On Dalrock’s recent thread. I’ve been wanting to write about this for a while, but now seems like a good time.
I get tired of the doom and gloom about how there are no chaste Christian girls left. (And a girl who chooses not to be chaste isn’t a Christian. Sorry, but that’s how it works.) They don’t hang around the manosphere tho or go on Christian dating websites.
Preach it, brother. I totally, wholeheartedly agree with you.
I have said it before, that a whole lot of guys on this site who keep complaining, somewhat like Elijah, that there were no longer any righteous/chaste/desirable/godly/marriage-worthy women in America, are looking at the wrong places. Or they are simply too lazy to do the work of finding a great wife. Or they are too immobilized under the weight of their crushing unbelief to trust God to guide them.
At the same time, there are men on this site who are married to chaste, godly, and beautiful women. Yes, right here in America.
And I am fully confident that America still has literally millions of attractive, chaste and godly women who are praying everyday for God to send them a husband.
I suppose the big question is… are there millions of attractive, chaste, and godly women left in America. Good question.
Let’s find out.
- There are 10,466,258 women aged 25-29 and 10,571,823 women aged 20-24 and 10,736,677 women aged 15-19 in the US. Let’s say the range from 18-29 is good. 18-19 make up 40% of the 15-19 range so approximately 4294671 women.
2010 Census Data. Not much changes in 5 years given the chart as each population group is still roughly 10 million. http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf
Total women in 18-29 age range = 25,332,752
- Less than 20% of Americans regularly attend church — half of what the pollsters report. While Gallup polls and other statisticians have turned in the same percentage — about 40% of the population — of average weekend church attendees for the past 70 years, a different sort of research paints quite a disparate picture of how many Americans attend a local church on any given Sunday.
7 Startling Facts: An Up Close Look at Church Attendance in America
Total women in 18-29 age range that attend Church regularly = 25,332,752 * .2 = 5,066,550
- We also know that 70% of young adults in the 18-22 range drop out of church.
http://www.lifeway.com/Article/LifeWay-Research-finds-reasons-18-to-22-year-olds-drop-out-of-church
Total women in 18-29 age range that attend Church regularly that didn’t drop out = 5,066,550 * .3 = 1,519,965
- 58.5 of women 20-39 years old are overweight or obese in 2011-2012 in the US
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1832542
Total women in 18-29 age range that attend Church regularly, that didn’t drop out, and aren’t overweight or obese = 1,519,965 * .415 = 630785
- In highly religious groups, up to 20% wait [to have sex] until marriage successfully. Naturally, religious people seem more likely to wait until marriage to have sex. In a study of 9 Southern Babtist churches in Texas (it doesn’t get much more conservative than that), 20% of the church members aged 25 or younger were married without ever having premarital sex.
http://waitingtillmarriage.org/4-cool-statistics-about-abstinence-in-the-usa/
Total women in 18-29 age range that attend Church regularly, that didn’t drop out, and aren’t overweight or obese, and are virgins at marriage = 630785 * .2 = 126,157
That’s dismal in my opinion.
Other thoughts
I didn’t even take into account some other factors like the fact that many of these women in the age 18-29 are focused on careers over marriage… or aren’t even really Christians as most of the people in Church play lip service to Jesus. For example,
- The National Marriage Project also found that “about 80 percent of young-adult men and women continued to rate marriage as an ‘important’ part of their life plans; almost half of them described it as ‘very important.’” Thirty percent of 25-year-old single women want to be married. Read more at http://national.deseretnews.com/article/1893/The-national-marriage-age-is-increasing-but-not-for-this-group-of-people.html . Only ~30% of women want to be married in the 18-30 age range on average approximately.
- Those who attend church are not always “Christians.” Based on my experience and others I’d say that only 10-20% of Christians in churches are actually reading their Bible and striving to obey Scripture.
- Worse measures of virginity in non-extremely conservative Church populations.
- Denominational differences. This clumps all religions together (hindu, muslum, etc.) not just Catholic and Protestant.
In conclusion, there are approximately 125,000 (126,157) Christian women in the US aged 18-29 who regularly attend Church, aren’t overweight or obese, and are virgins at marriage. This is approximately 0.5% of the 18-29 total population (126,157 / 25,332,752). Pretty rare. In the US total population it is .039% (126,157 / 320,090,000).
I would say this is a decent estimate given that I didn’t factor in some of the non-independent variables. For example, those who are virgins are more likely to attend Church, and those who obey Jesus are more likely to be virgins. There are some independent such as the fact that obesity and overweight rates are similar across most of the adult population. However, I didn’t take into account some variables such as careerism, decreased measures of chastity, and lip service Christians so the estimate is probably close to being on target.
It is highly unlikely that there are millions as Dave put it. Probably a factor of 10 or less. Also, note that this number will decrease as feminism becomes more pervasive and the Church continues to take on cultural mores rather than Jesus.
Specifically, in any random Church the percentage that you’ll find a 18-29 year old attractive, Christian virgin is going to be .2 (virginity at marriage) * .415 (not overweight or obese) = 8.30%. In other words, about 1 in 12.
The main problem is that the top 10% Christian “alpha” will relationship her quick and marry her straight up, so it’s likely that your average Christian man will even get a shot. That’s worse odds than the traditional Pareto principle 80/20 rule which is about 1 in 4. In other words, you have to become the attractive top 5% of a man in order to have a good shot at marrying an attractive, virgin, Christian woman.
Thems the statistics. More than you thought? Less than you thought? I’d love to hear what everyone else thinks.
Christianity and masculinity 
I’m not really surprised the number is so low. The few women I know that I can assert with any certainty are virgins in that age range are either overweight, have a serious personality flaw, or are putting off all dating/marriage pursuit until later. And in a few cases, all three. Those who lack those flaws get married off as quickly as possible. Heck, if the overweight ones aren’t too overweight and have an awesome personality they get married pretty quickly too.
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Thanks for crunching the numbers. I really appreciate this one. I have been shouting from the rooftops that there isn’t anything like “lots” of chaste Christian women.
@ thedeti
Yeah, the numbers actually seem to align as most of us thought.
The 6% or maybe even 10-20% in some Church populations of women that are attractive and virgins get snapped up real quick by the Christian alphas (top 5-20% of men respectively). The rest of the Church population is either virgin and unattractive or attractive and not virgin. Most are unattractive and not virgins.
Very little of the population is both attractive and virgin. What there is of that population gets wifed up. They’re the small number of attractive Christian couples with a couple kids in their mid 20s that you see. The wife is usually a 7-8+ feminine woman, and the man is built and has a handsome face and probably has other qualities such as plays on the worship team, small group leader, or other leadership traits or talents.
I found some better data so I revised the OP.
Instead of the normal adult obesity rate of 68.8% I found in this article that the obesity rate of 20-39 year old women is 58.5%. In actuality, it may be close to 50% or so given that obesity will rise in the 30-39 range range.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1832542
This revises the estimates using the 58.8% obesity rate to:
In conclusion, there are approximately 126,157 Christian women in the US aged 18-29 who regularly attend Church, aren’t overweight or obese, and are virgins at marriage. This is approximately 0.5% of the 18-29 total population (126,157 / 25,332,752). Pretty rare. In the US total population it is .039% (126,157 / 320,090,000).
and
Specifically, in any random Church the percentage that you’ll find a 18-29 year old attractive, Christian virgin is going to be .2 (virginity at marriage) * .415 (not overweight or obese) = 8.30%. In other words, about 1 in 12.
Slightly better odds but still 1 in 16 and 1 in 12 might as well be the same. Only the top 10% of Christian men will be able to marry an attractive Christian virgin.
Additionally, even if the overweight and obesity rate is cut to 50% then the data still indicates a 1 in 10 ratio in the 18-29 year olds in Church of being both a virgin and attractive, and approximately 150,000 women (151,996 to be exact). 200,000 women is an overestimate.
Still, only the top 10% of single Christian men will be able to marry an attractive Christian virgin.
I’m a dad.
I have three to marry off, a son and two girls. My son is 19, a bit immature, but he’s a very good looking kid, a sharp dresser, fit and has a great sense of humor and charm. I’ve worked with him for some time on godly responsibility and masculinity – he’s internalized quite a bit. We’re currently going over you “A detailed timeline and how to guide on the process of finding a wife” together. Thanks for that BTW. I don’t worry about him at all – I would not doubt that he’d fall in the top 5%.
