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.”

Americans Increasingly Ditching Religious Marriage for Secular, Interfaith Relationships: Study

Americans Increasingly Ditching Religious Marriage for Secular, Interfaith Relationships: Study

Not only has there been a surge in editorials the last few weeks by conservative marriage-pushers beating young people over the head to marry and marry really young (I’ve not gotten around to addressing those articles and editorials)-

But I wouldn’t be surprised in the weeks to come if conservatives, both secular and Christian, don’t see this new study about interfaith marriages being on the rise, freak out, panic, and start publishing a lot of fear-mongering editorials or pod-casts guilt tripping or manipulating Christian singles into abiding by “equally yoked” and not even thinking about marrying a Non-Christian.

I have some more comments to make below these two links with excerpts:

(Link): Americans increasingly ditching religious marriages for secular, interfaith relationships: study

Excerpts:

by L. Blair
Feb 18, 2022

Fifty years ago, religious marriage ceremonies were the norm. Most people got married to someone who shared their faith, and just a small fraction of husbands and wives were in relationships where no one practiced a religion.

That trend, according to the latest American National Family Life Survey, is now on the decline as the influence of religion in society has been progressively fading.

…“Only 30% of Americans who were married within the past decade report having their ceremony in a church, house of worship or other religious location and officiated by a religious leader,” the study said.

Interfaith marriage — a union between people who have different religious traditions — has also grown increasingly common and make up 14% of all marriages. Another 14% of Americans are in a religious-secular marriage where one person does not identify with a faith tradition while the other does

Eugene, the 56 Year Old Man, Tells Christian Show Host He’s Tired of Being Single

Eugene, the 56 Year Old Man, Tells Christian Show Host He’s Tired of Being Single

On today’s “The 700 Club,” host Pat Robertson got a question from a guy who says he’s 56 year old and tired of being alone. (The guy is single and would like a girlfriend, or to marry.)

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – single adults of America (but especially women!) please (Link): stop asking Pat Robertson for relationship advice.

I’ve watched his “700 Club” show for many years, and Robertson always gives the same 3 to 4 answers to single adults who write him asking him why hasn’t God sent them a spouse, or how do they get a spouse?

And Pat Robertson always tells lovelorn single adults to “go fishing where the fish are,” (i.e, visit locales where you are sure to find single adults), and, he will tell you that “God puts the lonely in families,” which is a load of sh*t – no, God does not always put single adults who may be lonely “into families.”

For women who write in, especially if they are age 40 or older and single and want a spouse, Pat will insultingly tell them that they “sound desperate.” (Seriously; he has done this in the past, see the links below under “Related Posts” for links to examples of this atrocious behavior.)

(I’ve noticed that Robertson never tells the older single MEN who write in saying they are lonely and want a spouse that the MEN “sound desperate.” Robertson only tosses that sexist, insulting comment at single WOMEN.)

Pat Robertson also wrongly believes (and many Christians are like this as well, not just him), that (Link): if you want a spouse and pray for one, that God will of course send you one – which also a bunch of garbage.

So, here is what Eugene wrote in to Pat:

What do I have to do to find that special woman in my life? I’m tired of living alone in life. It’s been 56 years. Please help me, Pat. I read the Bible, but it never seems to help. I love all you guys and enjoy your show.

[Signed] Eugene

You can view / listen to Eugene’s question in this video on You Tube, and it’s around 44.25 into the video.

You can also listen to Pat Robertson’s unhelpful advice in that video to Eugene.

But… Eugene… should you read this, I have this to say to you:

Thoughts Regarding ‘Crisis in the Christian Church: A Lack of Young, Single Men’ Essay by S. Green

Thoughts Regarding ‘Crisis in the Christian Church: A Lack of Young, Single Men’ Essay by S. Green

I will excerpt this essay from The Christian Post, which was published about a month ago, then offer my thoughts.

I will start out by saying it’s not just a lack of YOUNG men in the church, but a lack of single men of ANY age at churches that is a problem for any Christian single woman who expected to be able to find a marital partner at a church.

I remain single past my 30s and 40s. I had wanted to be married, I was taught by Christian culture and my parents that if I was just a good Christian person, prayed, and trusted in God, that I would be “sent” a Christian spouse, and that I could likely expect to meet this spouse, whoever he was, at a church.

So, over the years, in my 20s and older, I would pop into the occasional church every so often. However, any time I attended,  there were never any single men of my age, once I got into my mid or late 20s, my 30s, and my 40s.

It’s not just women in their 20s who’d like to marry, it’s women in their 30s and on up age-wise who’d like to marry. Why oh why do Christians always ignore them? It’s not fair or okay.

