Especially if you are a smart, attractive, single desi woman. Seriously. This isn’t about desi women in particular but you’ll see how this information could be used for evil especially by desi parents. I know some of you forward posts to your parents but don’t do it with this one. You’ve been warned. NSFP=Not Safe for Parents.
Ok, now that I’ve cleared my conscience let’s get to the article at hand shall we? Slate.com recently published, The Eligible-Bachelor Paradox, which makes use of game theory to explain why the best women often end up single and alone if they wait “too long” to get married. We’ll save judgement for the end:
The shortage of appealing men is a century-plus-old commonplace of the society melodrama. The shortage–or–more exactly, the perception of a shortage–becomes evident as you hit your late 20s and more acute as you wander into the 30s. Some men explain their social fortune by believing they’ve become more attractive with age; many women prefer the far likelier explanation that male faults have become easier to overlook.
The problem of the eligible bachelor is one of the great riddles of social life. Shouldn’t there be about as many highly eligible and appealing men as there are attractive, eligible women?…Actually, no–and here’s why. Consider the classic version of the marriage proposal: A woman makes it known that she is open to a proposal, the man proposes, and the woman chooses to say yes or no. The structure of the proposal is not, “I choose you.” It is, “Will you choose me?” A woman chooses to receive the question and chooses again once the question is asked. [Link]
So what have we learned so far? Despite the fact that men usually propose, it is the woman that typically dictates if and when a marriage will occur. In a free and modern society (meaning no forced or pressured marriages) the real power rests with the woman. Let’s go on then:
You can think of this traditional concept of the search for marriage partners as a kind of an auction. In this auction, some women will be more confident of their prospects, others less so.In game-theory terms, you would call the first group “strong bidders” and the second “weak bidders.” Your first thought might be that the “strong bidders”–women who (whether because of looks, social ability, or any other reason) are conventionally deemed more of a catch–would consistently win this kind of auction.
But this is not true. In fact, game theory predicts, and empirical studies of auctions bear out, that auctions will often be won by “weak” bidders, who know that they can be outbid and so bid more aggressively, while the “strong” bidders will hold out for a really great deal. [Link]
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So the brilliant and attractive women hold out for someone worthy of their brilliance and attractiveness. Who could blame them? But, meanwhile, the “tier two” women claim their men with their womanly ways, thus removing them from the “game,” leaving the tier one women with fewer candidates that are perhaps, and I quote, “short, socially awkward, underemployed.” Now what about men like me…ahem…cough cough…tier one…cough…men that are still unmarried and ripe for conquest by those aging tier 1 women? I’m guessing we (not me in specific of course, just other tier 1s) might be defective in terms of our megalomania or commitment phobia. James Bond syndrome. So we are essentially out of the game as well (until maybe a much younger tier one or two woman clubs us over the head and aggressively claims us).
Where have all the most appealing men gone? Married young, most of them–and sometimes to women whose most salient characteristic was not their beauty, or passion, or intellect, but their decisiveness. [Link]
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The article concludes with a warning. If you want to win this “game” then follow the advice laid out here. Aggressively choose a mate while you are still young. However, you must first believe that the “prize” is worth winning. That is a much more difficult question. A mate isn’t life’s only prize, or even its most important one depending on your view of things.
42 ΓΒ· Gotta be said…. said
Yes, because, of course, you both were technically virgins. You and your European “friend” were bosom pals, all right. Just playin’, PG. Whatsit between friends, right?
50 ΓΒ· puri said
Like that’s not pejorative π
47 ΓβΓΒ· priya said
VERY good point Priya. Kudos.
On a diff note, NinaP’s point about the bottom 10% of “leftover” men brings to mind a semi-classic article –
Hi, I’m new and delurking for the first time. I’m posting this link for informational purposes only, in the hopes of making folks feel a bit better — there’s a lot of conflicting stuff out there on this topic:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/52295/page/1
By way of background, I’m a 40-year-old married ABD (mom’s Punjabi, dad’s from UP, my husband’s a half Indian/half German 41-year-old AB partial-D). We’ve got a 3rd gen, 7-year-old AB mostly-D. And our extended family is an ethnic mix on both sides. I’m guessing I’m a bit older than most of the folks posting here? Anyway, I don’t recall all this marriage pressure on ABD folks my age. There were so few of us and there was so much incentive to assimilate.
