I ran across an article posted to the men’s rights subreddit bemoaning the collapse of society, this time because young men were failing to grow up and marry. The article quoted the former director of the Beverley LaHaye Institute, Janice Shaw Crouse. Judge for yourself where they fall on the political and cultural spectrum.

These people are not any man’s friend.

“Seventy percent of American males between the ages of 20 and 34 are not married, and many live in a state of “perpetual adolescence” with ominous consequences for the nation’s future, says Janice Shaw Crouse, author of “Marriage Matters.”

Note how this Code Green shaming language takes the familiar form of press-ganging men into marriage as the measure of maturity. It’s also a not-so-subtle reference to Codes Maroon and Gold:

“Far too many young men have failed to make a normal progression into adult roles of responsibility and self-sufficiency, roles generally associated with marriage and fatherhood,” Crouse, the former executive director of the Beverly LaHaye Institute, wrote in a recent Washington Times oped.

I wonder what Jesus would have said to her about this.

Moving on the article continues quoting her and reveals her gynocentric bias:

The high percentage of bachelors means bleak prospects for millions of young women who dream about a wedding day that may never come. “It’s very, very depressing,” Crouse told CNSNews.com. “They’re not understanding how important it is for the culture, for society, for the strength of the nation to have strong families.”

So there it is, marriage and real maturity are about male utility, about how happy these men can make these poor, deprived women, each of whom is being denied something they are just entitled to.

It doesn’t occur and probably doesn’t matter to Crouse what these young men find depressing – the prospect of a legal unequal marriage, the prospect of having your right to parent your children contingent on the favor of the mother, the prospect of being trapped in an abusive marriage with almost no legal recourse when you know your abusive spouse will end up with your children, without you there to provide even minimal protection.

“They’re not understanding how important it is for the culture, for society, for the strength of the nation to have strong families.”

She’s not understanding that when it comes to “strong families” you can’t make a silk purse out of sow’s ear. It’s not that the young women who are failing to bring these young men into married – and by the way, why is this failure to marry all the young men’s fault? Young women can’t buy engagement rings and get down on one knee and make it happen? – are sow’s ears in their own right; they may in fact individually be healthy, sane marriage partners. What makes them into sow’s ears is their position of legal advantage over their husbands, female privilege enshrined in statue law, case law, custom and public policy. The entire family law system makes these young women a bad credit risk for marriage. Change that, Janice Shaw Crouse, and you may start seeing the changes you want.

She doesn’t let the young women of the hook entirely, but she gets that wrong too:

“But men are not entirely to blame for the steep decline in marriage, Crouse pointed out. “A lot of women fear marriage. While feminism is a spent force, the ultimate consequences of that philosophy is a whole generation of women who don’t want any man to tell them what to do, and don’t really understand the give and take that is necessary for a marriage relationship.”

Excuse me, but it wasn’t feminism that built the Princess culture, that made these young women into Daddy’s Little Girl. Feminism advocated for a lot of the laws and policies that have made marriage such a crap shoot for men, but when it comes to this entrenched sense of female entitlement Crouse is talking about, feminism is only complicit, it’s not the prime mover.

And then she descends into complete sentimental nonsense:

“And that means the girls have to live by the guys’ demands. And that means less romance. They don’t date. The girls, I have talked to numerous young women, lament the fact that they don’t have the opportunity to dress up and go out for an event.”

Oh the horror! Having to live by the guy’s demands? That’s Gynocentrish for young women having to compromise their fantasies in relationships with actual living beings instead of objectified Ken doll fashion accessories. Equality is such a raw deal for these young women, according to Crouse. (I bet the majority of these young women have a lot better sense than their wannabe champion, but that’s a completely separate discussion. For instance if they want to dress up and go out, they just go ahead and do it.)

More:

“And I know the feminists just yell and scream if you say anything like this, but time was, girls set the cultural morays, the standards, the parameters for intimate activity. The girls were the ones that set those boundaries. And now it’s the guys who do,” Crouse told CNSNews.com.

So women don’t ever just want to go out and get their grunt on? Sexist, slut-shaming gender policing duly noted. And again, even conceding arguendo that this promiscuity is all those predatory young men’s idea – how’s that for a man-shaming, misandrist piece of bigotry – what is so heinous in the young men having a say in all of this?

“She pointed out that there’s “no data” to back up the common assertion that a lack of jobs during and after the Great Recession is the primary reason so many young men have been reluctant to tie the knot. “The problem with marriage was long before that,” she pointed out.”

Yes there was, but there is no sign Crouse has any idea what that problem was.

Then she descends into the abyss:

“It’s really interesting, because Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker wrote their book, “Premarital Sex in America,” what, three, four years ago. And even then, they were very concerned about the fact that young women today are not as likely to get married. And their prospects, if they are not sexually promiscuous, are really low because the guys, if they can sleep around, they’re not interested in going with the girls who don’t put out. “The ones who are very serious get married early. And that leaves the majority of the girls, then, by the time they’re 25 and into their first jobs, the pickings are very, very slim for them. And Mark Regnerus was very, very clear that the quote ‘good girls’ are the ones who are at risk now in terms of not being able to get married.”

The “good girls”.

Enough said. And here I thought these people were all about free markets and the benefits of competition.

Here’s the problem, Janice Shaw Crouse – these young men, for a number of very good reasons of their own, many of them none of the fault of these young women, don’t consider your “good girls” good enough.

It’s their call and it’s that simple.

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