From: The Cost of Delaying Marriage -
In this sense, we lead lives that are exactly the inverse of our grandmothers'. If previous generations of women were raised to believe that they could only realize themselves within the roles of wife and mother, now the opposite is thought true: It's only outside these roles that we are able to realize our full potential and worth as human beings. A 20-year-old bride is considered as pitiable as a 30-year-old spinster used to be. Once a husband and children were thought to be essential to a woman's identity, the source of purpose in her life; today, they are seen as peripherals, accessories that we attach only after our full identities are up and running.
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Instead, like lords or sailors of yore, a young woman is encouraged to embark upon the world, seek her fortune and sow her oats, and only much later — closer to 30 than 20 — consider the possibility of settling down. Even religious conservatives, who disapprove of sex outside of marriage, accept the now-common wisdom that it is better to put off marriage than do it too early.
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The 33-year-old single woman who decides she wants more from life than her career cannot so readily walk into marriage and children; by postponing them, all she has done is to push them ahead to a point in her life when she has less sexual power to attain them. Instead, she must confront the sad possibility that she might never have what was the birthright of every previous generation of women: children, a family life and a husband who — however dull or oppressive he might have appeared to feminist eyes — at least was there.
Several years ago, I used to work with two women who were born again, evangelical Christians who both had teen-aged daughters. Both of them talked endlessly about their worries for their daughters getting the best education and career they could get as soon as they graduated from high school.
I once made the mistake of suggesting that the most important thing such young girls needed to consider was choosing good men to marry...far more important than what college they were trying to get into, what degree they would try to attain and what career path they wanted to pursue. I tried to explain to them that the biggest decisions with the most far reaching consequences for their lives that their daughters would ever face would be who they decide to mate with. Both ladies didn't even consider my points. Both immediately argued that their daughters needed their educations and careers first and foremost, just in case they did get married and "it didn't work out." Of course, both of these ladies were the primary breadwinners in their family, so it's not surprising they would feel this way.
They were simply following the new ideal of 21st century Churchianity - changing the Church's prime directives to accommodate Feminist ideals.
The infiltration of Christian culture and morality by feminism (Cultural Marxism) is nearly complete.
Population control measures are successfully keeping the population replacement rate down amongst the demographic most likely to promote marriage and large, Patriarchal families.
Not only was this effected by pushing the idea that young women need to pursue education and career "just in case" marriages fail, but also that they must only consider marrying men in their own age group.
Note the lament of a Protestant Preacher's wife over at Dalrock's:
"Do you really believe it’s easier for young women? IDK. My daughter is having problems getting men her age to even approach her. They all seem really shy won’t even make eye contact, most of all they seem to be lacking in basic manners or the social graces (ironically talents women taught their children when they actually about the business of parenting.)"
Why do Christian parents who want their children to wait until marriage to have sex, blindly follow along with the cultural value that women must meet and mate with men their own age?
Why do Christian parents who want their daughters to wait until marriage to have sex, push their young girls to make sure they go to college and start a career before even considering marriage - all while telling their girls they need to remain virgins until marriage?
Do Christian parents consider it ideal to raise virtuous girls who save themselves for marriage, really stop and think it perfectly reasonable to expect their daughters to be completely chaste from the age of 14 to the age of 24-25? Over a decade of abstinence after reaching puberty in this sex-saturated culture? Combine that with the expectation that they must only consider potential husbands in their own age group to boot, when such men are incapable of providing for a family until he's approaching 30, is a recipe for Christian Sluts and the inevitable growth of the Christian spinster populace.
Marriage 1.0 was the original foundation of society. It promoted the formation of families and most families were large. Prior to the "sexual revolution" (or as I like to call it: The deconstruction of civilization by reversion to Matriarchal morality), it was normal for people to get married and commence popping out multiple offspring.Women got married shortly after their bodies were ready, Men got married shortly after their abilities to provide for those women and their children were ready.
Before the imposition of collectivist schemes for supporting single motherhood en mass, this meant that men needed to find the means for supporting his offspring as soon as possible. There was no "teenage" stage to life. Men went to work to develop skills and the means to support his family as soon as possible."Teenage" males were working. "Teenage" females were marrying the older males and starting their families.
These norms ensured long lasting marriages because the age difference between older, experienced and capable provider husband and younger, fertile and inexperienced wife leveraged the females biological directive - hypergamy - while also satisfying the males desire for younger/hotter/tighter - peak fertility.
When these were the norms, most marriages were really for "til death do we part." And barring infertility, usually resulted in multiple children.
From the perspective of elite social engineers who desired a dramatic curb in population growth of the sheeple...the useless eaters...the foundation needed to be altered to stop all this reproduction. The multiple child family as the base unit of society needed to be altered.
To do this to a society that used to be overwhelmingly Christian, the twin tactics of "empowering" females in education and career, combined with normalizing the idea that people should only marry in their own age group, appears to have been quite effective in reducing the growth of the Christian demographic.Christian women are least likely to use birth control and/or to have abortions...two of the most important planks of the feminist population control program. But they sure seemed to have accepted the idea that women need to pursue education and careers before "settling" down.
Christian or not, putting education and career over marriage and child bearing puts many women on the path to either small families (2.1 children) at best...or spinsterhood and cat collecting at worst.