Here is the series so far:
Part 1 — Hypergamy is a Myth
Part 2 — Hypergamy Note
Part 3 — Luck
Part 4 — Reasons for Divorce
Part 5 — A Case Study on Marriage (Intermission)
Part 6 — What is Hypergamy? (Part 1)
Part 7 — What is Hypergamy? (Part 2)
Part 8 — Wants and Choices
Part 9 — Hypergamy or Adultery
Part 10 — Hypergamy and Adultery
Part 11 — Matters of Selection
Part 12 — Matters of Fath (Intermission)
Part 13 — Relationship Satisfaction
Today we will discuss:
Part 14 — Hypergamy and the early Manosphere
I’ve written this post by popular demand. This is what Readers have asked for.
Introduction
This phenomenon came to be called “hypergamy” about 20 years ago in some paper F. Roger Devlin wrote. Devlin understood hypergamy to apply to “marrying up”; he chose to apply the term to women’s constant demands for “better”. The fledgling manosphere, Roissy and Roosh, ran with it and the rest is history.
It was a clear description of something that men were seeing in women for decades. It was just that Devlin was one of the first to describe it and put into words what more and more men were seeing.
That paper was written in 2006, nearly 20 years ago. It was entitled “Sexual Utopia In Power.” It written by Francis Roger Devlin. In this we get our first similarity with the Manosphere. See, F. Roger Devlin is a pseudonym. It is, in my view, unsurprising that the Manosphere would owe so much to someone who wouldn’t even use their own name. I’m not surprised at all.
F. Roger Devlin’s previous work was “Alexandre Kojève and the Outcome of Modern Thought,” which involves the legacy Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, of the Hegelian Dialectic. If that sounds familiar, I’ve written about it recently in “Gnosticism, The Trinity, and the Dialectical Method.” Over the last year I’ve been working towards tying together the concepts of mysticism, gnosticism, Hegel’s dialectical approach, and the opposition to classical logic and reason. I’ve done this, as always, within the context of the local Manosphere. So for the second time, I am unsurprised that the Manosphere would owe so much to someone steeped in Hegelian philosophy. I’m not surprised at all.
But let’s look at that 20 year old paper and see what we can learn about hypergamy and its role in the Manosphere. In the process, we’ll try to evaluate the accuracy of these claims:
I don’t care what we call this phenomenon. If you don’t want to call it “hypergamy”, then call it something else. If it bothers Derek to call this “hypergamy”, then fine. Call it whatever you want. The point is that this is real, it’s not contrived, it’s not made up, and it’s not a figment of my imagination. It’s happened to literally millions of men in the West. It’s a prime reason for divorces over the last 30 years and it’s a prime reason men are increasingly avoiding women.
Do Devlin’s claims stand the test of time?
Devlin’s Paper
Before we begin, we first note that Devlin’s paper is relatively bereft of citations. The paper has 13 end notes. Five are cited as things he disagrees with, leaving only 8 positive citations over 30 pages. The majority of his claims are unsubstantiated. For something so influential, I would have expect much more than this. Moreover, the citations that exist largely do not impact anything we will discuss regarding hypergamy. Given what I know of the Manosphere—where unsubstantiated claims are not only common, but treated as axioms—this too is unsurprising. I’m not surprised at all.
Now, let’s get started. There is a lot to review.
Women know their own sexual urges are unruly, but traditionally have had enough sense to keep quiet about it. A husband’s belief that his wife is naturally monogamous makes for his own peace of mind. It is not to a wife’s advantage, either, that her husband understand her too well: Knowledge is power. In short, we have here a kind of Platonic “noble lie”—a belief which is salutary, although false.
It would be more accurate to say that the female sexual instinct is hypergamous. Men may have a tendency to seek sexual variety, but women have simple tastes in the manner of Oscar Wilde: They are always satisfied with the best. By definition, only one man can be the best. These different male and female “sexual orientations” are clearly seen among the lower primates, e.g., in a baboon pack. Females compete to mate at the top, males to get to the top.
Well, there you go. With the stroke of a pen, hypergamy—which literally means to marry up—was redefined to be “the female sexual instinct to always only be satisfied with the one very best.”
We can immediately see a handful of problems.
Is this talking about desire (an unimplemented preference) or is it talking about actual selection (an action taken)? What does being satisfied mean? What determines the very best?
Well, it’s vague. Really vague.
The original definition doesn’t have this problem. Hypergamy is “marrying up.” It involves marrying from a lower class (or caste) into a higher class (or caste). That’s easy enough to understand. This may involve a complex set of variables that determine what is upper or lower class, but the problem isn’t with the definition itself which is perfectly clear.
The same cannot be said of Devlin’s quite vague definition of hypergamy. And twenty years later, the meaning of hypergamy is still vague and ill-defined.
Are you surprised? I’m not surprised at all.
Now before we go any further, just for fun, I want you to make a prediction. Will Devlin clarify whether hypergamy is a desire in the mind of a woman or will he stated that it is something actually acted upon? I have claimed that hypergamy can be nothing but unimplemented desire at most, while our friend the Pseudonymous Commenter has claimed that hypergamy is alive and well in the actual mating choices that women make. At most, only one of us can be correct about what the Manosphere has always taught! Which position, if any, do you think Devlin will take? If you are extra brave, make your prediction in the comment section before reading any further.
It is possible, however, to enable women to mate hypergamously, i.e., with the most sexually attractive (handsome or socially dominant) men. In the Ecclesiazusae of Aristophanes the women of Athens stage a coup d’état. They occupy the legislative assembly and barricade their husbands out. Then they proceed to enact a law by which the most attractive males of the city will be compelled to mate with each female in turn, beginning with the least attractive. That is the female sexual utopia in power. Aristophanes had a better understanding of the female mind than the average husband.
The mainstream definition of hypergamy is just a description of a single woman from a lower marrying a single man from a higher class (or caste). But here we have Devlin defining ideal hypergamy as all women mating with the one very best man. These are fundamentally different conceptions.
One of these is actually rooted in a real polygamous caste system (found in India). The other is rooted completely in the imagination and the world of storytelling.
Oh, and what’s the most sexually attractive man? Handsome or socially dominant? Well, what is it? Is it handsome? Socially dominant? Both? Devlin has no idea, because he’s just making this up as he goes along. The vagueness and imprecision highlights this fact. Devlin is creating a myth, and we get to witness it.
The fact of the matter is that women do not reserve having sex with a very small fraction of men, let alone with the same men. As we discussed in “Hypergamy is a Myth: Part 2,” there is no evidence at all that alphas even exist, let alone that they are being hypergamously targeted by hungry women. In fact, the ratio of male to female partners is a nearly perfectly even 1:1 ratio (or 50/50 if you prefer), with a majority of males and females getting in on the action. Real relationships get distributed more-or-less evenly across the population.
Devlin does not support his central premise with any actual data, likely because he didn’t have any. So he was forced to cite an ancient fictional comedy. It is deeply ironic—and hilarious—that he cited a comedic play as a serious commentary. It is an… umm… clown move. If I didn’t know Devlin was actually being serious, I might have been excused for thinking his paper was a work of comedic satire.
What were Roissy and Roosh even thinking? I fear that the Manosphere, as it discussed Devlin’s work at the time, was using something other than their brains to think for them.
Hypergamy is not monogamy in the human sense. Although there may be only one “alpha male” at the top of the pack at any given time, which one it is changes over time. In human terms, this means the female is fickle, infatuated with no more than one man at any given time, but not naturally loyal to a husband over the course of a lifetime. In bygone days, it was permitted to point out natural female inconstancy.
I’ve already gone over this. Even at the worst of times, if a virgin woman marries, she is far more likely to be loyal to her husband than not. There is simply no way you can get from a very high likelihood of lifelong monogamy into “natural female inconstancy.”
In fact, the strong correlation between N-count and divorce risk indicates that “female nature” has very little to do with it. If Devlin were correct, N-count should have no impact on divorce risk because it can’t possibly change the supposed “natural female inconstancy.”
Devlin’s hypergamy not only fails to account for the efficacy of virginity, but this fact actively militates against his claim. I shouldn’t have to point this out, yet here we are!
And, on the topic of the origins of the Manosphere, here Devlin is implying that since the alpha is getting all the women, that the betas must be celibate (and possibly incels). Is this where the Manosphere originated this stupid idea? Perhaps. Now, given how it doesn’t match with reality, maybe this is why it was later adjusted to the more plausible 80/20 principle. That is still stupid and does not work in reality, but it’s easier to dupe yourself—and large numbers of credulous men—into believing it. To wit:
An important aspect of hypergamy is that it implies the rejection of most males.
I agree that hypergamy—as Devlin defines it—implies a rejection of most males. That’s why hypergamy is not real: women as a whole do not, in fact, reject most males. The only women who consistently reject most males are the ones who are already on a high tier and are expected to reject most men. Mathematicaly, women in those higher tiers must reject most men, or else they’d be hypogamous. The reality is that low-tier women will take almost any male (rejecting only a minority of men), while high-tier women will mostly only take high-tier men.
This is exactly what a person who had never heard of hypergamy would expect perfectly normal woman to do.
First, the point is that the more hypergamous a woman supposedly is, the less likely she is to reject most males because she’s already at a lower tier (and even lower of she’s not a virgin) and most available males are a step up.
Second, the less hypergamous a woman is, the more likely she is to actually reject most males because she’s avoiding hypogamy.
These two scenarios do not fit the Devlin’s hypothesis.
I’ve pointed this out throughout this series: women almost exclusively file for divorce among the highly educated, and most of the men in the ‘sphere (especially those who are authors and guest authors) are highly educated professionals. They mostly only see other highly educated women rejecting most lower-tier men and so mistakingly view avoidance of hypogamy as if it were equivalent of hypergamy. But hypergamy and hypogamy are not strict opposites. You might call them polar opposites because there is a lot of space between the poles that is neither hypergamy nor hypogamy.
Women are not so much naturally modest as naturally vain. They are inclined to believe that only the “best” (most sexually attractive) man is worthy of them. This is another common theme of popular romance (the beautiful princess, surrounded by panting suitors, pined away hopelessly for a “real” man—until, one day…etc.).
Recall above that I mentioned how Devlin’s definition of hypergamy was vague. That’s because he’s conflating two different things as if they were the same thing: attractiveness and sexual desire. You should recognize this, because it’s something that leftists (and men in the ‘sphere) do all the time.
In the Bible there are stories of two men—David and Jonathan—who form a deep friendship. If you go to a liberal church that is preaching on that topic, they will describe David and Jonathan as gay lovers because they had such a deep friendship. They cannot (or won’t) comprehend the existence of a deep affection between two male friends that is not sexual in nature.
Devlin is doing the same thing. He’s failing to distinguish between a man’s looks, personality, weath, social standing, etc. and his sexual characteristics/appeal. It’s not clear at all what “sexually attractive” even means! After all, a mother is not sexually attracted to her son because he’s a handsome or socially dominate man, nor would he be sexually attracted to her because she is still physically attractive or submissive. Sorry, Oedipus, you’re an ancient fiction too.
