Link roundup: height doesn’t matter, more domestic violence against men than women, male-female differences start in the womb

An article from dating.com claims height doesn’t matter.

A survey of 10,000 international Dating.com users, which included 5,000 males and 5,000 females ranging in age from 21-50, found that:

• 68% of women said they find shorter men attractive
• 82% of women said they would date a man that is the same height as she is
• 61% of women say the perfect height for a man is 5’8″
• 40% of women prefer men who are over six feet tall

Of course “some” women find short men attractive or would date a man about as tall as them: Short or average height celebrities (or men with other highly qualifying attractive traits).

I could believe that 61% of women say 5’8″ is a perfect height (although I think it’s higher) as the average woman is about 5’3.5″ or so. About 4-5″ taller is pretty solid for most women. Note that the average male height is about 5’9.5″ or so as well. It’s pretty obvious why God created men to be on average taller than women.

Even despite that, 40% of women prefer a man who is over 6’0.” Yes, that’s about 8.5″ taller than the average woman. That should tell you a little something about how true the statements of dating someone shorter or same height are.

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Data on the past 12 months for domestic violence.

Previous surveys have revealed near-parity between men and women in their rates of partner violence. But the most recent survey reveals a surprising shift: Men now are 31% more likely to be the victims of overall physical violence during the previous 12 months – 3.8% among men versus 2.9% for women (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2015 Data Brief – Updated Release, Atlanta, Georgia. 2018. Tables 9 and 11.

I suppose this shouldn’t really be a surprise given how much VAWA and Duluth has biased the police against men. When you always blame one side for violence, it incentivizes the other side because there are no consequences. See: no fault divorce.

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Large sex differences in the womb:

Now we have another, even more striking study of the human brain prior to birth. In this study, American researchers managed to do MRI scans of pregnant mothers in the second and third trimesters, with sufficient resolution to image the brains of the babies inside the uterus. They found dramatic differences between female and male fetuses. For example, female fetuses demonstrated significant changes in connectivity between subcortical and cortical structures in the brain, as a function of gestational age. This pattern “was almost completely non-existent in male fetuses”. They note that others have found, for example, that female infants have significantly greater brain volume in the prefrontal cortex compared with males. They conclude that “It seems likely that these volumetric differences [found after birth] are mirrored by [the] differences observed in the present study.

Some of the sex differences in the new study are truly amazing. See for example the image above (figure 4A from their paper) showing differences in female connections between the left cerebellum (CB) and the left superior frontal gyrus (SFG), and between the left temporal pole and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) compared with males. Remember, these are fetuses in utero! In other brain areas, the differences were not so striking. A reasonable next question might be: Why do these brain areas, and not others, show such dramatic female/male differences? Another reasonable question would be: Why haven’t the mainstream media in the United States covered this new research?

This should not be a surprise, given the science we briefly covered in the Caster Semenya issue.

It’s fair to say that there are certainly sex differences that are genetic/biological and learned. But the blank slatists want to deny that because it undermines their “war on patriarchy.”

 

 

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Practical mailbag: should a man be just friends?

A reader writes in:

Was curious if there was any blogs regarding being ‘just friends’ with girls a guy’s interested in. I know in Rationale Male they say to decline the offer. was curious if its the same view point amongst the ‘Christian Manosphere’

The short story: chatted with a girl on an app for a couple weeks, went on a date. she wanted to meet up again, but changed her mind and instead sent me a very long text involving a list of reasons of why a relationship wouldn’t work. Now we chat once in awhile, through various social media accounts. Says she has a BF now and that were still friends on, says I’m welcome to visit her.

Am i best to ghost her? tell her where friends off cause its toxic for me (literally can’t talk to her without liking her more), Option C?? definitely don’t want to become a stalker or continue as an AFC.

My reply:

I have a post on this a while ago on understanding the friend zone and escaping it.

Generally, a waste of time trying to leave the friend zone, unless something significantly changed about you.

Overall: you guys chatted. She classified you as a friend. If you want to be a friend, feel free. If not, just cease talking because it seems like she’s not interest and you’re better off spending your time elsewhere.

Most relationships of men and women devoid of romantic interest will peter out anyway, so it’s a waste of time putting effort into something that is not fruitful in the long run. I don’t really consider this ghosting unless there was mutual interest.

The girl above if she has a BF (which there is no reason to assume she doesn’t if her interest level is declining as you can see from the messages), she’s putting pretty much zero thought about you anymore. Most girls will say you can come chat with them to be nice, but they really don’t want to spend more time on unfruitful relationships either.

It takes 2 to tango, and if a girl is wavering in her interest for you it’s best to move on. You don’t want to be with a girl who is wishy-washy about wanting to be with you. It’s very easy for a woman’s feeling to change if she’s already feeling lukewarm about you from the start. You want someone who really wants to be with you and make time for you.

