“The blame (for singles) lies on men who are paralyzed by the prospect of that m

–“The blame (for singles) lies on men who are paralyzed by the prospect of that much responsibility, more so than on the women, I’ll argue.”–

No.

Men are rationally reluctant because (a) women are only devoted in time not loyal over time so 80% percent of divorces are initiated by women – the more educated the more likely (b) marriage has become a question of INDIVIDUAL friendship, entertainment, and sex, not one of social economic, and political responsibility to the MARRIAGE and to SOCIETY and the POLITY as responsibilty for intergenerational production of people and persistence of the institutions of cultural production as well as the transmission of group evolutionary strategy as culture between generations. (c) divorce r*pe and child support r*pe favor the woman and leave men unable to supply surplus sufficient to provide for a different women, or save for their retirement givent hen men’s working lives are shorter because men accumulate more cdellular damage than women – and the result is vast increases in male poverty and suicide.

Marriage is non logical. Worse, it’s all but suicidal. And that’s what the data says. You want to fix it? Fix the incentives:
1. Retore liability for interference in a marriage – it will rapidly end a lot of cheating beucase it will be so costly again than no one can afford it.
2. End no fault divorce, restoring liability for ending a marriage.
3. End common property (again).
4. End Alimony.
5. End Child support.
6. Children are a woman’s property until puberty (should be younger really since both sexes are more dependent for mental stability and success on the father after age seven), then the children decide which parent to live with and the parent they live with carries the cost of the children.

Given the economic performance of women vs men there is no longer a substantive difference in the caretaking capacity of either sex, and no longer a need for two parent incomes to support children as the vast number of single mothers demonstrate.

The coming economic ‘correction’ will make income much more difficult and will restore the inentive for marriage. But we have to restore the incentive to stay married if we are to produce harmonious intergenerational families.

PS: redistributing education to the churches who are more inteststed in family than economy and polity will help almost as much.