Of the two daughters, the youngest is too young to worry about just yet. For the older, whose primary desire is to be a wife and mother, I take stuff like this article seriously. I am in a good situation with my daughter, as she views finding her a husband a family activity – we’re all involved, primarily at the teaching phase right now.
It’s interesting having a discussion regarding attractiveness with your 17 year old daughter in which you try to give an accurate, unbiased rating (we agreed she’s about a 6, by the way) with the goal of upping her attractiveness (she’s a bit of a late bloomer, so if she comes out like her older sister, just the passing of time will take her to an 8). She’s feminine, good mannered and chaste. Plus, she’s whip smart, active in evangelism, apologetics, plays several instruments, is a hard worker, artistic, blah, blah, blah. Don’t mean to make this sound like a college entrance resume, but the girl has a lot going for her.
She understands the attractiveness issue and its importance. I picked her up from a bridal shower last week and she commented, “I feel bad for Susie and Mary because they’re probably never going to get married.” And she’s probably right – both girls are very obese, not very intelligent, drab, and too quiet. Both are sweet girls. Both volunteer at the church and are loved and a part of our family. But it’s highly unlikely that they’ll gain the attention of a marriage-minded man.
In any case, I am struggling with how to find a young man for her. We don’t have a list of 2,000 criteria that the man must meet, but we’re also not seeing a lot of candidates, at least not masculine ones. Assuming we can make her attractive to the top 10%, where do we find these young men when you want to avoid the nominal Christians and find her the best match we can?
We’re not ready to marry her off just yet, but it’s better to address these issues early in my opinion.
Part of me wants to say that the actual way to approach these numbers would be via Set Theory and Union/Disunion mathematics, since there is no assumption of equal distribution. But trying to run that up in my head is going to cost me dearly, so we’ll just run with the numbers as a safe approximation.
@Looking Glass ==> BINGO!!
Close enough for gubbmint work.
@ KingProphetPriest
Sounds about right. There’s quite a few women like that in my church.
Generally speaking, I think its best to tell to her aim to find a man with potential. It’s unlikely you’ll find a man who is somewhat “more complete” in his masculinity and godliness unless you’re looking at men that are 27-30+ years of age.
Also, men that mature into men more readily will tend to have their pick of the litter and will go after the chaste, attractive, Christian women who are 8+. If your daughter doesn’t mature into an 8 by early 20 then it’s probably unlikely that she will be able to snag one as opposed to one with more potential and whatnot.
Masculinity can be coached up by you as a mentor as long as the man is willing to listen, learn, and apply.
Gonna quibble with the math now that I’ve re-read it. The Lifeway study about young people that leave the church puts the leavers at 70% (which is the number you use in your formula) but then the article at the link goes on to state:
“Many of those who drop out do eventually return. Among church dropouts who are now ages 23-30, 35 percent currently attend church twice a month or more. Another 30 percent attend church more sporadically. Thus, about two-thirds of those who leave do return at some level.”
So, a good number do come back, which could make the dismal numbers a little higher.
However, how many of the young women return after a period of “living life large?” My bet is that not all of them that left church as virgins return to it in the same state.
So we’re back to dismal again.
@ KingProphetPriest
Counting the additional 35% will approximately double the number. About 30% versus 65%. Thus, instead of 125,000 there would be 250,000.
Not sure I would count 2 times a month or more as an accurate indicator of “coming back to the Church as a committed Christian” though.
And, yes, for the women the living large attitude (including sex for most) brings it back down to dismal.
I actually believe that there may be a significant number of chaste women who do not attend church, because so many churches are kind of wacky and repelling in many ways.
The bigger question is, however, if the virginity and/or chastity is a result of a Godly decision, or an intersection between religion and hypergamy. I knew two girls back in the day who were no doubt virgins until they married. But the only men they were interested in were non Christian bad boy types.
One had absolutely zero interest in the guys at church, but hungrily eyed cocky unsaved men. She finally married in her 40s. The other is, I believe, still single.
@KingProphetPriest:
Networking. It’s always down to Networking. But I think you’re missing one piece of information: What type of personality does she work well with?
One of the problem with “The List” approach that everyone uses is that it never takes into account the actual personality of the other party. Bullet Points don’t explain how a person would come to have that trait. It might help to look at the extremes. Which would she handle better: An extrovert’s extrovert OR a Man of very few words? Each can be strongly masculine, but personalty aspects that go with how much they like to speak effects many things.
And take this next statement only for what it is, a reaction to a description of your daughter. She sounds like a good Pastor’s wife. If that makes sense from the actual reality of her (rather than the deception given), I think your networking makes a whole lot more sense from there. There’s bound to be a Christian college in the area. The Network point would be either pastor for those college students or a professor at the college.
It’s also important to point out about the SMV chart is that her expected “peak” is age 23-25. So, if she keeps her weight & heart in check, she will improve in looks by a bit over the next few years. But it does leave a very small window for her to work. But good on you for focusing on making it all work. This is one of the ways you can bless your Children (and their Children).
@ jack
You are correct that there many be a decent percentage of attractive Christian virgins who are “off the wall” so to speak. Maybe not in terms of not going to Church, but in terms of the purity culture movement.
Lest we remember the case of Samantha Pugsley where virginity became her idol and ultimately left the faith because of it:
http://thoughtcatalog.com/samantha-pugsley/2014/08/i-waited-until-my-wedding-night-to-lose-my-virginity-and-i-wish-i-hadnt/
She counts as a virgin who waited until marriage to have sex.
DS-
Yep. This is a clear case of someone snowflaking their virginity, rather than understanding why.
By the way,
http://time.com/4018384/pregnant-french-woman-video-australia/
Lolzlzlolzolz!!
I’ve had it with anyone showing any sympathy to these stupid chicks.
Presuming it is not a hoax.
Yeah, those numbers are more than a little disappointing. As a 24-year old guy, I’ve, noticed that while there are chaste women (either my age or a couple of years younger), a fair amount of them aren’t really marriage-minded at this point. Sure, they say that they’d like to get married, but they’d rather wait until their late twenties because they want to prioritize travel/career/etc.
@ Coastal
Yeah, that’s the big confounding issue that wasn’t even taken into account these statistics.
Even if you do find some many want to focus on education, careers, and travel.
I suppose the opposite is the women who do long term missions. I know quite a few of those. Missions and traveling to Africa, Europe, or South America take priority over forming a family. In 10 years they’re going to wonder why they never got married. Surprise: you could’ve married and had a family and also done short term missions here and there. Long term missions is amazing and you can make a difference, but at the expense of never having a family? That’s a high cost for many women.
@DS:
Vanity before Godliness. Emotional response to Goodness over the Quest for Godliness.
It’s the same situation that normally happens with Mega-Church pastors. (Granted, it’s been happening for 2000 years.) They “feel” the Spirit but they’re not really listening to God. The Spirit does a lot of good, but it serves the people doing it little more than the emotional response. This is one of the ways God does amazing things through people that are just barely following. Yet the skills the people have are undeniable. They just aren’t channeled to what God has asked of them, meaning (for them) it is of little benefit.
The “I’m a strong Christian Woman, watch me go on missions trips!” move comes from the same place. The desire to do good is admirable, and the work that is done by God is life-changing, but it’s hard not to quote Ecclesiastes about it all.
@jack:
I’d assume it’s a hoax of some form. Or it’s not what it’s cracked up to be.
I think it depends on what their careers are. Like for example I am 24 and in technical school for nursing, i have one semester to go. Now for other girls they might be trying to be doctors which would take fours years undergrad then another fours or more if grad school which would put her around 27 then there is the whole residency thing too so. I guess look for girls who are doing two years programs.
Its kinda funny DS- at one point I guesstimated the number of “eligible young Christian women” and came to a similar conclusion in terms of numbers- about 80k to 120k virgin Christian women in that age bracket. Thanks for providing numbers to back up my gut. My take on Christian men is probably about 200k-300k who fit the opposite profile.
This is doubt. Given the social nature of women, I don’t think they are as apt to “go alone” as devout Christian men. Plus the environment is not so hostile to them.