Throughout the ‘sphere, hardly anyone ever distinguishes between looks- or status-based attracton and sexual attraction. Just like it is assumed that David and Jonathan were obviously gay lovers, it’s assumed that a woman’s attraction to the best man’s best traits is inherently sexual.
If the term “sexual attraction” just means “wants to have sex with,” then calling the man she wants the “best” rather begs-the-question on hypergamy. If so, Devlin’s argument is a meaningless circle.
This is not unimportant because as we will see, there is no such thing as a “best” or “most” sexually attractive man. The ancient Aristophenese example is a fiction that could and would never occur. Because the ‘best’ man does not actually exist objectively, we’ll find Devlin demonstrating that women have almost no discrimination. We’ve already seen him describe this as “female inconstancy” and being fickle.
This cannot be objectively true, of course. An average man would seem to be good enough for the average woman by definition. If women were to mate with all the men “worthy” of them they would have little time for anything else. To repeat, hypergamy is distinct from monogamy. It is an irrational instinct, and the female sexual utopia is a consequence of that instinct.
I’ve been slicing up comments, so it might be unclear what “This” in that first sentence is referring to in the previous paragraph (that I cited above). He’s saying that hypergamy is the belief by women that only the best, most sexually attractive, man is worthy of her. Devlin is claiming that this cannot be objectively true. It’s not possible. Indeed, it is irrational.
Got that? Hypergamy is an irrational belief or instinct. It is a fairy-tale level delusion.
Remember when I asked you to make a prediction above? Devlin is implying that hypergamy is something she irrationally believes, not something that is based in a rational world of reality. I hope you guessed correctly.
Recall above that Devlin defined hypergamy as all women mating with the one very best man? Well now we are going to see this goal post moving. Hypergamy is now going to be all women mating with all the men. He’ll still cling to the idea that they are “best” but the only reason they are “best” is because the women selected them (yes, that’s circular reasoning).
Public discussion of the sexual revolution has tended to focus on date rape and “hook-ups,” that is, on what is taking place, rather than on the formation of stable families that is not taking place. This creates an impression that there really is “more sex” for men today than before some misguided girls misbehaved themselves forty years ago.
People speak as if the male sexual utopia of a harem for every man has actually been realized. It is child’s play to show that this cannot be true. There is roughly the same number of male as female children (not quite: there are about 5 percent more live male births than female—there is not a girl for every boy.)
…which—like dating apps—means that women get a default statistical advantange by doing nothing at all. This advantage grows when you factor in the Greater Male Variability Hypothesis. Women are the buyers in a buyers market, allowing them access to better wares at a lower price. That’s not hypergamy, that’s the law of supply and demand.
Continuing…
What happens when female sexual desire is liberated is not an increase in the total amount of sex available to men, but a redistribution of the existing supply. Society becomes polygamous. A situation emerges in which most men are desperate for wives, but many women are just as desperately throwing themselves at a very few exceptionally attractive men. These men, who have always found it easy to get a mate, now get multiple mates.
Devlin’s prediction has not come to pass. Not even close. No data set that I am aware of even comes close to hinting that Devlin’s prediction might have actually come to pass.
But Devlin does us one big service: he admits that his definition of hypergamy—the same one the Pseudonymous Commenter claims to believe—is only possible in the presence of polygamy, something I have been saying throughout this series (especially in the comment section). Since polygamy does not actually exist, neither can hypergamy.
The irony is that he just got done unintentially demonstrating that supply-and-demand, not hypergamy, will cause men to be desparate for wives.
Now, notice Devlin’s subtle equivocation: “men are desperate for wives” and “many women are just as desperately throwing themselves at a very few exceptionally attractive men.” Men are experiencing a lack of options, but women have an abundance. Their “desparation” is not comparable. It isn’t referring to the same thing at all. The so-called desparation of women is, in fact, not actually desparation at all. You know, because she isn’t actually in a state of hopelessness and despair.
This is, in fact, a category error. It’s easy to say that men are desparate for wives because they try to find a wife and cannot find one (due to a lack of supply). That’s a market dynamic. But the “desparation” of women is an ill-defined feeling or desire for something equally ill-defined. Her supposed desparation is a different category entirely.
Once monogamy is abolished, no restriction is placed on a woman’s choices. Hence, all women choose the same few men.
Except they don’t all choose the same few men. In fact, what each women considers good mating material varies widely and is almost perfectly attributed to individual preferences. Women mate with a wide diversity of men and it is extremely difficult to point to any attribute that all women are attracted to that isn’t explained by assortative mating (i.e. same-level similarities).
Moreover, women tend to select mates who have, on average, similar N-counts to their own.
Devlin’s hypothesis has been falsified for having made a prediction which not only failed to be established by the data, but in which the data showed the opposite effect. This, of course, has not resulted in the Manosphere admitting that it’s foundation was made of sand.
Assortative mating, not hypergamy, represents the actual reality of “women’s choices.”
Furthermore, many women are sexually attracted to promiscuous men because, not in spite, of their promiscuity. This can be explained with reference to the primate pack. The “alpha male” can be identified by his mating with many females. This is probably where the sluts-and-studs double standard argument came from—not from any social approval of male promiscuity, but from female fascination with it. Male “immorality” (in traditional language) can be attractive to females. Thus, once polygamous mating begins, it tends to be self-reinforcing.
I’ll be honest, I’m not quite sure how to take this. Devlin seems to be asserting that polygamy—literally multiple marriage—is actually merely mating with multiple partners. If he were arguing that sex=marriage, then he’d conclude that such promiscuity is adultery which he appears to do in the immediate comment below. But it also seems clear from those quotation marks that he doesn’t consider it to be “immorality” as such.
Regarding the so-called sluts-and-studs double standard, Devlin’s example of the “alpha male” mating with many females suffers from severe selection bias:
In college I observed decent, clean-living men left alone while notorious adulterers had no difficulty going from one girlfriend to the next.
And, there we go: a reliance on highly selected anecdotal evidence. Given how much the Manosphere’s body of wisdom relies on anecodotes, it is unsurprising that it was present in those early days when hypergamy was first established as a central doctrine. Oh, yes, I’m not surprised at all.
We’ll discuss Devlin’s personal selection bias and how it influenced his ideas when we discuss hypergamy, education, and intelligence in a future post.
Devlin then goes on to discuss “Modern Chivalry” which is almost certainly behind Dalrock’s (and the Dalrockian Manosphere’s) obsession with the topic. I’m going to skip that part since it doesn’t really apply to our current topic, but if the above is any indication, Dalrock’s “magnum opus” philosophy is sitting on an intellectual foundation of sand.
Skipping ahead…
Hypergamy, as above noted, implies rejection maximization: if only the best is good enough, almost everyone is not good enough. Rather than cheapening herself, as observers tend to assume, modern woman may be pricing herself out of the market. It used to be commonly said that a woman who thinks she is too good for any man “may be right, but more often – is left.” Why might this be an especial danger for women today?
Above I used the market analogy where the woman was a buyer in a buyers market, able to get a better product at a discount. If we switch up the analogy to make the woman the product in a sellers market, then—as a rational actor—she absolutely should and must price herself more highly than men. It’s the same market dynamic.
Devlin is right that she is pricing herself highly, but he’s utterly incorrect that she’s pricing herself out of the market. She’s actually having great success selling her wares at higher prices!
She isn’t pricing herself out of the market, except, that is, for one thing: virginity. Devlin has neglected this in his market analysis, because as aforementioned, it refutes the hypergamy hypothesis.
If it were “female nature” and not the loss of virginity which causes a woman to become hypergamous, then virgnity should be irrelevant. But it isn’t. In fact, it’s the single most important attribute that a woman has to determine her divorce risk (and that of her mates).
When I looked into first time marriages—especially those where N-count was zero or one—I could not find anything but a weak indication of hypergamy at best. So I concluded that hypergamy was a myth.
It is highly likely that hypergamy is, in fact, limited to precisely the groups that Devlin’s—and the Manosphere’s—highly selected anecdotes describe: that of the adulterous high N-count men and women. These are precisely the men and women who Christians are explicitly excluded from mating with. Thus, if true, this makes the Manosphere a pointless place for Christian men who adhere to biblical sexuality.
Finally, heterosexual monogamy is incompatible with equality of the sexes. A wife always has more influence on home life, if only because she spends more time there; a husband’s leadership often amounts to little more than an occasional veto upon some of his wife’s decisions. But such leadership is necessary to accommodate female hypergamy. Women want a man they can look up to; they leave or fall out of love with men they do not respect. Hence, men really have no choice in the matter.
There is so much in this single paragraph. Where do we start?
First, the notion that the wife is the master of the house is biblical (and that to do otherwise opens one up to slanderous charges). Devlin hypothesizes that she is the natural master of the house because she spends the most time there. But he states that this is “only because she spends more time there” as if her duties would be less if she were to, say, hold a job. But this does not logically follow if, for example, both parents work (a very common arrangement) and more-or-less have equal time at home. The Bible, after all, does not declare that a wife is only master of the house if she spends more time there than her husband.
Second, there is nothing about monogamy that is essentially incompatible with equality. Bear in mind that equality can mean many things and Devlin doesn’t adequately define what he means. He leaves it vague and ill-defined. We’re going to assume he means equality in terms of making decisions in the home.
The irony is that he acknowledges that women are primary decision makers at home and that there is almost no need for the husband to “occasionally veto” what goes on. If a wife is competent, it wouldn’t surprise me if weeks or months went by without some husbands needing to offer a word of commentary on how the house is run. And after years and years, a pattern would set in requiring minimal intervention, if any.
But Devlin is implying that without explicit and frequent leadership by a husband—without respect to whether he is even qualified to weigh in on those matters—his wife will lose respect and fall out of love with him.
Thus, Devlin seems to be claiming that male leadership—inequality of authority—is required for monogamy. In other words, a man must exert leadership even when there is no reason to do so, when his services as leader are not actually needed. We conclude, therefore, that Devlin thinks a husband must regularly signal his dominance: to prance and preen like a male showing off to impress the female.
He’s turned leadership into a token gesture, all so he could promote this new concept of hypergamy. This seems suspect to me.
Third, after claiming that monogamy depends on inequality, which he seems to define as a man exerting token leadership, he then concludes that men have no choice in the matter of whether women lose respect for them and fall out of love.
This does not logically follow. Following Devlin’s argument, it would seem that if a man wants to ensure monogamy, love, and respect, he must exert leadership. That’s a choice he can choose to make. If hypergamy is about “maintaining frame” (to use the more modern lingo), then the man can choose to do that. And it seems that he only has to do it once in a while, not constantly.
