still virgins and living celibately.

I had a few comments I wanted to make below this:

(Link):  A Response to Shane Morris’s TGC Review of Non-Toxic Masculinity

Excerpts:

[The review that Wagner is responding to is located here, on TGC’s site: Sexual Ethics Is More than Not Being Evil]

by Zachary Wagner

…I want to note some of my ongoing disappointment with The Gospel Coalition on their engagement with issues of sexuality, gender, and masculinity.

…For many of my friends who have left Christianity, the straw that broke the camel’s back was not merely that Christianity was sexually restrictive. It was the hypocrisy of those who condemned the culture’s sexual permissiveness while indulging in sexual sin themselves or excusing it on the part of Christian leaders and heroes.

…In particular, the juxtaposition between purity culture on the one hand and sexual scandal on the other has opened a floodgate of apostasy for Millennials in particular, including members of my family and many very dear friends. How should evangelical pastors respond to this? Morris has little to say on this point, but he seems to imply that defending purity culture and doubling down on its good intentions is the correct approach. …

This is pastorally irresponsible. Parents, pastors, and authors were the ones who should have known better, not teenagers with raging hormones and half-developed brains. The sons and daughters of purity culture have repeatedly been told that they were the problem. Any suffering or frustration or confusion they experienced was their fault, a result of their sinful and broken inclinations.

Top 13 Reasons Why People Don’t Want to Get Married Any More – and Why Staying Single Makes You Happier

Top 13 Reasons Why People Don’t Want to Get Married Any More – and Why Staying Single Makes You Happier

(Link):  Top 13 Reasons Why People Don’t Want to Get Married Any More – and Why Staying Single Makes You Happier

Excerpts:

by G. Rees
January 23, 2023

If you are about to have a baby, chances are you are more likely to be unmarried than married.

Figures from the Office of National Statistics show that 2021 was the first year on record that more children were born out of wedlock than in it.

It follows a long-term trend of declining marriage rates and rising numbers of cohabiting couples seen in recent decades.

Explaining the decline, Dr Max Blumberg, a relationship psychologist and chartered member of the British Psychological Society, says that marriage no longer offers what it used to.

Dr Blumberg, of Hampshire, says: ‘Society used to require you to get married, even if the benefits of it were not great.

‘For women especially, there was no social mobility without getting married, so even a bad one had benefits.

‘But now it has switched around and the costs of getting married are often higher than the costs of remaining single.

‘A marriage can mean compromising so you have less money, less of a career and less freedom.

‘So for many there is less value in getting married than remaining single.’

Here he breaks down exactly why the traditional institution is on the way out.

1. Traditional reasons for marriage no longer matter 

Traditionally, women needed the economic stability and social mobility of marriage. Even until the 1960s or later, men and women had set roles. But modern social structures make this increasingly less important and women’s lives are now much more flexible. They are working, pursuing careers, having babies and looking after the house – whether they are married or not. Men are also becoming more flexible in their roles but not at the same rate as women.

3. Growing acceptance of cohabiting

There has been a growing societal acceptance of cohabiting, with increasing demands for legal protection. Often people believe that living with someone prior to marriage might reduce the impact of a later divorce. In fact, cohabiting can bring more risks than marriage to couples breaking down. Yet still, it is increasingly popular, perhaps simply because it is easier and parents don’t frown on it anymore.

5. No evidence to show that marriage makes you happier and healthier (especially for women)

The benefits of marriage to men are quite clear. Studies have shown married men have better health and happiness. They also have fewer illnesses, better mental health and recover faster from sickness.

But it is not so clear cut for women.

In his 2020 book Happy Ever After: A Radical New Approach to Living Well, behavioural scientist Paul Dolan of the London School of Economics analysed global data.

He found that women who are single with no children often claim to be happier than those who are married.

They also live longer. He believes that by middle-age the effects of marriage might have begun to take mental and physical effects on some women.

Research shows that women who are single may have bigger social connections and do more social activities – which is a key marker of happiness.

