Social Snake Oil

Today I read an article written by the Devil. And by "the Devil," I mean Dr. Neil Clark Warren, who has degrees in ministry and psych that he got during the 1960s, which means all of his information on relationships was from decades before that.  He is closely associated with Focus on the Family and best known for the company he founded, eHarmony.

In his article, Dr. Warren began by talking about how "shocking" new statistics show that "for the first time ever, fewer than half of the households in the United States are married couples.  More couples now opt to merely live together instead of getting married, believing marriage to not even be necessary.

He considers this dangerous, because of course he does or at least pretends to, because he profits from marriage. He has handled a lot of marriage counseling over the years, works with a group kind of dedicated to promoting marriage by more or less scaring people about it, plus, the whole company that hooks desperate  people up.

The rest of the article is blahdeblah about how people really want to get married and won't be happy unless they do and how children don't do as well with single or divorced parents.  He brushes over a lot of other factors here, like how people are basically socialized to want to get married and how if you factor economic standing in with the "single and divorce household" children, you may find that not to be true.

He also brushes over how horrible and shitty and soulsucking marriage can be by basically saying it's not that marriage is broken, it's that people choose poorly.  Then of course, he begins to talk about how if people go through a system of compatibility, they can choose their spouses better.  I guess it kind of helps that he has a company that makes money, oh, ya know, DOING JUST THAT.

You know, I'm honestly not going to argue the merits of singlehood vs marriage here, because I've talked about that before.  What I want to say is this........companies like eHarmony and any institution that depends on it's finances coming from continuing generations of people who believe the same thing being produced have a lot of questionable motives when it comes to speaking about marriage and children.

A company like eHarmony can't afford for people to start realizing that they don't have to be married to be happy because then no one will be using eHarmony.  Organizations that lack the ability to draw in new members and rely almost exclusively on members being given birth to and indoctrinated can't afford for people to stop having boatloads of children because then their numbers will go down and they won't have the finances they are used to.

Whenever someone is talking to you, especially in a rather concerned or passionate manner, about the ills of society and whatnot, before you allow yourself to get emotional about it, always logically consider their angle.  What do they stand to gain if you listen to them? Are they telling you something that benefits you or does it really benefit them and take from you?

The simple fact is, to many people, marriage just isn't all that important anymore.  A lot of people want no more social interaction than what they can get from friends. The gender based factors are almost obsolete. Moreover, the social stigmas of being sexually active and/or having a child out of wedlock are fading.  Beyond that, there are people who opt out of sex all together.

Of course those last two freak the hell out of the Focus on the Family types.  And I'm honestly thinking the celibate one (ya know, as in celibate for nonreligious reasons, not because you're waiting for marriage or because everyone in the world refuses to have sex with you) freaks them out even more than the happy-go-lucky sluts (happy-go-slutties?).  The idea that people can be fulfilled and content without the drama of other people in their lives . . . oh, how alien! How do we make money of of that?

Hmmm,  I wonder how long it is before these groups (who tend to be rather anti-gay marriage) realize that there is money to be made in marrying off "them gayz."  I bet once they see the profit margins, they'll suddenly have a nice big revelation about how Jesus is just fine with this. After all, if straight people aren't getting married, they'll need to be getting their cash from somewhere.