Maggie's Farm

I believe the study about British women and sex focussed on middle aged women. There are many reasons for their feelings. For one thing, the higher rates of tolerated social alcoholism and smoking put a serious crimp in the physical performance of many middle aged Brits; male and female, and damage the relationships. Most women do not have satisfying sex when their relationships suck. Guys are luckier in that they can still have a satisfying sex life even when the love element is absent or heartbreaking.

For another, the Brits are notoriously out of shape in middle age. This obviously affects both partners. For another, many, many middle aged women there (as here) are being treated for conditions like depression and high blood pressure with medications that cause sexual dysfunction, and are not as assertive with more arrogant doctors and a less patient-oriented health care system as American women usually are about demanding something better. Cultural traditions of reticence and being a lady are perhaps incomprehensible to brassy broads over here, but it is unkind to jeer. Nothing as ravishing as an English rose in bloom, anyway!

Re: why they don't get married. First, separate out the underclass, the unemployed,and certain cultural groups that have higher rates of single parenting by accident or by choice. While it is true that women from groups that used to automatically get married there are marrying at less of a rate than before, the economic reasons are not all of the story. Both young men and women there, as here, have been scarred by the selfishness and self-indulgence of my generation and the rest of the baby boomers. The high rates of divorce, and dual career marriage (in which , notorioiusly, highly educated, often PC women sloughed their children off to be cared for by uneducated babysitters or day care instead of looking after them themselves) have absolutely trashed the kids. The poor women who wanted to raise their own children, but had to work, had even worse child care if they could not count on a relative for it. The kids? They don't want to go through divorces or the "relationships" or loneliness of their parents. They don't want to raise kids as neglected as they were. They clung to their peer group because there were few grownups worth emulating in their environment. Remember, Britain is not a society where people can find surrogate families at church very often, as is more possible over here. It is a society with a state Church but no soul. A crumbling nanny state--as if the nanny had become an alcoholic and was selling the children's food for her habits, and letting the kids starve and go neglected. Obviously, I am overstating the problem, trying to imagine what causes the young who don't marry to behave in that way.

I am devoted to two sisters there with graduate degrees, deep religious faith, and flourishing careers, who have been so scarred by their mother's two divorces, serial live=ins, mental illness and addiction, that both have vowed never to marry. It is tragic as both would make wonderful wives and mothers. But they are afraid to risk it.

Truth be told, if I were young I wonder if I would want to marry, either. Sex can fizzle in marriage. In middle age, most women have rich associations of friends, interests, volunteer work, and are making the best of even dead-end jobs to feel useful. Their men often crash and burn in middle age (remember the statistics on why many accomplished black women in this country no longer want to marry, because they do not want the less desirable partners who want them). Men are so likely to end up unemployed and underemployed, yet still expecting a live in housewife despite the wife having a full time job. More men either do not seek out or do not receive adequate care for their mental health and addictions. Most of the women I know who work do so because not only can they not live on the man's salary, but they have to have some insurance against the man's likely periods of unemployment.

I would venture that all women world wide want the same thing from a mate: someone who is stably employed and productive and is not constantly whingeing about how he deserves better, a loving and passionate sexual partner who stays in shape and who doesn't abuse substances, a warm father, a spiritual companion who shares their religious and moral values, and hopefully someone they share at least a couple of fun recreational activities with besides sex. Just as you guys want a Victoria's Secret model who lets you hunt, shoot and fish whenever you like, keeps a clean and tidy house, and produces handsome, accomplished children. The point is, women and men are only human, and if they can find those things outside of marriage they are not likely to stay married for the sake of just one or two of those. Plenty of studies are showing that many middle aged women in this country as in England, tough it out until the children are launched, then finally say "Enough!"

The failed marriages that are inevitable, given our sinful natures, do not detract from the fact that it is still the best of an imperfect set of ways to raise chidren to grow up. Having both parents available to you, knowing that they keep their promise to stay together, and will be there to love your children together.

And as plenty of people in this blog have already said better than I, self-sacrifice and devotion have a way of benefitting the one who practices it as least as much as the object. This is, of course, the sad part of people not getting married or staying that way...