JAMES TARANTO: Are Boys Irrational? Not if you distinguish biology from economics.

In contemporary America, then, girls and young women act in ways that meet with the approval of Hymowitz and her economists, because doing so accords with both economic self-interest and biological instinct. That was once true of boys and young men. It no longer is, because of the same social changes–feminism and sexual liberationism–that transformed the incentives for women.

Hymowitz laments that young males are insufficiently interested in “becoming reliable husbands and fathers.” Imagine somebody opening a piece with the converse lament that young females are insufficiently interested in “becoming reliable wives and mothers.” The author would be attacked as a misogynist and a dinosaur. Why, critics would demand, should women set their sights so low?

Well, why should men? Except perhaps in very conservative communities, men with sufficient social skills can find sex and companionship without need of a matrimonial commitment (and for those who lack social skills, a willingness to marry is unlikely to provide much compensation). The culture’s unrelenting message–repeated in Hymowitz’s article–is that women are doing fine on their own. If a woman doesn’t need a man, there’s little reason for him to devote his life to her service. Further, in the age of no-fault divorce, “reliable husbands and fathers” not infrequently find themselves impoverished by child support and restricted by court order from spending time with their children.

As for education, the story of Joshua Strange ought to be enough to give any sensible young man second thoughts about enrolling in college.

You know, someone should write a book about this phenomenon!