I think this type of thing is best done in person and to minimize texting initially if you are going that route. The more texting you do the easier it is to screw up burgeoning interest for your average man. There is also the issue of coming across differently than you are in person, which can be a big issue for both men and women.

The one exception is unless you are really good at generating interest from text which some men are good at doing (usually you need a good handle on how to tease her through text).

Women’s attraction to masculine men

This article from psychology today looks at some of the research on attraction.

Some researchers have suggested that masculine characteristics in men’s faces, such as a strong jaw or a heavy brow, are associated with good physical health and strength, while feminine characteristics, such as a small jaw or large eyes, are associated with emotional warmth and trustworthiness.

Whether these hypothesized associations between facial masculinity-femininity and both men’s physical characteristics and personality traits are robust is hotly debated. Nonetheless, masculinized versions of male face images (versions in which male sex-typical traits are exaggerated) are at least reliably perceived to look physically stronger and fitter than feminized versions. Similarly, feminized versions of male face images (versions in which male sex-typical traits are reduced) are reliably perceived to look more trustworthy and cooperative than masculinized versions.

Thus, when straight women assess men’s suitability as partners they are faced with a potentially intriguing tradeoff. On one hand, they could choose a masculine-faced, strong, and healthy partner. On the other hand, they could choose a feminine-faced, caring, sharing (i.e., prosocial) partner. Over the last decade or so, many studies have investigated how environmental factors might influence how women resolve this tradeoff, potentially giving rise to cultural differences in women’s preferences for masculine men.

This is standard. “Handsome” features in men have always been the wider, angular face with a strong jaw line.

Ian Penton-Voak and colleagues (2004) conducted one of the first studies to look at this issue, comparing the facial masculinity preferences of women living in the UK with those of women living in rural Jamaica. They found that Jamaican women showed stronger preferences for masculine men than did UK women. To explain this cultural difference in masculinity preferences, they noted that the risk of contracting a serious illness was greater in rural Jamaica than in the UK and that long-term pair bonds between men and women were less common in rural Jamaica than in the UK. They speculated that these two factors could cause Jamaican women to place greater importance on the strength and health of masculine men and less importance on the prosociality of feminine men than do UK women.

Following in this vein of research, Lisa DeBruine and colleagues (2010) tested whether women living in countries where people are more likely to die because of infectious illnesses showed stronger preferences for masculine-faced men. They found some evidence to support this hypothesis from an online study of more than 4,500 women in 30 countries. However, an alternative analysis of their publicly accessible data by Rob Brooks and colleagues (2010) suggested that threat of violence (as indicated by homicide and violent crime rates or by income inequality) was a better predictor of women’s preferences for masculine men. They suggested women in countries with a higher threat of violence may show stronger preferences for masculine men because masculine men afford their partner greater physical protection and are better able to aggressively compete for resources.

So far, so muddled… and from here the plot only thickens. Subsequent work by Isabel Scott and colleagues (2014) found little evidence that the threat of violence or risk of disease was related to women’s masculinity preferences. Instead, they found that women in more modern, industrialized countries showed stronger preferences for masculine-faced men. They suggested that this pattern of results indicated that masculinity preferences were evolutionary novel and simply a consequence of women in more industrialized countries encountering many more faces in their daily lives than do women in less industrialized societies.

The most recent study, by Ula Marcinkowska and colleagues (2019), found that women in countries with higher offspring survival rates and better economic conditions preferred more masculine-faced men. By contrast, they found no evidence that the threat of violence predicted women’s masculinity preferences.

So, what on earth is going on with these results? Some results suggest that women’s masculinity preferences are stronger in countries where sickness is more common, others where sickness is less common, some where violence is more common, and others where economic conditions are more favorable. It’s possible that women in wealthier, more industrialized countries are less interested in a caring, sharing partner. Indeed, Marcinkowska and colleagues found that masculinity preferences were stronger in countries where women were more open to short-term relationships—an argument similar to the one Penton-Voak and colleagues made 15 years previously!

The disparate, often confusing results of these studies highlight the pitfalls inherent in using correlational designs to explore the highly intercorrelated factors that might underpin cultural differences in mate preferences. Experimental methods in which cues to environmental factors such as violence and disease can be systematically varied are clearly the solution to this problem, right? Although you might think so, two experiments that attempted to do precisely that also produced contrasting results. One experiment found that viewing images of sources of infectious disease increased masculinity preferences, but another experiment did not replicate this effect.

So what we have here is:

• Jamaican women showed stronger preference for masculine men than UK.
• Women in places with more infectious disease deaths and higher violence rates tend to prefer more masculine men.
• Women in modern, industrialized countries showed stronger preferences for masculine faced men.
• Women in countries with higher offspring survival rates preferred masculine faced men, and no evidence of the threat of violence.