The fact that Devlin does not see this very obvious point suggest that even he doesn’t believe the nonsense he is writing. I suspect from his contradiction that he knows—as we all do—that no amount of leadership has anything to do with whether monogamy is successful or not, that equality and monogamy have little to do with each other.
After all, to the best of my knowledge there is no meaningful difference between the divorce rates of the proponents of patriarchy, complementarians, and egalitarians (after controlling for confounding variables). As I’ve said throughout this article and series, virginity, adultery, and even intelligence, are of far greater import.
Once more, we find nearly perfect agreement between feminist radicals and plenty of conservatives in failing to understand this, with men getting the blame from both sides. Feminists protest that “power differentials” between the sexes—meaning, really, differences in status or authority—make genuine sexual consent impossible. In a similar vein, the stern editor of Chronicles laments that “in the case of a college professor who sleeps with an 18-year-old student, disparity in age or rank should be grounds for regarding the professor as a rapist. But professors who prey upon girls are not sent to jail. They do not even lose their jobs.”
In fact, this is just one more example of hypergamous female mate selection. In most marriages, the husband is at least slightly older than the wife. Normal women tend to be attracted precisely to men in positions of authority. Nurses do tend to choose doctors, secretaries their bosses, and the occasional female student will choose a professor; this does not mean the men are abusing any “power” to force helpless creatures to mate with them.
I submit that a man’s “preying upon” a younger women of lower rank should be grounds for regarding him as a husband. Men are supposed to have authority over women; that is part of what a marriage is. Equality of the sexes makes men less attractive to women; it has probably contributed significantly to the decline in Western birthrates. It is time to put an end to it.
Well, it turns out our inference above was correct: Devlin views inequality of authority to be essential for monogamy, and he views equality of authority to be its antithesis.
Nobody can come away from reading this and conclude that women—what he calls “helpless creatures”—have equal agency with their more powerful de facto ‘sex=marriage’ husbands. Honestly, Devlin sounds a bit like the lite version of Artisanal Toad.
Devlin has bought—hook, line, and sinker—the feminist invention that male-female relationships are fundamentally about power dynamics (e.g. independence, imbalance, domination, authority, and control). He named his work “Sexual Utopia In Power.” And the Manosphere has followed both him and, ironically, the feminists in their shared philosophy. No matter how many times I point out that “men are supposed to have authority over women” is a biblical anachronism, it makes no difference. The myths have become essential, and there is no fixing them without destroying the whole.
One of the things the Pseudonymous Commenter says is that women should marry when they are 18 to early 20s. This is when they are inexperienced, or as Devlin notes, in a helpless state. But the Commenter says that men should marry around 30 after they’ve gained sufficient life experience This is similar to Devlin’s examples of older, established, higher ranked men in authority over their much younger, inexperienced partners. It’s clear that these are related ideas.
Even though the average marital age gap has been just 2 to 3 years for centuries, both Devlin and the Commenter highlight examples of a greater power imbalance as the “solution” to the broken system of marriage. They notably do not encourage young virgin women to marry slightly older young virgin men, the only modern system that has been proven to work.
One critic of the Manosphere said that the sphere is made up of older men who just want women that are young, naive, and inexperienced so they can control them. It’s hard to argue anything other than that is precisely what Devlin was aiming for.
The point is that this is real, it’s not contrived, it’s not made up, and it’s not a figment of my imagination. It’s happened to literally millions of men in the West. It’s a prime reason for divorces over the last 30 years and it’s a prime reason men are increasingly avoiding women.
Devlin’s hypergamy hasn’t aged particularly well. It’s still just as vague, ill-defined, and circular as ever. It still isn’t supported by the data. It still fails to be good at explaining real-world phenomena, such as divorce and infidelity. It still treats women as animalistic and dependent without meaningful agency.
But most of all: it is contrived. He made it up and he didn’t do a very good job of it.
Now, notice Devlin’s subtle equivocation: “men are desperate for wives” and “many women are just as desperately throwing themselves at a very few exceptionally attractive men.” Men are experiencing a lack of options, but women have an abundance. Their “desparation” is not comparable. It isn’t referring to the same thing at all. The so-called desparation of women is, in fact, not actually desparation at all.
This is, in fact, a category error. It’s easy to say that men are desparate for wives because they try to find a wife and cannot find one (due to a lack of supply). That’s a market dynamic. But the “desparation” of women is an ill-defined feeling or desire for something equally ill-defined. Her supposed desparation is a different category entirely.
This is mainly a projection from the”right” and the left, BUT mostly from those MEN(& some women) in the sphere with (especially multiple) daughters* and miserable divorced or unhappily married MEN** who want a second(or third) chance at marriage .
(& some women) in the sphere with daughters*
*this is why i didn’t really mind Sunshine Mary/SSM believing or saying”women want exalted manly alpha leadership”-she had 4-6 daughters(i forget the exact amount after a decade+ of not thinking about her much)she (& her husband)wanted to get married and eventually off of her hands.
or unhappily married MEN** who want a second(or third) chance at marriage.
**This is why i like latter-day Pseudonymous Commenter so much as he has said ”Even with all my( hella) too legit to quit GREAT game and oft free-style Ric Flair-like strutting I wouldn’t get married again if my wife divorced me, lads.”
No doubt, it’s worth of respect. And we here at this blog truly do respect that fact.
A few weeks ago Surfdumb defended you at SS. He’s probably the only one there who understands that our critiques are not personal criticisms. We actually have respect for many of the people we are critiquing.
That paper was written in 2006, nearly 20 years ago. It was entitled “Sexual Utopia In Power.” It written by Francis Roger Devlin. In this we get our first similarity with the Manosphere. See, F. Roger Devlin is a pseudonym. It is, in my view, unsurprising that the Manosphere would owe so much to someone who wouldn’t even use their own name. I’m not surprised at all.
Q:You really want to know why ”Why must the manosphere remain anonymous?”
A:Why must the manosphere remain anonymous? Because of the seething hatred for the Great Books for Men amongst Dalrock and his flock of frankfartian gamey fanboy followers.
from September 24, 2014 / 5:07 pm
Why must the manosphere remain anonymous? Because of the seething hatred for the Great Books for Men amongst Dalrock and his flock of frankfartian gamey fanboy followers.
Morpheus: The Dalrockian Gamey Churchian Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, Dalrockas Lotsas Coackas, teachers, Voxa Cockas, lawyers, frankfartian atheists Boxers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
http://dalrock.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/a-rebuke-for-yohami/
Yes, Dalrock et al. are so “hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it,” and this is the genius of feminism, that it can convince men that they are being Christ-like when in reality they are hating on the Great Books for Men, hating on Plato, Homer, Socrates, Moses, and Jesus, and teaching and preaching that Christians need game, and that Christ came to abolish the Law of Moses–the very force of nature that could actually save and exalt marriage.
It was while commenting on Dalrock’s blog that I realized why we must remain anonymous, for Dalrock/Boxer/Vox hate the Great Books for Men so much that they are chomping the bit to out you and share it with their feminist friends, all for a bit of Churchian Joy and an Instalanche or two — just for kicks –just to “get a rise out of” the GBFM as one commentator put it.
Long story short, Dalrock (Cypher) has realized that he likes the taste of juicy, delicious game — he likes the taste of steak — and although the Truth would set him Free, Ignorance is Bliss:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLv6ycYcpGI
The Matrix (1999) Ignorance is Bliss
And thus the GBFM must be castigated, impugned, belittled, condemned, and destroyed so as to maintain the gamey feminist state dalrock is so fond of.
I lzloozozozlzlzozooz that I may not weep.
DEAR HEARTISTE,
In some of the delightful conversations with you in the evenings of 2011 on K Street, and which served as an anodyne to the afflictions of the crisis through which our country was then laboring, the Christian religion was sometimes our topic; and I then promised you that one day or other I would give you my views of it. They are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others, ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other. At the short interval since these conversations, when I could justifiably abstract my mind from public affairs, the subject has been under my contemplation. But the more I considered it, the more it expanded beyond the measure of either my time or information. In the moment of my late departure from Monticello, I received from Dr. Priestley his little treatise of “Socrates and Jesus Compared.” This being a section of the general view I had taken of the field, it became a subject of reflection while on the road and unoccupied otherwise. The result was, to arrange in my mind a syllabus or outline of such an estimate of the comparative merits of Christianity as I wished to see executed by someone of more leisure and information for the task than myself. This I now send you as the only discharge of my promise I can probably ever execute. And in confiding it to you, I know it will not be exposed to the malignant perversions of those who make every word from me a text for new misrepresentations and calumnies. I am moreover averse to the communication of my religious tenets to the public, because it would countenance the presumption of those who have endeavored to draw them before that tribunal, and to seduce public opinion to erect itself into that inquisition over the rights of conscience which the laws have so justly proscribed. It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. It behooves him, too, in his own case, to give no example of concession, betraying the common right of independent opinion, by answering questions of faith which the laws have left between God and himself. Accept my affectionate salutations.
YOURS IN HOMERIC BROTHERHOOD,
DA GBFM
Dalrock preaches that “Christians need game,” meaning, of course, that all teh divorce and fatherless children and false accusations are all simply a man’s fault, as the man must not have learned “game,” like “Dalorck the happily married “Christians need game” father.”
JohnDSee preaches Dalrock’s gospel: http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/regret-rape-foiled-by-text-messages/#comment-618248
Agree with ‘f@ck feminism.’ This guy slipped up his game somewhere though. Didn’t give her plausible deniability or what ever switch she needed flipped. That being said, based on what limited info we have, he did nothing wrong in the legal sense. Hell, she may even regret the regret rape accusation. Maybe she has an unattractive older sister or faggot brother who convinced her to file the report. Again, he may have slipped in his game or reading of this chic.
yes, JohnDSee agrees with Dalrock.
when a man gets thrown in prison because of a false accusation, it is all his fault, as he did not “game” hard enough, like dalrock the gamey christain would have.
according to dalrock “christians need game” and his frankfartian flock all of the following are fundamentally a man’s fault as all caused by a lack of game:
your wife leaves you: you didn’t game her enough
the state seizes your children: you didn’t game your wife enough
the state seizes your assets: you didn’t game your wife enough
you are incarcerated for a false accusation: you didn’t game her enough
long story short, dalrock agrees 100% with feminism. 1) a man must always sevre the gina tingzlzlzoo over truth, love, god, and law, and 2) everything that goes wrong is always a man’s fault, because he failed to serve said gina tinzgzlzz via dalrockaksksz game.
And yet supposedly Derek and i was blaming MEN & saying ”women are NOT to blame are thus blameless (indeed)?”
But it was okay to believe that ”1) a man must always sevre the gina tingzlzlzoo over truth, love, god, and law, and 2) everything that goes wrong is always a man’s fault, because he failed to serve said gina tinzgzlzz via dalrockaksksz game. ”between June 2010 and January 2020?-that makes sense?
We’re just another version of GBFM: pointing out that the so-called Red Pill is just another Blue Pill.