I’m surprised at the final number… I would’ve thought that it would be a little bit higher than that. Maybe 3% or so. But, still pretty bad either way…
My situation exactly – prior to marriage, wife felt called to foreign missions, I didn’t. She refused my proposal of marriage. I broke it off, left the state and she came running after me. About a week later we were talking to a missionary who told her, “If you’re going to be a married, you marry the man, not the mission. You could marry a missionary who gets sick or gets called to a ministry back home and has to return to the U.S. What then? If you get married to anyone, YOUR mission field is your husband and children. If KingProphetPriest is a godly man, you’re free to marry him. If God wants you on the mission field, he’ll change your husband’s heart.”
She felt “freed” by that, so she married me. Six months later we were in a foreign country doing missions work.
@KPP:
This is a nitpick, but the instant someone says they “feel called” to something, my hackles go up. God tells you to do things; he doesn’t play games. If you’re “feeling” something, what you’re feeling is a need to pray more to get clarity because you are not listening. What happened with your wife is the classic problem that happens to most Christians: what they were feeling was the direction (which we all like) but not the Voice. The Voice is what gives us clarity and is normally ignored.
I can’t be that special that God is always clear to me. The one time I think he hasn’t been? I’ve still got a $10 bill in my wallet and it’ll stay there until I know what I should do with it. It’s approaching year 2.
@ Looking Glass
I don’t have any problem with Christians being called to good things. Missions, evangelism, and the like are all good things. The devil wouldn’t call a Christian to that.
What I would worry about is people twisting a calling into something it’s not.
Basically, “God has called me to missions so I’m going to do it now.” Well, it could be that God has called you to missions somewhere down the road and not now. Doing missions now may mean you miss out on other things.
Essentially, timing and degree matter in terms of calling. Maybe missions should be short term not long term. Maybe the missions should be 10 years from now and not now. I want to do what God has called me to… but at the right time and in the right manner to the right degree.
If you do things without God’s blessing in that season you may be missing out on other blessings that He would have had for you. Relationships included.
@Looking Glass:
Yup. Same here. “Calling” is tossed around so casually. I spent a long time trying to figure out what my “calling” was. I could tell you what my gifts were. I could tell you what I was good at. But how that all mystically converged into a life goal eluded me. It’s been 30 years and, honestly, trying to find my “calling” has led to a lot of wasted time, while just walking through open doors has resulted in more fruitful endeavors.
That Voice thing? I am totally getting that these days. It’s like a drumbeat to me: “Get ready, get ready…” It took me awhile to understand what it meant and another bit to get moving, but that instruction is clear as can be.
Also, thanks for the networking comments above. Our network is small, but you had some good input on enlarging it.
God gives you what you need, when you need it. Our focus should be on “being prepared”. The Apostle Paul spends a lot of time dealing with the issue of being ready for the Lord’s Return and living in the current life. The conflict is very much due to our own Pride and not wanting to “get” what God is doing. James 4:13-17 directly addresses this as well.
I can get on a whole long rant about how our society talks about having “Dreams” and how pathetically stupid & self-defeating they become. Christians just like to switch “Calling” for “Dream” and act the same way. If God hasn’t been explicit, yet, it doesn’t mean you won’t be called to something. The entire point, firstly, is to listen to the Lord and do the practical things he told us to do in this book thing. I think it’s called a Bible? “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God” and all that jazz. Christians should start there and walk through the doors God opens. If he needs to redirect you someplace that doesn’t make direct sense, He will tell you. The Lord is faithful.
As for networking. Networking. It solves massive amounts of problems in a lot of things.
DS-
I do think it is possible for people to get “callings” to what sounds like Godly work (eg missions), but is not where they are supposed to actually be. Some people desire to enter mission work for the same impulses that secular leftists do – the do-gooder impulse, and maybe they like the feelgoodz that come from helping the “other”.
But this can cause someone to miss their real calling, which might be to minister to their family, get married, have children and raise them in a Godly way, or whatever.
I mean, do we believe God called Mark Driscoll into the ministry? I sure doubt it. Maybe he started out good then fell, but overall I think he entered the ministry from a carnal impulse, since his actions and words were very carnal. I know this because I can tell the difference between my carnal opinions and my spiritual insights, at least most of the time. For instance, I can tell whether my response to a commenter is a righteous rebuke, or just a put-them-in-their-place shutdown.
Some people might feel “called” to somethign Godly like missions or ministry out of a sense of obligation – the rest of their social network might be doing those things, and they feel like they are bad people for not feeling the same calling, and reinterpret the guilt as the “calling”.
We must be where we fit, and if God calls us, he equips us. If a person has been trying to raise money to go on a mission for 10 years, but is “still waiting for God to provide the funds”, then I question whether that is their calling.
There are many possible examples of this, but I recall one guy who disrupted his entire family with wife and three kids, moved them to a dangerous part of South America, and ended up coming back a few years later. I think that some people create a calling out of preference and assumptions, which is why I caution people to be careful about assuming a calling just because it sounds like a Godly pursuit.
@ jack
Agreed. Situation matters so much in terms of calling.
I think that God could’ve called Driscoll into the ministry. He may have been called into it and what occurred is that his pride and hubris got the better of him. As the common maxim goes… power corrupts. Or He could’ve been in it for the money the whole time. Who knows.
I think it more likely that he was called at first. However, he started to rely more on his talents than in developing good character and his relationship with God. This seems to be the case with most people and their hubris. The Dugger husband is one. The homeschool affair dude is another.
Generally speaking, I know that what I am supposed to do in a certain time is when I get peace about it after prayer as in Philippians 4, and it aligns fully with the Scriptures.
Philippians 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all [d]comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Wise counsel is always another one. Unfortunately, that is in short supply nowadays.
@jack & DS:
It’s a common issue, especially on Missionary Boards these days. But there’s also something to be careful of when talking about these things, and it’s this. The “work” isn’t a failure; the person that does the work has failed God & themselves.
That might seem an odd point to make, but it came up when I’ve thought about this before. There have been a lot of “movements” that have brought people to the Lord, but the movements otherwise completely collapsed. So was the movement a failure? I don’t consider anything that brought even 1 soul to the Lord a “failure”. It has served the Lord, though not very much. But the work of the person (or people) involved was a failure both to God and their own souls. All of the work was for naught, as they did it out of their own desires and not the Lord’s.
“Compassion kills and charity is evil”. This is a phrase I’ve developed over the years (it started with “compassion kills”) because if your intentions and Heart isn’t found with the Lord, the “good works” end up being anything but “good” as a result. You can see this in the EU’s problem with “refugees” at the moment. 13000 people have drown in the Med (and countless more are now slaves) because the EU’s policies are short-sighted and foolish. But many defend them as “compassionate”. The same problem crops up with the Welfare State. Making someone dependent is very, very evil, but we have people constantly defend it as “charitable”. It is anything but. And it is into this same operation of thinking that Christians go and “do the Lord’s work”.
With Driscoll, I’m pretty sure he started on the Lord’s side. Considering where they managed to create a Church and have it flourish, I don’t even think the Devil could have pulled that off. But following the Lord’s directive once was probably enough. Everything else quickly became about making a better system. (From all of the aftermath reports, it seems they spent a lot of time on figuring out how to keep people connected to the Church, which shows a lot of solid logic was applied. At least to that part.) But you can see where Driscoll’s heart ended up through the episode with his wife’s past sexual sin (and how she abused him intentionally with it). Considering he put it in a Bestselling book, he wanted us to understand the story and how he responded. He heard God, but he wasn’t listening to God. He shifted all of the blame for his wife’s sin onto all-other Men. The illusion he had of his wife was more important than the Truth. That says everything you need to know about Mark Driscoll.
I know of a story through my mother of a Woman that spent 20+ years on the mission field. The Woman describes herself as a “failed missionary” rather openly. If I’m remembering the time line right, she would have entered the mission field in the mid-80s, so this isn’t a new issue. (She also ended up a spinster, which shouldn’t be surprising either.) There is a reason it is “Faith with Works”, where Faith leads and the Works follow. It’s not enough to just do the Works, rather than complain you don’t have the reward. (Which let’s you think yourself better than the World without actually being “better”.)
Lastly, I’m reminded of some of the early Pentecostal movement missionaries. A few of them were just shipped to China with no support and no knowledge of the language. The problem with trying to emulate the Apostles, directly, is that you can’t be one if God hasn’t granted you that power. If he’s not called you out to him for that task, you can’t force your way to it. The power from the Spirit that are listed as given are the there, but they are for the Lord’s glory and not your own vanity. (A few dead-to-snake bite preachers have found that out the hard way.) Nor is something like Samson’s blessing given generally (regardless of how insanely awesome that would be). See Acts 19:13-16 for a hilarious version of this.
