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He would, presumably. It seems like a decent reason why a pro-family middle-class woman might opt to finish college and establish first-job cred through 24-25 or so before having that first kid, rather than pumping out babies right out of high school. Mid-20s is still extremely fertile and still leaves a long childbearing window if that's what you're into. Historically there have been plenty of eras when it was the norm for both middle-class women and men to work and save up for a household through their mid-20s.
I don't know why the pro-tradwife folks aren't more interested in practical family risk-management considerations. Maybe it's just the sheer appeal of imagining a nubile 20-year-old wife who can't afford to leave even if she wanted to?
...and the women who want it are all kinksters I guess? And ~every man in the 50s though keeping her trapped was more important than financial security, no romatics who thought they didnt have to worry about that?
My point is that list entires that dont themselves have a conflict of interest dont predict a different interest from men and women. So insofar as you think those are a big part of why women dont want early marriage, you should reject this branches framing that men are there on offer and women dont want it.
Nah man, I assume that young men and young women in the 50s just fell in love and settled down to have babies early because they could afford to, the way everybody does in times of high economic opportunity for the middle classes. Women might have married at 20 in the midcentury, but men also married at a median of 23, after all.
OTOH I suspect the kinds of 2025 internet people who vocally fantasize about teen brides and argue for excluding women from the workforce, but somehow never consider what historically has happened to the kiddies if Daddy gets sick or his industry contracts, are not coming to this issue from a POV of direct practical interest in forming stable, resilient families.
The guy you replied to is talking about young husbands as well. And we know you are suspicious on priors - the point is that the non-conflicting things dont actually add to that. Its a bitch-eating-crackers argument.
I hope I'm following what you're saying. It seems like you're asking me, since we agree that both men and women should want wives to have good career options in the event that the husband dies or becomes disabled, why I'm listing "husband's unexpected death or illness" among the reasons a family-minded woman might still want to finish college and work for a couple years before marrying and having children.
Is that summary accurate? If so, what does the fact that this is a "non-conflicting" concern have to do with the debate over whether women could be justified in not marrying at 20? I don't get it.
No, the point is that you are using those concerns to support one narrow claim, but if you look a bit further they have big implications for our general picture of the situation, and consequently the role that that narrow claim should play in our discussion of it.
I'm still lost. I was responding to @hydroacetylene's point, where he argued that women avoid 20yo SAHMhood not from vanity but from anxiety about risks. He blamed media "fearmongering" about rape and abuse.
I said that while I agreed about the anxiety/risk part, it was unfairly dismissive to round it off to women gullibly believing fear porn. I listed various misfortunes that families semi-commonly encounter, where a woman could spare her eventual children a lot of hardship by having decent career options in place, including the unexpected death, disability or long-term unemployment of the husband.
I really don't see how it's relevant that in those cases the husband should also want his wife to have good career prospects? AFAICT the only way the husband's alignment would have "big implications for our general picture of the situation" is if we're arguing about 20-year-old SAHMhood as a proxy for WOMEN BAD MEN GOOD. In which case I guess, sure, gotcha, this is totally an instance where MEN GOOD, but I was never denying that! And I sure hope it's not what everybody else was arguing anyway.
Could you say more about how you think the general picture is changed by the husband and wife having common interests in the scenarios you cited?
For one, the premise of all of you seems to be that "trad marriages" dont happen because women avoid them.
Wasn't my premise, and if it was OP's it was pre-disproved by the guy upthread saying men should statusmax through their twenties to avoid marrying somebody fat (!).
I was responding to hydroacetylene's comment on the psychology of women wanting to finish at least college and maybe some entry-level career groundwork before marrying, but if we're talking practical fertility decisions I also don't see a bunch of 23-year-old romantic tradhusbands lining up to woo and support their young wives and eventual five children, 1950s-style. If a single person in this thread knew an early-20s family-minded guy who'd proposed to his girlfriend and been turned down, I'd be surprised.
I actually don't know what anybody's vested interest is in having other people do young tradmarriages, since nobody seems to want it for themselves. Maybe I'm wrong, but to the extent that people argue from personal experience, it mostly seems to be about getting annoyed by movie/TV girlbosses or DEI chatter in college and feeling like those would go away if we could make young SAHMhood a thing.
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If they came up with such, would any significant number of people who claim to oppose early marriage as a result of such risks change their mind? My belief is no, this argument is a soldier, and its falling will make no difference.
It's not a matter of flipping people who were firmly against it, it's a matter of advising, and/or addressing the concerns of, open-minded people and/or fencesitters. For example, I have a sincere interest in the topic (fewer children than I or my husband wanted, considering how to raise and advise the offspring we do have) and from my vague memories of @Terracotta 's other comments, I suspect she does too.
I want the best for my daughter. You have an opportunity to suggest to me what is best for her.
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