Such a great exchange! And your perspective of one who 'shoots' weddings (instead of messengers;) is such an interesting one. I'm imagining the juxtaposition of seeing how hopeful people are on their wedding days alongside the backdrop of divorce rates...that really makes you think about this topic.

I'm not sure, but I get the impression that some men and women who would prefer to be married end up accepting their partner's preference to not be married, with the implicit "If you want to keep me, you have to be ok with not getting married", so it does seem these differences do work themselves out.

Here's something I'd love to get your take on: I've seen divorced men who vow "I'll never get married again", but then, eventually, they do end up getting married again. So...I wonder if in those cases they go back to the 'manosphere' and say, "Hey everyone, you know how I said I won't do that marriage thing ever again? Well...I believed it at that time, but I changed my mind."

I feel almost compulsive about wanting to edit everything I write after having such a great exchange. From Reason # 2, "Women are happier married", you seem to think I meant that "women are more happy married." In the body, I specified some women--such as those who aren't voluntarily divorced--may have been happier married than they are afterwards when single. That's only a reason that some women may want to get re-married. It's only true of some women and is just meant to help some men understand--if a woman was happy when married, it's not surprising that she may not view re-marriage as a bad thing. I didn't intend it as a statistic nor to imply women are happy married. Lawd knows there are plenty of women who weren't happy married. Cossette, another reader, just pointed out that she was very unhappy in her marriage. So that makes me think that #2 is pretty misleading if it's not qualified by the content under it.

I guess that's the nature of writing--always wondering if something could have been presented more precisely...then again, it's just these sort of imprecise words that generate good exchanges so...maybe I don't mind the imperfections so much:)