Men and Marriage [Hardcover]

Men and Marriage benefits the modern reader in a number of ways. Providing excellent data and analysis on males and females in modern society, the book enables its reader to better understand the modern controversy over men and women's respective roles in society. Gilder feels that one of modern society's key problems is its denials of the differences between the sexes and, as a logical corollary, its denial of appropriate roles. He writes, "Though rejecting feminist politics and lesbian posturing, American culture has absorbed the underlying ideology like a sponge. The principal tenets of sexual liberation or sexual liberalism--the obsolescence of masculinity and femininity, of sex roles, and of heterosexual monogamy as the moral norm--have diffused through the system and become part of America's conventional wisdom." Gilder has also performed an invaluable service by providing relevant material for couples and singles. Gilder wants the single woman to u! nderstand that if she decides to sacrifice her twenties on the altar of career, she could easily find herself a celibate priest serving that altar for the rest of her life. Gilder reports that Yale and Harvard sociologists, after analyzing census data, concluded that a woman who waits until her mid-thirties only has a 5% chance of getting married. The author also has much to say to the single man. Of the most unique and striking of Gilder's observations on the sexes is his contention that the average single man struggles with an inherent irresponsibility that only marriage can cure. While this assertion may have had a secure, albeit covert, place in yesterday's conventional wisdom, Gilder boldly presents the thesis with impressive statistical support. Single men are 30% more likely than single women to be unemployed. If they get a job, the single man will make very little more than his single girlfriend, in striking contrast to the substantial earning power of the married! man who takes home 70% more income. Single college gradua! tes will normally earn about the same as married graduates of high school. Gilder suggests, "It could well be more important for an ambitious young man to get married than to go to college" (p. 63). Demographically, except possibly for the divorced, the single most disturbed group in the United States is single men. Between the ages of 25 and 65 the single man is 30% more likely than single women to be depressed. He is 30% more likely to exhibit a tendency toward phobias and passivity. The unmarried man is three times more likely to experience a nervous breakdown and 22 times more likely to be committed to an institution because of mental disease. And these statistics are not just cause for sympathy for the single man, but a cause for concern. For 90% of all violent crime is committed by single men even though above the age of 14 they only make up about 13% of the population. The statistics and analyses that Gilder provides on singleness leads to another vita! l area that he addresses. A theme that Gilder resounds with great force is the degree to which a healthy society is in fact dependent on the health of its families. He writes, "As a social institution, marriage transcends all individuals. The health of a society, its collective vitality, ultimately resides in its concern for the future, its sense of a connection with generations to come" (p. 16). While the first six chapters of the Gilder's tome, which focus on sexual roles, are easily worth price of the book; its remainder is a tour de force on the relationship of modern sexual thought and the ghetto, welfare, homosexuality, the workplace, education, politics, and biogenetic engineering. While many will view this work as an anachronistic throwback to the 50s, it's empirical support of its major theses gives the reader pause.

This book received a lot of flack when it first came out. The demand for equality among men and women was finally being accepted as a proper ideal for a civilized society, and anyone who disagreed was deservedly shouted down. But amidst the great din, it was presumed with terrible shallowness that any thoughtful challenge was traitorous activity (This, unfortunately, is often still the case.) George Gilder was one of the first to point out that 'equality' does not mean 'sameness', that acknowledging the equality of women does not mean that men and women think, feel, or ought to act, in the same ways, or that it is 'bad' to examine the question of whether there might be gender roles that are indeed sensible, virtuous, and possibly even wonderful. As we look back over the years since the feminist movement began, we cannot honestly say that the changes we have made have made everyone happy. It is worth going back and taking a calm, thoughtful, fresh look at the challenges that George Gilder raised in this book.

I agree with a lot of what previous posters have said but would like to add that Mr. Gilder is indeed a gifted writer. The book is replete with "laugh-out-loud" witicism interspersed between salient point after salient point. I loved it.

As an African American who grew up in a working class neighborhood which, over the 20 years since my departure, has deteriorated almost to the point of "ghetto", I can say unequivocally that whatever Gilder points out concerning the general population indeed goes triple for the African American community. If America has drunken the feminist "kool-aid" and relegated husbandhood and fatherhood to the trash heap of obselescence, the black community has taken said "kool-aid" intravenously...and it shows!

Thanks Mr. Gilder for you engaging contribution to sanity.