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Grooms for Life

Jill

You’ve kinda gotta see it for yourself, but here’s a little preview:

Is there a way to radically decrease abortions without asking the government to do it? Adoption is often suggested here and that is a good alternative but I think there is another as well.

Marriage. I am not talking just about a return to the “shotgun marriage”; rather, I think an offer of marriage from a man who is not the father but will assume all the traditional responsibilities of fatherhood would be accepted by many unmarried pregnant women. The motif of a man proposing marriage to a woman pregnant with another man’s child is a common one on soap operas that are a fairly good gauge of female fantasy. These stories represent the truth that many pregnant women don’t really want to abort, and would not, if marriage and commitment were offered to them.

Grooms For Life could be facilitated on a practical basis by computerized matching of pro-life single men with unmarried pregnant women interested in carrying to term. Certainly, the number of Grooms For Life would fall short of the million and a half abortions per year–but the government would be able to ensure birth quite imperfectly as well. Additionally, female pro-lifers and married men could spend their time recruiting bachelors to their cause so that the screaming demonstrators outside abortion clinics would soon be replaced by swains in bow ties, holding rings and serenading the pregnant women.


Heh.

Kyso begs Denise to run away from the dark side, but it looks like Nice Guy Marc is good and ready to help out.

This really is a win-win for everyone involved. Pregnant chicks can live their life dream of gettin’ hitched to a semi-anonymous Prince Fetus-Fetishist, and pro-life dudes end up with wives who they know will totally put out. (Note to Dawn Eden: This whole marry-a-nice-Christian-boy thing could be easier than you thought!)

46 thoughts on Grooms for Life

  4. Where to begin…

    …here’s the thing. Look at incentives. Now your “irresponsible” teenage mum has an extra incentive to get pregnant, cos instead of having to rely on welfare (which as we all know is a huge temptation to go and get pregnant for) she’ll get a super duper nice christian boy who’ll provide for her. And who wouldn’t want one of those.

    And then she can get her greedy hands on all the family’s assets.

    I say no to this clear danger to the American way, Conservatives, don’t let your misplaced kindness destroy you country.

  5. The most telling part of this garbage is that Soap Opera plotlines are being cited as evidence for what people secretly want and how people behave in real life.

    Utterly lacking in any real evidence for any of this, the author is forced to resort to overblown, poorly written fiction.

    Anyone else familiar with Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality?

  6. From the article:

    “Arranged marriages” are still common in many conservative cultures–and their record suggests that romantic love is not the only basis for a lasting marital union.

    Why do I suspect that it may be due to general inavailability of divorce (legally and socially), rather than arranged marriages being more happy?

  9. MND is totally right. All my life, I’ve dreamed of living out the soap opera fairy tale. Last fall, I finally did something about it, so I had sex with my twin’s husband, became pregnant, and was shot in the back on a wharf while trying to blackmail the priest who’d married them. They thought I was dead, but in fact, I was spirited off to a Columbian hospital. Three months ago, I returned to my hometown, baby in tow, but with facial reconstruction surgery. No one know’s who I am. Meanwhile, my sister has divorced my baby’s daddy, had a fling with the priest, and remarried her previous husband. They are expecting their first baby later this year. My plan is to enroll my baby in the same daycare as her baby, become friends with her, and then arrange to have her baby stolen so that I can raise her child to grow up and hate her. Meanwhile, I’ve still got my eye on her husband, who I may or may not sleep with later this fall. I’m still not sure who shot me, but I have been sleeping with a longshoreman who was at the wharf that fateful night. He’s my sister’s former lover and has promised to find out who shot me, hopefully I will learn next friday at about 1:55pm.

    …Why can’t you all see what an exciting, enchanting life I lead? Truly, who wouldn’t want to be me?

  11. Why do I suspect that it may be due to general inavailability of divorce (legally and socially), rather than arranged marriages being more happy?

    One explanation I’ve heard for it, actually, is that arranged marriages use basically the same criteria as self-selected marriages, except that the family is making the choice instead of the individual. Most (though of course not all) self-selected marriages are chosen between partners who come from the same class, philosophical, cultural, and so on backgrounds. Most arranged marriages are chosen between partners out of the same pool.

    I think the idea is when you throw two random people together, after controlling for culture, philosophy, and so on (including class, particularly when one corrects for social capitol like education), it turns out to work just about as often as self-selection. Which is: sometimes.