The Myth of the Career Woman by M. Notkin – Why Women Are Still Single in Their 30s and Older

The Myth of the Career Woman by M. Notkin

I’m a conservative, but I’ve been beyond fed up for years now at how so many other conservatives, as well as sexists of whatever variety, assume that the reason why most women are single past the age of 30 is because they chose career before marriage.

Along with that is the other annoying, very wrong, and sexist assumption by men online that all of us women who remain single past the age of 30 had lots and lots of “nice guys” who wanted to date us back in our 20s, but we coldly, cruelly turned them all down.

I don’t know what the hell those men are talking about, because I did not have lots and lots of men asking me out on dates when I was in my twenties.

But it’s simply not true that all women choose career over “marriage and family.”

Why aren’t men giving up careers to be stay at home fathers, taking care of children?

I never cared much one way or the other if I ever had children, but I had wanted to be married. And I’m not single because I “chose career over spouse.”

I have more observations about this essay below:

(Link): The Myth of the Career Woman by M. Notkin

The image of the single, childless “career woman” is drawn so sharply in our minds, so deeply ingrained in culture and overused in media, it obfuscates the real story. Contrary to popular belief, most working women are not putting their careers ahead of love, marriage and motherhood.

Never mind that there are no “career men” — no one accuses a single, childless man of prioritizing career over love and family just because he’s single and can pay the rent.

But women are made to wear this label — though I have yet to meet a woman who has declined a date with a guy she’s interested in because she’d rather be on a Zoom call.

While college-educated women are settling down and having children later than was once the case, the “career woman” is mostly a mid-century myth, an outlier like Mad Men’s Peggy Olson, who belongs to a time when women went to college to earn their “MRS” degree.

Couples Who Marry Due to Family, Social Pressure 50% More Likely to Divorce: Study – reportage by Leonardo Blair

Couples Who Marry Due to Family, Social Pressure 50% More Likely to Divorce: Study – reportage by Leonardo Blair

And what do conservative Christians (who tend to be hyper-pro-marriage-and-pro-parenthood-and-pro-nuclear family) do BUT to highly pressure and shame single, childless adults into marrying.

I did a post here years ago about a woman who says she felt pressured to marry by her church, so she ended up marrying the wrong guy, and she regretted it, and she divorced (link to that is below, under “Related Posts”).

Christians and pro-nuclear family conservatives deify marriage (and parenthood and the nuclear family) to such an un-biblical, absurd degree that they end up alienating, insulting, and marginalizing any adult who doesn’t marry or have kids for whatever reason, and it needs to stop.

And by the way, for single adult women who had wanted to marry but remain single after the age of 30, 40, or older, getting married is not easy, but so many conservatives incorrectly assume that if you want marriage, it is easy-peasy, it’s a total snap, that if you want marriage, it will “just happen”,

(or, conservatives – and sometimes secular liberals, too – incredibly, insultingly, and unrealistically – expect single, adult women to “settle” for marrying stupid, abusive, weird, disturbed, sexist, ugly, fat, or idiot men
– of course, they hypocritically would not expect their own single adult daughter to marry a loser or weirdo (no, they advise their own single adult daughter to hold out for a quality catch),
but they feel fine advising non-family single females they run into to marry ANY GUY with a pulse who they cross paths with – it is so hypocritical and demeaning).

If one is a single, adult woman who desires marriage, it is not easy to find a decent, compatible man to marry – not on dating sites, bars, or in churches, either (most churches lack marrying-age single men, and some of the men who attend are abusive or are pedophiles who want to marry an adult woman to act as a “beard” to hide their sexual attraction to children).

(Link): Couples Who Marry Due to Family, Social Pressure 50% More Likely to Divorce: Study by Leonardo Blair

Excerpts:

Nov 2, 2022
by Leonardo Blair

Couples who get married due to family or social pressure are up to 50% more at risk of having a union that ends in divorce, according to a recent study from the Marriage Foundation in England and Wales.

