Anonymous wrote: Men in their 20s rarely want to settle down or take anything seriously. So, they need to find much older men? And if the man lies or cheats or uses her, it’s her fault for not being able to read minds and know his intentions? But if she withholds sex and demands marriage…that’s also bad, apparently?

Now the economics of it all. Tradwife at 22? Stay at home? One income, IN THIS ECONOMY? This requires her to only aspire to marry rich. But then it’s her fault for being a gold digger.


One income is simply too risky.

As someone who comes from a background (Mennonite) where trad life was just "life", I have bolded what I consider to be false premises. Yes, if you are using some very online caricature of a "tradwife" then you can use almost any premise and reach almost any conclusion you want.

But from my background, and even from non-Mennonites I grew up with who had traditional values, none of the above is true. The truth, in my experience is this:
-Men in their late teens and early 20s did indeed want to settle down and get married
-Marriages are typically between people in the same age range
-Adultery is he fault of the adulterer, always
-It was expected that, although difficult to achieve, sex would wait until marriage
-You can definitely still do it on one income, but not in the beltway

Anonymous wrote:Aren't a lot of tradwives and wife social media types actually the primary earners in their families b/c of social media money?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, you have to tease it out a little bit more and not caricature in the manner you do. There are really two aspects of this: one is the structural critique, the second is how you respond to the situation in which you find yourself.

On the first, it seems to me a reasonable point of view—debatable of course—is that in the aggregate the current trend of late marriage, late childbearing, many sexual partners—is, on average, less conducive to a happy life than earlier marriage and childbearing with fewer sexual partners would be. So if you are saying that this view is incomprehensible or indefensible, I strongly disagree. But, it’s a collective action problem and, as you correctly point out, there are a lot of economic incentives that led to the way things currently are. So perhaps there is nothing to be done with this observation, but I think it’s a reasonable position.

2. So then, what is to be done? Obviously there are all sorts of potentially negative scenarios of a more traditional approach, the ones you posit are of course possible negative outcomes. But, there are also many negative outcomes to the current way of doing things too, not least of which are many women who are strung along by feckless guys with no intention of ever settling down into their mid-30s or beyond. It’s a world of trade-offs, and how you weigh the relative risks depends on your priors about human nature and how the world works.

And while people get all wound around the axle about the “body count” discourse—and I agree there is a lot of negative, unrealistic, and indeed crazy discussion of this issue in places—it seems obvious to me that someone with a body count of, say, 4 very likely has a different perspective on sex and relationships than someone with a body count of 87. You can’t expect people not to notice this or take it into account in making such an important decision as whom to marry.

I actually don’t disagree with your first point, but your first point is compromised by a component of your second point, regarding the feckless men with no intention of settling down.

I am a professional woman who married in her 30s. I would have loved to get married younger, but I didn’t meet my husband until age 35. The men I met earlier were just not interested in marriage. I also knew plenty of my female peers would have loved to get married in their 20s but couldn’t find anyone suitable. It takes both genders cooperating. The only thing this points to is for every woman to pursue a man 10+ years older. Fair enough, but then you have the gap in life experience. Of course “not all men,” but a 35-years older-old man could easily promise the world to his 22-year-old girlfriend only to renege on his promises. In this case, the onus is on the 22-year-old woman to properly assess the honesty and integrity of a man with a decade plus of experience? If she doesn’t hedge her bets, I.e, withhold sex, then she notches her body count before starting all over in the pursuit of marriage, and a year or two older.

Not every woman who marries late or gets to her mid 30s with no husband is there because she “wasted her 20s partying” or something like that. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Long term relationships run their course, or someone gets a job in another state, or other life events happen.

That entire post you replied to is just AI slop.

PP here: it’s not. I wrote it. And it doesn’t sound like AI slop at all, your ear is miscalibrated.

As for the earlier reply, I agree, and I don’t think women are to blame for the current situation any more than men are. It’s a collective action problem defined by larger social conditions that it is hard for any individual person to opt out of.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am trad wife and my husband is the complete opposite of red pill. We are both pretty liberal.
He doesn’t demand that I am a housewife. It was a decision we made together. I wanted it and he was ok with that. The traditional “gender roles” come naturally to us and we just go with that.