This hardly counts as a flood, especially in the context of the steady stream of such articles. Like Caitlin Flanagan who has made an entire career of writing articles like these in the late 90s through mid 2000s when the economy was doing quite well, that talk show lady Laura something-or-the-other who used to go on an on in the late 90s and early 2000s about how a woman’s job is to serve a man based on Southern Baptist church teachings, and all of these also followed with the mandatory uproar. So, really, the case for this based on the downturn is tenuous at best.
I am not sure how the statistics disprove this. If 90% of the jobs went to men, these statistics would still be true. As for the most dangerous jobs, maybe they have some correlation to physical labor? Which is why men are disproportionately employed in these jobs? Not because society discriminates against men and puts them in those jobs?
(Btw, I think the link to “semi-classic article” is broken, can you fix it? Thanks!)
47 ΓΒ· priya said
Interesting point Priya. However, I think a lot more people are anticipating the cost of having children much more than previously. In fact I read an article recently and I can’t remember where (sorry) about these days it’s a luxury to have more than one or two children. Basically it said only weathly people are having more than two children because they can afford to.
And, of course, Phyllis Schafly who has made a career out of asking other women not to have one, over the last 30 or so years! Through good times and bad.
I’m an old fogey and no good at HTML. Can anyone help?
And it’s not the “classic” article. It’s the follow-up from 20 years later, when Newsweek found that almost all the women that they profiled back in 1987 as having somehow “missed” their chance to get married, ended up getting married and having kids in their late 30s and early 40s. Oh yeah, and they also found that the more education a woman has, the better her odds are of getting married. So, depending on your point of view, there’s an article out there that will back you up.
I was referring to Vinod’s link to a semi-classic article in his comment #53. The link goes to something about exercise and old age, which I assume is not what he intended.
No, love. We smiled because of the (sweet and charming) irony of our hosts assumptions.
There was recently an article in a local paper here advocating “settling”. The woman was a single mom by choice. She couldn’t find the man of her dreams but she wanted a child so she had one and figured she meet Mr. Right a few years down the line. She didn’t. Now she’s pissed at all her married friends who complain about their husbands, offering to take them in when their wives leave them. Her argument is that marriage should be looked at like a small, locally run, non-profit and that if women don’t want to be alone in old age with no one to look after them, they better settle for “ok” and forget about firecrackers going off.
Very desi approach I thought.
However, I thought it was a bit too comprimising. Why can’t you have fireworks and a non-profit?
heh… my bad… fixed the link in the comment.
But! But PG! You’ve told us in the past that ve indians think of all you vite vimmen as sluts who sleep around and that is vy ve marry only indian vimmen. vy vere these hosts so confused about this stereotype that you’ve told us all indians hold?
62 ΓΒ· Rahul fanning himself in shock said
Rahul – you are cracking me up! Thanks for the laugh!
Well, this is just depressing. I guess this reaffirms my fear that I’ll be a spinster
Make that “bachelorette” or “single woman enjoying life to the hilt!”
60 ΓΒ· Gotta be said… said
Personally, I provide the fireworks and my partners provide the profit.
And as for the kanya puja bit, where I come from, kanyas are sometimes required to give blessings before the start of a particular ceremonies, such as the thread ceremony for Hindu males. So a cousin of mine was getting married recently, and I was chosen for as the kanya for his thread ceremony and his pre-wedding puja (because I am a young, unmarried woman). Now, I know for a fact, that some in the room knew/suspected that I wasn’t really a ‘kanya.’ Believe me, many desis can see through your shenanigans, dear PG; they just let things pass, because it doesn’t make a big difference. Acquire from such people a generosity of spirit, and refrain from assaulting us with your BS agenda.
I did blog it late night. Check the time π
Being alone does not translate into “being lonely”.
I still say it’s better to be single and happy, having the freedom to meet and date several people if you wish, than to be stuck with one person in a miserable, monogamous relationship.
Let’s face it. Divorce was invented for very good reasons and in today’s western world, most married people end up divorced anyway. So what’s all of a sudden so attractive about getting hitched these days?