SPLC presented this persona last year as an 60 years old boomer born 1964, claiming they “doxxed” him. I don’t trust any of it.
Approaching this with historical criticism my first suspicion is that SPLC invented this pseudo themselves and produced the “paper”. At first glance the language of the “paper” looks like it has been written by a woman, however I’m not well versed enough in textual criticism to prove it. The entire act looks like trying to reframe the entire RP as some sort of antagonist in American partisan politics. This doesn’t work very well for people outside the US bubble. “Alt-right”, “white supremacist” and such BS doesn’t mean anything where I live.
I interacted with the “early” RP. There were no boomers around, they didn’t even know such a thing existed. It were primarily millennials with a few GenXers in-between. There was no politics, especially not American politics, because nobody gave an eff about Clinton or Bush when “figuring out women”.
I remember a distinct “MGTOW” campaign appearing later, feeling staged due to its suspicious high production values. Again that was just targeted at US Americans only. USAID had other pleasantries prepared for us mere humans living overseas.
I admit, there isn’t enough evidence tying Devlin to any specific identity. That’s why I didn’t bring it up in this article. I did note that his paper reads like comedic satire.
We’re just another version of GBFM: pointing out that the so-called Red Pill is just another Blue Pill.
And GBFM tried to help him and all those inThe Dalrockian Gamey Churchian Matrix system, see it as shown in this post:
https://theredarchive.com/blog/Dalrock/she-who-must-beobeyed.7626
One thing I have to admit about Pastor Driscoll is that he is an incredibly talented preacher. Part of this is his unmatched charisma and a gift for teaching. He also has a highly developed understanding of his audience, and he knows how far he can safely push them. This last gift gives us a unique window into modern Christian culture.
Which GBFM rightly translating Dalrock word for word(even DAL’S laughs in it) here:
da GBFM lzzzzzzzlzlz (TM) says:
January 31, 2015 at 7:25 pm
One thing I have to admit about Satan is that he is an incredibly talented preacher. Part of this is his unmatched charisma and a gift for teaching. He also has a highly developed understanding of his audience, and he knows how far he can safely push them via gina tingzlzlzozozozolzoz. This last gift gives us a unique window into modern Christian culture.
lzozzlzz
& even answered another commenters comment with these two comments:
da GBFM lzzzzzzzlzlz (TM) says:
February 1, 2015 at 10:27 am
Dear Freebird,
You correctly note: “Tale after tale in The Bible tells us of that which we are currently experiencing. We are cut off from G-D for being willful to ourselves,and for failing to take biblical headship over our homes.
1.The State owns us,our homes,and children
2.Rampant sodomy over procreative sex
3.Corruption in The Church (The body of Christ,for Christ’s sake)
4.So on and so forth et all.”
But why? Why did this happen?
Perhaps when Dalrock gets around to discussing the cause, we can make it better?
lzzlzoz?
&
da GBFM lzzzzzzzlzlz (TM) says:
February 1, 2015 at 12:41 pm
Driscoll wants men to submit to the higher authority of the courts which actively destroy marriage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tX0oRlPH-I
AVFM Interview with Dr. Stephen Baskerville
Why does Driscoll tell men to bow before the corrupt system? Did not Jesus call out the corrupt Scribes and Pharisees?
lzozlzzo?
& even this was what Scott liked too!
da GBFM lzzzzzzzlzlz (TM) says:
February 2, 2015 at 10:47 am
As Dalorck alluded to above, yet another reason that Driscoll fears to teach the Word of Jesus to his congregation is that Jesus warns of the dangers of riding the cock carousel:
JOHN 4:
16 Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ 17 The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ 19 The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet.
Today the translation would read:
16 Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ 17 The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; 18 for you have had five hundred lostasosococoakccoaslzozzllzzlzl, and the one you have now is not your husband’s. What you have said is true!’ 19 The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet, and I am calling the police, as Mark Driscoll told us to appeal to higher authority should we ever be abused!
Scott says:
February 2, 2015 at 10:51 am
I would like to get the first copy of da GBFM Bible.
I’m ready to throw out my NASB
& Scott even predicts the last 5 years of”American economic prosperity” pretty well here too:
Scott says:
February 2, 2015 at 11:24 am
I hope that by the time I retire and start collecting my army pension that a loaf of bread doesn’t cost a bazzzzzzzzzzillion Bernankified dollarzzzzzzzzz.
PokeSalad says:
February 2, 2015 at 11:25 am
”
I would like to get the first copy of da GBFM Bible. I’m ready to throw out my NASB”
Special this week! Only $25 bernankified dollaz!!!
& RichardP gets a custom answer from GBFM to his comment here also:
RichardP says:
February 2, 2015 at 1:04 pm
Re. the Law and/or the Ten Commandments discussed upthread:
(I mean this to be a scriptural discussion, not a denominational discussion.)
Consider that Jesus was a Jew, a Rabbi, bound by the Law of Moses, up until the moment he “gave up the ghost” (the Sermon on the Mount was spoken by a Jew, to other Jews). But Jesus was sent to be the final sacrifice, to satisfy forever the requirement of the Law of Moses, old covenant. His death ushered in the new covenant. So – rhetorical question: was Jesus still a Jew and/or a Rabbi in the most literal Jewish sense after his resurrection? That is, after his resurrection would Jesus have still taught in the Temple the need for sacrifice, animal or otherwise (since the poor were not required to present an animal sacrifice)?
The Law of Moses (of which the Ten Commandments are a subset) was not given to the entire world. It was given only to the Children of Israel. Christians never have been bound by the Ten Commandments, much less the rest of the Law given to Moses at Mt. Sinai. Note that I said “bound”. As Scripture, the Law of Moses has been useful to Christians for instruction and reproof. But the Law of Moses was Old Covenant – given only to the Children of Israel. The Old Covenant has been replaced by the New Covenant – given to everyone “grafted onto the branch”. The old law has been replaced by the new. (Hebrews 8:5-13)
“Now we know that whatever the law says, it says [only?] to those who are under the law … (Romans 3:19-28) … Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. (Romans 2:14)
The following was spoken at the Council in Jerusalem regarding what to do about the Gentiles who were becoming Christians, but who were not bound by the Law of Moses. The conclusion accepted by the Council was to impose basically a subset of the Noahide laws. This is the whole of the “Law” imposed on non-Jewish New Testament Christians:
“It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.” (Acts 15:19-20) Basically, a subset of the 7 Noahide Laws.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Laws_of_Noah
If the “gentiles” were meant to be bound by the Law of Moses, that Law of Moses would have been imposed on the Gentiles at this meeting.
There is a good discussion of this meeting in Acts at this link:
http://www.gci.org/bible/torah/exodus2a
da GBFM lzzzzzzzlzlz (TM) says:
February 2, 2015 at 2:39 pm
RichardP writes, “Christians never have been bound by the Ten Commandments, much less the rest of the Law given to Moses at Mt. Sinai.”
It seems that RichardP has reached all the Churchian women of our generation with his most divine revelation, for none of them are following the Decalogue.
Dalrock, could you please do a post on how Jesus came to abolish the Law of Moses?
Thanks! 🙂
So Dalrock said this…
…and GBFM replied with this…
lzozzlzz
…and this…
AVFM Interview with Dr. Stephen Baskerville
Why does Driscoll tell men to bow before the corrupt system? Did not Jesus call out the corrupt Scribes and Pharisees?
lzozlzzo?
…with Malcolm Reynold’s currently schooling Jack…
Mark Driscoll no longer is a “pastor”, because he fell over his own scandals. Nevertheless, a 26 years old dude who founded his own church in 1996 is not a reliable source for doctrine. Personally I prefer churches that have been around for several hundreds of years.
…and his faulty interpretation of Genesis 3:16.
Thanks for taking the time to write this. I’m going to be commenting less because I have been neglecting my Lenten prayer and readings. I’ll try to read whatever else you post on these topics.
I don’t know if I’m getting ahead but I assume that Roissy, Roosh, etc.’s writings and experiences also impacted the early manosphere. When I first saw the Christian version, it was presented as applying what they wrote about to married man life.
I can understand needing a break. I’m barely keeping up with the publication schedule as is.
I’m not planning on following this topic up with a sequel or series. This is not my area of expertise. I simply don’t know enough about the topic.
I wasn’t even planning on this being the next post, but this was the most requested topic, so it got bumped to the front of the line.
I spent more time on this post than I do on most of my posts. I had some available time over the weekend that I had not planned on (because I was stuck at home sick). It is unlikely that I will replicate this often.
Is there any evidence that Devlin’s writings influenced Roissy, Roosh, etc.? I didn’t really read them.
I don’t know. That’s what they tell me, but I wasn’t there. That’s the problem with history, I guess. At least we don’t have people claiming otherwise.
I don’t know. That’s what they tell me, but I wasn’t there. That’s the problem with history, I guess. At least we don’t have people claiming otherwise.
Unlike the so-called ”Christian”,”atheist” or even ”agnostic” ”redpillers”, MOSES, JESUS & GBFM say to let Roissy=Heartiste/ History speak for himself.
Here’s the earliest he talks of one F. Roger Devlin:
Chateau Maxim #3: In the state of nature, men are expendable.
I want you to keep in mind the above law as you read my brief take on F. Roger Devlin’s outstanding (and MSM blacked out) essays on gender dynamics and the sexual revolution.
https://heartiste.org/2008/07/23/decivilizing-human-nature-unleashed/
Chateau Maxim #3: In the state of nature, men are expendable.
I want you to keep in mind the above law as you read my brief take on F. Roger Devlin’s outstanding (and MSM blacked out) essays on gender dynamics and the sexual revolution. The truth of that law is the explanation for everything you see around you today.
I found the link to Devlin through 2Blowhards with interesting followup commentary. You can read the essays here. Scroll over the icons, hit the down arrow, and click download for easiest access. This is a must read for anyone who wants to know why things seem to have gone off the rails. Devlin’s essays are long but I urge you to read them through, including his evisceration of Wendy Shalit, representative of those obtuse anti-porn crusading social conservatives and myopic “fourth wave feminists” who preach from a pulpit of willful ignorance, habitually missing the forest for the trees:
[…]the notion that all our problems come from women’s making sex available outside marriage—and, consequently, that a “holding out for the wedding” strategy will make everything right again—deserves a close, critical look. Wendy Shalit’s writings provide a useful occasion for doing this. Her proposals have considerable limitations, in fact, most of which flow from a single source: feminine narcissism and its concomitant unconcern for the masculine point of view.
Devlin’s essay Sexual Utopia in Power contains this nugget of truth:
It is sometimes said that men are polygamous and women monogamous. Such a belief is often implicit in the writings of male conservatives: Women only want good husbands, but heartless men use and abandon them. Some evidence does appear, prima facie, to support such a view. One 1994 survey found that “while men projected they would ideally like six sex partners over the next year, and eight over the next two years, women responded that their ideal would be to have only one partner over the next year. And over two years? The answer, for women, was still one.” Is this not evidence that women are naturally monogamous?