To close, it really goes back to DS’s point about building a desire for the Lord. Our choice to follow brings with it consequences & expectations. When we attempt to convert those into habits without it coming from within the Spirit, vanity rapidly takes over. And I’ll let Solomon play us out: Ecclesiastes 1:14 (ESV): “I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.”
I think denominational differences would significantly reduce the number of eligible women. Assuming these women are “serious” about their faith, the number would be reduced to half or less. For example, I would not expect a Catholic and a Protestant to marry, much less a Christian and a Muslim.
Once this set of eligible women is established, I expect that personal preferences would then quickly reduce the number as well. For example, skin color, race/ethnicity, height, lifestyle (e.g. one wants to live in the middle of nowhere, the other wants to live in big-city downtown), etc.
Age differences would likely matter, too. At least in the 1 direction. That is, I doubt a 29-year-old woman is likely interested in an 18-year-old man.
Geographical location would also impact the process of establishing a relationship. Right or wrong, I expect they would want to spend time together in person before entering marriage.
I am glad that I am not looking for a wife today, but I am concerned for my daughter.
I find it interesting how you take Godly values – like virginity – and then the only other thing you really, really care about and talk about from post to post is: obesity. I know obesity is unhealthy. I know you can make a case that being obese is bad stewardship of one’s body. But still: it’s amazing how you care so much about a woman’s external appearance, when the Bible explicitely tells women to let their beauty be the beauty that comes from within, and not from without. Maybe there needs to be a verse telling men to observe her inner beauty and not her outer flaws – or, maybe the book of Proverbs is already chock full of them.
At any rate – it’s not the number of female virgins that would be the issue for a virgin-seeking male. It would be the number of male virgins in the church that he’s competing with. Do you have stats on that? Because as a virgin female, it does feel as if guys that are complaining about not enough virgin women are crazy – the virgin women can’t find virgin guys.
That is – as if virginity is what everything is about? I’d happily marry a non-virgin guy, assuming he was on-fire for the Lord and never married before – or if his marriage ended in a Biblically remarriagable way.
And…PS – what about widows? I know girls in their 20s who are widows…guys killed on the mission field, or in the army. Would you have a problem with them not being virgins?
@ Heather G
I will keep talking about them until the end of time because no one in the Church does!
Men were created by God to be attracted to:
1. Young
2. Beautiful
3. Virgins
Women can talk about how this is disgusting and annoying and how men focus too much on it. But it’s only women blowing more hot air talking bad things about how God created men.
There is no inner beauty versus outer beauty dilemma. You can have both.
Female virginity at marriage is prized in Deuteronomy 22. Male virginity is not mentioned. Take that as you will. Obviously, chastity is important for all as we are to flee sexual immorality, but the sexes value different things in the opposite sex. Generally speaking, women don’t prize virginity as much as men.
See below for more detail on preferences.
I’d marry a widow.
Here is what I was looking for in my search if you wanted to know. Beauty and chastity/virginity were only 2 of 6 requirements:
Nicely done DS. Not just the math but pointing out how high a bride price such women command. This was true near on 30 years ago when I married the virgin prom queen; even more so when my daughter married.
On missions, from my daughter’s report and request to come home early and from my cousin’s report, I would not view women with mission trips under their belt as marriage material. Small sample size I know
Marriage, in large part, is about an authorized outlet for sex. Marrying a fatty ruins that aspect of things, and I reckon virgin dudes out never virgin women by a large margin. Really I read Heather G ‘s post as “where are the hot virgin dudes”. And frankly I think the odds of virgin woman caring about a man’s N count are pretty low. Pre selection being such a powerful force and all
PS don’t marry a widow. #1) unless Heather lives some place like Fayetteville NC next to Ft Bragg, it is unlikely she knows many war widows. Not sure how many women lose husband’s in the mission field, but I reckon that’s an even smaller.number
I do know a large(ish) number of widows. I buried 25 brothers over the years, inculding my actual brother; wives of troopers in my platoons’, men I served with over the years and my brothers widow. Don’t marry one. All kinds of issues going on. Not yet seen it work out well for the man who marries one, one lady I know still refuses to date because she is honest enough to know that at any moment she would trade the life of husband #2 for th life of husband #1 in a second.
I do know a widower who married a widow, both over 60. That seems to be a success but isn’t relative
@ SFC Ton
Military wives are a different breed of widow so probably not a good idea.
Mission trips seems to be a crapshoot overall. A few I’ve been on are from a smaller church where it was more conservative and the girls have good hearts and there was no fooling around. I suspect on larger ones where everyone is going that they may be crazier. More a product of the culture than Christianity
Dude, if someone gets killed on a mission trip it’s generally not some sort of short term mission trip, nor something done by people who are halfhearted about their service to Christ.
SFC Ton –
The BIble holds up marrying widows as a pretty decent thing to do.
It’s not that women care less about virginity than men – after all, the only way a woman is going to KEEP herself a virgin is if she values virginity pretty highly. I’m pretty sure there are more female virgins in the church than males, btw. Males are much more apt to have premarital sex than females. Also much more prone towards pornography, etc.
And that’s just it – just because a guy is prone towards something, doesn’t mean that “that’s the way God created him.” Sin is evident in all people, male and female. A man may have visual preferences, but it’s still not God’s ideal for men to be so obsessed with appearances that they don’t look deeper.
“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord shall be praised.”
“Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
“But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
“Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;”
“And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.”
“he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.”
“Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.”
So, sure, enjoy the beauty of the woman God gives you – but know that her beauty will fade, and that you’re still commanded to love your wife even when that occurs.
I laughed a little. Here’s some useful links for Heather G:
http://rippedbody.jp/start-guide/
http://startingstrength.com/
On the topic in general, it’s always a dodge, though what Paul was directly addressing was female oneupmanship within the church. (Or, in some cases, “don’t dress like whores”) He was pointing out the where your priorities should lay with regard to the Lord. The topic crops back up in 1 Timothy 4:8 (ESV) “for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” Your first priority is to the Lord, but there are things that should follow from that. Taking care of your body, in an age of Easy Food and Low Exercise, is quite important. You should not be requiring Divine Intervention to help carry groceries into a sick neighbor’s home.
Now, that’s the technical side of things with regard to the issue. The functional one, for the young Christian Man goes like this:
Christian Women BOTHERING to actually work on their spirit & walk with the Lord? HAHA. There’s a reason the ones that do it even a little are married before 22. If a young Woman gets her spirit right with the Lord, she’s going to also work on her appearance. Self-control does that to a person. The Spirit should also inform the Christian that there is work to do in life and you need to get your spirit, mind and body all in accord on the topic. We used to call it “self-discipline”; now, we barely have a term for it.
The fat & comfortable (in whatever regard) rarely will ever do the work necessary. Sloth before Godliness.
(Yup, found a way!)
@ Heather G
My point is that it’s important to recognize:
1. Men are attracted to youth, beauty, and virginity.
2. If women want to get married they have to understand that this is what men are attracted to. They will widen their potential dating pool if they work toward becoming more attractive.
We can go on and on about this forever but that doesn’t change the facts.It goes without saying that men are not solely interested in those things, but they are important.
Women are obviously attracted to different things including: masculinity, personality, ambition, status, athleticism, talent, looks, and money. The fact that women are attracted to such things doesn’t mean they’re not looking for a godly man.
I agree with most of your above comment. Still, if a woman was obsessed with finding a man of a certain amount of money, for instance, or a certain social status, after a while it might be an obsessive and ungodly thing. In other words, I don’t have a problem with men who want a beautiful wife, nor a woman who wants a man to be able to provide financially for her – what begins to become unseemly though is when these somewhat neutral or even appropriate desires become overgrown to being exalted to a place of equivalency with putting God and His kingdom first and foremost in what we are looking for.
@ Heather G
Let me walk you through why I talk about this so much.
Think about your church for a moment. You may have been to one for a long time or many different ones. I don’t know. You’ve probably been around young adults and single ministries for a while.
What happens?
Some people get married. Those some people are usually the most attractive people in the ground. The rest of everyone — both men and women — are looking around for someone the are attracted to. Oops, there is no one left they are attracted to. Yet, these people stick it out year after year waiting for someone to come in who they are attracted to. Alternatively, they get involved with various other ministries and try to meet other singles from everywhere else but they have difficulty finding a spouse.
