I'm a non-female, but I'll throw my $0.02 in anyway. There's a lot in there that I'd consider disputing (especially 1 and the terrible double-standard of 2; and 4 strikes me as a bit silly); and much that I agree with (especially 5, 8, and 10). But this is just way too extreme: "If he hasn't proposed in 18 months, he has no intention of doing so." That strikes me as a terribly compressed time-frame for getting engaged in, and a potential recipe for bad matches that will end in divorce later. And I know many now happily-married couples that took rather longer than 18 months to cross that line. It is very legitimate, however, to expect to have the kind of serious, searching pre-engagement discussions (about values, children, long-term plans, etc.) by that point, and if a man or woman is just not interested in even having those sorts of conversations, then getting out strikes me as entirely reasonable.

Keeping the sausage-fest going, I'll add another $0.02. Pretty soon, you'll have a nickel!

1. Don't engage in casual dating relationships after 18.
Disagree. Maybe don't make a habit of it, but 18 seems a bit young to swear off casual dates.

2. Make those potential long-term relationships your top priority.
Disagree. Someone desperate to get married just isn't that attractive. I know I was interested in a wife who was self-reliant and didn't regard marriage as the A-1 goal in her life.

3. Settle earlier rather than later. On the fence. I think you need to date enough people and live enough that you have some idea who you are and can assess a potential mate with some degree of perspective. You don't need to hold out for some movie/romance novel caricature of The Perfect Mate, but at the same time, don't get married just because it's the first person to show some interest in you.

4. Let everyone know that marriage and children is your ultimate goal.
Agree. I'd phrase it a bit differently, but every relationship pretty much ends in break up, death, or marriage. Best if everyone involves understands a) having children is make or break with you (if that's the case), and b) that if all goes well, the relationship should ultimately lead to marriage.

5. Bait-and-switch doesn't work. Unlike their female counterparts, men who say they don't want to get married or have kids usually mean it.
I don't know about the double standard here, but yes, it's a good idea to believe someone when they tell you they don't want to get married or have kids.

6. Don't hesitate to end relationships that aren't leading toward marriage, or with men who are less than completely positive about the near-term prospect of children. If he hasn't proposed in 18 months, he has no intention of doing so.
Agree with philosopher's skepticism about the 18 month time frame. But, again, if kids and marriage are what you really want; and they're not what the other person really wants, move on and deal with it.

7. Shed your man-hating friends, as well as those who buy seriously into the Equalitarian dogma. Misery loves company and miserable women like nothing better than to make everyone within a five-mile radius miserable, too.

Wow, what a douche bag this guy is.

8. Be brutal when assessing the men who are interested in you. . . . The way he treats others is the way he will eventually treat you.
Agree.

9. If you want the odds of easily bearing healthy children to be in your favor, set a goal of marrying by 25.

Don't know if 25 is the magic number, but yeah, there are biological constraints to the reproduction time frame.

10. Remember that love is a choice, an action and a commitment, it is not a feeling
Perhaps a quibble, but I think love is a feeling; somewhat beyond our control. However, there is more to relationships than love. If you do all the hard work relationships require and do the best on the stuff you can control, then the loving feeling will almost certainly remain.

As a woman who seems to be lacking the innate maternal instinct as defined by Mr. Day (I did not want to play with babies in either real or doll form), I would argue that the life path he describes here is leaving out many alternatives that could be just as, or even more satisfying, than the "traditional" relationship described here as ideal.

If marriage for the sake of marriage is your number one goal, then I think you might be losing sight of the opportunity for fulfilling partnership that marriage is not a necessary condition for.

If children are your number one goal, adoption and single parenting are still valid alternatives, even if they are more difficult. Living with extended family can also help people balance work and children.

I don't think you need to give up all other goals to fulfill a goal for family.

Tina's random thoughts on the list:

list item 2) Priorities can be balanced. Even if marriage and children is your number one long-term goal, it might be best for you to go to put school or job first in the short-term so you can be a better provider for your family. Pointing to Miers as a failure is lame. I would guess that she has different goals, and there is nothing wrong with that.

list item 3) For the sake of argument, I'll assume that women's choices in men do shrink. However, just because the number shrinks does not mean that the quality shrinks. Maybe all those guys who aren't interested in an older woman weren't worth having in the first place. Or maybe the whole thing is bunk because there will always be people you could have a fulfilling partnership with if you can care about others.

list item 4 and 5) Duh, honesty is important in your dealings with friends and especially significant others.

list item 9) As I can best tell from my fellow law school students, it's much harder to go back to school after you have kids.

Tina

I completely agree with Doug! Thanks, Doug, you're an honorary woman in my book today. Heh.