No it is not. Women know their own sexual urges are unruly, but traditionally have had enough sense to keep quiet about it. A husband’s belief that his wife is naturally monogamous makes for his own peace of mind. It is not to a wife’s advantage, either, that her husband understand her too well: Knowledge is power. In short, we have here a kind of Platonic “noble lie”—a belief which is salutary, although false.
It would be more accurate to say that the female sexual instinct is hypergamous. Men may have a tendency to seek sexual variety, but women have simple tastes in the manner of Oscar Wilde: They are always satisfied with the best. […]
Hypergamy is not monogamy in the human sense. Although there may be only one “alpha male” at the top of the pack at any given time, which one it is changes over time. In human terms, this means the female is fickle, infatuated with no more than one man at any given time, but not naturally loyal to a husband over the course of a lifetime.
And here Devlin gets to the heart of the matter:
The sexual revolution in America was an attempt by women to realize their own {hypergamous} utopia, not that of men.
The irony is that in the course of dismantling millennia of biologically-grounded cultural tradition and enacting their hypergamous sexual utopia, women have unwittingly made life more difficult for all but the most attractive of them. The result has been more cougars, more sluts, and more demand for DNA paternity testing. To prevent this edifice from crumbling under its own weight entirely, massive redistributive payments from men to women in the form of welfare, alimony, punitive child support (even from men who aren’t the biological fathers!), female- and child-friendly workplaces, legal injustice (women in general do not give a shit about justice), corporate-sponsored daycare, PC extortion, sexual harassment claims, and divorce theft have had to be ruthlessly administered and enforced by the thugs of the rapidly metastasizing elite-created police state. Remove these security and resource transfers and safety nets and you will see the feminist utopia crumble within one generation.
Many will suffer in the fallout. Their suffering will be necessary. The only alternative is a gradual decivilizing of the West until the hellhounds of human nature have broken their chains and the blood-dimmed tide is loosed.
My one beef with Devlin’s essays is that he overlooks the emergence of game as a social phenomenon in reaction to the negative trends he correctly outlines. Game was birthed in the twin crucibles of the feminist-inspired sexual revolution and the teachings of evolutionary psychology. As women have become more hypergamous, betas, feeling the pinch, have become more dedicated to learning the crimson arts. Some alphas looking for even more edge in the dating market have also taken up the cause, with a bounty of no-strings-attached pussy the result. Women call this manipulation, but in fact it is just the same old reproductive arms race, this time with laser-guided cock bombs.
Devlin continues to make the following astute observations in Sexual Utopia:
A characteristic feature of decadent societies is the recrudescence of primitive, precivilized cultural forms. That is what is happening to us. Sexual liberation really means the Darwinian mating pattern of the baboon pack reappears among humans. […]
If women want to mate simply as their natural drives impel them, they must, rationally speaking, be willing to share their mate with others.
But, of course, women’s attitude about this situation is not especially rational. They expect their alpha man to “commit.” Woman’s complaining about men’s failure to commit, one suspects, means merely that they are unable to get a highly attractive man to commit to them; rather as if an ordinary man were to propose to Helen of Troy and complain of her refusal by saying “women don’t want to get married.”
Furthermore, many women are sexually attracted to promiscuous men because, not in spite, of their promiscuity. This can be explained with reference to the primate pack. The “alpha male” can be identified by his mating with many females. This is probably where the sluts-and-studs double standard argument came from—not from any social approval of male promiscuity, but from female fascination with it. Male “immorality” (in traditional language) can be attractive to females. Thus, once polygamous mating begins, it tends to be self-reinforcing.
There’s a reason why beta males have stopped holding open doors for women. Chivalry requires gratitude.
In Devlin’s parallel essay Rotating Polyandry, he quotes a female author from her book explaining how differently men and women view sex and love:
Most men I have talked to call it infatuation, but most of the women I have talked to call it being in love… Women in particular may believe that, if they find the right person, intense feelings can last. They’ve been taught to believe that they should only want sex with someone they love. So when a woman desires a man, she thinks she is in love, and when the desire fades she thinks she is out of love.
This leads to further quotes by Devlin describing the natural forces of female caprice that make marital dissolution practically a foregone conclusion in the absence of either social shaming and stigmatism or the supervision of a very alpha dominant husband:
They often form relationships with men who are emotionally inaccessible. Instead of choosing men who are interested in developing a relationship, these women choose men who make them feel insecure. Insecurity can create motivation and excitement. Women who seek excitement in their marriages (and many do) will often forego the possibility of real relationships for the excitement of fantasy relationships…. It’s not uncommon for women to pine for men who shy away from commitment, while they shun the attention given to them by men who are willing and ready to make a commitment. […]
When a woman wants to get married, she will usually overlook a lot, and at times allow herself to be treated pretty badly. After she gets married, not only is the excitement of pursuit over, after a few years of marriage the attraction buzz has dissipated too. At that point, many women may find that marriage hasn’t even come close to meeting their expectations. Some women feel stupid for having wanted it so badly in the first place.
And then Devlin reaches the logical conclusion — frequently written here by me — that marriage is not necessary for a loving, sexual, commited relationship, and is often antithetical to it:
Men being pressured for “commitment” sometimes attempt to point this out: “Why is it such a big deal? What is going to be different after we’re married?” The men are right, of course: a wedding ceremony has no magical power to produce lifelong happiness. Unfortunately, this seems to be something women only learn from experience.
Read the rest of his essay if you can stomach it for a realistic description of what exactly goes through a woman’s mind as she is slowly falling out of love with her provider beta husband and contemplating the firestorm of divorce. If all men would read this and absorb its lessons I can guarantee you that marriage rates would tumble into the basement. There’s only so much reality a man can bear before he begins to act in accordance with his self interest. For example:
Some of the women resented their husbands’ lack of suspicion…. Although females never give males any indication that they are anything less than 100 percent faithful, [they] seem to think men are stupid for believing them. Females just think males should know that when they say “I would never cheat on you,” what they really mean is “I would never cheat on you…as long as you make me happy and I don’t get bored.”
Feeling like dropping to one knee and slipping that $20K ring on your beloved’s finger now?
Helpfully, in Sexual Utopia Devlin puts some numbers to the suspicion by men that the divorce industry is mostly a female-run enterprise:
Women formally initiate divorce about two thirds of the time. Most observers agree, however, that this understates matters: In many cases where the husband formally initiates, it is because his wife wants out of the marriage. Exact data are elusive, but close observers tend to estimate that women are responsible for about nine-tenths of the divorcing and breakingup: Men do not love them and leave them, but love them and get left by them. Many young women, indeed, believe they want marriage when all they really want is a wedding (think of bridal magazines). The common pattern is that women are the first to want into marriage and the first to want out.
Devlin goes on to describe the horror show that is the legal process when wives file for divorce and husbands and fathers take it up the ass as they are mercilessly ground to a pulp in the machinery of the state. Read the whole thing and remember that one copy of Mystery Method will cost you a lot less than a trip down the altar.
As I’ve said before, my advice to the typical man is simple:
DON’T GET MARRIED.
Women by nature aren’t on your side, the law isn’t on your side, and even lapdog beta males who’ve blinded themselves to reality and unthinkingly toe the PC party line in hopes their status posturing will offer them up a scrap or two of roadworn desiccated pussy don’t have your side as a man. There is every incentive in the world to avoid marriage. It is a fetid corrupt mess, and only radical social change will make it an attractive alternative for men once again.
Thanks to Game and contraceptives, you can get the sex for free now without the imprisonment of marriage and potential financial and emotional ruin of divorce. The unsuitability of so many self-indulgent modern women for marriage doesn’t help the once-venerable institution’s cause either. As Devlin writes regarding this last point:
Men do not have to prove their worthiness to anybody. They are the ones who bear the primary costs of marriage. It is a woman’s responsibility to prove she is worthy of the privilege of becoming a man’s helpmeet and bearing his children. It takes a strict upbringing to form a tiny female savage into such a lady. Today, that form of upbringing is mostly a thing of the past: marriageable women are becoming difficult to find, and the costs of searching for them are getting too high.
I can tell you right now about 90% of the women I’ve fuxed in the past nine months (double digits) were, barring a character transplantation, completely unworthy as marriage material. That is higher than selection effect could reasonably account.
How unsuitable is the modern woman for marriage? Devlin demonstrates that here:
Men of the older generation are insufficiently aware how uncouth women have become. I came rather late to the realization that the behavior I was observing in women could not possibly be normal—that if women had behaved this way in times past, the human race would have died out.
The reader who suspects me of exaggerating is urged to spend a little time browsing women’s self-descriptions on Internet dating sites. They never mention children, but almost always manage to include the word “fun.” “I like to party and have fun! I like to drink, hang out with cool people and go shopping!” The young women invite “hot guys” to contact them. No doubt some will. But would any sensible man, “hot” or otherwise, want to start a family with such a creature?
Now as a dedicated hedonist and realist, I am not in the market for marriage or children and so one of the things I look for in a girl is someone who isn’t dropping the hammer of expectation on me, but if I were screening women for their wife and mother potential I would have to agree that any girl emphasizing her bonafides as a lover of “fun” would not make my short list. And yet a quick glance at Craigslist shows that 75% of women in the W4M section describe themselves as exactly that. Only the foreign women who post there, especially the Russians, seem aware of what it takes to inspire a man to see them as more than a pump and dump. American women need the tutelage of their grandmothers’ wisdom to remind them how to cater to men’s better natures, but in today’s sexual market it may be too late to employ the coy strategy.
Maxim #39: If you want a wife stay clear of investing much in girls who constantly remind you they like to have “fun fun fun” and “get bored easily”.
Eventually, sexbots will drive the final nail in the rotting coffin of Western marriage.
It is only under some very special circumstances that I would counsel a man to consider the option of getting married:
He would be perceptibly higher status than his wife. Note that this does not necessarily mean financial status; many wealthy men have been brutalized by their wives in divorce court because at their cores they were simply fearful beta males with lots of money. A high status man is one who perceives himself to be better — as reflected in his psychological dominance — than his woman. He would be unafraid to leave her in search of other women if she were to withdraw from him sexually and emotionally. This would keep her in line… and in love.
The woman he would marry is much richer than him. Although this is a recipe for loss of love and eventual divorce, at least the man who marries a sugar mommy has a distant shot at collecting alimony from her in the event of divorce and using the money to party with strippers. If not, at least he won’t be taken to the cleaners, since he won’t have much to clean. Only men with supreme alpha confidence who are able to attract wealthy women without the crutch of their own equivalent load of riches should attempt this marital scenario.
He has GAME. A man who understands the mentality of women, their different psychological profile, and their true desires and fallen natures, can risk exposing himself to a marriage system that is rigged against his interests from the start. GAME will not only win a woman into your bed, it will keep her in love with you till death… or a beta relapse… do you part.