24 ΓΒ· Gotta be said…. said
You won’t believe it, PG, but I quite enjoy it when my partner is beneath me. You ought to try it sometime too.
67 ΓβΓΒ· Abhi said
Oops! I just assumed you did it this morning because I read it this morning.
Well instead of lurking on SM last night I was watching bad reality TV. Not sure which behavior leads more to my single status π
Well, Neisha, I’m forty as well and these “where are all the good men and why are there so many great single women?” stories have been published for my entire adult life π This is nothing new.
I agree there was more, if not pressure, incentive and ease in ‘assimilation’ for our age cohort, but, I have to say, I saw lots of pressure to marry around me growing up, and it wasn’t all just the desis.
*Some people are less picky and want to be married more. QED. Everyone I know who is single and whines about it has someone in the past the turned their nose up at, that later, upon reflection, they decided would have been pretty good marriage material. Grass. Greener….
Chill.
There was no “shenanigan” for these peeps to “see through”. They didn’t even know us. We were told by our host family to quickly bathe and dress nicely, they were taking us out.
Anyway, whatever, it was an enjoyable evening. Whether or not we were kanyas is none of nobody’s bidniz, but we thought the assumption was cute.
72 ΓΒ· Gotta be said…. said
I was talking about what you do on Sepia. Not about your debauched (or otherwise) lifestyle in general.
21 ΓβΓΒ· Nina P said
What a pointless exercise it is to rank yourself against your potential partner. What baffles me about these and “alpha-male” theories is there’s so little talk of love or even compatibility.
Am I the only romantic left in the world? π
55 ΓΒ· Rahul said
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This hardly counts as a flood, especially in the context of the steady stream of such articles. Like Caitlin Flanagan who has made an entire career of writing articles like these in the late 90s through mid 2000s when the economy was doing quite well, that talk show lady Laura something-or-the-other who used to go on an on in the late 90s and early 2000s about how a woman’s job is to serve a man based on Southern Baptist church teachings, and all of these also followed with the mandatory uproar. So, really, the case for this based on the downturn is tenuous at best.It’s not that these articles are new, it’s where they are. Sure the Southern Baptists and conservative Dr. Laura have been telling women to submit to the patriarchy, but Slate? The Atlantic Monthy? This is unusual.
Sorry, Priya, I disagree that this is unusual. You can see these articles with regularity in places like the New York Times for the past 20 to 30 years, pretty much as soon as women started working outside the home with regularity and delaying marriage. Like I said in my post above, I’ve read these sorts of stories every year with regularity in a wide variety of publications, right/left and high/low.
74 ΓΒ· Suchi said
Yes.
Caitlin Flanagan publishes in top-notch mags, and even the NY Times does these articles on the opt-out revolution, there was one a couple of years ago which built entire trends based on a few anecdotes.
Fact remains that the healthiest time to give birth is in your 20’s. So maybe that’s why.
I just can’t figure out why anyone would want to give birth anymore and bring another soul into this deteriorating world. Not to mention that kids today are little disrespectful ***holes.
66 ΓΒ· portmanteau said
Now that you are in America, maybe they just settle for Kanya West.
I agree. I do much much more than rank myself against my potential partner. If you know what I mean.
Oh, rank. I thought it was rankle. No wonder I’m not getting laid – I’d better change my dating strategy.
Bah!! The whole premise of this thread is deeply is flawed!
LOL! Women are the choosers, blah blah. As a guy, that hasn’t been my experience at all nor the experience of my friends.
Let’s NOT go on that because that notion because it’s false and is just an illusion! Man dates Woman for period of time, Woman offers Man “marry me or else” ultimatum, Man dumps needy Woman is by far the more common scenario I’ve seen.
And I swear, only once in my entire life have I’ve even heard of a woman saying no to a marriage proposal. I’m talking about in the States under the pretense of “free” marriage, not Desi-style arranged marriage. This was in college, some I knew girl was offered a ring and marriage proposal straight out of nowhere by some guy who clearly had mental problems.
Socially competent guys who have a sense of self-worth are the choosers, especially guys in their 30’s. Believe me, I’m a short, bald, thoroughly obnoxious man π And I can be and am choosy! Why shouldn’t I be choosy??
