The female imperative has become so strong that being married has now been pretty much seen as only for beta men at this point.
No, I'm not saying that for myself; I'm saying that is the perception within the world. Being married is seen as weak now, like bending to the power of a woman cashing out of the sexual marketplace.
Does being married make a guy Beta? This question has been debated in the Manosphere since I was a moderator on the SoSuave forums in the mid-2000s. It was argued marriage was the refuge of men who lacked sexual opportunities (the polite way of saying ‘Beta’). And that’s always the unfalsifiable nature of this debate. Men will make their necessity a virtue to preserve their egos. But the truth is, formalized monogamy has served lesser men far more than men who can enjoy the intimacies of many women.
Marriage based on socially enforced monogamy is a stabilizing social convention for the greatest number of men. Or at least it was, up until the advent of hormonal birth control (HBC) and the Sexual Revolution. All bets have been off since around 1965. For the first time in history, an invention placed the direction of human reproduction unilaterally in the hands of women.
Traditional, 20th-century marriage was the first casualty of this new invention. The introduction of HBC and the cultural shift of the Sexual Revolution triggered the largest spike in divorce that Western societies had ever known.
In 2023, the marriage rate is 6 per 1,000 persons – the lowest rate since the US started keeping track in 1848. It dipped to 5.1 during 2020, but the decline is attributed to the lockdown years. Combined with on-demand abortion, no-fault divorce (introduced to expedite the landslide of divorce filings), and the paradigm shift in sexual mores, it should come as no shock to anyone that old-order marriage no longer holds the appeal that it used to.
There’s no end to the articles and podcasts demanding men Man Up, take responsibility and make themselves more eligible mates for women to marry. This is all we hear in the “male self-improvement” spheres. The reward for “becoming the best version of yourself” is the promise of an adoring Trad-Wife waiting to marry the ‘best you’ – so long as you measure up consistently. The problem with this TradCon model of self-improvement is that it puts women’s imperatives as the incentive and arbiters of that improvement. It’s a 20th-century ideal. Men owe women a better life, and failing (or abstaining) to build themselves into a woman’s ever-changing ideal is a failure in masculine duty. In other words, you’re not a Real Man®.
The problem with this ideal is it doesn’t play well with women who have no real use for men. Today, women don’t need men, or this is the popular perception. Women want men – elite-value, sexually arousing, socially adept, exciting Alpha men. But the kind of man they used to need – the marriageable, loyal, dependable provider – is not the man they want. 21st-century women can broadly provide for themselves all of the long-term security benefits that made the man they used to need attractive and marriageable. Those value-added attributes are appreciated in the men women want, but they are cues of lower value in Beta men that women don’t need.
Today, if a man is ‘marriage-minded,’ he’s categorized as Beta to women. This is especially so for women in the Hoe Phase (ages 18-28) who understand their value in the sexual marketplace. The binary is this: Women fuck Alphas and marry Betas. Women break rules for Alphas and make rules for Betas. In the post-sexual revolution world, only Betas are motivated to seek marriage. Marriage wouldn’t be a priority for Alpha men with a variety of romantic options. Betas need marriage to solve their reproductive problem.
Thus, a Beta male telegraphs his status by wearing his marriage-mindedness on his sleeve or seeking moral affirmation as a form of Game. Marriage seeking is anti-seductive for women because it presumes a rapport state before a man has proven his burden of performance to her. It bypasses the necessary arousal/sexual tension and urgency women need to invest in a man emotionally.
Bear in mind this is based on a woman’s perception of that man, not his actual circumstances, and offset by her awareness of her circumstances and necessity. In the Epiphany Phase (ages 29-31), women’s prerequisites for men’s value shift in priority. But if that woman does not need a man’s value-added Beta qualities, his marriage-mindedness is still no advantage.
At present, there is a push to return to traditional values in the men’s self-improvement spheres. Chief among these is the presumption that overt Gilded Age ‘courting’ should be an attraction cue for like-minded traditional women. Dating with the open intent of marriage is sold as something appreciated and sexy to quality women. In fact, it’s the right way a man should date in these circles. Grant Cardone, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, and Steven Crowder’s marriage stories are (or were) held up as self-righteous examples of the right way to court a wife. Yet, all their stories share a common theme. Their wives all resisted their advances and persistence until their personal conditions changed, and they finally agreed to marry them. Their marriage-mindedness Game was a hindrance, but the combination of their wives’ conditions and their increase in value made their wives relent.
The OnlyFans Paradox
Modern marriage is like prostitution or OnlyFans for women. They only seek marriage with a Beta because they know the exit strategy well before marriage: cash out the beta wimp but have fun with Alpha Chad.
TradCons either don't admit or don't understand this dual strategy.
The problem then becomes the exit strategy is never equitable with remaining in the game. It’s only viable when the exit matches or exceeds her present potential. Nearly all the women I talk to on Access Vegas have an OnlyFans account or earn far more than the average men they date. A mainstream porn star explained it to me: “I’ll never get married. It’s not even me doing porn. I make too much money for marriage to be my exit strategy.” There’s this romantic presumption that a man will save women from themselves by marrying them, or true love will somehow overpower the exhilaration of being a top earner on OnlyFans. It’s the plot of Pretty Woman. A good-looking, wealthy socialite Richard Gere lifts the hooker with a heart of gold Julia Roberts out of her sinful life, and they live happily ever after. That makes for a classic rom-com story, but it’s a lousy way to plan your exit from OnlyFans.
Despite all protestations, modern dating is literally a zero-sum game now. Openly “dating with the intent to marry” indicates your Beta status. Bear this in mind if you are marriage-minded. Women don’t want a man to cheat, but they love a man who could cheat. A high-value man is a guy other men want to be, and other women want to bang. Wearing your marriage-mindedness on your sleeve defuses both of these arousal cues and signals you are in a hurry to marry because you’re not much of a catch on the sexual market. Unless you’re exceptionally good-looking, women find it creepy, not endearing.
But does marriage make a man Beta by default?
It depends on who you ask. Virtue signaling is never an arousal cue, but the definition of Beta has never been more subjective than in the ‘influencer’ age. Being married or marriage-minded has become the new flex in a TradSphere that’s predictably abandoned anything ‘red pill’ in exchange for the Culture War narrative that will dominate the 2024 US election cycle.
In 2018, being married and having kids would disqualify you from having anything legitimate to say about intersexual dynamics. Only sexless, low-value Betas would sign up for the indenturement of marriage. Without a roster of hot women, supercars, and a 7-figure net worth, you had no “receipts.” In 2023, a wife and kids are the new receipts. Infamous ‘masculinity gurus’ who built their brands on excoriating men for their marital status in 2018 proudly post images of the secret wives and children they carefully guarded in 2023. Most of the usual suspects have a pathological ability to forget all the hypocritical hate they lobbed at married guys just four years ago while simultaneously fabricating a new Trad persona for themselves from whole cloth.
Now marriage is “The most Alpha thing a man can do!” and “Those red pill guys will never grow up and mature into the high-value men we are today.”
I'd say being married for 50 years, kids with tertiary educations and owning a home with retirement savings is a new flex. With the ability to travel often is a bonus.