To all the guys who’ve gotten married and insist their wonderful loving wives would never lose their love for them, betray them, and turn their lives into hell on earth with the rubber stamp of the law, I’ve only this to say…
that’s what the unlucky men used to believe, too.
***
PS: Women are ten times more narcissistic than men by nature (and I’m not talking about the narrow clinical definition of narcissism but the more prevalent form of it as a normal gradient of the whole personality). We notice the narcissistic men more because women’s narcissism is like background whitenoise — always there and hence barely registered. A woman’s is a self-regarding narcissism that can coexist with asexual nurturing altruism, which is the kind of altruism practiced by women that single men on the prowl for sexual relief have little use for.
PPS: When a woman appears stereotypically uninterested in discussing certain matters like, for instance, politics, is it more likely the reason that
a. she’s… wait for it… uninterested in the matter or
b. she’s concerned that no one would take her opinion of the matter seriously? (funny how fashion and gossip are exempt from this hypothesis.)
best,
Your Sage Dismisser of Bullshite and Upholder of Occam’s Razor.
And for any ”redpillers” who claim ”Roiisy=Heartiste NEVER said ”DON’T GET MARRIED.””, he didn’t huh?
What’s this below then? The Balls in your court who say ”Roiisy=Heartiste NEVER said ”DON’T GET MARRIED.””!!!!Prove me wrong sumb!tches!!!!
DON’T GET MARRIED.
Women by nature aren’t on your side, the law isn’t on your side, and even lapdog beta males who’ve blinded themselves to reality and unthinkingly toe the PC party line in hopes their status posturing will offer them up a scrap or two of roadworn desiccated pussy don’t have your side as a man. There is every incentive in the world to avoid marriage. It is a fetid corrupt mess, and only radical social change will make it an attractive alternative for men once again.
Thanks to Game and contraceptives, you can get the sex for free now without the imprisonment of marriage and potential financial and emotional ruin of divorce. The unsuitability of so many self-indulgent modern women for marriage doesn’t help the once-venerable institution’s cause either. As Devlin writes regarding this last point:
Men do not have to prove their worthiness to anybody. They are the ones who bear the primary costs of marriage. It is a woman’s responsibility to prove she is worthy of the privilege of becoming a man’s helpmeet and bearing his children. It takes a strict upbringing to form a tiny female savage into such a lady. Today, that form of upbringing is mostly a thing of the past: marriageable women are becoming difficult to find, and the costs of searching for them are getting too high.
I can tell you right now about 90% of the women I’ve fuxed in the past nine months (double digits) were, barring a character transplantation, completely unworthy as marriage material. That is higher than selection effect could reasonably account.
How unsuitable is the modern woman for marriage? Devlin demonstrates that here:
Men of the older generation are insufficiently aware how uncouth women have become. I came rather late to the realization that the behavior I was observing in women could not possibly be normal—that if women had behaved this way in times past, the human race would have died out.
The reader who suspects me of exaggerating is urged to spend a little time browsing women’s self-descriptions on Internet dating sites. They never mention children, but almost always manage to include the word “fun.” “I like to party and have fun! I like to drink, hang out with cool people and go shopping!” The young women invite “hot guys” to contact them. No doubt some will. But would any sensible man, “hot” or otherwise, want to start a family with such a creature?
Now as a dedicated hedonist and realist, I am not in the market for marriage or children and so one of the things I look for in a girl is someone who isn’t dropping the hammer of expectation on me, but if I were screening women for their wife and mother potential I would have to agree that any girl emphasizing her bonafides as a lover of “fun” would not make my short list. And yet a quick glance at Craigslist shows that 75% of women in the W4M section describe themselves as exactly that. Only the foreign women who post there, especially the Russians, seem aware of what it takes to inspire a man to see them as more than a pump and dump. American women need the tutelage of their grandmothers’ wisdom to remind them how to cater to men’s better natures, but in today’s sexual market it may be too late to employ the coy strategy.
Maxim #39: If you want a wife stay clear of investing much in girls who constantly remind you they like to have “fun fun fun” and “get bored easily”.
Eventually, sexbots will drive the final nail in the rotting coffin of Western marriage.
It is only under some very special circumstances that I would counsel a man to consider the option of getting married:
He would be perceptibly higher status than his wife. Note that this does not necessarily mean financial status; many wealthy men have been brutalized by their wives in divorce court because at their cores they were simply fearful beta males with lots of money. A high status man is one who perceives himself to be better — as reflected in his psychological dominance — than his woman. He would be unafraid to leave her in search of other women if she were to withdraw from him sexually and emotionally. This would keep her in line… and in love.
The woman he would marry is much richer than him. Although this is a recipe for loss of love and eventual divorce, at least the man who marries a sugar mommy has a distant shot at collecting alimony from her in the event of divorce and using the money to party with strippers. If not, at least he won’t be taken to the cleaners, since he won’t have much to clean. Only men with supreme alpha confidence who are able to attract wealthy women without the crutch of their own equivalent load of riches should attempt this marital scenario.
He has GAME. A man who understands the mentality of women, their different psychological profile, and their true desires and fallen natures, can risk exposing himself to a marriage system that is rigged against his interests from the start. GAME will not only win a woman into your bed, it will keep her in love with you till death… or a beta relapse… do you part.
To all the guys who’ve gotten married and insist their wonderful loving wives would never lose their love for them, betray them, and turn their lives into hell on earth with the rubber stamp of the law, I’ve only this to say…
that’s what the unlucky men used to believe, too.
In case any ”married gamer” or more likely now ”ex-married gamer”(they know who they are) missed it here’s the main point Roissy was making:
DON’T GET MARRIED.
Imagine if women developed an entire theory on how men work simply by taking a sample size of bad experiences and extrapolating that to fit all men (that’s the RP in a nutshell). It’s easy for me to laugh at the manosphere’s many hoops they’ve invented to jump through, but there’s also a dull ache of sorrow I feel. I can only liken it to someone locking themselves up in a cabin in the woods, believing that all humans are out to get them. They’d look a little silly to most people (which is how RP think pieces often come across).
I liked how you systematically broke down the whole ‘hypergamy’ schtick. It’s not riches or high status that a girl wants—it’s a guy who uniquely complements her nature and someone she wants to spend her life with, helping him build God’s kingdom. Thank you for writing this.
* Assortative mating is correct; life has a way of ensuring that you end up with the kind of person you are. Also, you get how women work. Yes, there are bad apples, but by and large, most of us are just individuals piloting a ship in a storm, looking for a man who’s gifted to captain our ship in a way no other man can.
I strongly believe that every man is born the captain of one ship. The waiting—the real waiting—is about finding the guy who can pilot a vessel through life’s storms, someone whose anchor of faith is strong enough to chart rough waters with his eye fixed on the Father. That’s what real security looks like—not status, not money, but a steady hand at the helm when the waves start rising.
P.S. True love is exclusive by nature. When you really love a man, you’re territorial of him (within reason, obviously), which ties into the phrase he is mine alone and I am his alone.
“someone she wants to spend her life with, helping him build God’s kingdom”
With respect, a woman whose goal in selecting a mate to build God’s kingdom is a rarity. You’re not describing the norm among women (I wish you were). The “bad apples” are the women who don’t have building God’s kingdom as the goal? Well that’s the overwhelming majority of women.
It’s also upsetting that you laugh at us and I suspect the dull ache you feel isn’t based on compassion for the men who believe this stuff.
Women do develop a theory on how men work based on bad ones and extrapolate. That’s pretty much post 60s feminism which almost all women subscribe to.
Cameron,
You said:
But what she said was:
E has done precisely what I ask people to do on this forum: stick to the ideas and avoid ad hominem. It’s why I allow men, women, and children to comment here.
She is not laughing at you, she’s laughing at the Manosphere’s rules, regulations, axioms, and commandments. In other words, she’s laughing at the the cult, not the cultists. The dull ache of sorrow is reserved for the latter.
Your retort…
…is undermined by your failure to stick to the ideas.
Peace,
DR
Yes, strictly speaking, this is not ad hominem. Saying what someone writes or reads and largely agrees with is laughable, silly, stupid, a clown move, ridiculous, etc. isn’t an ad hominem.
Cameron,
It is a fine line.
When I used “clown move” in the OP, I was making a joke (a pun). I suppose, strictly speaking, you could say it was ad hominem because a joke isn’t really an argument. I guess it all depends whether you think I was making the joke for the sake of the joke (for the reader’s amusement) or because I wanted to mock another person.
Were you around when Pseudonymous Commenter Kansas called me a clown for my parenting choices? I responded to that as if it were an idea instead of an ad hominem, even though he directed at me and not my ideas. Later, I used the idea he expressed to prove that his preferred form of patriarchy was inherently contradictory and served to undermine his primary viewpoints. As I would say it, he beclowned himself.
That said, on this blog I do leave a really large hole for satire (case in point: the Professor). It’s admittedly a grey area. I know that Pseudonymous Commenter Kansas does not like that I allow the Professor to satire him (and others), but I agree with what Surfdumb said about the Professor a few weeks ago at SS that he does not believe that the Professor has bad intent. I agree. When I think a line is crossed, I’ll step in, as I did yesterday.
When I called the view “the alpha is getting all the women, that the betas must be celibate” stupid in the OP, I was not making a joke. I really do that that’s a stupid assertion, but I don’t know of anyone who actually holds that viewpoint. I don’t think even Devlin holds that view, not really. It’s stupid in theory, not “to the man.”
As for being laughable, when E said “It’s easy for me to laugh at the manosphere’s many hoops they’ve invented to jump through” this is unambiguously directed towards the ideas, but it’s also unambiguous that the ideas are held by people. That’s unavoidable. The whole point is that we can talk about the ideas, even attribute those ideas to specific people as part of proper citation (to avoid plagiarism), but that our take-down of those ideas is nothing more than saying “you are wrong” rather than “you are a bad person.” Nothing more can be implied than a determination of whether something is factual or not. That’s where I draw the line.
I have no doubt crossed the line many times, but of the many criticisms I’ve received, few have been about that.
Oh, I do have one exception. If a person engages in wanton ad hominem, unsubstantiated claims, or general foul behavior and persists on doing it, I do suggest that they will be mocked and be made to seem foolish. I only very rarely make good on the threat, but good faith is supposed to be a two-way street. Frankly, I’m not pleased with Malcolm Reynolds right now for repeated violations of good faith commenting after multiple warnings and Pseudonymous Commenter Kansas deserves to be made to look like a fool, but in both cases I still focus on the errors. Although I try not to cross the line, I find that I don’t care right now if I accidentally do. Bruce Charlton may have gotten to me here and here.
Peace,
DR
I know that Pseudonymous Commenter Kansas does not like that I allow the Professor to satire him (and others), but I agree with what Surfdumb said about the Professor a few weeks ago at SS that he does not believe that the Professor has bad intent. I agree.