This shouldn’t be a surprise to most of us. In general, women prefer masculine men. This is more prominent in countries with violence, but still even in industrialized countries women prefer masculine men.

In industrialized countries where the threat level of violence (protectorship) and provivision decrease (providership), women still prefer masculine men. However, the amount of masculine men similarly tend to decrease due to less overall masculinization of men (increasing feminization factors and less need for threat of violence), so you tend to see women with more less masculine men overall just because there is a deficit.

The author did not look at the age(s) of the participants in the study earlier, and we know that women tend to prefer more masculinized men in their 20s. But if they can’t find a masculine man to marry by 30s, they’ll start “preferring” less masculine men as their body goes into baby rabies mode.

In any case, be attractive and don’t be unattractive: be a masculine man.

What did they expect?

Men are afraid to mentor women after #metoo

LeanIn.org and SurveyMonkey’s new #MentorHer poll reveals Friday that 60% of male managers report feeling “too nervous” about being accused of harassment to interact with women in “common workplace” activities such as mentoring, socializing and one-on-one meetings.

That’s a 32% spike from 2018, with an additional 36% of men saying they now actively avoid women in junior-level positions — effectively chopping down their shot at climbing the corporate ladder.

“The vast majority of managers and senior leaders are men,” says Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and founder of LeanIn.org, in a statement. “If they are reluctant even to meet one-on-one with women, there’s no way women can get an equal shot at proving themselves.”

Widening the gender gap is actually an abuse of power, she says.

“We’re in a bad place — no one’s ever gotten promoted without a one-on-one meeting, I feel confident in saying that,” Sandberg tells “CBS This Morning” host Gayle King Friday. “Senior men right now are nine times more hesitant to travel with a woman and six times more likely to hesitate to have a work dinner.”

Women — and especially women of color — don’t get the same amount of mentoring as men, “which means we’re not getting an equal seat at the table,” Sandberg says. “It’s not enough to not harass us, you need to not ignore us, either.”

Just so we get it straight:

1. Women accusing men are to be regarded as truth (guilty until proven innocent)
2. Less men want to mentor women because they don’t want to be accused of anything
3. This obvious and logical response to accusation flinging is a male “abuse of power”

You can’t make this stuff up.

I’ve said before that feminism is the cause of its own problems and made that clear in the book, but I didn’t expect to be handed such an obvious example.

Now Sandberg says it’s time for men to “step up” and “redefine what it means to be a good guy at work” — before it costs us all a whole lot of cold hard cash.

“There’s not a company in the world that can afford to leave talent on the sidelines because it’s female,” she says. “But that’s what will keep happening unless all of us — especially men — commit to doing better.”

Always come down to the old “man up.”

Or maybe perhaps stop inciting women to vilify men?

The Demise of Marriage: Cause and Effect

I can’t remember any one person having tried to write down all of the negative effects about the demise of marriage. This is basically a list to try to write down most if not all of them at least in the US. Most western countries probably have similar trends too. Some may overlap with Christianity and Christian marriage, though culture would have been increasing hostile regardless.

Got the idea from reading the comments here. Much of everyone arguing about many of the common talking points not realizing that pretty much everything contributed.

Unfortunately, don’t have the time to link all of the posts that related to all of these topics, so I’ll possibly do it when I have more time. Just linked some of the more recent ones.

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Feminism

• Proto-feminism women’s suffrage — sped up the implementation of liberal policies (see: many points below). However, many of these policies would come about regardless.
• Women in the workforce — increasing need for full-time jobs decreases quality and pay of jobs. Note: I’m not saying women can’t or shouldn’t work (as many women have throughout history and even Biblical times did: Proverbs 31), but this trend does negatively affect employment rates and quality of pay of jobs. It’s basic economics.
• No fault divorce — incentivizes divorce and single motherhood, especially for cash and prizes
• Default mother gets the kids — incentivizes wife divorce
• Sex outside of marriage — decreases marriage rates, increases cohabitation
• Decreased stigma of bastards — decreases marriage rates
• Contraception — decrease marriage rates
• Abortion — decreases marriage rates via increased sex, decreased stigma, and contraception
• Bloating government spending and entitlements — incentivizes single motherhood and poverty
• Increased victimhood and protected class status — virtue signalling and sky high expectations become the norm
• Women can do no wrong — everything is somehow men’s fault.
• Masculinity is demonized (via patriarchy) —  decreases “good masculine men,” increases “feminized pansy men,” and increases “bad boys.”
• Rise of the white knights — men thinking that helping or speaking up for women will make them attracted to him
• Cross-dressing and cross-behavior — women start to cut their hair short, wear men’s clothing, and act more like men which leads to decreased their own attractiveness. Women with longer hair, feminine clothing such as dresses and skirts, and feminine demeanor are almost universally more attractive.
• Women delay marriage: “Find yourself” and “try to have it all” and “don’t settle down too early” — delays women’s marriage expectations until after their most attractive years
• Tearing down “patriarchy” or forced equality of the sexes which doesn’t exist — women are not attracted to most men

These trends have highly destabilized the marriage marketplace, leading to entitled, less-attractive, less feminine women and decreasing amounts of attractive masculine men.

