Started reading but couldn’t finish because that was such a cynical, transactional, and perjorative (especially of women) view of women, men, and marriage.
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What a bizarre article.
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My 25 year old son is marrying a 25 year old woman in 2025. He is also not struggling. He hasn’t lived at home since he graduated from college. He doesn’t own a video game system of any kind. Grown and flown is a real thing. I’m certainly no parenting expert, but we did set clear rules and expectations with both boys. We also kept them very active physically. Thus far things are working out as we’d hoped.
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For anyone who doesn’t want to wade through this “bizarre” article, here’s the TLDR:
Where we’re headed
The shift from a cooperate/cooperate marriage system, where both men and women made sacrifices to gain the security required for childbearing, to a cooperate/defect one, where men are expected to uphold their end of the bargain in exchange for nothing, has failed. This is the legacy of second wave feminism.
Men are dropping out of work or burning things down, and both marriage and children are increasingly relics of the past. We are thereby moving towards a defect/defect system of the kind I described at the start. Men increasingly disdain the daily grind (bewildering public intellectuals, who fail to understand why men won’t respond to market signals). Birth rates continue to decline. And things slowly fall apart. In the event of war, few feel the urge to defend their country. We are in the early stages of the same sort of centuries-long collapse that many civilizations throughout history have suffered.
I am not saying this will happen. If the AI boffins crack superintelligence, neither marriage nor any other current aspect of human life will remain relevant for much longer. And forecasting social change ahead of time is notoriously difficult. Hence we could still draw back from the abyss. But if we do not change course, collapse is where we’re headed. An African future awaits.
Bolded statement at the end of the first paragraph negates the whole article for me. Had to look up the source of the article:
Aporia Magazine (or Aporia) is a far-right online magazine owned by Danish white supremacist Emil Kirkegaard and published by the Human Diversity Foundation.
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I have made a new habit of checking the source first. There’s no guardrails for content dissemination in 2025, so I like to know where things have come from.
Very distinct point of view, to say the least. So much to disagree with.
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I didn’t know what second wave feminism was or that we are now in the fourth wave. See Four Waves of Feminism | Pacific University.
According to Google AI, second wave feminism was a women’s rights movement that took place in the 1960s and 1970s. It was a time of protest and activism that aimed to achieve equality for women in all aspects of life.
What was the focus of second wave feminism?
- Equality
Second wave feminists fought for equality in the workplace, in politics, and in education.
- Reproductive rights
Second wave feminists fought for reproductive rights, including the legalization of abortion.
- Domestic violence
Second wave feminists fought against domestic violence and marital rape.
- Workplace harassment
Second wave feminists fought against workplace harassment and discrimination.
- Patriarchy
Second wave feminists fought against patriarchal institutions and cultural practices.
What were some of the accomplishments of second wave feminism?
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The Equal Pay Act of 1963
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Title IX of 1972
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The Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, which legalized abortion
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The creation of rape crisis centers and women’s shelters
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Changes to custody and divorce laws
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I have studied a fair bit of game theory and was around for the controversies of sociobiology – when I was a grad student, I attended a weekly seminar with Robert Trivers, Steven Jay Gould, Dick Lewontin and sometimes EO Wilson along with a bunch of well-known economists from Harvard and MIT and folks from other fields. At the time, sociobiology was attacked as being simplistic (people are not that simple even if animals are) but my perception is that over time, much of the basic precepts of sociobiology have been accepted. Many social norms can be explained by humans following evolutionary strategies. This is all out of my field, but at the time I was surprised that, although modeling humans as following evolutionary strategies is reductive, it had pretty good predictive value. But, the term sociobiology became politically unpopular and now exists as evolutionary biologists study social behavior, behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology.
The armchair version of sociobiology or evolutionary psychology sometimes starts with assumptions about say men and women and stunningly finds those assumptions in the conclusion. For example, the author says, “Rather than invest in additional wives, men in monogamous societies invest in their original wife and children, with the result that almost everyone is better off.” The last statement about general social welfare (almost everyone is better off) is an assumption, not supported by anything in the article. If you start with that assumption, it is easy to come to the conclusion that the weakening of the norms of marriage will lead to a worse societal outcome, because you more or less got that by assumption.