The study, “Attitudes towards marriage and commitment,” published in October, asked 2,000 adults who had ever married how much they agreed or disagreed with each of 12 reasons presented by researchers for why they got married.

To ensure that the findings were relevant to today’s families, researchers then focused on 905 couples from the sample who married for the first time after the year 2000 when online dating emerged.

“What this research shows conclusively is that the reasons why people get married has a significant material impact to whether they stay together. While this might seem obvious, this has never been quantified,” said Harry Benson, Marriage Foundation’s research director, in a statement about the study shared with The Christian Post. “But the message is clear. Get married for love and your future together and not because it is either expected of you or because of family pressure.”

The Federalist Writers Continue to Disregard That Some of Their Readers Are Conservative, Single, and Childless – Re: “Childless Chris Evans’ Inspiring Condemnation Of Anti-LGBT Bigots: ‘Those People Die Off Like Dinosaurs’”

The Federalist Writers Continue to Disregard That Some of Their Readers Are Conservative, Single, and Childless – Re: “Childless Chris Evans’ Inspiring Condemnation Of Anti-LGBT Bigots: ‘Those People Die Off Like Dinosaurs’”

June 22, 2022

Post updated below, November 2022

I just wrote, (about two days ago!), (Link):  another rebuttal of sorts to another editorial at the Federalist that was, once again, in a round about way, shaming anyone single or childless for being single and childless.

And here we are again.

The owners of The Federalist, and their writers, really need to be aware that some of their readership consists of single, childless, conservative adults.

Not every un-married, childless adult out there hates the nuclear family, marriage, or parenthood, or is liberal or Democrat.

Some of us single and childless adults are conservatives who don’t agree with the progressive LGBT agenda.

Several days ago, when actor Chris Evans was informed that some nations were banning his new Disney / Pixar movie, Lightyear, because it contains a lesbian kissing scene, Evans made some kind of response in the media about how people who object to lesbianism or homosexuality will one day die off, and their views will go extinct, and he thinks that is a good thing.

While I myself do not support the entirety of the LGBT-agenda, in- so- far as they advocate things like wanting to force Christian bakers to bake wedding cakes for homosexual weddings, or legally (Link): permitting biological men who identify as women into women’s domestic violence shelters, bathrooms, and prisons, I also do not support any conservative retort that amounts to denigrating singleness or the state of being childless.

It is not necessary, fair, or kind, to push back against progressive LGBT propaganda, or to defend marriage and parenthood, at the expense of singleness and childlessness, but I will discuss this further below.

Here’s the latest singles-shaming, childless-shaming piece from The Federalist, only this time, it’s by another author, not the same one I was critiquing the other day over her essay (I will analyze it below the link and excerpts):

(Link): Childless Chris Evans’ Inspiring Condemnation Of Anti-LGBT Bigots: ‘Those People Die Off Like Dinosaurs’

Excerpts:

June 22, 2022
by Hans Fiene

Evans’s lack of children gives much greater weight to his insistence that all LGBTQIA2 opponents will go the way of the dodo.

… Next, when you remind them that they’re on the wrong side of history, they’ll repeat the debunked claim that history is more likely to be written by those who exist than those who don’t.

[When Evans was asked what his views were about anyone who was objecting to his new Lightyear movie due to its representation of homosexuality, Evans responded by conveying that]

 Their complaints will perish with them. Their bigotry will be swept into the dustbin of history. You simply need to wait for them to enter extinction.

To understand why his words are so comforting, it’s important to remember that Evans is an unmarried 41-year-old man with no children. Had his words been spoken by a man who sired offspring, they would be of no comfort to you.

… Evans’s lack of children, therefore, gives much greater weight to his insistence that all LGBTQIA2 opponents will go the way of the dodo. How can you not be comforted by the glorious confidence of this man who has reached middle age and yet has zero children to enroll in Miss Naughty’s Preschool for Drag Princesses? If kidless Captain America is certain that transgender eight-year-olds will still be a thing when the children of anti-LGBTQIA2+ Christians, Mormons, and Muslims inherit the earth, why should we fear?