Education trends

• Women gravitate toward educational teaching especially K-12 — biases education system toward girls
• Elimination of PE and increase of busy work in schools — biases education system toward girls
• No child left behind — no stigma for failure leads to decreased care about doing well in life, especially for boys who schools don’t care about
• Men tend to do well in more hands-on fix-it work — some/many men prefer not to go to college and into trades
• College/STEM pushed for women via feminism — Women increasingly represented in college and graduate education (also due to above)
• Parents push their daughters more than their sons — Unsurprisingly, their daughters are more ambitious than their sons to get an education and good job

As educational attainment and a high paying job have become a ‘status symbol,’ this leads women to look down on men leading toward more “where have all the good men gone.”

Other trends

• Husbands and fathers are treated with contempt and no respect — especially happens in the media. Corollary: Loss of solid role models. Decreases men who want to be such.
• Disney princess mentality — sky-high expectations of “prince charming” leading to decreased dates, relationship formation, and marriages. Improper view of “romance.”
• Obesity — decreases both sexes attractiveness which decreases dates, relationship formation, and marriages.
• Pornography and romance novels — sexual satisfaction can be gained at the expense of morality outside (or even inside) of marriage.
• Liberal media bias — feminist policies are pushed at the expense of morality
• Romanticization of marriage — Most marriages outside of the last hundred years were not out of “[feeling] love.”
• Many men and women start to believe that things that are attractive in men (e.g. have a good job, successful, educated, interesting, etc.) are also attractive for women to get a man — Hint: youth, beauty and femininity are attractive to men. These incorrect expectations lead women to focus on the wrong areas to try to land a man.
• Women want men that “have it all” but won’t date men who are significantly older — this is simple logistics. Most men in early to mid 20s are not very successful yet, aside from a few start-ups and those men are usually socially awkward. Since there are only a few men like this early on, the few very attractive women will snap them up. The rest complain where “all the good men went” when their expectations don’t match reality.
• Increase in risk averse behavior — parents want to protect their children from life rather than introduce them to the conflicts of life and how to overcome them. Less men and women are willing to take the plunge to get married earlier or even just ask their counterparts out on dates.
• Parents don’t teach their sons and daughters about the opposite sex much anymore — little if any parental mentoring about life which leads to mass confusion for men and women

These factors negatively affect men and women’s expectations of relationships and also some may result in decreased or significantly decreased attractiveness.

Christian trends

• Chivalry and feminism’s “Christian” counterparts have replaced Biblical marital roles and responsibilities — leads to an inversion of roles or idolatry of the wife in the marriages
• Clear Biblical compromise — women pastors/leaders, de-veiling of women in Church, etc.
• Lack of focus onto preparation for marriage — God’s Biblical marital roles and responsibilities are largely ignored or manipulated in favor of worldly talking points such as “communication” and “conflict management”
• Tingles are a sign of godliness — if she’s in love with you (romance), you’re not acting godly. Makes husbands idolize their wife’s feelings and thereby a slave to them.
• “Women are more spiritual than men” — increases pride and self-entitlement and decreases repentance and humility
• “Women good, men bad” — an offshoot of the above used to blame husbands/fathers for even sins that their wives/daughters/sons commit saying that ‘if they were only godly enough then their wife or children would submit.’ Encourages rebellion and decreases respect and attraction.
• Feminimization of the Church: worship, preaching, etc. — increases female and decreases male attendance leading to disparities in the dating pool that negatively affect women.
• Preacher apex fallacy — sexual attraction is from power and status in the Church. “Be like me” attitude doesn’t work, especially when the pastor suddenly starts having marital troubles because of adherence to chivalry or complementarianism over the Bible.
• Fall to cultural expectations — happy wife happy life, white knighting, women can do no wrong, and many of the other feminism trends.
• “A man must pursue a woman” — the non-Biblical reality of the typical conservative Christians. Reality: Jesus invited the disciples to follow Him, and the disciples chose to follow. He did not chase after them.
• Christians following worldly social scripts — college -> job -> house/car -> marriage are more important than instructing children to follow Biblical morality.
• Physical attractiveness and worldly success are largely ignored — to get a spouse you must wait on “God’s timing and be godly” while ignoring that no one wants to go out on dates with obese, poorly dressed, and poorly marriage-prepared Christians. Which leads into…
• “God’s timing…” or “God’s plan…” — prevents Christians from actually taking steps to change their own situation which decreases chances of meeting someone who also finds attractive. Corollary: God does not promise anyone a spouse in the Bible
• Nuclear rejections — dissuades young Christian men from approaching in the future
• The over-spiritualization of dating — Dating is only encouraged if you’re serious about getting married, and Christian friends hype up a date like you’re getting engaged.
• Jesus is my boyfriend — leads to weird pseudo-romance that negatively inflates women’s expectations in a relationships
• Mother’s day and Father’s day microcosm — praise mothers and shame fathers to do better or “man up.” Even worse: claim God the Father is also a mother.
• Purity culture — Flirting is a “sin.” Women are brown-beaten to not have sex so much they still remain unwilling to have sex in marriage.