And SOOO MUCH has to do with upbringing. Having endured growing up in a household of unhappily married parents and a culture of forced marriage under dubious circumstance. I just have this unshakeable mental connection with marriage, physical and mental stagnation, and misery (even though, yes, I know, there are happily married couples out there).
Oh, btw, yes, I’m ABCD. Before anyone jumps on me, no, I don’t think arranged marriage is an evil or backwards institution or the Western dating isn’t without its very severe flaws. American marriages only last about 7 years on average. And Indian views on relationships, love, and marriage is so much more pragmatic in so many ways. I’m just talking about my personal background and life experience here …
OK I find this hard to believe that in America, a short, bald and thoroughly obnoxious (in his own words) desi man can be choosy.
Choosy amongst whom and how many kids do they have?
VVG @ 11: Abhi is a big boy now. What he does after sunset (or for that matter during day time) is his own “Thang”. My two cents on this: We all are basically “animals’ dressed in nice clothes. The basic instinct is hard wired and will take over all your social etiquette and mores in a split second. In India there is a saying which translate something like this: Marriage is like Iron Channa, sooner or later one takes a bite at it, and some like it, some not”. The age factor begins irrelevant after certain prime age. Speaking about age, Neisha don’t worry if you are over 40. Your’s truly was born two days after the “D-Day. Go figure. By the way Abhi, you can find something better to do than ruin someone’s morning ! I am just saying. Drive safe.
I’ll
kickspank your ass.Hehe, ok, granted, I’m not going after celebrities and supermodels. Do you want specifics? I’m talking about petit Latina and Asian women from mid 20’s to early 30’s with a college education and no kids. Believe it! A short, bald, intelligent, funny, sociable, successful, outgoing, fun-loving, active, physically fit, positive-minded desi man can and will have choices. BELIEVE IT!
But since you called me out, I did lie about one thing. I’m not really obnoxious. I’m actually a pretty nice guy when not responding to blogs I vehemently disagree with π
He did! And that still did not save us. We were doomed from the get-go as we were culturally irrelevent to one another.
24 ΓβΓΒ· Gotta be said….
Competing with each other versus complimenting each other…. guess which one wins?
I guess I have the opposite problem. For some reason, even though I’m an “older woman”, I tend to attract young guys with good looks but no brains. Or some brains but major issues.
Theory of everything in relationships:
Casual relationships/sex: Men want it more than women -> Women have the power
Marriage: Women want it more than men -> Men have the power
Men trade marriage for sex and women trade sex for marriage.
All other theories are derivations and corollaries of this unified theory.
One doesn’t need to be married to have sex.
Theory debunked.
Also, remember that it is women waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than men who gripe about not being satisfied in bed to their friends. It is relatively easy for men to get off. Not so for women, and it is a rare man who is patient and skilled enough to be “super” in bed. Most are just “eh, so-so”, at best.
Sex is very, very, very important to us. But we know that quality is hard to come by so we settle with ordinary lovin’. Most women will agree with me on this.
Harsh but true.
Evolution truly played a cruel joke on the female anatomy! There is no reason why the clit should be so far way from the action. Can’t blame us for that, we try but we ain’t magicians.
7 letters.
O
R
A
L
S
E
X
what a concept, huh?
boring
For you or for her.
Hint; if she finds your performance of oral sex boring, she won’t be calling you for too much longer.
And also, as far as intercourse;
2 syllables
g
spot
PG, the 20s desiguy persona you’ve created clearly epitomizes the types that you get. Why don’t the two of your personalities go off and have a private discussion, since he seems fully able to compete with you?
And SM Intern, can you do something about these comments?
Again, I’ve not created any male persona. That’s a figment of your imagination. The intern can check the IPs. I guarantee I would never write anything like “boring” about oral sex.
Oh geez, this thread is too much fun!
Sexual intercourse at reasonably consistent intervals within the confines of marriage is an implicit assumption and is the norm. Outside of marriage is not. In Indian culture, sexual intercourse outside of marriage is not acceptable. Even in more conservative parts of the United States, it’s not acceptable. Theory has merit and stands.
Phhht! No argument there. Every other talk show host and comedian has some bit on this fact. Nature’s cruel joke …