NICK writes, in response to this entry:

And so was born The Thinking Housewife Matchmaker Service! I am most grateful, but do not pass the “Christian” requirement. (Which doesn’t mean I wouldn’t still be interested, of course….)

Since I wrote you last, I have decided to sign up for a few online dating sites, mostly out of curiosity. I could not imagine finding a serious mate on, say, OKCupid, but anything is possible. In poring over many hundreds of profiles in the past few days, a few things stand out to me.

– I have not seen any woman make her desire for children, or even marriage, the central focus of her profile. Even though I filter profiles based on the “wants kids?” question (which is, surprisingly, often answered “yes”), nothing in the written profile suggests it is important to them. (This is occasionally not the case for Asian women)

– The emphasis is instead on career, activities, hobbies, favourite movies/books/music, travel, and political inclinations (always to the left, sometimes the feminist left)

– The surpreme goal of women my age appears to be to start an NGO in a Third World country.

– Every woman my age has read Eat, Pray, Love.

– Most are doing (or have done) advanced degrees, often in education or healthcare.

– It is rare that a woman expresses interest in cooking, though most express interest in restaurants and food.

– I have never seen a woman mention that she desires a good home, a place to call her own, or that she is otherwise domestically inclined.

I suspect these line up with your readers’ experiences too. That said, it may be that women view these traits as being desired by men, and they may be at odds with more deeply held needs.

Laura writes:

Ha! Most want to “start an NGO in a Third World country.” That is very funny. 

Perhaps you should set out on a one-man search for the one young woman who has not read Eat, Pray, Love and who has no interest in reading it. You could write about your romantic odyssey. After all, Elizabeth Gilbert did it. Why not you? It would be a huge best seller and then you and your future wife could eat, pray and love for the rest of your days.

Yes, I think that most women would not admit to traditional aspirations and I am not sure many men want them too. After all, traditional homemaking comes with financial dependence. Most women want to demonstrate that they are energetic and will bring home the bacon too. Some are, of course, genuinely devoid of any interest in home and children, mostly due to incessant indoctrination.

By the way, please don’t consider any woman who expresses no interest in cooking or who puts it down. It’s okay to marry someone who is a lousy cook, but who is still enthusiastic. But a woman who disses cooking is not worth the time of day. That’s just my opinion. I don’t want to tell you who to choose. : – )

                                                                                                               — Comments —

Youngfogey writes:

Regarding the comment about young women wanting to start NGO’s in Third World countries, I was complaining to my wife the other night about all the evangelical women I know in their early twenties who want nothing more than to run off to say, Liberia or Ghana, and do some kind of humanitarian work.

My wife asked me what is wrong with that and I had a hard time articulating my answer right away.

The best I could do was to point out that this desire is often more dear to them than the desire to marry and have children. When they express this desire it is often with an air of disdain for their own culture, which includes disdain for their own traditions and parents.

Moreover, I suspect that at the heart of this desire is a romantic fantasy. They imagine themselves selflessly caring for the sick and needy in a far away land where they will meet a prince who will be impressed by their virtue and will, because of it, devote himself to her. None of the boys around her can compete with that.

At the same time, women have a long history as missionaries and a single life devoted to God’s service is to be applauded. I don’t know. Was I wrong to complain about this phenomenon?

Laura writes:

Let me propose a thought experiment for you and your wife.

Right now, in this country, there are many children growing up in single-mother homes. Growing up without a father and with a mother who is usually not at home and who may bring strange men into your life is a desolating experience that has been proven to damage many people. I have a friend who is a teacher in a white working-class neighborhood. Many of the children there are growing up in homes of never-married or divorced mothers. These children are hungry for attention and love. Their situation portends further social chaos. Do you think the young Evangelical women you mention would brag about helping these white children? Would volunteer work with them have the same cachet?

I suggest to you that it would not.

I understand that people in Third World countries are materially poorer than these white children I mention. But in the Christian view, the immaterial is foremost and the spiritual conditions of these white children are nothing less than dire and probably worse than that of most children in the Third World. They are being raised by nihilistic popular culture.

This romantic fantasy you describe is nothing but the feminine manifestation of the glorification of non-Western culture and non-whites. It is not just youthful narcissism but one sign of cultural devolution. I am sorry to sound so serious about something that seems on the face of it virtuous or, at the very least, not harmful. But, Christianity will not flourish in the Third World if it is dying in the West. We need these idealistic women to do their work at home, and that work includes becoming wives and mothers themselves. 

The idealism of these women is not wrong, but the direction it has taken is. Volunteering in the Third World has become a status symbol for Christians. How sick is that?

Michael S. writes:

Is Nick Catholic? Then on his profiles he should use this headline: “Devout Catholic Seeks Same for Marriage and Family.” Then sit back and see what happens.

If there were a hundred people, say, on Match.com of whom that were true, they should all use the same headline. That would really narrow it down. Then you can see how well the other parts of the profile support and develop the headline.

Laura writes:

Nick apparently is a heathen. : – )

He should change that to “Traditionalist Pagan Seeks Traditionalist of Any Creed and Denomination for Marriage and Family.”

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