What needs to be answered by Surfdumb and i guess now Derek does someone who claims to be a Christian has ”bad intentions” when they promote & demand ”the de@th penalty for sexually promiscuous women( & even sexually promiscuous MEN, who the Christian in question(supposedly without ”bad intentions” believes are ”made in the image of God”)?
And who was being implied to be trying to get another non -”bad intentions”blogger’s site kicked off WordPress?
As non-”bad intentions”Jack said here themselves:
https://derekramsey.com/2024/05/18/patriarchy/#comment-13416
Jack10 months ago
“Jack is only letting a portion of my comments through at his site right now”
Sparkles is on moderation because he continually invokes the Biblical injunction of the de@th penalty for sexually promiscuous women. He is free to write about that on his own blog, but he won’t, probably because he knows he’ll be kicked off WordPress.
Whether that is censorship or not is up for debate.
Sparkles the (obvious) fedpiller kept doing that at SF(& Spawnys) yet he,Surfdumb, and anyone else think i have to prove anything to them?
They are the ones that need to do some proving as THE GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN drive away with ZERO FUXS GIVEN(like all the young MEN gave to their churchian dic(k)tatorship HOA-like churches and blogs-which is why they are so angry with THE GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN to begin with as they don’t kneel to PC BP churchian fedpiller dictates ).
I know that Sparkles does not like that I allow the Professor to satire him (and others)
P.S.As i have already told ALL the fedpillers if one doesn’t want THE GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN to get involved with their war on THE GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN -” DON’T START A WAR ON THE GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN!”-That’s been the law of THE GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN since time immemorial, ALL of that sounds easy and Simple huh?-NOT when you’re dealing with fedpillers & other fools who have crossed paths with THE GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN.
P.P.S.Why does that shark guy keep promoting & demanding ”the de@th penalty for sexually promiscuous women( & even sexually promiscuous MEN when he should know that 99.9% of ”redpillers” wouldn’t allow that to happen to their mother, sister, wife, and certainly NOT daughters, no matter how much they were sexually promiscuous.
My answer?-You didn’t see it coming from a mile away?-fedpiller. Cognitive dissonance or double-mindedness.
Your choice😉
If I were in favor of the death penalty, it would be for blood crimes (i.e. murder; abortion). I have no idea what the all the Great Books For Men have to say about that, but the Bible and Moses only demanded it for blood crimes. The rest was optional.
I asked ChatGPT to give me Great Books For Men. Here was what it suggested (try not to laugh at some of them):
Classic Literature & Adventure
Homer – The Iliad & The Odyssey → Epic tales of war, heroism, and perseverance.
Ernest Hemingway – The Old Man and the Sea → A story of endurance and resilience.
Jack London – The Call of the Wild & White Fang → Survival, nature, and the primal instincts of man.
Herman Melville – Moby-Dick → A deep dive into obsession, leadership, and the unknown.
Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness → A look at civilization, power, and the darkness within men.
Philosophy & The Art of Living
Marcus Aurelius – Meditations → Stoic wisdom on discipline and resilience.
Epictetus – Discourses and Selected Writings → Practical Stoic philosophy for everyday life.
Nietzsche – Thus Spoke Zarathustra → Challenging ideas about morality and self-overcoming.
Plato – The Republic → Justice, leadership, and the nature of man.
Aristotle – Nicomachean Ethics → A guide to virtue and living well.
Personal Development & Leadership
Jocko Willink – Extreme Ownership → Lessons in leadership and responsibility.
David Goggins – Can’t Hurt Me → Mental toughness and overcoming adversity.
Robert Greene – The 48 Laws of Power → Strategies for influence and success.
Steven Pressfield – The War of Art → Battling resistance in creative and personal pursuits.
Brett McKay – The Art of Manliness: Classic Skills and Manners for the Modern Man → Timeless virtues of manhood.
History & Politics
Sun Tzu – The Art of War → Strategic thinking and warfare tactics.
Machiavelli – The Prince → Power dynamics and political strategy.
Winston Churchill – My Early Life → Leadership and perseverance.
Theodore Roosevelt – The Strenuous Life → The virtues of hard work and resilience.
Modern Fiction With Depth
Cormac McCarthy – Blood Meridian → A dark and philosophical Western.
Ayn Rand – Atlas Shrugged → Individualism and personal responsibility.
George Orwell – 1984 & Animal Farm → Warnings about totalitarianism.
J.R.R. Tolkien – The Lord of the Rings → Honor, friendship, and the hero’s journey.
IT IS MISSING THE BIBLE
As a missionary kid who has traveled extensively across the United States, I’ve had the privilege of encountering countless Christian men and women who live quiet, faithful lives. Contrary to popular assumptions, there are many believers who embody the virtues I described earlier and live life in that vein. However, they tend to be less conspicuous, often choosing to avoid the spotlight of the public square.
The louder voices, those opposed to godliness, often dominate the town square. But don’t let that distort the picture: the godly aren’t scarce, just less conspicuous. As long as God has a purpose in this world, He’ll keep raising up men and women to carry His light forward, generation after generation. Their perceived rarity, I suspect, comes not from their absence but from their reluctance to compete in the public fray.
To that note, here’s something striking: in nearly any place you look, you’ll find at least one Christian standing firm against the creeping tide of moral decay. These are no accidents. They are beacons, preserved by God to shine amidst a crooked and perverse generation.
I believe this is intentional. A divine design to ensure that the ungodly are left without excuse for willfully turning away from truth. I’m reminded of Stephen, a man empowered by the Holy Spirit to boldly confront the Pharisees in their arrogance. His words cut to the heart of their hypocrisy, and they despised him for it. In fact, they hated him so intensely that they sought to silence him, just as they do with anyone who dares to expose the hardness of their hearts and the errors of their ways. History shows this pattern repeating itself: the godly, though often few, stand as a testament to truth in the face of opposition.
(Also, I should mention that the insights from these articles are especially satisfying. )
E,
I suppose it depends on your perspective.
I agree with you that the number of good marriages is much, much higher than the Manosphere entails. I also agree that there is severe selection bias where the people with bad marriages or bad relationships make all the noise while the ones that don’t are quiet and just go about their lives. The whole point of “A Case Study on Marriage” is that this state of affairs is available to more than just the elect super-Christians.
But this success is not universal. It is much rarer in some places than others. There are populations of Christians where the lifetime divorce rate is well under 10%. But with a national lifetime divorce rate over 50%, that means that for every population of 5% divorce, there is another where the divorce rate is in the 70s, 80s, or even 90s.
It’s not just that good marriages are merely less conspicuous, they are also much rarer.
Published divorce rates from churches indicate that churches are loaded with divorced men and women. Most, yes most, denominations divorce only somewhat less than the national average, not anywhere near, say, a 5-10% lifetime risk. These are the churches of which I speak. These are the churches that in 2020 closed their doors for months because the government demanded it. These are apostate churches that admitted that they put man before God. They include virtually every single major denomination, and a great many of the minor ones.
Institutionalized churches are lost. Individual marriages are not.
—————————————————————
From your comment, you are most likely an above-average intelligence, affluent, white woman. With your travels, you must have realized that there is a significant factor that changes how each person experiences their perception of how successful marriage is:
(BTW, that factor is intelligence, not sex or race)
Those numbers are astounding. But it gets even more astounding when you look at the breakdown by IQ. Based on Murray’s “The Bell Curve”, IQ strongly determines divorce risk:
If you and most of your peers are 115 or more, then you will perceive divorce as a minor issue, unless you’ve experienced a divorce yourself. If you have, you’ll look at churches filled with the 85% and call them “lucky” and “naive” because the 15% that get divorced almost exclusively get divorced because of the wife. You’ll think that every marriage is a ticking time bomb just waiting for the wife to blow it up.
Of note, religiosity is associated with lower divorce risks as a whole, but religiosity is negativedly correlated with IQ. So, (1) people who have high IQ and are religious have even better odds than the above graph would suggest; and (2) being both low IQ and non-religious is even worse than the graph would suggest. The graph gets somewhat steeper for the non-religious and somewhat less steep for the religious.
Would you expect faith to be more important than intelligence? Because it isn’t. The real hard fact that you will have to deal with is that being a Christian is less correlated with marital success than IQ. A 115 IQ non-religious person is more likely to have a successful marriage than an 85 IQ religious person.
Intelligence is a stronger effect than religiosity. It’s easier to predict a man’s future marital result by knowing their IQ than by knowing that he and his spouse are Christian. Notably, if you are a higher-intelligence, educated, professional man—like most in the Manosphere—you are less likely to see a woman being a Christian as a benefit.
This explains Dalrock’s proposal here (PDF with comments): Dalrock didn’t even consider a Christian man’s choice of bride or a Christian woman’s repentence for sin as having any worth at all. He thought that a public statement was required. In other words, so little faith did he have in Christianity to change a woman’s heart or transform a man’s marriage, that he wanted to use social and psychological controls—peer pressure and social influence—to ensure compliance. But faith is about compliance. So much for the grace of God!
The unfortunate reality is that the average church is performing so poorly, that it can’t even beat innate intelligence for its numerical effect on marital stability.
Every church in America should have a lifetime divorce rate of 1%, not a lifetime divorce rate of 35-50%.
The embarassingly high divorce rate among “Christians” in churches shows that a huge proporition of Christian marriages have not been transformed by the Grace of God. I suspect you will be forced to conclude that real Christians whose marriages are transformed by the Grace of God really do exist, lest you deny the power of God. But the logical conclusion must then be that in most churches, at least one Christian in a sizeable percentage of Christian marriages is not a real Christian, because their marriages are not transformed.
This is why I say that the church is apostate and that Manosphere should be focused solely on evangelism.
Peace,
DR
I think one issue we’re grappling with is that many people identify as Christians simply because they were born into the faith, not out of personal conviction. This muddies the data, making religious affiliation a less reliable predictor of divorce than intelligence. That’s likely why church statistics on this front can be pretty embarrassing—they reflect a nominal faith rather than a lived one.
Yet, in a way, I appreciate that these shortcomings are exposed. They leave room for forgiveness, repentance, and the constant human struggle to meet God’s standard—a struggle we can’t win without His help. It also prevents us from hiding behind a polished facade enforced through social pressure, as that user suggested in your linked reply. Conformity to rules for appearance’s sake is just Pharisaism; it’s no different from rigid legalism in other faiths, like Islamism.
\\
The findings on IQ are fascinating and make sense on the surface. Higher intelligence often correlates with sharper decision-making and problem-solving skills (traits that could naturally bolster marital stability by helping couples navigate conflicts or plan for the long haul). However I’d argue that emotional intelligence, or EQ, might carry more weight in the end. A towering IQ doesn’t automatically translate into empathy, self-awareness, or a commitment to higher moral standards. Some of history’s sharpest minds prove this: Einstein juggled extramarital affairs, Feynman flirted with reckless hedonism, and Oppenheimer did much of the same. Genius didn’t shield them from personal or moral messiness within the marriage partnership (sadly one too many examples but I’ll cap it here).