Never, ever focus solely on 20-something singles.

With that, here is the article – below the article, I will offer my observations:

(Link): Crisis in the Christian Church: A lack of young, single men

Excerpts:

By Solomon Green, March 4, 2021

….Churches are increasingly becoming a (Link): very unpopular [PDF document] place to meet a future wife or husband since the 1940s. The truth is, Christian Culture is dying.

…new families cannot be formed when there is a barrier of severe gender imbalance.  According to (Link): Lyman Stone’s study, a typical Sunday service has 71 eligible men to 100 eligible women.

This is an enormous problem within the Body of Christ that isn’t getting any better or going to fix itself.

New men aren’t just going to walk into churches. So how do churches fix this? Well, here are three steps to help solve the problem.

Step One: Have more Sunday sermons focused on careers, sex, and marriage. These topics are of great importance, yet are hardly covered from the pulpit …

Awful Early-Marriage Promoting Editorial, ‘The Future of Christian Marriage,’ from The Christian Post that Actually Cites Deviant Mark Regnerus (December 2020)

Awful Early-Marriage Promoting Editorial, ‘The Future of Christian Marriage,’ from The Christian Post that Actually Cites Deviant Mark Regnerus (December 2020)

Below: another article (this time from The Christian Post) seemingly advocating for the good ol’ days when, supposedly, most women got married by the age of 21 and popped out 10 kids apiece and lamenting at how folks just aren’t quite into marriage now as much as they used to be.

Such articles inadvertently suggest that being single and/or childless are somehow “wrong,” immoral, dangerous for society, or “second best.” They are sometimes (Link): intentionally or inadvertently singles-shaming.

Seems that about once a year, every year, some secular conservative or Christian group or person releases some kind of editorial bemoaning delayed marriage.

You can count on these things appearing regularly. Just like death and taxes, or the sun rising in the east tomorrow.

Christians Who Marry Non-Believers Must Be Ex-Communicated, Says John Piper

Christians Who Marry Non-Believers Must Be Ex-Communicated, Says John Piper 

I have many problems with this view point of sexist John Piper for reasons I will explain below these excerpts, so stay tuned!

Those views will be expressed below the excerpt here:

(Link): Christians Who Marry NonBelievers Must Be ExCommunicated, Says John Piper

Excerpts:

December 2020
By Leah MarieAnn Klett

Christians who marry nonbelievers have “compromised” their love for Christ in acting in “open defiance of the teaching of the apostles and of God” and thus must be removed from church membership, according to pastor and author John Piper.

In a recent (Link):  blog post on his popular DesiringGod website, Piper replied to a reader who asked how the church should respond when a Christian knowingly marries an unbeliever.

The pastor first stressed the seriousness of such a situation, explaining that there are multiple “layers of sin” when a professing believer “rejects the counsel of the church elders and marries an unbeliever.”

Can We Stop Saying Singleness is God’s Will? by Anonymous via Sheila Wray Gregoire

Can We Stop Saying Singleness is God’s Will? by Anonymous via Sheila Wray Gregoire

A few weeks ago, Sheila Wray Gregorie, who maintains a Christian martial advice blog, shared (Link): this on twitter.

A woman who runs yet another blog (called (Link): “True Love Dates”) featured a post by a single adult woman who I guess posted under a pen name, or as anonymous.

This single woman explained in her comment that, no, it’s not God’s will for all single women to be single, and for so many Christians to keep mouthing this assumption or repeating it in their sermons, books, or blogs is hurtful and discouraging to some single women who’d like to be married but who have not met the right person.

I too have done several posts over the years attempting to correct some of the wrong, hurtful, or insensitive teachings and attitudes that a lot of Christians have about singleness –
– such as, (Link): God told you to marry your spouse;
or, it’s (Link): God’s will for most to marry;
or that (Link): single adults exist only to serve married couples;
or that (Link): unwanted and protracted singleness is a “gift” God bestows upon some. (There are so many Christian fallacies about singleness.)

Here is the featured content for this post, and I agree that Christians need to stop saying that singleness (especially unwanted protracted singleness) is “God’s will.”

(Link): Can We Stop Saying Singleness is God’s Will?

Excerpts:

[by Sheila Wray Gregoire]

If you’ve never been married, does that mean that it was always God’s will that you would be single?

I think we talk about that a lot–that people are “called to singleness”, as if God decides before you were born, “Oh, I’m going to make sure that Jennifer doesn’t get married,” or “I’d prefer Stacey never meet the man of her dreams.”