A lot of the reaction to sociobiology I saw back in the dark ages of Trivers, Wilson, Gould and Lewontin in effect rejected the premise that you could understand the social behavior of animals or people by looking at genetics. So mostly it was just angry. Some responses (like Gould’s) were more grounded. But a lot of the response was what we now often see at universities – “I reject your conclusion and refuse to deal with you or your work because I don’t like the conclusions.” This decade’s approach has been to say it is offensive, to stifle any discussion and ultimate to try to drive offending authors out of the university. I think the pendulum will be slowly swinging back.
I have no idea who the author is or the website. It is not clear to me that a Prisoner’s Dilemma is the best way to model the choices, but it is interesting as a first cut. The assertion that key elements of the Western marriage contract changed with the introduction of birth control, no-fault divorce laws, and greater economic opportunities for women does not seem particularly controversial. And the next assertion that the changes in the nature of the marriage contract changed the value of marriage to both men and women also does not seem particularly controversial. I guess the question is whether those changes in value result in the behaviors we see in society (i.e., less interest in investing in marriage) or whether there were other causes. What surprises me are the changes in happiness with marriage. I would not have expected happiness in marriage to decline over time. I had thought that married men became happier than unmarried men but that marriage did not increase happiness for women. That is not inconsistent with the data the author presents but just surprises me.
What are the key things with which you disagree?
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None of us do. Because he won’t attach his name to it. He writes under a pseudonym.
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The above article made me feel very, very tired.
The tired old Why Should Men Buy The Cow When They Can Get The Milk For Free? The tired old Feminists Don’t Know What’s Good For Them. Women are wrong about what they should want. Women were wrong to push for divorce as a tool to flee their abusers (don’t those ninnies know that difficulty procuring a divorce is what gave abused wives True Power?)
So predictable that the author (whoever he is, he won’t attach his name for some reason) only explores certain societal structures. And comes to the conclusion that Western European law from Ye Days of Olde is What Women Want (sheesh, even Chaucer knew better.)
This sort of thing makes a lot of women tired. Tired en masse. Tired enough to say heck, if a Prisoner’s Dilemna is the only thing motivating a man to marry me…then maybe I’ll just go to college, study hard, save my money, and either be childless or have kids with help of the sperm bank.
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What seems to be flawed is that he assumes the answer and then stunningly finds it. If you start by assuming that the old marriage contract is best for almost everyone, then amazingly enough, you will conclude that it is. It might be best for males for not females (e.g., tougher divorce laws enable much more domestic abuse).
I do believe that a lot of societal institutions came into being because they were responding to genetic drivers. But, there is no reason to assume that they produce the optimal outcomes for everyone (as opposed to just for men or men and kids).
Aporia is not only published by white supremacists, this article itself is full of pseudoscientific nonsense and links directly to other white-nationalist and eugenist sources.
It is really disappointing to see this this sort o thing being trafficked here on CC.
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I’m glad things have worked out for your sons. And things like mental or physical illness did not upset the apple cart. Or an unanticipated layoff. Or an unplanned romantic breakup.
Parents can only control so much. I venture to say many parents set clear rules and expectations but still end up with an adult child who struggles.
My late MiL was fond of saying “I won’t take the credit and I won’t take the blame”
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Perhaps. But also that a lot of societal institutions came into being because of total nonsense: slavery, human sacrifice, castrati choirs…the list of bad societal institutions dreamed up by humans goes on and on.
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So true. We honestly thought our son might help find a cure for cancer, and now he’s 100% disabled. 
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Absolutely. We say our sons are successful despite being raised by complete amateurs.
Life is what happens while we are making other plans. He was gonna be a [whatever] and instead [traumatic illness or life event]. Or, as the saying goes at our house “Life is slippery, here, take my hand”
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I don’t want to justify an article that seems to build its conclusions into its assumptions. Some of the data is interesting. But, to be clear, the Prisoner’s Dilemma it models is a societal choice (e.g., what social norms/definitions of marriage do we as a society choose), not an individual one as you seem to be describing it. But he gets a bit ocnfused as sometimes maybe he thinks he is describing an individual’s choice. If it is societal choices he is modeling, it is unclear why a Prisoner’s Dilemma is relevant as a model. It is just a 2 x 2 table with different outcomes under in each table.