    The data would probably change if you started only looking at self-selected couples who lived together for a significant time before marriage.

  12. Oh my god! I didn’t even make the Dawn Eden connection. As the head of the must-get-married clan, all Dawn needs to do is get knocked up and then she can find the man of her dreams (which is to say, any man at all).

    In fact, Dawn can even go back to banging musicians until one turns out not to be snipped or sterile at just the right time, after which she can clean up her act with a Groom For Life.

    Win-win!

  15. Great, now I have to do something drastic to make sure my son doesn’t grow up to be a nice guy Christian.

    Christ. Thanks a lot, Marc.

  18. MND is totally right. All my life, I’ve dreamed of living out the soap opera fairy tale. Last fall, I finally did something about it, so I had sex with my twin’s husband, became pregnant, and was shot in the back on a wharf while trying to blackmail the priest who’d married them. They thought I was dead, but in fact, I was spirited off to a Columbian hospital. Three months ago, I returned to my hometown, baby in tow, but with facial reconstruction surgery. No one know’s who I am. Meanwhile, my sister has divorced my baby’s daddy, had a fling with the priest, and remarried her previous husband. They are expecting their first baby later this year. My plan is to enroll my baby in the same daycare as her baby, become friends with her, and then arrange to have her baby stolen so that I can raise her child to grow up and hate her. Meanwhile, I’ve still got my eye on her husband, who I may or may not sleep with later this fall. I’m still not sure who shot me, but I have been sleeping with a longshoreman who was at the wharf that fateful night. He’s my sister’s former lover and has promised to find out who shot me, hopefully I will learn next friday at about 1:55pm.

    …Why can’t you all see what an exciting, enchanting life I lead? Truly, who wouldn’t want to be me?

    Win.

  20. soap operas that are a fairly good gauge of female fantasy.

    Well…. I would have liked to get a super high-paying job that lets me take unlimited time off shortly after high school. A house/apartment that never needs cleaning unless it’s just been broken into would be nice too.

  21. Yeah, but you can never have a pet, and never go outside. You’d never be allowed to sneeze, and no one would ever ever say “Good-bye” before they hang up the phone.

  22. Not true. The last time I caught my mom watching Passions, I saw they have a pine forest set. You just have to live in the right soap opera universe to be able to go outside.

  23. the screaming demonstrators outside abortion clinics would soon be replaced by swains in bow ties, holding rings and serenading the pregnant women.

    Actually, that sounds strangely appealing.

  24. Because only relationship-less sluts get abortions, not married women, rape victims, women with boyfriends, women with health issues, or girls under the age of consent.

    Or maybe they could turn this into a sort of beauty pageant/reality show – Who Wants To Marry The Pregnant Chick? Maybe a groom selects his favorite pregnant girl through talent, philosophy, evening wear, and the swimsuit competition. Possibly a Prarie Muffin Bake-Off, too! C’mon, Fox has done worse.

  25. Grooms For Life could be facilitated on a practical basis by computerized matching of pro-life single men with unmarried pregnant women interested in carrying to term. Certainly, the number of Grooms For Life would fall short of the million and a half abortions per year

    And, surprisingly, so would the number of unmarried pregnant women interested in carrying to term.

    There’s unmarried pregnant women not interested in carrying to term, married pregnant women not interested in carrying to term, and married pregnant women interested in carrying to term. And plenty of unmarried pregnant women, I’m sure, who might not mind carrying to term but aren’t willing to get married in order to do so. I mean, it’s bad enough having a baby you don’t want, but getting stuck with a husband, too?

    Then, of course, there’s my answer, the obvious: I don’t date pro-lifers, I don’t sleep with them, and I sure as hell won’t marry one.

    Now are they going to do something for the women who are married and have kids and have abortions because they can’t afford another one?

    This is rather freakish. And immensely patriarchal. And I have trouble wrapping my head around the fact that there’s people who say gay marriage will violate the sacred institution or whatever, but fully support this. Love=bad, loveless duty match for the bayybieees=good? As if domestic abuse, the history of arranged marriages, the practice of treating wives as property or subordinate, the marry-divorce-remarry-divorce-remarry cycle of one-at-a-time polygamy favored by certain conservative politicians, and the all-too-often lack of love involved, all the wingnuts and their allies can please shut the bloody hell up about how gay marriage will tarnish the institution of marriage. You cannot tarnish a rusted blade, even if gay marriage were tarnish instead of polish.