Now, I do believe that God puts on some people’s hearts to be single, and to dedicate their life to a singular purpose to serve Him, in which singleness is necessary.

But I don’t think that’s the majority of people who are single.

What Christians Really Think About the Church’s Relationship Advice by Anna Broadway

What Christians Really Think About the Church’s Relationship Advice by Anna Broadway

The following article (book review) from Christianity Today covers several topics about singleness and the church I’ve been pointing out on this blog for literally years now.

One big point it brings up that I have: there are more single Christian women in the church than there are single Christian men. This means if a Christian single female insists upon following the “equally yoked” rule (that states a Christian may only marry another Christian), she will remain single.

If you are a single Christian woman who desires marriage, it is imperative you ditch the ‘equally yoked’ rule. You must learn to judge men based on their character, not what their stated religious beliefs are.

(Link): What Christians Really Think About the Church’s Relationship Advice by Anna Broadway

Excerpts:

New survey research sheds light on how believers navigate the stickier matters of dating and marriage.

July 10, 2019

Over the years, Christians have produced and read far more books on how relationships and singleness should work than on how these things actuallydo pan out. Vicky Walker’s new book Relatable: Exploring God, Love, & Connection in the Age of Choice, based on a survey of more than 1,400 people, aims to change that.

Walker writes from a more-or-less Protestant British perspective, but American Christians will find much they recognize.

Over the course of 12 chapters and several appendices, Relatable covers everything from the history of marriage to typical teachings on gender roles to, of course, sex. But she also gets into stickier matters like the role of technology and the church’s significant sex-ratio gap—the latter a topic that raises questions of dating outside the faith.

James the Single 40-Something Guy Asks The 700 Club’s Pat Robertson Why Churches Don’t Help Singles Get Married

James the Single 40-Something Guy Asks 700 Club’s Pat Robertson Why Churches Don’t Help Singles

On an October 31, 2018 airing of television program “700 Club,” host Pat Robertson responded to a question from a 48 year old guy named James who says he is single and wants to know why churches don’t do anything to help single adults get married, because (he seemed to imply), they sure as heck are not helping him.

As of today, I do not see the October 31, 2018 “Questions” section of the show on 700 Club’s You Tube channel.

As of this writing, though, you can view the “Questions” portion (which comes during the last ten minutes of the show) on the full episode (Link): here on You Tube.

You might also be able to view the Questions segment (in the full length show) on the (Link): 700 Club site here.

The gist of James’ letter was – he says he’s 48 years old, single (he did not specify if he is divorced, widowed, or never-married), the Bible says it’s better to marry than burn in lust, but what if there are no options (like in his case – I think he meant there are no single women in his life or church), and the church isn’t doing anything to help a Christian single get married?

The Dating Project: A Documentary Movie About Singleness and Dating

The Dating Project: A Documentary Movie About Singleness and Dating

I saw one of the movie-makers for The Dating Project interviewed, and she says that this movie is promoting the idea that people start dating again.

The focus is on younger people, but I see this problem among folks over the age of 30 as well. If you are 30 or older now (as of April 2018) and grew up in a conservative Christian family or church, you were probably taught (and still taught) a bunch of dating concepts and ideas that have actually kept you single (see this post as an example).

I am over the age of 40 and have never married. I was engaged in my late 20s to my early 30s but broke up with my fiance. I have always wanted to be married, but I never found the right person.

As far as I could tell in seeing the interview with the woman film-maker of this dating movie, the assumption seems to be that being single is “second best” or weird.

Let me just say, as I’ve said many times on this blog, that on the one hand, while there is nothing wrong with being married or wanting to get married, that there is also nothing wrong with being single, and it is wrong to (Link): to denigrate singleness to promote marriage.

I’d like my desire for marriage to be respected, but at the same time, so long as I remain single, (Link): I’d also like myself and my singlehood status to be respected, not jeered, mocked, or put down by conservatives, who frequently shake their index fingers in the faces of singles like myself, and who write fear-mongering articles about how supposedly single life is so much more horrible than married life (see anything written by (Link): Bradford Wilcox or (Link): Mark Regnerus), all because they are worried about declining marriage rates.

I want to be married one day, and I don’t appreciate Christians telling me that my desire for marriage is “an idol” (for it is not), but I also do not appreciate Christians or secular talking heads on television news stations shaming singles for being single and for making singleness sound as though it’s a disease one should be ashamed of having.

Many times, conservatives (of which I am one) assume, quite wrongly, that any one who is single past the age of 30 is single deliberately. Especially if one is a single female past age 30, Christian talking heads will write blog posts or opine on television news programs that such women must have put career over marriage, or they are harpies who hate men – but this is usually not the case.