The problem is that most Christian men and women are not attracted to each other except about the top 20% of them. And those top 20% pair off and then everyone is left single. I see this in every single Church I go to. There’s some couples in their 20s with a couple kids (more if the Church is big). They’re usually the most attractive people there from a masculine and feminine perspective. Then the singles ministry is made up of whoever is left over.
The Church simply does a good job of ignoring the importance of attraction in bringing young people together. There’s bunches of devoted and godly young people who stick it out year after year. Yet, no one every talks about attraction or how to become attractive to up your chances to find a godly, attractive spouse. No man is going to pull the trigger to date a woman he isn’t attracted to even if she’s the godliest girl ever. If a woman is asked out by a man she isn’t attracted to she’s going to decline no matter how godly he is.
If the Church cares about getting young people married it would address attraction bluntly. But they don’t. And singles get into their 30s and 40s and wonder why they never met someone to marry.
I am sure you can see the truth of what I am saying on a wide scale level.
The end.
Yea DS you have a real.legit point but how many non war widows are there in that age range? I use to think marrying a widow would be good to go, mostly as she would already know my lifestyle by that was when I was 32’ish and still inexperience in the world.
I have a huge social circle, all most all stemming from the military which is why I know widows. My MC is SOCOM veterans only and our charity events focus on supporting the children of fallen SOCOM vets yet even my sister in law has the military angle, my bother was in the National Guard and a volunteer firemen, though he died of a heart attack while walking from his truck to his house. However, widows of all sorts are a super small group of women in that age range. I am sure my sample size is even more restrictive but I am unsure how many non war widows would be out there in the 19-29 age grohp. Any rate, that’s all hair splitting. Do yourself a favor, heed my warning and tread very carefully if you are ever in that position
What I see mostly is the dead husband becomes like the holy grail and no man measures up or she breaks inside, runs him down a lot etc like some weird way of minimizing her loss. Not real sure why. That’s just a guess. Neither would be good to steep into. Not sure how much time between her husbands death and you contemplating marrying her would be a good time span, but I reckon it would need to be large enough for her to no longer be in that age group
And if she has kids…. well things only get more complicated.
I retold my daughters mission trip experience at SSM’s old place but it was a high school trip and she was calling me before the 1st week was out to arange travel back home. My cousin is a full time missionary of sorts, teaches the children of missionaries in overseas schools. Maybe runs one in Brazil last I heard. I dont care for those reports either. Or the females and kids I have meet through family connectionDon’t pick up the same kind of oddness from grown men who do mission work but the women and kids…… My own mission stuff was all men so no fooling around, though still not the holy roller set folks would probably expect. You want vets to smuggle Bibles and missionaries into or out of some country, or what have you…. well there will be hijnxs.
Any rate, be extra cautious with widows, and once again great work. I really dislike that “there are legions of potential good wives out there” thing. They cannot even given you a zip code for them. I can give women a zip code to meet fit, fully employed men who are more likely to marry, so.why cannot they do the same about girls? and I live in the rural South so I cannot by into the country girl myth either.
The Bible tells us to do a good many things; tending to orphans and widows among them. However at no point are we commanded to make dumb decisions regarding marriage.
Bibical marriage is arranged marriage and a contract about property rights not about love or any other such feelz
@SFC Ton:
First note, “SFC Ton” = “Ton”? How’s the lifting competitions going?
Second note, 2 years at minimum with a widow. The “5 Stages of Grief” are something of a myth (it was an anecdotal-evidence based analysis of people dealing with their *own* death), but there is a process to it. And it takes time, regardless of who you are. For Women, especially as they have extensively thought about desires for what they want in life, they have to grieve every part of the loss. The main problem that’ll trip them up is the loneliness. They really have thought about many points in the future for their life, and Life just took a shotgun to much of their self-image.
For a man, I would still caution 2 years. It’ll be easier for a Man to move on, but part of your planning for life just got removed. There are assumptions you would have about life that you don’t even know that you’ve lost.
In general, though, it’s probably best to treat them the same as those available for marriage. You have to filter the rest of the issues like normal. For the widow, she can have more emotional hangups than most Women, which is “next” requirement. You can have great sympathy for her and treat her as a sister in Christ, but if she wouldn’t make a good Wife then there’s nothing there to work with.
@DS:
Yeah, I’m noticing that there’s this prevailing “The One God Has For You” theology where God has someone special picked out just for you that won’t care about things such as being overweight. Typically the story of Adam and Eve is used to show that God will bring them a spouse. Instead of accepting the fact that attraction (physical among them) matters and handing out practical tools for them to improve upon it, people are given the illusion that they’re entitled to a spouse. I guess it’s easier to give people false hope than to tell them that they’re gonna have to put some work in.
Dear Deep:
I can understand what you are saying about the most attractive people marry off and then what is leftover are the less attractive folks. However, I think your writing – which you intend as encouragement for women in particular to make themselves more attractive, is actually having the opposite effect of what you intend. As you said before, your blog is mostly for men. Thus, it’s not the fat girls by and large reading your blog and learning better how to be more attractive – its the unattractive leftover men reading your blog, learning from YOU how to be even more picky about women than they already are.
Heather
One other thing: I know plenty of virgin girls who want manly men who are not at all obese – who are quite trim and cute, and sweet and demure (unlike me) and still single in their thirties. I’d post their photos to prove my point except I’m sure they’d all find that unbelievably intrusive.
“not all obese”, which by general English convention would be “more than half”.
“Thus, it’s not the fat girls by and large reading your blog and learning better how to be more attractive – its the unattractive leftover men reading your blog, learning from YOU how to be even more picky about women than they already are.”
And thus Heather G finally directly states her problem with the interaction with these part of the Internet (and Reality): not being “chosen” really is gnawing at you. A Man should be utterly “picky” about choosing a Wife. He’s taking on 95% of the Risk in a modern “marriage”. He’s flying almost utterly solo with the near entirety of the Culture, Government and Church against him. Christians are to wise, not foolish. For a Man to not be “picky” about a Wife is an utter fools errand. God may save fools, but having to rely on divine intervention for what should have been avoided is expect God to bail you out of your own misery. That’s wholly on His Will to do.
But do stick around. You might learn to listen to the Lord. It will serve you well, if you’re willing to do what He tells you to do.
There’s a good kind of picky and a bad kind of picky. I encourage my female friends (and myself) to lay aside the destructive forms of picky and hold onto the good forms of picky. I hope deepstrength would do the same.
I can’t put together anything coherent, so bullet points.
– Most folks follow the crowd. If everyone is getting married right after graduation from HS or college, then they will too. If everyone is getting married after grad school, they will too.
– Enforced activity, hormones, and a lack of time to screw things up means that most people are more attractive in HS than they will be at their ten year reunion.
– People want to talk about unrealistic standards of beauty, but I can walk into any UMC high school in America and find a dozen girls that are as attractive as the latest Hollywood starlet, but most of them aren’t going to age as well.
– Some guy in the comments of a “Where are all the good men?” article did an analysis similar to the one DS has done and found that the two criteria given by the woman in the article eliminated over 90% of the men ages 20-33 in the NYC area. Those criteria were a degree and a job which he took to mean a professional job.
– When my kids are with me, I have to drive them to school. This is the start of my sixth year doing it. Straight up, 75% of the girls in high school are attractive enough. Sadly, without a drastic change, some have already seen their best days.
– Young men are no more interested in marrying right out of high school than young women because no one is doing it, because everyone says it’s going to guarantee you end up divorced, because they can get sex without marrying.
– Read last year that the state with the lowest rate of obesity today would have been the state with the worst level of obesity 10 or 20 years ago. Straight up, people are getting fatter and fatter and it’s not just old married folk.
@ Heather G
Simply put, I encourage men to only marry women that they believe are attractive.
It is simply a disservice to both the husband AND the wife for him to marry if he doesn’t think she is attractive. Obviously, the wife will want to know that she is attractive from her husband.
If that’s bad picky then I am all for bad picky. Men should have strong boundaries and strong standards. That’s what makes them strong leaders. If women aren’t measuring up so to speak then they should work on themselves in both beauty and godliness. This is what it means to call higher.