  26. And you just know these guys will be holding it over the heads of their wives that they saved them from a life of shame.

  27. Why do I suspect that it may be due to general inavailability of divorce (legally and socially), rather than arranged marriages being more happy?

    There’s also something that I suppose I’ll call the “roommate dynamic.” Just like in college dorms, arranged marriages put two people together who didn’t choose to be that way on their own. And when they both bend backward a little bit to make sure they don’t bother each other, discuss politely the things that affect both of them, and so forth, they can get through the year (or their lives) without much fuss and without really minding each other’s presence.

    Of course, sometimes it doesn’t work out at all. And people become supremely miserable when forced to make it work anyway. Especially when one of them assumes a dominant position in the relationship—something there’s a significant danger of, given that these are conservative pro-life guys who think nothing of making choices for a woman when it’s her body being affected, and probably think they deserve cookies for taking on the tremendous sacrifice of being a father to another man’s baby.

  28. Marriage. I am not talking just about a return to the “shotgun marriage”;

    Just?!?! Now that’s freakish.

    Additionally, female pro-lifers and married men could spend their time recruiting bachelors to their cause

    Heeeeere pedophile pedophile pedophile!!!! Lookeeee, faaatherhooood! Freee for the taaaaking! Come annnnd get it!

  29. Re: arranged marriages,

    I was waiting for the righty-tighties to go that way. After all, when they started “defending traditional marriage against gay marriage”, it did beg the question “how traditional are straight marriages? if you accept a man and a woman marrying for love, which is highly non-traditional, why not accept a man and a man or a woman and a woman?”. So now it’s obvious how the begged question is answered by the religious right — they do indeed believe in traditional (arranged) marriage.

    Now how long before the religious right realizes that the reason why in the distant past they didn’t have a problem with un-wed teenage mothers is that they married off women as soon as they hit puberty? I’m sure the Derb will be all over this one (did I intend this pun? I’m not sure …). Perhaps we can use it as a political talking point: “the religious right is in favor of traditional marriage … traditional marriage often meant marrying off girls at puberty … why do members of the religious right think young, impressionable girls should be involved in marital relationships?”

  30. Actually, marriage was typically a right only reserved for the wealthy and landed. If you were poor, you didn’t get married because there was no contractual reason to–it’s not like there were things like custody and alimony back then.

  31. soap operas that are a fairly good gauge of female fantasy.

    Unfortunately, the only soap opera I remember (East Enders) which had the “marriage not based on love, but on the fact that the guy is willing to be father to another man’s child” plot had that marriage end really badly, with the young wife concluding that she didn’t love her husband and didn’t want the marriage to last right around the time she discovered she was pregnant again. One abortion, one hostile divorce. Probably there’s a romance novel somewhere where the story line works out better.

    Actually, now that I think of it, doesn’t nearly every soap opera marriage turn out to be a dismal failure eventually?

    holding rings and serenading the pregnant women

    Like KnifeGhost, I rather like this image. Suggestions for songs that they can sing?

    I think the idea is when you throw two random people together, after controlling for culture, philosophy, and so on (including class, particularly when one corrects for social capitol like education), it turns out to work just about as often as self-selection. Which is: sometimes.

    The data would probably change if you started only looking at self-selected couples who lived together for a significant time before marriage.

    Not really. There’s data that people who live together before marriage are more likely to divorce (though, in fairness, this may well be because people who live together before marriage are more accepting of divorce).

    I used to wonder how people in arranged marriages could possibly enjoy the sexual part of the relationship, since I certainly don’t want to have sex with most random people. Then I concluded that the level of desire that it takes to want to have sex with someone you’re just getting to know, absent any commitment, has got to be a lot higher than the level of desire it takes to want to have sex with someone who’s been bound to you as your only sex partner, for life.

  32. Actually, now that I think of it, doesn’t nearly every soap opera marriage turn out to be a dismal failure eventually?

    Yes. I think that if your husband doesn’t get murdered by his secret evil twin cousin, you have a successful marriage.

    There is a class of romance novels–the romance version of cozies–in which the dashing stranger eventually falls in love with the single mom. But…romance novels always end in happy marriages.

  33. And plenty of unmarried pregnant women, I’m sure, who might not mind carrying to term but aren’t willing to get married in order to do so

    Yep. And some unmarried pregnant women who got pregnant because they used a luteal hormone measurement kit to find out their most fertile time and had sex with their domestic partner then in an attempt to become pregnant. And never considered marrying because marriage is frankly creepy, even without the arranged covenent aspect.