One comment regarding the article, in general: A woman could do all of what the author suggests and still end up single at 35 or 40. It continues to amaze me that many men seem to think that only women's behavior needs modification in order to make a successful marriage/coupling. Ugh!

As a happily-married 25-year-old, I call B.S.

#1: What's a "casual dating relationship"? Unless you're a fan of arranged marriages, I recommend some sort of pre-engagement courtship. Some members of the opposite sex may find a first date examination of potential marriagability a bit off-putting, but YMMV.

#2: No argument here, except to say that some people would rather be a 60-year-old USSC Justice without kids. That's none of my business, and I think it's impolite to snipe at them. I don't particularly care for Ms. Miers, but I would prefer to keep the debate at a professional level.

#3: This one could've stopped with "Let not the perfect be the enemy of the good." Just don't settle for "good enough," ok?

#4-5: Be honest with your partner. And, if you need someone on the internet to tell you this, get therapy and/or beat yourself in the head.

#6: 18 months? It took me nearly twice that to propose. Let your relationship progress at its own pace, not one set by some random person on the 'net.

#7: "Be friends only with people of whom I would approve." Thanks for the advice, Mr. Internet Guy! Does he get paid for this horse poop?

#8: Good advice.

#9: More like 32 than 25. Also, Tina's got a point. Use your time wisely, whatever your goals may be.

#10: Not quite accurate. You can't choose to be attracted to someone, and physical attraction is a sine qua non of almost every marriage. If you're not sexually attracted to someone, making babies with them (the whole point of this article) is going to become drudgery instead of the joyous activity I think God/evolution intended it to be. Don't miss out. (Note: the author of this comment is a Catholic, which probably affects his views on this matter)

Oh, great. I'm a girlie-man today!

Anyway, my wife and I dated for 4 years before I proposed. We met in Feb. of '96. I graduated college in May of '96, we had a Indy-Bloomington relationship from mid-96 through '97. Then she got a job and we had an Indy-Monticello relationship until late '99. Then we lived together for a couple of months and I got used to my new job. THEN, it seemed like the right time to propose on 1/1/00. (Yup, I did the odometer proposal. Switch from 1999 to 2000 and, as one paper put it, the marriage proposals were popping like champagne corks.)

Glad she didn't hold me to the 18-month rule because I would've bolted if she'd tried to force a marriage proposal at that point.

His real name is Theodore Beale. I think Vox Day is his Muslim name. The only reason to consult his writings is for the sheer amusement value. But beware, this post will likely bring a gaggle of his sycophantic followers over here to challenge our masculinity for failing to recognize the extent of his genius. Been there, done that, laughed my butt off the whole time.

I'm not one to comment on someone’s looks... Never mind yes I am, if that is Vox in the byline picture, its not our masculinity in question.

I assume his piece is not meant as satire?

I gave it a shot, Ed, since I'm always on the lookout for funny stuff. A couple of the dozen I skimmed are pretty funny, but most are just hack pieces. He spends most of his time regurgitating old blog memes or borrowing from common sermon topics. There may not be an original thought in his head.

He does do a few remarkable things, however:
He makes the last year of Scrappleface look funny.
He makes Charles Johnson (of LGF) look calm.
He makes Jack Chick look like a Women's Lib-er.

Also, and more disturbingly, his views (especially in some of his other articles) on the ideal relationship between the genders remind me a lot of an op-ed I read by a white supremacist woman*, except without the rape fantasies.**

*I try to keep an eye on bad guys both foreign and domestic.
**If I'm wrong about the lack of rape fantasies, I don't want to know.

As a woman who happens to have run across the little shit-eating "my daddy got me this job" twerp before, I think that Vox/Theo is an anti-semetic, mysogynist moron with a bad fucking haircut, I'm afraid that I refuse to read said column. Therefore I can't comment.

But, I do read. You're on my bloglines.

When I got to the part about a woman being "foolish enough" to wait more than 2 decades before attempting to have children, my ability to read the piece with objectivity flew out the window. But, my thoughts:

1. How do you decide whether you are compatible if not through 'casual' dating - at least at the beginning?

2. The ability to be independent - if needed - should be the top priority. Heaven forbid a woman who never worked or attended college be left with 4 mouths to feed, inadequate proceeds, and a fleeing or deceased husband.

3. I'm 31 and not too long ago decided not to "settle" with my boyfriend of going on 7 years, a man who could support me for the rest of my life. I know others make different decisions, and I respect those decisions. But I knew in my heart of hearts that I wouldn't be happy and that wouldn't be fair to either one of us. Does this advice about settling take into account the incredible divorce and affair rates?

4. It can't hurt to let friends and family know you might like to marry and have kids - but beware scaring off men when you appear desperate.