Honestly, there were more Christian (or should I say non-Christian) trends than I expected. Most of these negatively affect women’s expectations. Some disincentivize men from being Christian or even trying to date. The worst offenders are the ones that distort the Scriptures to mean or say things that God never said about marriage or promises He never made.

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Overall thoughts

In general, when most men and most women married in their early to mid 20s, the women were marrying for the trajectory of what the man could be (unless she was marrying someone 5-10+ years older than herself). Men would get the “wife of their youth” immediately while working to support his family and become a great husband and father that his wife could brag about as he becomes much more successful.

Most Christian men and women would do well to focus on themselves and what benefits they could bring to a potential spouse. They should work on their own attractiveness: stay fit, eat healthy, well groomed, and masculine or feminine in action and clothing if possible. They should also focus on what God says about marriage and not the common cultural Christian distortions that are parallels of what culture says about husbands and wives.

Christians should be active in serving Jesus and mentoring/discipling others and being mentored/discipled themselves if possible. Network within the Church and go to widespread events as that gives them more avenues to meet other Christians. Evaluate your own expectations of a spouse to make sure that you’re not having unrealistic expectations or too many deal breakers (aside from Biblical requirements like serious Christian).

Also, if I missed any, add them to the comments. I’m pretty sure I got most of everything, but there are always some that I probably missed.

The Lord on vows and divorce

One of the interesting arguments I’ve come across when counseling/giving advice to people in rough marriages is that “God cares more about the people more than the marriage.”

An interesting take that seems to be true on the surface, but it doesn’t actually take into account the Lord’s position and is actually wrong.

Consider the story of Jephthah:

Judges 11:29 Now the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, so that he passed through Gilead and Manasseh; then he passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he went on to the sons of Ammon. 30 Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, “If You will indeed give the sons of Ammon into my hand, 31 then it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, it shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.” 32 So Jephthah crossed over to the sons of Ammon to fight against them; and the Lord gave them into his hand. 33 He struck them with a very great slaughter from Aroer to the entrance of Minnith, twenty cities, and as far as Abel-keramim. So the sons of Ammon were subdued before the sons of Israel.

34 When Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, behold, his daughter was coming out to meet him with tambourines and with dancing. Now she was his one and only child; besides her he had no son or daughter. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are among those who trouble me; for I have given my word to the Lord, and I cannot take it back.” 36 So she said to him, “My father, you have given your word to the Lord; do to me as you have said, since the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the sons of Ammon.” 37 She said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me; let me alone two months, that I may go to the mountains and weep because of my virginity, I and my companions.” 38 Then he said, “Go.” So he sent her away for two months; and she left with her companions, and wept on the mountains because of her virginity. 39 At the end of two months she returned to her father, who did to her according to the vow which he had made; and she had no relations with a man. Thus it became a custom in Israel, 40 that the daughters of Israel went yearly to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year.

Obviously, Jephthah makes a terrible vow, but both he and his daughter recognize that obeying the Lord is of the utmost importance even though it may result in his daughter’s death.

Related: Numbers 30 on vows and Jesus on avoiding rash oaths/vows (because of the seriousness of them).

Matthew 5:33 “Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord.’ 34 But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.

Of course, every husband and wife takes vows to enter into the covenant of marriage.

Yeah, it sucks if you’re in an abusive situation (an actual abusive situation, not just they’re not doing what I want). If there’s physical abuse, sure, there’s possible reason to separate and stay single or reconcile. However, Jesus gave us the best example: he was totally innocent and suffered violence and abuse so that we would be reconciled to God. If only husbands and wives would model Jesus’ example in order to win their spouse to God.

Christians today think so little of God that at any sign of “suffering or abuse” they are counseled that they have the right to leave their marriage. Jesus’ example of bearing our sin and suffering means nothing to them.

Instead, God cared so much that He sent His totally innocent son to suffer violence and abuse on our behalf, and He invites us to follow His example to win others to Himself.