Indeed they are! And you should be so confident of their idiocy that you do not fear forgoing procreation and leaving the children of your ideological enemies to continue your march towards queer justice. They’ll gladly oblige!

“Every time there’s been social advancement as we wake up, the American story, the human story is one of constant social awakening and growth and that’s what makes us good,” the film star added.

Absolutely! The human story is one long march towards libertine justice! Societies only grow stronger the more they encourage sterility and physically destructive sexual behaviors. That never brings about cultural collapse. So don’t feel an ounce of dread when you look at those Christian parents filling their 12-passenger van with their Christian children.
— end excerpts —

According to the end credits under that essay on The Federalist the author is…

Hans Fiene is a contributor to The Federalist. He is a Lutheran pastor in Missouri and the creator of Lutheran Satire, a series of comical videos intended to teach the Lutheran faith. Follow him on Twitter, @HansFiene
— end —

The Anti-Singles, Anti-Childless Pastor

Yikes. No. No, no, no, no.

To the Lutheran pastor who wrote this piece:
Your own Lord and Savior (Link): never married or had children, and yet His teachings and deeds were not forgotten.

Jesus of Nazareth’s world views were passed down by his spiritual children, initially by word of mouth, and then, in writing.

The Nuclear Family Has Failed – by Yoram Hazony – Re: How the Formerly Extended, “Traditional” Family Was Better for Individuals and Societies

The Nuclear Family Has Failed – by Yoram Hazony – Re: How the Formerly Extended, “Traditional” Family Was Better for Individuals and Societies

(Link): The Nuclear Family Has Failed – by Yoram Hazony 

Excerpts:
May 13, 2022

When people talk about the structure of the family, they often find themselves arguing for or against the “nuclear family”, which consists, on most tellings, of a father and mother, with perhaps two or three children in their care for the first 18 years of their lives.

These children are then supposed to leave the house, move somewhere far away, and make nuclear families of their own.

Contemporary conservatives are especially inclined to embrace this image of the family, although it is not entirely clear why.

The “nuclear family” is not the same as the traditional Christian or Jewish family that existed before the two World Wars. On the contrary, the nuclear family is closer to being an invention of industrialisation and the 20th century.

And there are good reasons to think that this form of family is, in fact, a failed experiment, one that has done immeasurable harm to almost everyone: to women and men, children and grandparents.

The time has come for us to consider retiring the ideal of the nuclear family, and replacing it with something that looks more like the family of Christian and Jewish tradition.

What is the traditional family?

Married People Revealed The Darkest Secrets They’ve Been Keeping From Their Spouses For Years, And Some Of These Are Heartbreaking

Married People Revealed The Darkest Secrets They’ve Been Keeping From Their Spouses For Years, And Some Of These Are Heartbreaking

To anyone who may be new to this blog:
I am not anti-nuclear family, anti-marriage, or anti-parenthood, but I do oppose conservatives, Christians, or any person or group who deifies any of those things, or who pressures or shames people into getting married and having children.

---

I think pieces like the one below put to bed the common Christian “marriage fairy tale” narrative (that used to be more common in secular culture too), that if you just marry (and have children), that you will find happiness and meaning; all your dreams will come true.

You have all these married people in these confessions below who still are not happy, in spite of the fact they are married, and some of them have children, too.

(Link): Married People Revealed The Darkest Secrets They’ve Been Keeping From Their Spouses For Years, And Some Of These Are Heartbreaking

Excerpts:

“Having children has made me hate him.”

by Liz Richardson

A while back, redditor u/dusty_ninja asked the internet, “What is the darkest thing you have kept from your partner?” Several married people shared shocking secrets they’ve been keeping from their spouses — and some of them are heartbreaking.

Here are some of the most surprising ones:

…2. “I’m afraid to tell my husband that before we met and got married, I was hooking up with a married man.”
“It happened at a time when I wasn’t in a good place (I know it’s bad what I did). Even if my husband is not judgmental at all and doesn’t care about past behaviors, I’m afraid he might see me differently.”

