I saw that Dina tweeted this UK Daily Mail article which I think is important because it shows how sensitive married men really are about their wives.
Excerpt:
Male widows are more likely to die shortly after losing their wife than vice versa, new research suggests
Researchers from the Rochester Institute of Technology in America found that grieving husbands were 30 per cent more likely to die after being recently widowed, compared with their normal risk of mortality.
Women, however, did not have any increased risk of dying – perhaps due to them being more independent and prepared, the researchers suggested.
Professor Javier Espinosa, who led the study said: ‘When a wife dies, men are often unprepared.
‘They have often lost their caregiver, someone who cares for them physically and emotionally, and the loss directly impacts the husband’s health.
[...]Prof Espinosa’s study, co-written by William Evans from the University of Notre Dame, was published in the Economics and Human Biology journal.
I think that it’s important not to be deceived into thinking that all men are brutes and have no feelings. Men do have feelings, and they bond to their spouses quite tightly. Women provide men with many things that they need in marriage. Not just sex and submission to leadership, but care, nurturing, attention and approval.
Filed under: News, Approval, Attention, Care, Emotions, Family, Father, Husband, Male, Marriage, Men, Role, Support
When one considers the oft-quoted stat—not sure about the source—that women are the ones to file for divorce 70% of the time …
Fred, it’s not immediately apparent to me what conclusion I’m supposed to draw when I consider the oft-quoted stat. What have you come up with?
Here’s another piece of data about when these woman-initiated divorces happen:
http://ncfmr.bgsu.edu/pdf/family_profiles/file108695.pdf
I think that there are financial incentives in play: alimony and divorce.
A great book on this is “Taken Into Custody” by Dr. Stephen Baskerville.
The main take-away I get from this is that I need to make sure that if I get married, that I am marrying someone who has a record of making self-sacrificial commitments even when they get difficult, and that they have a goal for their lives that is not happiness. There has to be a sense of duty there. For example, one woman I know took care of her father when he was bed-ridden and unwell for months, without complaint. That’s what you’re looking for. Someone who is content with obligations and burdens.
Okay, I see, you have described a good woman. Help me see how this ties in with the post about grieving husbands being 30% more likely to have an early death.
It turns out that men, however bad they appear these days, really mean it when they make commitments, and when the object of the commitment is gone, they have a huge sense of loss and emptiness. They may be brutes, but there is sensitivity under the brutishness. They can’t just go on living as before when their mate is gone. This may be relevant to the way that men are unwilling to end a marriage commitment – maybe they are easier to please or maybe they just take the commitment seriously and don’t care if they are happy or not.
“‘They have often lost their caregiver, someone who cares for them physically and emotionally, and the loss directly impacts the husband’s health.”
That’s the “liberal” interpretation.
The realistic interpretation is that these men have lost their reason to continue living.
Normal men tend to live their lives self-sacrificailly; for most of us, the thing/person for which we sacrifice ourselves is our family. When the children are grown and our wives — to most of us, the most important person in the world — suddenly dies, we tend to see no further reason to go on living. And, so, we die.
Saint Paul commands wives to submit to their humbands — and commands husbands to love thier wives self-sacrificially, as Christ loves the church.
Now, the thing is, men tend to live according to that command anyway … and women tend not.
Okay, I gotcha. What, if anything, do you (and perhaps Fred Woodbridge, III) take this study to say about women?
I posted before llion’s remarks came through. Does this study verify your conclusion “…and women tend not”?
Also, are you saying that Paul made the corresponding commands for husbands and wives, but it was unnecessary for him to do so for the men, and futile to do so for the women?