Again, I agree that a man should only marry a women he finds attractive. But YOUR standard for what is attractive (BMI, etc) is not going to be every man’s standard. Unless you uphold your standard as something other men should latch onto. Plenty of overweight women get married every year – do you think none of their husbands found them attractive? Again, I’m not advocating obesity but simply want to ask you: do you really want to try to teach a generation of men that they should despise any overweight women and never consider them for marriage? Because that’s how your blog comes across.
And DS –
When you write I can see that you are a man who loves the Lord and is walking after him, despite the things that you or I might disagree with. But some of the guys commenting on your thread say things that are not the same spirit as where you are coming from, yet I never see you correct any of the male commentators that are displaying a particularly angry/nasty/almost hateful/ attitude towards sisters in Christ. You may want to consider that.
@ Heather G
Therein lies the problem:
Because something “happens” does not make it true. Lots of couples have premarital sex and get married. Does that mean that premarital sex is not sinful?
Lets be real: there are very few people in this world — male or female — that want to marry someone overweight or obese. The vast majority of people are attracted to those who keep themselves in shape. The fact that something happens is not a reason for something. Rather, in some cases each spouse would be more attracted to the other if they were in shape.
———-
Re: other non-spirit filled comments. I try to get to everything, but I don’t sometimes. If you point out ones I miss I am always more than willing to address them.
Heather-
Men marry overweight women despite their extra pounds. No men, except perhaps for a few unusual ones actually like, or are even neutral to extra weight. Besides, hundreds of studies have proven that the desire for a trim partner is an innate biological preference of BOTH sexes, although men care about it somewhat more than women do.
You are also truly wrong if you think one man can “teach” another man what to prefer. This is not possible. In fact, feminism and “body positive” women are trying their darndest to teach, proselytize, and outright hound men into seeing chubbiness as attractive.
No man every “taught” me what to prefer.
I think the reason you believe in this teachability is that women, proven by science, are much more likely to have their preferences molded by other women. Women want the men that other women want. BECAUSE of the fact that other women want them. Men want what their eye and their libido wants, and our attraction drive is not modified much by what culture thinks. You are imagining that mens’ thoughts are molded in the same way womens’ thoughts are.
Actually, if we could mold mens’ thoughts this way, we would all be trying to brainwash them into desiring chubby girls, because it would reduce competition for us to get the slender ones.
As it is, women are letting themselves go at a high rate, gaining pounds, dressing like granola girl backpackers and soccer moms, cutting their hair short and getting tattoos.
Then, they scold and shame men for not desiring this inferior presentation, even as these same women demand that men all be better looking, more popular, and wealthier than average. Every woman wants an above average man. Not all will get one, because MATH.
It is truly a shame, because many women take their most prime, most thin, most attractive, and most innocent years and spend them like water in an attempt to land one of the “upper 20%”, guys. Once that fails, they get discouraged, let themselves go, and then indignantly demand that pay full marriage price for a woman that never really wanted him, but sees him as a good backup plan.
OK girls, here is a challenge: Think of the hottest guy you know. Would you be willing to hit the gym 6 days a week to get him?
Okay, now think about the guy who actually likes you and is willing to marry you, and stay with you until the end.
How much effort are you willing to put into looking good for him?
If the answer is not the same, then you need to think carefully about your nature.
DS wrote:
Because something “happens” does not make it true. Lots of couples have premarital sex and get married. Does that mean that premarital sex is not sinful?
**********
Um, we’re comparing apples to oranges. I’m discussing the error of making spiritual values equivalent to human preferences. Premarital sex IS sinful. But since you bring it up, plenty of people who have sinned in this way DO go on to have happy marriages, and even marriages that are powerful for the kingdom of God, when true repentence has occurred. But no, that’s not what we’re talking about – we’re talking about body shape and whether or not every guy automatically rules out any girls who are overweight and/or obese. Some do – you are one of them. But many don’t. And they go on to have great marriages with women who may actually lose weight after the marriage – or not. I’ve never seen any sort of study linking the frequency of marital sex to a woman’s weight.
************
DS wrote:
Lets be real: there are very few people in this world — male or female — that want to marry someone overweight or obese. The vast majority of people are attracted to those who keep themselves in shape. The fact that something happens is not a reason for something. Rather, in some cases each spouse would be more attracted to the other if they were in shape.
******
There’s the ideal – being in shape. But your stats say that 50% of the country (that would be both dudes and gals) are overweight. Apparently, since many of those people are married or get married, it’s not as big of an issue of attractiveness to many others as it is to you. Again, I’m not in any way saying people shouldn’t be encouraged to lose weight or get in shape – these are all important and good things to do – but I don’t think deciding on the worth of someone as a marriage partner should be all about their weight. Right now you’re looking for a hottie in her 20s. But after four babies, in her late 30s or 40s, your girl may have put on a few pounds that will be hard for her to take off. Are you going to make her feel like dirt about herself when that happens? Are you going to stop being sexually aroused towards her in the year or years after her pregnancies? And what about if she gets cancer and loses all her hair, or if she gets a disease that makes her bed-bound for a year and she gains weight through lack of activity – what about when she is 40 something and turns grey, or wrinkles start to appear? The Bible says that beauty is a flower that fades – do you see yourself thinking your wife is just as hot when she is 55 as you did when you both were 25?
Another commenter said that no guy forms his preferences. Some preferences are hardwired. But other preferences definitely are contagious – memes and attitudes transfer from one person to another, or else the BIble wouldn’t warn us that bad company corrupts good character. Our attitudes do influence others to have similar attitudes.
If you don’t believe that preferences for body shape are influenced by other people, then why do different countries and cultures have different ideas? Media has a lot to do with what people think is attractive, and so do their friends’ influences.
http://www.brobible.com/life/article/ideal-womans-body-type-looks-like/
http://www.buzzfeed.com/eugeneyang/womens-ideal-body-types-throughout-history
@ Heather G
This is my point. If you want to discuss it then let’s discuss.
1. Most men prefer women who aren’t overweight or obese.
2. About 60% of women in the 20-39 age bracket are overweight or obese. Similar ratios of men.
3. Hence, a large portion of the female population is shooting themselves in the foot if they want to get married because they are unattractive. Similar to most men.
I’m not going to get into a discussion about exceptions we see. They’re exceptions.
1. Husbands who have sex with their wife develop wife goggles so to speak. They remember their wives as the beautiful woman they married.
http://marriedmansexlife.vanillacommunities.com/discussion/5743/a-cautionary-tale/p1
2. Yes, I have discussed with my girlfriend that if she is starting to put on the pounds I will tell her. Kindly, of course, but I will still tell her.
If that makes her feel like dirt then she has her priorities wrong and I’ve told her that. I care about her enough to tell her that she will become more physical unattractive to me if she puts on the weight. I expect her to do the same if I put on weight too.
3. However, I am not like most men. Most men are too scared to tell their wives that for good reason: they will blow up at them and argue the same things that you are trying to with me.
Men fear their wives feelings over the truth. That is the sad truth. People like to ignore reality and shove it under the rug. Then they get mad when it gets brought up from under the rug.
4. You know that those links don’t support your case. From the Bro-bible link: “They calculated an average weight and BMI based on the artist renderings. The USA weight comes in close to the mean at 128 [lbs].”
Ouch, considering the average weight of women in the US is 166 lbs.
Almost 40 lbs overweight.
” I’ve never seen any sort of study linking the frequency of marital sex to a woman’s weight.”
Haha – good luck getting that published, even if you could find someone wanting to do it. Goes under the “water is wet” category of studies.
You are also ignoring “wife goggles” – a very real effect. But in order for the guy to still be attracted to her later, she must give herself to him while she is still young and cute. After years together, he will still be motivated by companionate love.
Besides, there are plenty of older women who have had two or three kids and are only a little heavier than they once were. The ones who get really fat do so because they stop caring about hubby’s preferences, and spend all their time doting on the kids and eating like mad.
The harshest outcome is for short men and ugly women. This is the toughest thing to overcome.
Ugly men can still be tall, ripped, and popular. Short women experience no significantly more rejection. In fact, very tall women have more of a problem.
But short guys have it bad, and so do ugly girls.
Hats off to those who can overcome these things.
But fat? For most people, weight is a decision, not genetics. A very tough thing to overcome, in fact I for some it is almost impossible, but it can be mastered with enough desire.