  34. So on the one hand, we have a wingnut arguing that a (presumably) loveless marriage of convenience is OK in some cases, and on the other hand, we have a wingnut arguing that a (presumably) loveless marriage of convenience is not OK for in other cases.

    What if a man married a pregnant lesbian to give her baby a dad? Would that be OK or not?

  35. Suggestions for songs that they can sing?

    Well, in this case, “You’re Having My Baby” isn’t really apt.

  36. I used to wonder how people in arranged marriages could possibly enjoy the sexual part of the relationship, since I certainly don’t want to have sex with most random people.

    – Lynn Gazis-Sax

    I’ve noticed that there seems to be somewhat of a gender difference here: many women I know simply would rather not have sex with random men, even there own age, etc. Many women I know even manage to categorize men into “friends” and “dating material”, with little chance of a cross-over because they simply do not find the men stuck in the “friend zone” to be attractive. While many men also in practice do not go for cross-overs, it’s more of a matter of fearing complications, loosing a friend, etc., than a matter of lack of physical attraction to their friends. Many men do find random women their age to generally be attractive — they may not want to have sex with random women simply because they would want to be in a relationship with any sexual partner, but that doesn’t stop us men from being pervs and checking random women out much to the chagrin of such women when we are too blatant and/or objectifying about it — too and would presumably, if induced to marry a random woman, would have no problem wanting to have sex with her.

    Now that you bring the woman’s point of view of sex with random people up in the context of arranged marriages in which, presumably there is a modicum of sex (any statistics on whether people in arranged marriages get it on as often hot and heavy as those in non-arranged marriages?) and in which presumably the woman is wanting the sex at least somewhat, perhaps the differences between men and women in regards to being attractive to random people are in fact socially constructed? That all of those stereotypes of we men being dogs and women being relatively asexual are just based on social constructs rather than any real sexual dimorphism?

    Just a thought …

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  38. What if a man married a pregnant lesbian to give her baby a dad? Would that be OK or not?

    Jen, it would probably be a-ok with them, because presumably the lesbian got knocked up with a turkey baster, not teh sex. Besides, the pro-life-prince-charming might actually set her straight with his amazing super powers!

  40. Mighty Ponygirl – if it doesn’t work out with your twin’s ex, would you consider marrying me? I think I’m in love (which, actually, probably isn’t necessary!)

  41. This is wrong on so many levels.

    First, marriage makes it all all right. As I said repeatedly during the time of SuperFertility, which ended when I got my tubes tied, “People who think a wedding ring means that your income blissfully expands to fit your fertility levels are obviously on crack. Or Jesus, which is worse.”

    Oh, so soap operas reflect what women really want? Okaaaaay… One more way in which I’m out of step with the American Ideal Woman model. I’m not crying any tears over it.

  42. Why do I suspect that it may be due to general inavailability of divorce (legally and socially), rather than arranged marriages being more happy?

    It also has, I think, to do with the expectations they have going into these unions. It seems to me that people who choose their own spouse for their own reasons probably expect more from the relationship than people who are entering into what is essentially a contractual partnership that has all the passion of a 30 year mortgage.

    You can’t be dissapointed if you didn’t expect much in the first place.

    There is a class of romance novels–the romance version of cozies–in which the dashing stranger eventually falls in love with the single mom. But…romance novels always end in happy marriages.

    That’s because they don’t have to figure out what to do next season.

  43. “People who think a wedding ring means that your income blissfully expands to fit your fertility levels are obviously on crack. Or Jesus, which is worse.”

    *laughs hysterically*

    Well said.

  44. the screaming demonstrators outside abortion clinics would soon be replaced by swains in bow ties, holding rings and serenading the pregnant women.

    How is this not a musical yet?

  45. DAS, you gotta be kidding – you are making wast sweeping statements based solely on the basis of peoples’ gender. Men and women don’t behave and think differently in regards to sex – individual people behave and think differently.

    I really wish people would stop believing that they can tell how people think solely based upon their gender. It’s nonsense.

  46. Did my daughter’s bio-dad write this crap? ‘Cos he thought that if I got matched with some random man who lived locally, we could have a happy family without him having to pull his finger out. Never mind that I was so messed up from all the relationship disintegration I’d suffered that I had no chance of a happy family with anyone: man+woman+baby=happy family

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