Suggestions for Parents and Young People
Families should channel their influence and economic resources into preparing their sons so that they can attract, keep, and support future wives financially and emotionally. The male should be trained. This takes money and time. Males should not marry until they are a bit older and have a good job and some money saved.
Each family should be putting away money for the empowerment of their sons or daughters' future marriage. Parents ought not to think only of their selfish retirements, leaving their children money only at the last gasp, giving what remains in their will. Young people need their parents help sooner, when they are proving themselves ready for marriage. Marriage costs allot. Think of it as a loan. If the parents give to the marriage what they can, then it is only right that the children are culturally trained to give to their parent's retirement age what they can.
The young man's parents ought to pay for his professional education and/or establishment in a trade or business; the girl's family ought to provide a "dowry"- perhaps a down payment on the young family's new home.
The young man's parents pay for his education or training. The girl's parents pay for her dowry. The young man's savings also contribute to the marriage, so that he is able to pay for his wife's education after at least two children are at least past the toddler stage.
These are general suggestions; the families together can work out these things. That is why, if we are to have an economic strong base for marriage and realistic hopes by the couple, we must have the parents of the young people planning in the earliest stages, even discussing who shall meet whom. The parents have a right to be a bit controlling and protective, since they are spending this time planning courtship opportunities, and financially preparing for their adolescent sons' training and their daughters' dowry. They have a right to guide them with a strong hand for a time, without shaming by the larger society.
Men should generally marry in their late twenties or early thirties generally. Girls should often be married in their late teens. The money that families are spending on their daughter's college education should more often be going into marriage, providing substantial dowries to empower the young family. Fathers should be seeking out good suitors for their daughters, either by chaperoned parties, or by meetings arranged with other families. A young man should not be too forward with a girl he has just met; he should ask his parents to contact the girl's parents and arrange a time when they can meet. This will respect the girl's need for safety and protection.
A man should marry a girl about ten or fifteen years younger than himself. If this were the general practice, it would provide strong motivation for a man's labor. Men would be more encouraged to work for their families and would be more faithful to their wives.
Discouraged and demotivated men are the sign of the weakening of a culture. Such men are easily exploited by distractions. Work becomes less important to them than entertainment and escape. They waste money trying to deceive themselves and impress others.
Postponed marriage is great for the entertainment industry. Young people place great emotional reliance on the escape mechanisms of commercial youth culture, because they don't see the older culture taking seriously its duty to prepare them for marriage, careers and living arrangements.
Women's best time to give birth is between 17 and 23. "They pop them out like peas from a pod," said one midwife. Let us encourage women to generally hold off on their other interests until after marriage. After their children are more grown, women can obtain great cultural honor in the workplace.
Men's attraction to younger women, so overwhelmingly typical for the greater part of their active sexual lives, should be taken into account from the start of a marriage. We as a culture must admit to the truth about the tension that similar age marriages bring to the male over time in a marriage.
On the other hand, marriage to an older man costs something for the woman, and so society as a whole has to think this through, men and women, younger and older, together discussing candidly what age difference is a fair compromise on the whole for men and women in marriages in the future, and how to encourage the agreed on age difference to become the norm or average, for the general good.
Older men should counsel younger men to choose a younger mate that they will be attracted to permanently, since older men know what it is like to make the long journey. Boys and young men should not be playing the field with girls their own age that they meet at high school, college and at work. Really, it is not even fair for young men in the long run to be forced to be around young women very much at that critical "initiation" point of their careers. The men should not be plagued with too many such distractions until they are economically and emotionally ready for marriage responsibilities.
Perhaps some institutions of learning and some workplaces could agree that young men in their early twenties should be shielded from too much torturous contact with young attractive women. This would help them stay focused on their careers during their early twenties. This "initiation period" might be a few years after they get out of school and begin to work. They ought to be working very hard during that time, rather than chasing illusions and partying with same-age girls. A manly work culture would provide plenty of camaraderie and emotional support.
When the young man is working hard and his value as a provider is visible to the community, let families present their teenage daughters for him to choose from. While he continues working hard, let him have something to work for. Let him see a sixteen year old girl blossom into a woman before his eyes, and then let him marry her at eighteen. The young man's family has provided for his education. Let the girl's family provide for her marriage, giving a dowry to give the young couple a jump start. Marriages often break up today because of financial difficulty.
The sometimes wishy-washy "romantic" interludes of same-age couples often result in break-ups and wasted emotional energy. So then, let's not waste young people's time. Get the families involved. Plan parties. Get the girls to "strut their stuff" for older, proven serious guys, in a chaperoned, community-visible, morally accountable environment. There is nothing degrading about the man's sexual attraction to the nubile female form, accept when this natural function is placed elsewhere than for the purpose of moving toward marriage in a sincere expression of love and commitment.
We see 17 year old Brittany Spears strut her stuff, not for marriageable young men in a chaperoned party, but for the mass commercialization of her beauty. These powerful attractions are commercialized. This is not fair or effective culturally; it is not what beauty was primarily meant to do. Such images over time prevail over men; they dissipate their sexual focus and strength through fantasy and masturbation. These images are sold for the economic exploitation of men's distractibility. Young men are led away from focusing their energies on getting the real thing in the right way and the right time with the right person.