Again, DS, I think we are talking about two different things. For instance, I talk about “making your wife feel like dirt” if she has baby weight or any other kind of weight gain. You respond by telling me that you will tell her if she’s put on a few pounds, and tell me most women would “blow up” at such a thing. No – we are talking about two very different things. Telling your wife that she’s gained a few and helping her (providing gym membership, or working out together, etc etc) lose weight is not “making her feel like dirt.” And most women that I know wouldn’t be upset if their husbands had real conversations about losing weight if they needed to lose weight. It’s the idea of making her feel unacceptable to you – “like dirt” – if she weighs a few pounds too many, that I was refering to – like parents that give their kids complexes about every bit of food that goes into their mouths until the kid turns anorexic/bullimic. I guess, when all is said and done, DS, I hope you treat your wife like she means more than her body – as a real person, and that you connect more deeply than mere physical connection. I can only hope.
@ Heather G
You don’t have to hope.
Don’t misunderstand. The fact that I speak boldly and bluntly on certain topics does not mean I do not consider application of the Spirit in my actions. Rather, I only focus on one side of the coin at a time when compartmentalizing a certain topic.
I posted this before which you probably didn’t read, but here’s how I handle situations with my girl:
Have half the comments on this devolved into how obesity is acceptable? Seriously Heather G…stop. Obesity is an epidemic in this country, and God says our bodies are temples. Therefore, obesity if akin to allowing the body to enter a state of decay. As a woman, I can’t stand it when other women bring up these excuses. It’s like women would rather other women be fat instead of looking reality in the face. Of course after marriage, women tend to put on weight and that is a discussion a couple should’ve had beforehand.
Yet, no one every talks about attraction or how to become attractive to up your chances to find a godly, attractive spouse. No man is going to pull the trigger to date a woman he isn’t attracted to even if she’s the godliest girl ever. If a woman is asked out by a man she isn’t attracted to she’s going to decline no matter how godly he is.
There is something to be said about assortative mating. People should not dream about marrying the 8 when they are in fact, a 6. Nothing wrong with being a 6, or even a 5– but God didn’t make everyone beautiful. “Plain” looking folks can find others like them and have successful marriages.
@Maea:
But that requires taking personal responsibility and accepting you aren’t a “pretty princess”. If the modern culture has taught as anything, is that female Pride is something few Men can match.
@Looking Glass:
IMO, part of the problem stems from the idea of wanting to feel “special.” I don’t know if it’s a generational thing but as a Millennial, I saw this all the time growing up. It was even worse if a woman came from a family with very attractive women. Pride does not manifest in a vacuum– someone taught or led a woman in that direction and she went with it.
Traits like beauty and talent are great, but the reason why they’re great is because they’re rare. I’m reminded of a saying, “You’re unique, just like everyone else.”
Genesis 2/3 tells us that type of Pride is natural in Women. What isn’t natural is letting it flow as feeling in a society that lives in anything beyond tents. That’s the “new” trick.
And I agree with your “special” comment. I’ve long been one to argue never to tell children they are “special”; they are unique and God loves them. What they are not is an outlier. I should know, I’m “special” in the way the world positively defines it. And I have the scars to prove what that really means.
Want to make it even more depressing?
1) Apply a standard bell curve to the distribution of facial attractiveness. A not insignificant % (5-10% if you assume the ugliness distribution is the inverse of beauty) of the women within acceptable weight limits won’t meet a minimum level of facial attractiveness.
2) From the link: “Overweight among adults was defined as a BMI greater than or equal to 25 but less than 30.” Here’s what a BMI of 23-24 looks like:
http://www.scientificpsychic.com/health/Body-Mass-Index-BMI.html
A large % of guys would say that’s well into the unattractive range.
@ Erik
Yup, I didn’t apply some other factors like that onto the stats. Non-obese and non-overweight is definitely not “facially attractive.”
If it were an independent variable, it would be multiplied times 16%. However, that said those who are more facially attractive do tend to care more about their weight. I’d say about 1/3 to 1/2 is probably closer to reality.
Hence, I’d expect the numbers to approximately double. So about 1 in 20 to 1 in 25 perhaps in any random Church.
This post struck me in a way that hasn’t happened for a long time.
Context: I was raised in the church from a young age – both parents are “Conservative” Christians and my dad is more in the Doug Wilson Reformed crowd. I didn’t lose my virginity until I was 25 and that essentially happened when I just stopped going to Church and I discovered the “manosphere”
I proceeded to go nuts, and in about a year and a half, I slept with 10 girls. That alone was enough to keep me away from church as I felt like a hypocrite. I hadn’t rejected the Christian Worldview, but I felt I couldn’t call myself one while not adhering to Biblical Teaching. (I know Scripture quite well.) I however, wasn’t going to stop having sex now that I had “discovered it” and that’s still true as of now – as well as the things of God not being any kind of primary goal in my life.
Even though I grew up in the Church, went to youthgroup, and was privately schooled as well as homeschooled for a few years, I had no idea of how to talk to women and to look for that “wife” my dad kept urging me to find. In fact, I was never really given a guideline as to what to look for in a girl, besides the Proverbs 31 schmeal.
I did know that I wanted a wife who wanted to have kids sooner rather then later, was somewhat traditional, and of course was at least somewhat good looking.
Almost all of the “single girls” I met at Church had weight issues to say the least, were obsessed with their careers, or had such high standards for “godly men”, that Jesus himself wouldn’t have been able to meet them. Then to top it off, you’d find out later that they slept with some Non-christian guy, so the “godliness” part didn’t really matter.
So I looked elsewhere.
I embraced some of the ideas of the manosphere and it helped my “Game”. I realize now that I’m more well off then some of my other competition as I’m probably a 7.5 or 8 looks wise, and that’s not meant to be a brag. (I did somethings to improve my appearance.)
Something I’ve noticed is that it doesn’t matter how Godly you are if you have no game and poor looks. I’d suggest this goes both ways gender wise.
About 5 months ago, I realized I was bored of sleeping with different girls, spinning plates, ect. I wanted something more. I’ve always had this grand illusion that I would become some kind of farm-like Patriarch and have 10 kids. (I’m going to outbreed these SJW types.)
I recall stumbling on a Free Northerner post which addressed the subject of what “kind of girl were you looking for.” I started shifting my focus to “wife material”, but there wasn’t alot out there that caught my eye. Also, suffice to say, I know my SMV is reasonably good, and I wasn’t going to settle for the “discards”
Well, I started a friends-with-benefits with a 19 year old christian girl who went to my university – note a Christian one – really liked me. (Her dad is a pastor.) She knew where I was at the moment with the Faith and with other girls. A non-existent partner count and several other factors turned her into my current girlfriend. Another thing that probably helps is I know I’m physically more attractive then her, so she is attracted to me in multiple ways.
Fast forward to about two weeks ago and she is pregnant with what will be our first child. We have to tell both our parents somehow, which makes me far more nervous then the actual fact I’m about to have a kid. It also advanced our plans – specifically marriage. When I started dating her, I had it in mind, just not this soon. Suffice to say, I’m not financially stable by any means – I moved back in with my parents and am currently trying to find a full-time job that can turn into a career. (She currently works part-time as well in addition to take classes. )
I do however fear state marriage. I’ve seen a movement in the Church where you would get married through the Church, rather then state, and I’ve been considering it.
In hindsight, I already see other Christian friends following my path. They are getting disillusioned with not finding any dating options in the Church and are “fornicating” which ends up having a stronger sway on them and myself over any actual Christian teaching and it often causes them to simply abandon the faith. (The consequences of the “abstinence” doctrine.) I’m not going to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but how is the Faith supposed to create thriving Christian communities if it’s not passed on to the next generation?
Marriage is the way to do it – hence family being the building block to the Faith, but when you read some of the horror stories of divorce, it undermines that foundation. Sometimes I wonder if I’m planning on getting married too soon to this girl, but at the same time I consider her a very good partner and want to make sure she isn’t swept away by someone else. (That and we are having a kid, and I strongly believe kids should be raised by a married mother and father.)
The acid test is this (in order of priority):
Does she read her King James Bible only everyday?
Then tack on the virginity test and then the HB scale after that.
The threshold is the 85th percentile on all 3 counts.
Really. It’s not that complicated.
Even relatively low numbers of women wouldn’t necessarily be a problem given the (I assume-but it certainly seems that way) similarly low numbers of masculine 20-35ish age Christian men, if there were better networking options. I suppose certain online dating sites are an attempt to solve this, but it seems as though we’ve traded what in the past was a smaller pool of potential matches with a higher average quality for a much larger pool of nominally potential matches with a much lower average quality… bad deal.