—tidissik

3. “That having children has made me hate him.”

“He loves his kids and provides for them financially, but I do everything else — and he only helps if I ask or direct him to. It’s exhausting, and I’ve never been more resentful/angry at someone else so much in my entire life.”

Three Reasons Women’s Ministries Might Want to Focus Less on Marriage and Motherhood

Three Reasons Women’s Ministries Might Want to Focus Less on Marriage and Motherhood

I’ve been saying many of the same things on this blog for the last several years that this 2022 essay says.

Churches, especially gender complementarian ones – and not just in women’s ministries, but overall, in every facet of a church – make single / childless / childfree women feel ignored or unwanted, except for those Christians who patronizingly behave like the only use for a single, childless woman is to babysit the children of the married couples.

Reminder to Christians: more adults are not marrying these days – at all. Some may marry, but not until their 30s, 40s or older. Many (even if they do marry) are choosing to forgo children.

When churches focus on marriage and motherhood to the extent they do, they also send a message that being married and a parent is necessary for sanctification or relationship with God, which is false.

A person does not need to marry or have children to be sanctified, know God, or to be mature, ethical, godly, loving, or responsible.

(Link): Three Reasons Women’s Ministries Might Want to Focus Less on Marriage and Motherhood

Excerpts:

March 25, 2022
by Rachel Baker

Women’s ministries are often the home to every category of woman: Single, married, mother, widow, and so forth. As a Women’s Ministry Director, I both attend a women’s small group and organize the women’s ministry meetings at my local church.

In my small group alone there is a vast array of women, each in different categories, some are empty nesters, some are starting families, some are intentionally single, while others are single with the hope of being in a relationship in the future.

We cover the gamut, so why is it that women’s ministries’ regularly cast their focus on the married mother?

Don’t get me wrong, as a married mother I have absolutely benefited from Bible study curriculum and content focused on marriage and motherhood, however it should go without saying that these types of studies do not represent all women.

If you are in a position at your local church in women’s ministry or as a small group leader here are a few reasons why you might want to steer your Bible study content away from marriage and motherhood:

Studies Solely Based on Marriage and Motherhood Can Feel Exclusive

As a young married woman and then young mother I desperately needed support and connection and resources to help me feel a little less alone in that particular season of my life.

Marriage ministries and parenting ministries absolutely have a place within the church; they are absolutely needed.

However, when our larger-scale ministries such as women’s ministry or small group ministry only focus on young-married or motherhood we can miss out on the richness that comes from a group of women of all life-stages and relationship status.

It Goes In Cycles: Push For “Early Marriage” Makes the Rounds AGAIN Lately, Because of Marriage-Idolater, Singleness Shaming Brad Wilcox (Feb 2022)

It Goes In Cycles: Push For “Early Marriage” Makes the Rounds AGAIN Lately, Because of Marriage-Idolater, Singleness Shaming Brad Wilcox (Feb 2022)

Late night talk show host Johnny Carson used to have this joke that there’s only one fruit cake in the United States, nobody wants it, so they pack it up and mail it to another family the next Christmas; it’s the same fruit cake, in endless circulation.

I was reminded of that Johnny Carson anecdote when this odious Brad Wilcox penned piece on early marriage popped up a couple of months ago, was picked up by Wall Street Journal, then made its way ’round conservative Twitter.

As I said in older posts about conservative dating books aimed at women, like here or here, (where women are told, “You’re still single because you’re not Codependent enough! Stop following liberal, feminist advice, and ditch the self confidence and boundaries, and start acting like a Door Mat again, because MEN ARE ATTRACTED TO DOORMATS, being a doormat is feminine!”), topics like that one runs in cycles.

Every few years, you can count on conservative women releasing new “anti-feminist” dating advice books chock full of codependency marketed as being a sure-fire way of getting a husband, and you can also count on conservatives every so often, either releasing “pro early marriage” books and articles, or, with every news release of birth rates falling, or declining marriage rates on the increase, more of their fear mongering, anti-singleness articles.