5. Agreed.

6. I don't know about 18 months, but years 'wasted' will likely result in bitterness.

7. There is some truth to this. I'm guessing men can sense when there is a 'hate fest' brewing between girlfriends in a public place. Not exactly a good way to be approached. And it's awful to feel guilty about a good relationship when your friends are nothing but upset with the men in their lives.

8. Agreed.

9. Ha. Most people I know at 25 aren't mature enough to take care of themselves, much less a family. Don't rush it.

10. Mostly agreed. My high school religion teacher introduced this concept to us and I fought him on it. The older I get, the more I agree. Attraction/lust are necessary. But they will often fade (good for you if not). What needs to be there to pick up the slack is a definitive positive commitment to action - to love. One chooses to love somebody: to continue to be there for them once certain 'feelings' have faded.

I go back and forth between wanting to be married and enjoying my freedom. If society didn't treat me as though there were something wrong with me, being single would be easier. And if I didn't have the desire to have another child, I'd be perfectly content to spend the next 20 years enjoying my freedom and perhaps meeting someone down the road with whom I could spend my last couple decades.

he lists 10 steps "that a woman whose priority remains marriage and children can take in order to happily achieve those goals."

Well, that leaves me out. I became a physician before Women's lib, and then served as a missionary. When I came back, all I found was Mama's boys and men who wanted affairs, so I adopted two kids (older kids) who needed a home.

Dating? You joke. Men pay ten bucks for a meal, and then expect free time in bed in exchange. I would pay my own meals, and tell them even as a hooker I would be worth more than ten bucks.

Then I met and married in my 40's. Someone I met at work.

The dirty little secret is that shy nerds are out there longing for a good woman, but unless the families or churches connect them, these marriages don't take shape.

Churches, start teaching...and encourage socialization.

The problem with #10 is that Vox doesn't go to the trouble of defining love. So I will. Love is the attitude that values an individual's welfare. Note that I didn't say "somebody else's welfare" - some people don't really love themselves.

People often think emotion and atraction is a part of love. It isn't. C. S. Lewis was wrong - there is only one love (agape). The other three "loves" are soemthing else. Affection is simply a means of communicating one of the different types of attraction. Phileo (friendship) and eros (romance) are two of those types - and not the only ones. The feelings that an adult feels for a child, and that a child feels for anadult, are two examples that comes to mind right now.

I haven't done any reading on the subject, so this is just personal opinion. But I still have to disagree with Alan. I think love is commonly defined as an emotion - like the one Alan describes between parent and child, for example.

But I tend to view love as an action or a series of actions. I love my daughter, and when I say that, I am generally referring to how I feel about her. But to really love her, I must take care of her. If I abandoned her, I could say I that I "loved" her, but my actions would not back up that assertion.

Love is more easily used to describe our feelings, I suppose. It'd be corny to walk around saying something like "I have very strong feelings for" my child.

It continues to amaze me that many men seem to think that only women's behavior needs modification in order to make a successful marriage/coupling. Ugh!

That's certainly not a winning attitude. However, in our "you go girl" culture today, the opposite attitude seems to predominate--that men are the only ones who are idiots when it comes to relationships. (Quick, name a movie where the central character is a woman who realizes that the sweet, endearing man she's been looking for has been right under her nose and she was too caught up in other things to realize it.)

If I could make one modification to the dating behavior of the single women of the world, it would be this: If you decide to reject a man after a handful of dates, it's polite to actually tell him your decision. The "silent treatment," where you suddenly stop returning phone calls or emails, is rather rude.

Eric said:
"If you decide to reject a man after a handful of dates, it's polite to actually tell him your decision. The "silent treatment," where you suddenly stop returning phone calls or emails, is rather rude."

I completely agree and ask the same from men!!

This comment is just because.

"I haven't done any reading on the subject, so this is just personal opinion. But I still have to disagree with Alan. I think love is commonly defined as an emotion - like the one Alan describes between parent and child, for example."

One can be emotionally attracted to someone (amorously, friendly, whatever) without loving that person, so love must be something other than that emotion.

A proper relationship is love + emotion. People think it's the emotion because the emotion is what feels good. The love (agape) disciplines the emotions so as not to interfere with the welfare of people within (and outside) the relationship.

I got married at 19 - am now 44 - still married - same guy - 3 children later. Love him to death. No fairytale here - hard years and good years - more good than bad thank God! As much as I want to recoil at these "suggestions", most of them have at least a little credence - womens lib taught many of my era that you could have it all - but that was a lie for most women. If you chose the career early in life, many couldn't conceive when they were emotionally ready. If you chose marriage and children early in life, your career suffered. This still seems to be the truth as much as we hate to admit it.