I think that many of these people are going to be surprised by God’s judgment on judgment day when God says “why did you counsel others to divorce” and they respond with “their spouse was abusive” that their response doesn’t cut it.

This is also another reason why the “exception clause” in Matthew 19 does not refer to divorce but likely the betrothal view (Deut 22), which I covered in Divorce Part 7 Final.

Matthew 19:3 Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for any reason at all?” 4 And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” 7 They *said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?” 8 He *said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to puts away your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. 9 And I say to you, whoever puts away his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

10 The disciples *said to Him, “If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry.” 11 But He said to them, “Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it.”

God does not invalidate your marriage vows despite how bad your spouse acts (“to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part”), which means the exception cannot mean that God allows for divorce.

Indeed, only death breaks the marital covenant:

Romans 7:2 For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. 3 So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.

1 Corinthians 7:10 But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband 11 (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife.

1 Corinthians 7:39 A wife is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.

The Lord and Paul are consistent about this fact, and most Christians gloss over 1 Corinthians 7:39. This also means that the “abandonment” earlier in 1 Corinthians 7 cannot be a reason for release from the covenant of marriage and by extension definitely does not allow remarriage.

1 Corinthians 7:15 Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace.

Paul is saying that a believer is not under the “bonds of marriage” or the “roles and responsibilities of marriage.” They should stay single or reconcile as they are still married to them to be consistent with the other Scripture.

Finally, to circle back to the beginning: God cares more about you being faithful to Him and honoring your word than even your physical health.

Suffering is normal

This is from the Biblical Masculinity Blueprint book, but strikingly relevant to Dalrock’s latest post on the promises of fake Christianity.

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One of the common themes that we see throughout the Old Testament is the promise of God that if Abraham and Israel followed His commandments, they would be blessed and prosperous.

It shall come about, if you listen obediently to my commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your heart and all your soul, that He will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and late rain, that you may gather in your grain and your new wine and your oil. He will give grass in your fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied. Beware that your hearts are not deceived, and that you do not turn away and serve other gods and worship them. Or the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and He will shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its fruit; and you will perish quickly from the good land which the Lord is giving you (Deuteronomy 11:13–17).

This is where much of the so-called prosperity gospel comes from in first-world Christianity. It is a seductive lie that if you are obedient to God, He will bless you. Some examples of this include:

• If you obey God, you will be happy.
• If you give [money] to God, He will multiply your finances many
  times over.
• You can name it and claim it or ask God for something, and He
  will give it to you.

Certainly, these promises were given in the Old Testament, but what about the New Testament? If you obey God, will you be happy?

“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived (2 Timothy 3:10–13).

Everyone who desires to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted! God does not promise Christians the fleeting feeling of happiness, which is different from the fruit of the Spirit, peace and joy. Far from it. We should prepare to suffer as Christians for our faith. Even Jesus told us that those who are his disciples will be hated by the world. Yet we are to cling fast to His teachings for salvation. We are to evangelize and make disciples.

What do the scriptures say about generosity?

Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. . . . Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness; you will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only fully supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing through many thanksgivings to God (2 Corinthians 9:6–7, 10–12).

Our generosity multiplies our seed to increase our harvest of righteousness and thanksgiving to God. It does not promise us money or other worldly riches. Rather, we are storing up treasures in heaven.

What do the scriptures say about prosperity?

Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:31–33).

The context of the above passage is anxiety about basic human needs, such as food, drink, and clothing and not money or worldly riches. Jesus showed a practical application of this in Luke 10 when He sent out the seventy disciples—don’t take a money or a bag or sandals but instead eat whatever food and drink is provided to you.

As humans, we have the tendency to think that God hates us or that we did something wrong if we have problems. The scriptures do not promise that if we obey God, we will be happy, rich, or that He will give us our desires (though He might). The main thing that we are promised is suffering and persecution for choosing to follow Jesus. It is important to remove the expectation that God will make us happy because this can severely cripple our faith if our life circumstances become hard or extremely difficult.

How many Christians and even non-Christians have turned away from God because they faced difficult circumstances? I’m sure many of us can think of several people who have turned away from God in these situations. But we should instead rejoice and give thanks in our hard circumstances because we can be a witness to those around us in the culture and even the church that we are different. Our joy amidst suffering—even in prison (Acts
16) like Peter, Paul, and the other disciples—shows that God has changed us and delivered us. That’s God’s will for us. 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 encourages us, “Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

All of this is to say that sometimes the battlefield will come to us where we least expect it. Our relationships with our friends, our family, and even in our relationships and marriages can become strained and lead to suffering or even persecution.

This is not a reason to be angry with God, but it is an opportunity for us to witness and show the love of God during the suffering and persecution so that we can win those close to us for Christ. God calls us to do the right thing, and He can win our family, friends, or spouse to Him. But He also doesn’t promise us that He will. We need to take it on faith that He will use our righteous actions to continually work in them.

