TLDR: “Never marry if there is any chance of divorce. You are not special. Either you are socially, emotionally, morally, familially, economically, , compatible or you are not.”

Someone asked me for advice on finding a successful relationship that will endure. In propertarian tradition, here is the via negativa advice I would give. Hopefully I’ll add to this list over the coming weeks.

This is the evidence of how people act over time.

LIST:

  1. Men are more sentimental than women. That’s the data. Sorry.

  2. For women, men are disposable resources. Children are permanent assets. For men, women and her brood are our asset – until we have adult sons. We and our sons are our resources.

  3. We emotionally, intellectually, and physically mature at different rates, and some men peak later than others. This tends to correspond fairly obviously to your body type. Some men peak at 17, some at 25, some at 35, and some at 45. It is easier to peak early, but much better to peak later.

  4. Most men are insufficiently adult and independent in their 20’s – too dependent upon women for social circles, and too dependent upon women for entertainment, and too dependent upon them for emotional input. This is to women, the same as a spendthrift woman is to a man. It means you aren’t ready for a mate.

  5. – As I understand the data, men of the past two if not three generation are infantilized and this is delaying their maturity significantly – at a time when their marketability is declining due to female economic utility.

  6. You do not ‘find’ women directly, but as a byproduct of achievement in physical, social, business, craft, or monetary performance. Build a network of friends, a career, assets, and an inventory of experiences. In other words, accumulate skills and responsibilities on the one hand, or social circles on the other, or assets otherwise. There is no substitute for demonstrated success *no matter how small*. Men are very simple, and have much more agency, but that simplicity is confusing for women. Friends, assets, achievements, and physical fitness are evidence for her to work with. Being fit doesn’t hurt either. Women have a higher sexual market value, but have less control over altering their market value. Men have lower sexual market value but have nearly endless control over altering that value.

  7. Women who sense eagerness are put off by (a) you are not a scarcity if you are eager and therefore not valuable, and (b) it is harder to ‘see and feel you’. You are always better off being physical, being interesting, providing, expanding the circle of friends, and most importantly funny. Anticipating her wants and needs and demonstrating it now and then generally wins most points. (this is the hardest for us to do. I focus on satisfying her long term wants, and letting her tell me her short term wants.) The same is true for women as well. A woman who puts out too soon or hang’s-on repels the desirable man. The best female strategy is to use biomimicry + proximity. Act like a flower and place yourself in proximity to desired male target so he may “discover”, “find” or “hunt” you.

  8. Men must provide limits. There must be things you will not do. This keeps you from failing the sh-t test. Tell her you can and can’t do things, that the two of you will succeed or fail at doing things. Never tell her that her wants are false – she lacks the agency to do anything about them. Women have no agency. We provide agency. That’s what it means to ‘be a man’. We provide agency beyond the Nest.

  9. Increase in Male and Female choices increase the viability of a long term marriage. Choices are the result of genetics, upbringing, wealth, education, and social, political, and economic circumstances. Such marriages have fewer opportunities for ‘defecting up’ and fewer stress incentives to do so. Conversely, lack of choices decrease the viability of a long term marriage because of stresses, stresses of compromise because of stresses, and opportunity for defection to relieve those stresses, or obtain better opportunities.

  10. NEVER MARRY EARLY OUT OF FEAR OF SINGLENESS, EMOTIONAL, SEXUAL OR FINANCIAL CONVENIENCE. Women under 35 are by and large insane unless they have had brothers, very strong and capable fathers, or three or more children. Marrying early accumulates debt and a divorce wastes a decade, or about 1/3 of your lifetime ‘easy’ performance. Ditch her. Move in with other men who are ambitious. Save money. And trade up to a better less crazy woman when you are ready. Otherwise she will marry you, bear one or more children, ditch you for an upgrade because her children take all her attention and you were just a means of demonstrating to her friends and self that she is marketable, and not left behind, and she will make the next 20 years impossible for you financially, and you will be poor in old age because of her.

11 – MARRIAGE IS A FAIRLY SIMPLE CONTRACT – Marriage isn’t complicated legally – especially under natural law – it’s replaceable by:

… (a) formation of a partnership or llc, where the partnership agreement lays out all terms of construction and dissolution.

… (b) grant of full reciprocal power of attorney.

Marriage is in fact a partnership agreement with normal exit conditions. Either make a contract, or assume the contract the state has made for you.

And then fight to ensure that the state enforces your explicit contract rather than the normative one.

  1. I suppose I didn’t address the ‘fit’ side of the argument and I probably should do that. However, anyone asking me for advice is probably on the IQ/Openness, and Accommodating side of the bias spectrum.

  2. I suppose I didn’t address the “we no longer marry for economic demands but for friend and entertainment demands”. Of emotional fulfillment, access to sex and reproduction, economic value, and old age security, the data says that marriage tends to be one of friendship, sex, and economic cost sharing. The rest of the previous dependencies are gone. (this is far more true in the states than in europe. Europe is still more provincial than the states in familial relations.)

  3. I don’t think people have any values different from those that I’m stating here. I think they are just unable to introspectively address and articulate them.

  4. Any man asking someone like me for advice is going to be advanced in intellectual maturity (the benefit of delayed emotional maturity). And my advice is fairly constant: to catch a mouse make a noise like cheese – and deliver on the promise. Be a man. Man first, lover second, friend third, and an emotional asset not an emotional burden. The problem is, that some of us are not emotionally ready to be men until we have achieved emotional maturity, and asset maturity, to match our early intellectual maturity.

–Edit: Added the following–

Propertarianism has taught me that the more synthetic the mind the less introspection is available, and the more intuition is relied upon. In other words, I have never found a case where I cannot reduce the couple’s attraction into propertarian terms.

There is much more than I can write on this subject, but I am not trying to via-positiva tell what to do (which is infinitely variable) but via-positiva tell what NOT to do, which is rather consistent.

If I wanted to be a popular author I would write about relationships, marriage, sex, business, fashion and art in propertarian langauge. Because that’s what’s most interesting to people.

Unfortunately I write about truth, law, institutions, and group evolutionary strategy, which, while very interesting to me, is not so interesting to other people. 😉