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(More customer reviews)Men and Marriage benefits the modern reader in a number of ways. Providing excellent data and analysis on males and females in modern society, the book enables its reader to better understand the modern controversy over men and women's respective roles in society. Gilder feels that one of modern society's key problems is its denials of the differences between the sexes and, as a logical corollary, its denial of appropriate roles. He writes, "Though rejecting feminist politics and lesbian posturing, American culture has absorbed the underlying ideology like a sponge. The principal tenets of sexual liberation or sexual liberalism--the obsolescence of masculinity and femininity, of sex roles, and of heterosexual monogamy as the moral norm--have diffused through the system and become part of America's conventional wisdom." Gilder has also performed an invaluable service by providing relevant material for couples and singles. Gilder wants the single woman to u! nderstand that if she decides to sacrifice her twenties on the altar of career, she could easily find herself a celibate priest serving that altar for the rest of her life. Gilder reports that Yale and Harvard sociologists, after analyzing census data, concluded that a woman who waits until her mid-thirties only has a 5% chance of getting married. The author also has much to say to the single man. Of the most unique and striking of Gilder's observations on the sexes is his contention that the average single man struggles with an inherent irresponsibility that only marriage can cure. While this assertion may have had a secure, albeit covert, place in yesterday's conventional wisdom, Gilder boldly presents the thesis with impressive statistical support. Single men are 30% more likely than single women to be unemployed. If they get a job, the single man will make very little more than his single girlfriend, in striking contrast to the substantial earning power of the married! man who takes home 70% more income. Single college gradua! tes will normally earn about the same as married graduates of high school. Gilder suggests, "It could well be more important for an ambitious young man to get married than to go to college" (p. 63). Demographically, except possibly for the divorced, the single most disturbed group in the United States is single men. Between the ages of 25 and 65 the single man is 30% more likely than single women to be depressed. He is 30% more likely to exhibit a tendency toward phobias and passivity. The unmarried man is three times more likely to experience a nervous breakdown and 22 times more likely to be committed to an institution because of mental disease. And these statistics are not just cause for sympathy for the single man, but a cause for concern. For 90% of all violent crime is committed by single men even though above the age of 14 they only make up about 13% of the population. The statistics and analyses that Gilder provides on singleness leads to another vita! l area that he addresses. A theme that Gilder resounds with great force is the degree to which a healthy society is in fact dependent on the health of its families. He writes, "As a social institution, marriage transcends all individuals. The health of a society, its collective vitality, ultimately resides in its concern for the future, its sense of a connection with generations to come" (p. 16). While the first six chapters of the Gilder's tome, which focus on sexual roles, are easily worth price of the book; its remainder is a tour de force on the relationship of modern sexual thought and the ghetto, welfare, homosexuality, the workplace, education, politics, and biogenetic engineering. While many will view this work as an anachronistic throwback to the 50s, it's empirical support of its major theses gives the reader pause.
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"Timely when originally published, Men and Marriage is essential now given the the warlike climate ofmale-female relationships, unfortunately fostered by radical feminism."Rush LimbaughMen and Marriage is a critical commentary that asks theburning question, How can society survive the pervasive disintegration of thefamily? A profound crisis faces modern social order as traditional familyrelationships become almost unrecognizable.George Gilder's Men and Marriage is a revised and expandededition of his 1973 landmark work, Sexual Suicide . He examinesthe deterioration of the family, the well-defined sex roles it offered, and howthis change has shifted the focus of our society. Poverty, for instance, stemsfrom the destruction of the family when unmarried parents are abandoned bytheir lovers or older women are divorced because society approves of theirhusbands' younger girlfriends. Gilder claims that men will only fulfill theirpaternal obligations when women lead them to do so, and that this civilizinginfluence, balanced with proper economic support, is the most important part ofmaintaining a productive, healthy, loving society. He offers a concrete planfor rebuilding the family in America. His solutions challenge readers to returnto these roles and reestablish the family values that were once so crucial instaving off the ills that plague our country.Gilder insists that it is time to reexamine what "liberation" haswrought and at what cost. Only a return to traditional family values, hecontends, can stem the tide of disaster.George Gilder is the author of Wealth and Poverty , thebest-selling critique of Reaganomics, The Spirit of Enterprise ,Visible Man , Naked Nomads , and The Party ThatLost Its Head . He was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and now writesregularly for The Wall Street Journal and National Review aboutmaterial advances and their effect on society. His most recent books includetwo other well-known social commentaries, Microcosm and Life AfterTelevision.