Like Joseph, David, Job, Paul, and the rest of the disciples, we need to keep in mind that our loyalty is to God and His commandments first, no matter how bad our circumstances around us become. These men suffered and were persecuted even for decades on end. But they stayed faithful, and God mightily used them. The Christian life is hard. Embrace it and don’t become bitter, impatient, or tired. Continually seek God for His help among the hardships that you encounter and put on His peace and joy.

Finally, if you need to complain, remember that complaining always goes up and not down. David pours out his heart to God in the Psalms, which teach us about the difficult times in his life. Any of his complaints, fears, worries are all going to God. They are not going to his wives, children, advisors, or those around him. David is called a man after God’s own heart. Heed his example. Complaining is destructive to those around you. If you
must vent or complain, find some trusted Christian brothers who can lend you an ear and give you godly counsel and encouragement.

This is the resilience that we need to develop as Christians that make us even more fervent for the gospel rather than to turn our backs on God. Marital troubles and divorce are certainly some times where the going gets rough, but God desires our obedience even in the midst of suffering

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One of the big things I’ve consistently seen in both real life and here online is that people think that doing the right thing such as obedience to God and follow His marital roles and responsibilities will make their relationships or marriages happier.

Yes, it can often do that as God can use our behavior to change others. However, God does not promise us this. This is one of the big things you should take into account if you do decide to marry even if you vet well: you can have a spouse that totally goes off their rocker. Are you ready to fulfill your promises in marriage to God and them even if they make your life insanely difficult? That is a hard thing to do.

Suffering is the normal for Christians, especially since we are constantly warring against our own flesh and the spiritual battles going on all around us. The hard part to maturity in Christ is to embrace is to being joyful in the midst of suffering.

Men Have No Friends and Women Bear the Burden is hilarious

Seen this article go around the web in multiple forms.

Toxic masculinity—and the persistent idea that feelings are a “female thing”—has left a generation of straight men stranded on emotionally-stunted island, unable to forge intimate relationships with other men. It’s women who are paying the price.

You can appreciate the irony.

Feminism states men should be like women which means be “sensitive” and “express their emotions.” Yet when they start doing it, they’re labeled emotionally stunted (compared to women as the standard) and unable to forge intimate relationships with other men. Thus, women have to “bear the burden” of these emotionally stunted men.

Perhaps because these “other men” don’t want to hang around with men act like women.

This is yet another “problem” created by feminism, but attempted to be framed by blaming it on the patriarchy or toxic masculinity.

Some of the funnier excerpts:

Kelly’s story, though extreme, is a common example of modern American relationships. Women continue to bear the burden of men’s emotional lives, and why wouldn’t they? For generations, men have been taught to reject traits like gentleness and sensitivity, leaving them without the tools to deal with internalized anger and frustration. Meanwhile, the female savior trope continues to be romanticized on the silver screen (thanks Disney!), making it seem totally normal—even ideal—to find the man within the beast.

Unlike women, who are encouraged to foster deep platonic intimacy from a young age, American men—with their puffed up chests, fist bumps, and awkward side hugs—grow up believing that they should not only behave like stoic robots in front of other men, but that women are the only people they are allowed to turn to for emotional support—if anyone at all. And as modern relationships continue to put pressure on “the one” to be The Only One (where men cast their wives and girlfriends to play best friend, lover, career advisor, stylist, social secretary, emotional cheerleader, mom—to him, their future kids, or both—and eventually, on-call therapist minus the $200/hour fee), this form of emotional gold digging is not only detrimental to men, it’s exhausting an entire generation of women.

This is one of the hallmarks of the inverted roles in marriage.

Instead of the man as the head of the wife, the wife becomes the “head” of the man. But since there is no such thing as that, it becomes very similar to another relationship: a mother and her child.

One can only wonder why women become unhappy when they selectively choose to “mother” their man rather than respect him.

But unlike women in our mothers’ generation, Gen X’ers and millennials are starting to hold their partners accountable—or they’re simply leaving. Ruby Marez, a comedian in her early 30’s living in Los Angeles, got so fed up with functioning as an unpaid therapist that she gave her then-boyfriend of five years an ultimatum: Get a shrink or we’re done. “He had no excuse not to go since his job paid for it. But here I was, a struggling freelancer with no benefits, always finding a way to prioritize therapy and yoga.” He refused for two years, then finally agreed after multiple arguments—but there was a catch; only if she found the therapist and set up the appointments, which she did. He rarely went, says Marez, often blaming the therapist for scheduling conflicts. A little wiser, Marez broke up with her most recent boyfriend of two years after he said he didn’t need therapy, because he had her for that.

You get what you deserve is a pretty apt statement.

