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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025

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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.

avoid marrying somebody fat (!).

AVOID MARRYING SOMEBODY FAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also avoid anyone with a family history of obesity.

This is one of those things that should be a standard disclaimer on life; a lesson hammered into children along with Thou Shalt Not Kill and Be Nice To Strangers: Fat people are all, without exception, mentally not up to life, and you will emburden yourself by associating with them at all and you will fuck up your own life by marrying one of them.