Marriage: The Cure for Selfishness

Declining marriage rates might spell disaster for the happy lives of couples and their children if they have any, but it might just work with Obama's new budget plan for 2016. According to The Economist, "Leftish Democrats, meanwhile, think that marriage has been undermined by rising inequality, and especially the low wages of unskilled men, which make them less attractive as mates", and since Obama is pursuing free community college for everyone, perhaps the low-wage "unskilled men" will be remedied by a college education causing marriage rates to rise. This is the mindset of the future. 

During the 1960's when marriage rates were at America's all time high (72% then vs 50% now), the functions of society operated differently. Women received lower wages and rights than men, because their job was "simply" to raise kids, cook, and clean while the husbands worked hard all day to provide for the more important financial success of the family. There was a definitive line between the sexes. Today, with more and more rights and opportunities opening up to women, the need for men to fill their roles naturally increases and the need for women to marry and achieve greater financial security naturally decreases. "There are relatively few relationships that are more fully documented than those between economic well-being and marriage,” said Ron Haskins, a marriage philosopher and a senior fellow of Brookings Institution of Washington.

So are we as a nation capable or willing to revert to the past to transform the way in which we view equality in order to trade off certain comforts for the happiness of strong enduring marriages? Personally, I don't see this idea taking off too soon as long as the government is controlled by future-oriented Democrats who retain their desire to rewrite history by giving equality to everyone-even the LGBTs, pot heads, and other greedy sinners- yet not administering the laws of justice they deserve. Mr. Ulmer, a banker for the First National Bank of Alaska retells the words of his economics professor after three years of experience in marriage saying, "The two most important things in a person’s life are their money and their family — in that order." If a person puts all faith in the desire to be gay, smoke freely, or in themselves along with their educational skills to make money for the whole family, then that person has no business in marriage. The point of marriage is to respect and trust your spouse and let go of serving yourself. There is no room for selfishness. And forced creation through free college placement of attractive mates will increase money gained as statistics show, but it will not alter the twenty first mindset of "it's all about me." It may appear contradictory, but quoting Mr. Ulmer once more,  “two incomes are obviously better than one and they help pay for more" and perhaps in more ways than one. “Married men are more likely to work, make more money and not engage in dangerous behaviors like drunken driving and committing crimes,” said Ron Haskins. Thus, I call marriage the cure for selfishness.