From what I read, the current social norms/marriage definition don’t work well here or elsewhere. In the US, fertility levels are low among non-immigrants and I don’t think the current set of social norms/marriage definition works well for either gender. In Japan, women have been effectively boycotting marriage with Japanese men for 15-20 years (though I had an interesting discussion a number of years ago with Japanese female employees of a client who told me that they considered Western men a catch and were willing to marry Western men but not interested in marrying Japanese men). In Korea, they have the Four B’s movement (“bisekseu” (no sex with men); “biyeonae” (no dating men); “bihon” (no marrying men); and “bichulsan” (no having children) taking hold, though it does not yet appear to be widely popular yet. But Korean women too seem to be expressing a preference for Western men. See Why South Korean and Japanese women are choosing American or European husbands - The Economic Times. In any event I think fertility rates in Japan and Korea are extraordinarily low.
But social norms and definitions of marriage are only one factor in predicting birth rates (which, along with material support for the kids, is what the author of the article seems to use as a measure of success). Richard Easterlin offered a hypothesis that couples would have more children when their income was higher than their aspirations (which subsequent studies defined as the income their parents had when the members of the couple were kids) and would have fewer children if the couple felt they would be poorer than their parents were when the members of the couple were kids. I believe that Easterlin’s hypothesis was controversial at the time but subsequent work provide some empirical support (but it is years since I read about it). Relative properity is quite different from social norms/marriage definitions.
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Actually with the kids I have been around, which is mainly friends and classmates of my children, I find that many parents aren’t setting their children up for success.
Oftentimes too much emphasis is placed on sports and not near enough on academics. And who in their right mind would let their own kid borrow tons for college without a clear plan to pay it back.
My wife and I go by the mantra that we are parents first and friends second. I have seen many situations where that was reversed.
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Then why bother treating it anything but misleading pseudoscientific propaganda? As you are aware, from the first sentence it is false and loaded assumptions. Its conclusions are preordained.
I mean, when the anonymous author contemplates that the “idealized male strategy” includes forcible rape, why are we discussing this garbage on CC?
In humans, the idealized male strategy is to have as many wives/exclusive sex partners as he can afford – plus opportunistic extra-pair couplings, consensual or otherwise.
Look up “archtotherium’s” twitter account or at his blog. It is pseudoscientific bile devoted to the preservation of white men with racist attacks on Somalis, Asians, Indians, anyone but white men. And the misogynistic takes on the role of women flow from the same stream.
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I have always said that my role was to help guide my kids to have a fulfilling, productive adult life. Some of this is by providing the tools or making them available, some is by example and some from advice. Both kids, now in their 30s as fully responsible adults, call me for guidance on a subset of their life choices.
Although there was a thread in CC that made some pretty extraordinary claims about the value of participating in sports on leadership abilities, I tend to agree with @gpo613 that as a nation, we overinvest in preparation for sports. Fortunately (in this dimension), ShawSon was a klutz so we avoided travel teams and ShawD pursued yoga and dance. I was was a minor sport varsity athlete in HS and college and loved playing competitive sports. But the amount of time that many kids and adults invest in sports and the amount of money that being competitive seems to require seems way out of proportion with the benefits to the kids.
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I agree. I feel like the importance our society places on Sport is way out of proportion to any possible benefit. I feel the same about Leadership and Success. Maybe I’m just out of step with society, but these things don’t impress me much. I think that Caretaking is something we should place more value on, but it isn’t much valued, especially in men.
I’m thinking back to my years in high school sports. The captain of the boys’ cross country team was such a big man on campus: handsome, charismatic, rich, popular, athletically gifted. He saw himself as a leader, and was happy to toot his own horn. There was another teammate who was not handsome, charismatic, rich, or especially gifted in athletics. He was only popular in the sense that everyone (if they even recognized his name) agreed he was a nice guy. He was not chosen to be captain.
I ran into him the other day, and he still flies under the radar. Just a middle aged guy with a wife and a couple of kids. Works an unfashionable job and lives in an unfashionable neighborhood.
But here’s something very interesting about him: he did not volunteer this, but I happened to find out that once a month he drives across the metro area to a group home in an exburb to pick up one of our former teammates and take him out to lunch. He has been visiting this guy faithfully for35 years since he came down with schizophrenia in college. I feel like nobody celebrates men like this.
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