If you’re a woman and want to be the one in control in a relationship, you should expect to attract men who want you to be in control.

Surprise surprise.

“Men are taught that feelings are a female thing,” muses Johnson, whose husband often complains about her wanting to “talk deep.” Though Johnson brags about how wonderful her husband is—grateful he doesn’t exhaust her with his neediness like a lot of her married friends—she does wish men were encouraged to examine and explore their emotions in a safe setting, like therapy, before they boil over. “I’m tired of having to replace another broken bedside table because he didn’t realize he needed to talk about his feelings,” she admits.

Men were never taught to not have feelings. This is just feminist projection that since men rarely emoted they think we’re taught not have feelings.

Men were taught to process emotions internally and to have good discipline and self control. This goes along with their nature.

It’s only after men aren’t taught to process their emotions internally and the lack of good male role models that you have men who can’t process their emotions correctly and lead to outbursts of anger and immaturity. Yet also somehow blamed on traditional masculinity.

There’s some other funny stuff in there that you can only shake your head at, but it’s pretty obvious that this is a problem of feminism’s making. They really want to complain about the men they created with their own philosophy while unloading the blame onto other things.

The bigger can of worms in the Caster Semenya issue

The Caster Semenya issue. The mentioned NYT article argues that is discriminatory, which it pretty much is. However, there are bigger issues afoot.

I’ve actually followed this a decade prior to the huge blow up a week or so ago when the IAAF ruled that she had to lower her testosterone levels to compete.

What she has is androgen insensitivity syndrome. If you followed House MD back in the day, they did an episode on it.

What happens in this condition is that early in the womb  testosterone starts differentiating the zygote into male (or lack of testosterone differentiates it into female). However, “boys” with XY chromosomes and androgen insensitivity will start to differentiate toward girl traits because their cells have mutated forms of androgen receptors and can’t pick up on the elevated testosterone levels telling the body to differentiate into a boy.

You can read more about it here on wikipedia though it gets more strange based on the variations. Some of the women have testes and some have ovaries. Some are hermaphroditic. Not actually sure what Semenya has whether partial or complete but it’s pretty clear that she has female genitalia and was raised as a girl (though she has some masculine features compared to women).

Track and Field obviously tests for levels of androgens “outside of normal” for male and female (generally arbitrary ranges that are statistically significant outside of the normale population). So in 2009 or so it set off alarms when Semenya was starting to decrease her times significantly and break records. That’s when they figured out she had the intersex trait (XY) but is phenotypically female.

This is truly a tough case to rule on.

However, the bigger can of worms is not this case but the burgeoning “transgender cases” of men identifying as women and competing with women and breaking women’s records. This is starting to happen all over the world and you typically see the women athletes and all of the people defending Semenya complaining about it.

They know these men are just doing it because beating women is easier, they can set records, and it leaves a bad taste in their mouth, but the double standard is obvious. The really big issue is when there starts to be prize money involved. If you defend Semenya in these case, you can’t complain about men randomly identifying as women competing against women.

I think it’s most likely the IAAF decided to make a stand here on the transgender issue rather than delve into the more controversial cases of where clear biological men are identifying as women and allowed to compete as women. Testosterone was just their way to do it because it will eliminate the other biological men raised as men who try to identify as women in the future.

Funny enough, Dalrock mentioned this topic a bit today as I had written up this post yesterday. Biological males (raised as males) who are winning at women’s races.

Teachable: one of the most critical traits in vetting a wife

Teachable is one of the least discussed traits that should be high up on the list.

The evidence for it is obvious:

Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.

The purpose of a husband’s love for his wife is for her sanctification. It’s not to placate her feelings or make her feel loved but so that she becomes more like Jesus. More often than not, this type of love will make her feel hurt or bad in the moment because it means correcting her if she’s gone off track.

This command via the Scripture is also a mirror of the failure of the first Adam with Jesus fulfilling the role of second Adam.

Genesis 2:15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. 16 The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

Genesis 3:17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;

Instead of reiterating God’s command to Eve that they shouldn’t eat from the fruit of the tree, he went along with his wife and disobeyed God instead.

Hence, the God-given responsibility is reiterated to us as husbands in the New Covenant in Jesus: you are still responsible for helping your wife obey God’s commands to help play a role in her sanctification.

This mirrors the Christian walk where we are made co-heirs and co-workers by Jesus to fulfill His command to spread the gospel and make disciples of all nations. The commands prior to the fall in Genesis are re-purposed for Jesus’ kingdom in both the Church and marriage.

It is very wise that you only marry a wife who is teachable. If you marry a wife that does not respond to correction or criticism that’s heaping trouble upon your own head. If they don’t respond to correction or criticism, it’s unlikely that they’re also going to want to obey God or the Bible to respect and submit either.