So this newest crop of conservative sites eagerly repeating this latest Wilcox “Get married really young!” propaganda is no surprise.

I am going to guess that is what happened, that Brad Wilcox, of National Marriage Project, released an initial commentary, or one of his wonky “studies,” and then, other Christian, marriage-worshipping outlets (such as “Christianity Today” magazine) pick up on it and run with it, so pretty soon, for about a week, you start seeing all these “Benefits of marrying young!” headlines sprouting up all over your Twitter feed.

It’s so barfy.

It’s not just online magazines and newspapers publishing these “pro early marriage” editorials, but your Christian “nobodies,” (some of whom work as preachers), who tend to lean “complementarian,” have been tweeting about the topic, and shaming single women into marrying and marrying young.

They show no regard for 1 Corinthians 7, which states it’s better to remain single than to marry, nor do they seem to recall that Jesus, the founder of their faith, never married and never had (biological) children, nor do they show regard for the quotes by Jesus which presented “spiritual” family to be on par with, or more important than, biological family (see those towards the end of this post).

I will see if I can round up some of the tweets, articles I’ve seen lately about this and put them in this post.

This entire situation is just so bizarre, for several reasons.

In earlier commentary, I’ve seen some of these marriage-pushers seemingly upset by news reports that more and more young people (and some older adults) are NOT having sex prior to marriage any longer!

Conservatives, whether secular or religious, used to respect and defend the concept of remaining a virgin until marriage, but no more.

Here’s a rough time line, as it seems to me, of the conservative abandonment of defending sexual purity:

In the last 15 or so years, the Christian conservatives gave in, recognized that a lot of singles are having pre-marital sex, so they quietly accepted it, so they began to writing all these noxious, “well, that’s OK, God will forgive you of fornicating!” articles,
to when the progressive Christian women on Twitter started bitching a few years back about how horrible they found “purity culture,” Christian pastors and authors moved on to actually appease them by  downplaying the importance of virginity and celibacy (see, for example, Tim “We’re All Virgins Now” Challies), to lately, they’ve even been out right expressing sadness or frustration that single Christian women don’t want to knowingly marry a porn addicted Christian man to sadness or upset that adults aren’t having sex prior to marriage as much any more.

It’s also weird how these obscenely pro-marriage conservatives and Christians will grasp on to any little, tiny sliver of where they perceive pro-marriage points to be made and then hammer people over the head with them.

For example, in this latest “study,” Wilcox and others of his ilk grabbed tightly on to some study finding that people who marry young but who DO NOT cohabitate first are likely to stay married longer and not divorce.

So… out they trot these breathless think pieces stating,

“Hey, look, young ‘uns who marry young but who don’t live together prior to marriage stay married longer! So do it, young people, do it – get married now, now, now, now! Just don’t share an apartment together first!!!”

A conservative lady on Twitter,  Allie Beth Stuckey (tweet link), said in regards to this report:

My favorite thing is when researchers “discover” things the Bible has been saying for thousands of years
— end quote —

I do think the Bible teaches that pre-marital sex is sinful, but no where does the Bible imply or suggest that it’s a command of God for all people to marry and at what age if they do.

I have more commentary way below all the links and excerpts below, so please read on (or at least scroll towards the bottom, thanks).

I think this is the piece that got excitedly commented upon by all the marriage-worshipping conservatives that started it all; published Feb. 5, 2022 (note the authors):

(Link): Too Risky to Wed in Your 20s? Not if You Avoid Cohabiting First

Research shows that marrying young without ever having lived together with a partner makes for some of the lowest divorce rates
By Brad Wilcox and Lyman Stone

(Link – Not The Bee site):  SHOCKING: Experts discover a secret to marital happiness that’s only been known to anyone in history who ever read the Bible (Re: Wilcox Article About Marrying Young)

(Link – Christianity Today magazine):  Research: Religious Americans Less Likely to Divorce

Recent data suggests that faithful young adults can marry in their 20s without increasing the risk of separation.
by LYMAN STONE AND BRAD WILCOX | DECEMBER 14, 2021 

This Stonestreet guy is also at BreakPoint. He’s written some pieces I disagree with before, such as this one. He wrote another one which I kind of agreed with, I guess, that one is here.