Let us help men by training them in all-male schools or all-male work apprenticeship situations whenever possible. Only after this "initiation" period, let the "party" begin. Bring on the girls. Bring the undeniable power and cultural strength of the blossoming young woman. Present their beauty at the time when the young man's sublimation toward his career is difficult, when a reward for his labor is needed in order to go on happily.
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Ideally, a young woman should be at home or near home until she is twenty. She may continue studies or do work while living at home, while her father finds suitors for her and the suitors that magically appear are screened by the father. If a young woman is not courted or doesn't take to the wooing of her suitors by age 20, then let the father begin to relax his efforts to provide her with suitors, and let him grant her mobility to pursue further education outside her father's home if she wishes. Let the father regard her as now old enough to handle suitors without her father's protective screening. Leaving home, she is under the protection of the larger society, such as that protection is.
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The last five years of a girl's teenage life should be regarded as the time for her parents to set her up with suitors and a dowry for marriage. If she refuses her suitors, then let her parents send her into the workforce or off to college. They can loosen their restrictive protection and lessen their efforts to provide her with suitors as their daughter approaches twenty years of age. It should be more the exception than the rule that eighteen year old girls leave their parents to go off to coed "party" schools. It should be less the norm than it is, in view of the general good of men and women and of the culture.
Too many young people, male and female are competing for high positions through higher education. The benefits of college education have a point of diminishing returns when too many young people are pursuing it with unrealistic expectations either of finding success in careers or in relationships with the opposite sex.
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There will always be exceptional people who transcend cultural norms. The culture as a whole needs to have a sense of the general good, however, and not promote undue ambition that is unrealistic and foolish. Too many today are trying to be a big shot, and are encouraged, yea, exploited in this desire. Prevalent ambition is easily exploited. Many "pyramid schemes" prevail in such a cultural climate. Many are disappointed, and their energies and desires are exploited and dissipated.
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And what about girls marrying young into the working class culture? That's not always so bad. Better to live in a trailer and have love, than to go off to college, gain a hype-degree, and then possibly still end up in a trailer- older and without love. But girls who marry young often do so ignorantly or rebelliously, without parental counsel, and without sufficient parental or spousal financial support. A young man in the working class culture will have skipped college and spent that time working hard for a few years. If he is a bit older than the young girl, he should, if he is wise, have some money saved up, and if both sets of parents can help just a little, I think it can work out wonderfully for the couple. Such marriages need the blessing of both sets of parents, that is, whatever financial help they can give, whatever help they can give in time with watching the kids, and whatever help they can give with advice, loans at no interest, and so on.
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Let mothers be content when their daughters marry men in their own class and culture. Let them support the work ethic and pride of that sector of society. Let not scores of women abandon their culture and discourage their men.
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Let young women be content to marry men somewhat older who have some money saved. At 17 years age, many young women are much more responsible than our present culture admits, but they will need their parents guidance and financial support. Shouldn't parents reward a stable marriage, more than college coed shenanigans? The girl's husband will have been saving money; he can help with her education after she is married. If a girl marries a fella who sublimated his sexual drives when he was 18 and older, and focused his energies on education and/or work, in order to prepare for marriage, then let her agree to the fairness of sublimating some of her intellectual interests temporarily. The conflict for women between career and marriage is better worked out in this way. Child-rearing can be somewhat coordinated with part time work or studies, or the young bride could take courses at a school nearby. With present technology such a bride could obtain degrees from some colleges on the internet while still keeping an eye on young children. At this point, in the prime of her youthful beauty and of her husband's sexual need, I would discourage her from being so ambitious as to go to school far away from her husband or for her to insist that he go with her and uproot financial investments; by this time the young couple should have made a down payment on a home and the husband's career should be in progress.
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The noble woman described by Solomon is an older woman who works hard for her family, providing extra income, ideally working from her home and selling her goods abroad. Her husband and her children honor her. Older women who married young are free of child rearing responsibilities sooner. By the age of 25 or 30 they are freer to enter the workforce more ambitiously and with less guilt feelings than women who postponed marriage and had children after their careers were established. There are no hard and fast rules about this, only natural differences in the opportunities of different ages of a woman's life and in the age of her children.
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Let the father have increasing influence on his children as they mature, so that as the woman increases her efforts in the workplace, the man relaxes his work a little, and focuses on his children in their teens. The gift of male leadership in the family ensures the passing on of cultural mores. Let fathers take up their responsibility to protect their daughters, and not be ashamed of their authority to "give (their) daughters in marriage". Let society as a whole channel the energies and ambitions of men in their twenties, guiding them with a strong hand, and highly regarding their potential for the future honor and strength of the culture. Let society realize the truth about fatherhood and accept the father's right to guide his son, as this is only right in that he must also empower him, either paying for his education or else helping with a down payment on his home. The father empowers his son with some of his "glory" such as will woo a girl and gain the approval of her family and community.
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O parents, put your best efforts into what is best for the future sexual pleasure, emotional health, and financial security of your children! Children, honor your parents!
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