It works for us without the need to follow some script or ideology.

That’s different than what OP is talking about.

Do you think you should have the right to vote? Or your h’s vote is all the unit needs? If you say you want to vote you are not a trad wife.

That is not the defining characteristic of trad wife.

Anonymous wrote:What drives any belief that sounds ridiculous to others and does not hold up to scrutiny?

Anonymous wrote:14:22 here and meant to add these men settle down early because they have weird religious hangups about sex, yet are eager to have it. They don’t want to wait until 35 for marriage.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, you have to tease it out a little bit more and not caricature in the manner you do. There are really two aspects of this: one is the structural critique, the second is how you respond to the situation in which you find yourself.

On the first, it seems to me a reasonable point of view—debatable of course—is that in the aggregate the current trend of late marriage, late childbearing, many sexual partners—is, on average, less conducive to a happy life than earlier marriage and childbearing with fewer sexual partners would be. So if you are saying that this view is incomprehensible or indefensible, I strongly disagree. But, it’s a collective action problem and, as you correctly point out, there are a lot of economic incentives that led to the way things currently are. So perhaps there is nothing to be done with this observation, but I think it’s a reasonable position.

2. So then, what is to be done? Obviously there are all sorts of potentially negative scenarios of a more traditional approach, the ones you posit are of course possible negative outcomes. But, there are also many negative outcomes to the current way of doing things too, not least of which are many women who are strung along by feckless guys with no intention of ever settling down into their mid-30s or beyond. It’s a world of trade-offs, and how you weigh the relative risks depends on your priors about human nature and how the world works.

And while people get all wound around the axle about the “body count” discourse—and I agree there is a lot of negative, unrealistic, and indeed crazy discussion of this issue in places—it seems obvious to me that someone with a body count of, say, 4 very likely has a different perspective on sex and relationships than someone with a body count of 87. You can’t expect people not to notice this or take it into account in making such an important decision as whom to marry.

I actually don’t disagree with your first point, but your first point is compromised by a component of your second point, regarding the feckless men with no intention of settling down.

I am a professional woman who married in her 30s. I would have loved to get married younger, but I didn’t meet my husband until age 35. The men I met earlier were just not interested in marriage. I also knew plenty of my female peers would have loved to get married in their 20s but couldn’t find anyone suitable. It takes both genders cooperating. The only thing this points to is for every woman to pursue a man 10+ years older. Fair enough, but then you have the gap in life experience. Of course “not all men,” but a 35-years older-old man could easily promise the world to his 22-year-old girlfriend only to renege on his promises. In this case, the onus is on the 22-year-old woman to properly assess the honesty and integrity of a man with a decade plus of experience? If she doesn’t hedge her bets, I.e, withhold sex, then she notches her body count before starting all over in the pursuit of marriage, and a year or two older.

Not every woman who marries late or gets to her mid 30s with no husband is there because she “wasted her 20s partying” or something like that. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Long term relationships run their course, or someone gets a job in another state, or other life events happen.

That entire post you replied to is just AI slop.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am trad wife and my husband is the complete opposite of red pill. We are both pretty liberal.
He doesn’t demand that I am a housewife. It was a decision we made together. I wanted it and he was ok with that. The traditional “gender roles” come naturally to us and we just go with that.

It works for us without the need to follow some script or ideology.

That’s awesome, but, how does that work for the average person financially? You either have to have family money, or have one partner be able to earn a lot of money to save and invest very early on to make that happen. And yes I’m aware of the “two income trap” that is largely attributed to childcare costs, but in terms of the modern (post-2008 recession) economy, even high-paying white collar jobs are not stable anymore. Good Lord, you hear of software engineers selling their possessions and becoming Uber drivers. It just seems like relying on a single earner is very risky. It may work for you out of a series of fortunate events or perfectly-timed good decisions but I don’t see how that can work for an average American family.