What I’m driving at isn’t just cognitive horsepower but a deeper quality: a heart oriented toward serving others rather than demanding to be served. Selflessness, maybe, or a kind of quiet, relational wisdom that prioritizes “understanding ” over winning. It’s not exclusive to believers (plenty of non-religious folks embody it too) and I suspect it might outshine both IQ and EQ as a predictor of not just marital success but broader life satisfaction and happiness. “Emotional intelligence” itself feels close but incomplete; it’s more about the ability to fully inhabit someone else’s perspective. To step into their shoes and feel the weight of their world. That’s the glue that holds relationships together when raw intellect or religious labels fall short. To that end, yes, marriage is honorable in all.
I’d love to see data on this, though I doubt it’s easily measured. Could a tendency toward self-sacrifice or empathy outweigh the cold logic of IQ in keeping a marriage intact? Or even in fostering a life that feels rich and meaningful, beyond just avoiding divorce? It’s the difference between solving a problem and living a promise. Thoughts?
E,
Regarding Emotional Intelligence, there is some debate as to whether or not it is even real. While IQ has very high correlations to many things, EI/EQ correlates between .2 and .3 to outcomes. That’s minor, but not zero. The major problem is that EI/EQ correlates with IQ at about .2 to .3. EQ is somewhat confounded with IQ. Does EQ provide any additional insight beyond IQ? Probably a little, but other measures such as the Big Five personality test have stronger correlations. I would say IQ has a major influence, personality has a low-to-moderate influence, and EQ a low-but-not-zero influence.
My anecdotal experience tells me that EQ is highly significant, but I have to put my feelings in check and admit that it isn’t as significant as I believe or want it to be.
IQ is a measure of performance in a population, but within any population is significant individual variation. What I mean is this: if you take Einstein or Feynman and lower their IQ, you would expect their social deficits to get worse, not better. IQ on its own is better higher than lower, but intelligence is obviously not the sum total of a person. After all, for a sports player, the size of their muscles obviously is quite relevant.
In any case, I’ve already stated on many occasions that intelligence is not a measure of moral quality, and intelligence is negatively correlated with religiosity.
Beyond intelligence, I do think different personalities lead to different marital results. Avoid dating and marrying someone who is high in neuroticism. High openness and extroversion are also riskier personalities.
I’ve said this on many occasions, it’s tough to be an introverted man, because they struggle forming bonds with introverted women (the best type) and struggle with keeping extroverted women (the worst type). I think it no coincidence that the Manosphere is full of INTx personality types.
It’s an anecdote for sure, and not worth more than an opionion, but I believe being an extrovert has helped me avoid many of the pitfalls that the Manosphere describes.
Peace,
DR
“My anecdotal experience tells me that EQ is highly significant, but I have to put my feelings in check and admit that it isn’t as significant as I believe or want it to be.”
Yeah, I raised this point because being emotionally “fluent” already gives you a huge advantage–or, as someone I know put it better: people who are more empathetic are also better able to synthesize relational and social data, giving them a clearer, more objective view of what’s happening. There’s a unique vantage point we have in empathy. Still, personal experience is just that, and I can’t account for what I don’t see.
I think Bonhoeffer said something like, “Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others, we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”
“Avoid dating and marrying someone who is high in neuroticism.”
This ties into what I originally posted (somewhat). The neuroticism stems from a need to decipher as much information as possible in order to keep oneself “safe”. Aggressively seeking to build a framework to tweak and sidestep any potential suffering (the kind that actually spurs growth) is what we do. Human nature, left to itself, always tries to ditch God. We want to control our outcomes. I see the sinfulness and loneliness in this particularly because I used to do it too, before I was saved.
“I’ve said this on many occasions, it’s tough to be an introverted man, because they struggle forming bonds with introverted women (the best type) and struggle with keeping extroverted women (the worst type). I think it no coincidence that the Manosphere is full of INTx personality types.”
Hmm, I’m not a big believer in Myers-Briggs typing, but I can definitely see that pattern here. And yeah, I get why being introverted can potentially tend to isolation in this landscape. In that vein, I’ve always found introverted men more interesting by default and tend to feel disconnected from extroverted types (perhaps because I’m wired that way myself-INFJ).
What I’m trying to get at is that the internet is a good thing in a way: many introverted men can meet their significant other based on similar interests or some obscure sphere of things (niche hobbies, random intellectual rabbit holes they both enjoy). Online, they find these unexpected similarities that wouldn’t come up in real life, where small talk and social noise often drown them out. Discovering that overlap not only sparks connection but helps them bond better, building something deeper than they’d manage in the usual offline shuffle. However, most good people pair up and vanish offline, so there’s that too.
\\
I think this excerpt is especially timely. I won’t belabor the point or extend this comment chain:
“Now, the way of man and the way of the world is the shallow way, isn’t it? To get things as cheaply as possible, and as easily as possible, and as quickly as possible, with as little cost as possible – that’s the way of our nature. We want it like that, and we don’t like the other way. But that is a mark, it’s a mark of something of Divine character missing. It is! It just shows how devoid of the character of God human nature is and this world is. And all God’s ways of enrichment demand the countering of our natural desires, inclinations, propensities to have it all so easily. That is our way; it is the way of man.
The fact is, and we know it so well, that we never do make deeper discoveries of the Lord, only through very deep trial, very deep testing, very deep suffering. These treasures are “treasures of darkness”; there are always treasures somewhere in the darkness, there are always precious things somewhere down in the depths where the Lord leads us; it’s like that.
God has wonderful ways of making things real, making things real; of destroying superficiality. Do you follow? I feel it is a very solemn word from the Lord, but a word that we all need to recognise. The Lord is not, not going to have shallowness and superficiality; He is going to touch the depth until it is a matter of anguish.”
-Austin Sparks (1958)
“Empathy” is a word I see a lot of people, particularly women, throw around as a prideful description of themselves – “I’m an empath. I’m high in empathy.”
There seems to be two types of “empathy”, affective (formerly known as “sympathy”) and cognitive. The former is sharing and experiencing other people’s feelings. Despite the boasting of some women on social media about their high “empathy” (a way of saying that they are “good” people), having high affective empathy doesn’t make you a good person. Research has shown that people with high affective empathy often don’t help others who are experiencing negative emotions. Quite the opposite. Since they share those emotions, they often try to get away from people experiencing negative emotions.
Cognitive empathy is understanding (without necessarily sharing) other people’s emotions. Cognitive empathy also doesn’t make you a good person. Psychopaths often have high cognitive empathy. Understanding other’s emotions helps them to manipulate other people.
In my experience, women’s higher empathy helps them with caring for young children but doesn’t help them in their relationships with men. Any “empathy” for men is rendered meaningless because the woman’s own feelings, particularly negative ones, override any empathy for the man.
Describing one’s own virtues (such as being highly empathetic) often reflects immaturity more than actual moral depth. As people grow, take on more responsibility, and gain life experience, they typically learn that demonstrating a trait is far more valuable than merely claiming it.
Regarding affective empathy, you make a fair point; it doesn’t automatically translate to being helpful. Simply feeling another’s emotions doesn’t necessarily equip someone to act in a meaningful way. However, it also fosters a greater inclination to alleviate others’ pain, even in small ways, or at the very least, to conduct oneself with care so as not to add to another’s burden. You argue that high affective empathy can lead people to withdraw from those experiencing negative emotions, but I’d say this depends largely on upbringing. My mother always emphasized that enduring hardship makes us better equipped to help others who are struggling. Many people never have the chance to develop this perspective, but for those who do, few things are as fulfilling as guiding someone through their suffering.
In that sense, a person’s response to another’s pain is largely shaped by their upbringing. If you ever doubted the impact of strong families on society, here’s one more reason not to.
As for cognitive empathy, I’d liken it somewhat to wisdom. Understanding another person’s emotions allows you to see past surface-level words and grasp their deeper motivations. Like any skill, it can be wielded for either good or ill. While some may use it for manipulation, doing so often stems from a deeply broken or damaged character. Those raised with strong moral foundations are more likely to use their emotional insight to help rather than exploit.
“The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.” – Proverbs 20:5
Lastly, you mention the role of empathy in motherhood, and I fully agree. A child’s primary form of communication is non-verbal, and a mother’s ability to respond through subtle cues is crucial. However, I disagree with your point about women’s empathy being ineffective in relationships with men. A more relevant issue is that many women are raised with a lower sense of personal accountability, often excused on the basis of being physically weaker. But moral responsibility shouldn’t be contingent on strength. My father always told me, “If you don’t control yourself, someone else will control you.” Self-discipline is a crucial skill that young girls are often not held to the same standard for, and this lack of expectation can later manifest in their relationships with men.
If you’ve encountered women who lack empathy toward men, it’s often because they’ve been encouraged (explicitly or subtly) to prioritize their own feelings and to see their value primarily in terms of their appearance. This isn’t an inherent female trait; it’s a product of cultural conditioning. Christian parents, for instance, tend to instill the same moral expectations in both sons and daughters. I also believe this contributes to why well-educated/higher IQ women have lower divorce rates (see Derek’s post above). Higher education often instills a similar sense of self-discipline and responsibility in both men and women, fostering more understanding and enduring relationships.
Everything I see in women makes me think their emotions are the most important thing to them. It would be nice to learn that this isn’t their nature but how they’re raised. I wonder whether women are encouraged to be this way or whether this is their default mode, and they have to be taught how not to be this way. Of course, men have emotions too, but it seems to me that women’s emotions rule their world.
E,
Welcome new commenter, and, if applicable, new reader.
In my upcoming post (which I’ll probably not have written for a few days), I’ll confirm this point generally. The Manosphere does not realize how small of a sample it represent, and Cameron’s comment seems to reflect that.
Oh, I’ve pointed that out on many occasions. To outsiders, the Red Pill looks insane. The positive messaging is clearly being lost. I even see men mocking it!
Most marriages are not Christian, so I wouldn’t say that she wants to help him build God’s kingdom. But I more-or-less agree with the rest.
The studies and statistics would seem to bear this out. At the very least, it is God’s plan. How much this bears out in the secular world is a different discussion.
It seems to me that, rather than hypergamy, what explains the Red Pill’s frustration is this: too few women are Christian. Hypergamy, adultery, N-count, divorce, and the like are all things that apply to non-Christian women, which the Christian Red Pill men are not supposed to have anything to do with anyway.
The real problem is the absence of Christians, especially in the church. Indeed, I’ve run into a strong unwillingness to declare the church—virtually all denominations—to be apostate, despite all the complaints about the behavior of “all” the women it contains. I wrote about this resistance last year in “Too Slow To React In Time” and more recently in “Constructive Criticism, Part 6.”
The Manosphere should be primarily focused on evangelism and cleaning house (i.e. schism or excommunication), not indoctrination and conformity.
Peace,
DR