(Link): Marry Early, but Don’t Live Together First by John Stonestreet and Kasey Leander – article originally published at BreakPoint

Feb 23, 2022
By John Stonestreet and Kasey Leander

New data is poking holes in what’s become a prominent cultural myth. “When it comes to divorce,” write Brad Wilcox and Lyman Stone in The Wall Street Journal, “the research has generally backed up the belief that it’s best to wait until around 30 to tie the knot.” This is because the divorce rate is generally lower for those who wait to wed.

BreakPoint Unfortunately Pushing the False and Un-Biblical “Society Needs Marriage and the Nuclear Family” Rhetoric (and I say this as a Conservative)

BreakPoint Unfortunately Pushing the False and Un-Biblical “Society Needs Marriage and the Nuclear Family” Rhetoric (and I say this as a Conservative)

Dunno how many times I can beat this dead horse, but as I tweeted these BreakPoint guys when they tweeted about this topic a couple of weeks ago (I am just now getting around to blogging about this), the Bible does not present marriage and nuclear families as a fix-all solution for a culture.

In the New Testament church age, the Bible does not command any one to marry and/or to have children.

Jesus, the founder of Christianity, never married or had children, and he constantly depicted spiritual family as being more important than biological family (see Matthew 12:46-50 and Matthew 10:37,38 for more).

I am saying all this as a conservative. I am not a liberal or a progressive. I don’t hate marriage.

Here is the Nuclear Family and Marriage pushing editorial from BreakPoint (podcast on page with comments below it, and I will comment below all this):

(Link): If we lose belief in marriage and the family as the foundation of a flourishing society, there won’t be much left for “conservatives” to conserve. 

Excerpts:

by John  Stonestreet, Shane Morris

“Love and marriage, love and marriage,” crooned Frank Sinatra, “go together like a horse and carriage.”

Today, however, an ever-growing majority of Americans seem to think marriage is just as outdated as a social institution as a horse and carriage are as a transportation technology.

 And this includes those who have historically championed marriage as essential to a healthy and flourishing society.

‘Stop Nagging!’: Why China’s Young Adults Are Resisting Marriage and Babies

‘Stop Nagging!’: Why China’s Young Adults Are Resisting Marriage and Babies

(Link): ‘Stop Nagging!’: Why China’s Young Adults Are Resisting Marriage and Babies

Excerpts:

Chinese women in particular prioritising education and careers, a trend alarming authorities facing ‘demographic timebomb’

Vincent Ni China affairs correspondent
24 Jan 2022

Early in January, China’s state news agency Xinhua posted a video reminding young Chinese men born in the year 2000 that they were eligible to get married. “Post 00s have reached legal marriage age,” it declared.

The hashtag swiftly popped up in the top-searched list of Weibo hot topics, but many read it as the government’s attempt to put pressure on them. “Who dares to get married these days? Don’t we need to make money?” one questioned. “Stop nagging me!” said another.

What Does Marriage Ask Us to Give Up? By Kaitlyn Greenidge

What Does Marriage Ask Us to Give Up? By Kaitlyn Greenidge

(Link): What Does Marriage Ask Us to Give Up? By Kaitlyn Greenidge

Excerpts:

January 4, 2022

[The author discusses how she didn’t get married until around her late 30s, but then she got divorced, and she lives in a noisy home with many family members]

…What has not materialized is the intense loneliness that people warned me would come with divorce.

…It’s a different world from the one my parents inhabited when they divorced, one in which many people treated their separation as if it were an infectious disease and shunned us for a number of years.

…Marriage, of course, can be all those things to many people, but my own brought something different, which has led to this desire to be alone again.