Didn’t Chesterton say 100 years ago that no rational man would get married? His point wasn’t that marriage is somehow a wrong thing to do. His point was similar Blaise Pascal’s statement that the heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of.
The question, IMHO, isn’t so much “Why aren’t getting married?” It’s “Why are more men thinking with their heads rather than their hearts?”
I can’t say why that’s true in the general sense. I can only talk about my own experience as a 44-year-old never married male:
1. I wanted to marry my high school sweetheart. But she cheated on me, and then, when I got mad about that, she cheated on me again. Being a bit neurotic, I blamed myself and thought somehow I wasn’t man enough to keep her. When we split up, she met a new guy within three weeks. He was a carpenter, later became a successful General Contractor with his own business. He provided for her well. She paid him back, 16 years later — having an affair with her son’s ice hockey coach. Guess I wasn’t so much the problem after all.
2. I wanted to get married a few years later, but my live-in girlfriend slept with her ex-boyfriend one night and gave me the clap. When I came back from the doctor’s office, she denied it. For several days before finally admitting it. She even tried to turn it around and say I must have cheated, ignoring that I knew that I hadn’t. Obviously, I had no intention of marrying a woman who would lie to my face.
3. A few years later, I was talking about marriage with a third woman. She was a highly successful woman, but she believed that while men were fun to sleep with, a real emotional commitment could only be had among women. So she began a relationship with a woman, saying that she could have a “real” relationship that way. I laughed and said, “Men can’t be trusted, so you’re going to date a woman? Let me know how that works out for you.” Zip forward three years — her girlfriend cheated on her three times and dumped her for a fourth guy. In fairness to my former girlfriend, she called up later and apologized, saying she gets it.
4. I was planning to go to Africa in the Peace Corps. During the months leading up to my leaving date, I became involved in a relationship. I didn’t write her back enough while overseas, and when I returned, she didn’t want anything to do with me. It seems she was more committed to a relationship with me, than with me. That is, when I didn’t meet her “writing back” criteria, she dumped me overboard. The fact that there was a six-month postal strike overseas didn’t affect her.
5. I became involved with a woman. I was eager to get married. Practically every week, she gave me a reason to avoid the commitment. She ridiculed my religious faith and my intellectual pursuits, she put down men around me, she put me down around my friends, she poured out her attention on a pair of dogs, and cut me off sexually, saying I’d become (1) too fat, and (2) that if I wanted the milk, I should buy the cow. After we broke up, she began a series of blog posts in which she gave me a hard time (which meant that I’d occasionally go there and ask her to take down posts putting me down), and then posted graphic material about her current sex life, including comparisons between the new guy and me. At which point I wondered to myself — good thing I wasn’t the sucker who paid for that cow. Why overpay?
Anyway, this gives a good idea of why I’ve been reticent to make a commitment. Commitment follows reliability and trust. My guess is that more men are thinking with their heads rather than their hearts because more and more women are demonstrating signs of being unreliable and untrustworthy.
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Lastly, the quoted article is insulting. Men are sick of being lectured to and put down by women, especially given the arrogant assumption of moral superiority that’s so common.
My two cents.