As a right wing (conservative) woman who always desired marriage, I find myself single by circumstance, not due to choice. I did not put career above dating or marriage, and so on and so forth. I find such assumptions, which are often held by other conservatives and by many Christians, deeply insulting and ask my fellow conservatives to stop making such assumptions.

The Dating Project Movie

Here are some links to articles about The Dating Project movie (a movie which I’ve only read a little bit about, I have not seen it yet):

(Link):

(Link):  From hook-ups to romance, ‘The Dating Project’ explores the one thing we all want

(Link):  BC Professor Says Traditional Dating Has Deteriorated 

(Link):  Dating 101: Film takes aim at America’s hookup culture and the death of courtship

Excerpts:

The shock of reading Laura Sessions Stepp’s 2007 book, “Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both,” hadn’t worn off when I was offered the opportunity to view an advanced screening of “The Dating Project,” a film about modern relationships that will be released nationwide—for one night only—on April 17. Both are a wake-up call for Americans, many of whom are in the dark about how dramatically dating has changed.

So dramatically, in fact, that it no longer exists. Dating is officially dead.

Pastor Greg Laurie’s Promotion of Equally Yoked Rule in Regards to Marriage Plays Role in Why So Many Christian Women Remain Single Over a Life Time

Pastor Greg Laurie’s Promotion of Equally Yoked Rule in Regards to Marriage Plays Role in Why So Many Christian Women Remain Single Over a Life Time

I’ve done more than one post on this blog high-lighting and explaining how and why the Christian insistence on the “equally yoked” rule in regards to marriage leaves many marriage-minded Christian single women single over a life time.

If you are a Christian single woman who wants to marry,  take it from me, who was once a very committed Christian who was “relying on the Lord” for a husband (and yes, I even tried dating sites at one time), you have to take marriage where you can find it, even if that means marrying a Non-Christian.

There are simply not as many single Christian men as there are women, and the Christian single men who exist may (Link): not be marriage material, to under-state things.

You really have to look at a man’s character, not what religious label he slaps on to himself. An atheist man, or a Jewish man, or a guy who practices Wicca, or what have you, may treat you better than a guy who says he’s a Christian and who also attends church regularly.

(Link): Greg Laurie Tells Christian Woman in Long-Term Relationship With Nonbeliever: ‘Break Up With Him!’

April 2018

Pastor Greg Laurie of Harvest Christian Fellowship in California recently advised a Christian woman who’s in a long-term relationship with a nonbeliever that she should break up with him.

Alpha Females Part 1 – Nothing New Under the Sun. Conservative Women Keep Issuing Same Sexist, Unhelpful Dating And Marital Advice to Women

Alpha Females Part 1 – Nothing New Under the Sun. Conservative Women Keep Issuing Same Sexist, Unhelpful Dating And Marital Advice to Women

This commentary will be divided up among a few posts. Here is part 1.

Visit Part 2 | Part 3 |  A Response to Venker: Re: Personal Experience

Part 4

Introduction.

For those new to my blog:

I am a right winger. I was a Republican until recently. I am now a conservative Independent.

I was a conservative Christian for many years (I am no longer sure about what my religious views are), and I (Link): Am A Former Gender Complementarian (someone who believed in and lived out traditional gender roles, views which are based in large measure on incorrect interpretations and applications about gender in the Bible).

I sometimes agree with secular left wing feminists on some topics, but not always. At times, I disagree with secular and religious left wing feminists and have written several blog posts critiquing some of their views.

---

This series of posts is addressing author Suzanne Venker’s relationship advice, as I have seen her advocate for, in behalf of her book “The Alpha Female’s Guide to Men and Marriage.”

I myself am not, nor have I ever been, what she terms an “Alpha Female.”

I have always been what she refers to as a “Beta,” and guess what?

Being a Beta did not land me a spouse, dates, or make my life easier, more peaceful, less stressful, or rewarding, as Venker tries to reassure her female readers that it will. More on that in a future post.

As a conservative who is in her 40s and still single (though engaged at one time), I have been seeing these sorts of attitudes about gender and marriage that are discussed below in an article by Venker advanced by secular and religious conservatives since I was a teen in the 1980s.

There is an annoying, recurrent, and yes, sexist, motiff by conservatives to say the reason society has problems with marriage, dating irregularity, high divorce rates, and other relationship problems – is that women are at fault.

Women are always blamed for relationship trends and problems – and at that, usually by other women – and at that, by women who tend to be conservative and who publish books or articles about dating and marriage.