Searching For A Husband

Did you know that Helen Andelin, the author of "The Fascinating Womanhood", also wrote a corresponding book for young women called "The Fascinating Girl" in which she teaches them how to find a good husband? Some parts of the book are simply lessons from the FW adujsted to suit single women, but Part 3 of the book Strategy With Men gives young ladies advice on that all-important knowledge of winning men.

"The Fascinating Girl" gives some common sense advice which is, unfortunately, largely forgotten nowadays. For instance, take the Introduction. On p.7 Mrs Andelin writes: "In our society a woman has the full responsibility of finding a husband and father for her children in the few short years she is considered desirable" (emphasis mine).

Sounds quite politically incorrect, doesn't it, and yet it is the truth. The older a woman becomes the more difficult it is to find a husband. Of course, there are all sorts of exceptions, and plenty of women get married in their thirties and even forties, but the fact remains that men generally prefer younger women. It's not a hate-fact, it's just a fact.

In Chapter 21 Choosing A Mate, Mrs Andelin points out that choosing your marriage partner is "the most important decision you will make in your life" (p.183), as this man "will be your companion for a lifetime and the father of your children." (idem). That's again something which often gets overlooked nowadays.

Since (some) character traits are genetically determined, by choosing your husband you choose your children. That thrilling bad boy with anger issues  who can't hold down a job and has drug addiction problems may sound very exciting, but he will probably make a lousy father. Even worse, the children will probably inherit his negative character traits.

It's interesting that we invest so much time and effort into preparing our daughters for careers, but not for marriage. They are taught to spend the best years of their lives  achieving professional success, and to assume that marriage will just happen somewhere along the line. Let me tell you something: a good marriage doesn't just happen. If you want to attract a quality mate, you will have to do something for it.

Women in the times past used to know it, but not so now. If you read Daily Mail, you'll remember all these articles by 40-something ladies lamenting the fact that after having a really fabulous life well into the late thirties, they were finally ready to settle down but found out there were no men lining up to marry them any more. Those women were not less beautiful or accomplished than average, but they lacked understanding. They bought the feminist lie of having it all together hook, line and sinker and paid for it.

We keep hearing that marriage is in crisis. Well, of course it is. One of the reasons for it is that marriage is simply not taken seriously any more. I believe that things won't improve until we return to the idea of marriage being a woman's career as Mrs Andelin calls it in FW and start raising girls accordingly. Of course, boys should be taught the proper attitude to marriage, too, but it's a separate topic, which I feel, would be better adressed by a man.

I prefer to keep my blog posts short and readable so I'll stop here, but in future I'm planning to write a series of posts on choosing a husband. Stay tuned!