@armenia4ever:
I don’t have a lot of energy to put into a longer response, but here’s what I can offer you.
Firstly, get down on your knees, confess your Sin to the Lord and repent of it.
Secondly, stop fornicating. Period. She may carry your child, but she isn’t your Wife.
Thirdly, you may cost her Father his “job”. Be prepared for him to explode.
Fourthly, both of you need to spend time in prayer and repent of your sins. Together you did this, and together you can learn from it.
Fifthly, on the Legal side of things. The really only big worries are the Name Change (can be done by a local lawyer for, hopefully, under $350), Legal Custody Arraignments for the Child, how you file your taxes and your Will. Get full custody at birth, just in the legal sense. If you marry, you marry before God and God alone. If she’s honest in your Faith, enough, she shouldn’t put up any issues.
Don’t file as “married” on your taxes, as that is technically incorrect, as far as the legal situation says. After you change bank accounts/IDs with her name on it, she’s pretty much almost never going to have a use for a Marriage License. But do get about 5 certified copies of the name change. I found the extras useful.
Wills are only a messy issue if don’t have one or you’re worth more than 5 million USD. You can both solve those problems with some basic Will papers you can buy online. Just make sure you get separate witnesses to sign.
[Note: by not having a License, you can play around with some of the Tax/Legal/Benefits stuff. I find a lot of that “treacherous” and don’t advise it, but you do have your file your taxes, so in the future you can both select different children for Tax Purposes. That’s not treacherous because it’s required and you have no moral duty to pay more taxes than our required by the laws of the country you live in.]
Lastly, the Church increases by living the Discipled Life & Evangelism. There is not hereditary Christians. Never have been; never will be.
Wait!! Maybe this was brought up earlier in the comments, but I don’t see how you can multiply number of Americans who attend church regularly 0.2 [which btw sounds a bit low and somewhat agit-proppy coming as it does from a “churchleaders” journal, but hey lets run with it] by the number of 18-22 year olds who don’t drop out of religion 0.3. These are heavily confounded. For people between 22 and 29 they are (mostly) the same people. You could say that 1/3 of “people 18-29 who attend church regularly” are between 18 and 22 and therefore have an additional 70% risk of “dropping out of religion”. But it’s subtractive not multiplicative:
0.2 x 0.3 = 0.06
0.2 x (1 – 0.7 x 1/3) = 0.1533
So low by a factor of ~2.5 if I have that right. It is of course still bad, but maybe not quite as bad.
@ armenia4ever
Wow, it seems like you have a lot going on. I’m not particularly surprised that the cultural rot goes that far.
However, as a Christian speaking to a Christian who is off the path I want to encourage you to get serious about your Faith.God is calling you. Repent and sin no more. Also, what LG said.
Shotgun weddings are notoriously unstable, although not as unstable as having a child out of wedlock and then marrying.
If there is a church with good pre-marital counseling it would be a good idea to go through the classes so you know what you both know to expect out of marriage.
As for jobs the trades — electrical, plumbing, auto, etc. — can be a good place to look as they tend to always be needed.
@ Elizabeth Ann Judge (@kpiww)
Yes, that is one of the big other problems.
I did not discuss it in this post, but what I did to find my current girlfriend is that I:
1. Tried online dating. Didn’t work for me as my looks are only mediocre unfortunately.
2. Went to many different gatherings of Christians in my local area.
3.Asked as many friends and family as possible — Christian and non-Christian — if they knew some girls meeting a few of my criteria
And some other things like that. The main thing is you have to be extremely proactive about it. Most people are not willing to do that.
I doesn’t matter how minute the factors on either side, surely we’re not in denial that it is, in fact, quite dismal, and that Christians are literally and figuratively raptured in sexual immorality for which our only response is truly despair?
Doom and gloom be damned, as someone who is about to be 50 in December, I’m resigned to the fact that just about EVERY woman (saved or unsaved) in my age group +/- 5-7 years IS and WAS likely a carousel riding slut.
And living in Cincinnati in a very small Mayberry USA- ish type community of ethnic minorities, and knowing the type and quality of so-called Christian men in said community, not knowing exactly whom and what sloppy seconds or thirds I’m going to be faced with…I know at least one of the previous partners was someone disgusting. And forgive me for my lack of charity, but I can honestly say that, outside of moving away from this area, this is one of the PRIMARY reasons why I’m leaning heavily towards going MGTOW. Moreover, engaging with someone 10+ years my junior is not really desirable because if she wants to get married, she’s going to have to be unequivocally my equal in every way (in spirit and attitude, at least) and be in line with many of the tenets we’ve been hashing out as it concerns vetting a potential wife. The Churches in this area are heavily entrenched in the gynocentric feminine divine ethic and are more about the SJW ethic than they are Biblical morality, and they certainly aren’t teaching about headship and submission – this I know for a fact.
Not concerned about anything other than repentance and fruits of having lived an unchaste adult life, which is going to be like finding a needle in farm of haystacks.
@ nickbsteves
Yup, many of the variables are heavily confounded.
I also didn’t take into account some like facial attractiveness as another commenter added later. Underweight/normal weight is used as the measure of attractiveness.On a normal distribution this would result in 16% if we’re talking 6 or above.
Basically, it’s a general rough estimate overall. I’d definitely say that it’s a range from anywhere of like 10,000-500,000 with 125,000 being about average..
I definitely do NOT think it’s millions which is what I was addressing the quotes earlier in the most.
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This book reports on two surveys which divide teens into different denominations along with frequency of church attendance:
I don’t remember the exact number and I don’t have the book handy (I borrowed it from the library). But I think it was 28% of evangelical teens lost their virginity by age 17. That was only P in V. If you add in Oral then the number is higher, but of course there is some overlap. Mainline Protestants had lower numbers for P in V but higher numbers for Oral. The author thought the Mainline (more liberal theology) were substituting Oral for P in V since they did not want to get pregnant as teens or college aged because they were more focused on college and graduate school.
Mormons had the best virginity rates; they interview each teen on a weekly basis to see if they are fit to attend Temple services. That kind of discipline and structure is missing in most Evangelical and Charismatic churches.
does a woman have to be a church attendee? what if she prefers meeting with a bible study group at home instead of going to a church?
@ SapphireYagami
Questionable.
The Church is about gathering together to fellowship, learn, serve, and worship God. If anyone can’t find a Church to at least fellowship, learn, serve, and worship God in then that tends to speak volumes about them.
A Bible study is a good start, but that’s only really fellowship and learning for the most part. No serving and no worship.
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Would these men who aspire to marry slender women still love their wives 20 years on when she’s greyer, wrinkled and not as youthful looking as when she was at the wedding or would they dump her for a younger one?
@ Selina
Very few men do that, and very rarely any that call themselves Christians at least.
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@Selina,
“Would these men who aspire to marry slender women still love their wives 20 years on when she’s greyer, wrinkled and not as youthful looking as when she was at the wedding or would they dump her for a younger one?”
Short answer: YES.
Longer answer: It seems that you know nothing of the heart of a man. Looks get you in the door. Service, submission (a dirty word to most western women) and being the best wife possible will make him reluctant to leave. As if that wasn’t enough, being the mother of his children will change the way he looks at you; he will literally kill to protect you.
I suspect that the men who are most likely to leave are the conspicuously handsome ones – the men that all the women are chasing. Stay away from those men, step up your game, and be the best thing he’ll ever get, and he won’t leave. Probably.
Lastly, spare us the tired old “He-might-trade-me-in” trope. Yes, it happens, but the high price of Divorce makes it simply too costly for most men to contemplate. Remember that 70%+ of divorces are initiated by women, and the commonest grounds given are usually “irreconcilable differences”, and not one of the three As (Adultery, Abuse and Abandonment). Everyone here knows that is chick-speak for “she’s lost that loving feeling”.
Just stay away from conspicuously handsome broke losers and you’ll be fine.
Selina,
Instead of whining about men who trade in their wives for a younger model (which is rare), how about admonishing women for letting themselves go after the wedding and becoming obese sows (which is common)?
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Welcome to incel nation
population: yall
For real tho how about finding someone you love instead of making her check arbitrary boxes based on an old, flawed book that says you gotta kill gay people?
@ yaa
The irony of your comment is that the science on marriage supports the Bible’s claims about marriage.
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