A few years ago, during a conversation with my friend-Kwame A. Plus—he laughingly said, Chris, we need to find the person who instituted marriage and managed to get even smart men to fall for it, to beat the hell out of him.
Men have for centuries been at a disadvantage in relation to marriage. It is an institution that I believe was purposefully put in place to protect women.
And over the years, women have seen the great benefits this arrangement offers them to the extent that in Africa, many women spend hours praying and fasting for the mercies of God to locate them—so that a man can marry them.
Men, on the other hand, are fighting against this robust institution and they are having serious conversations which is leaving many uninterested in getting hitched.
A lot of men believe that marriage is a scam. Of course, it is a scam and every smart man has always known this. However, is that enough to prevent an engagement with the institution? After all, there is an exit option, called divorce.
Any relationship that is fundamentally disproportionate, which is what most men-women relationships are, is a scam. One heavily benefits and the other is unendingly at a disadvantage.
Do you really think Bill Gates, one of the smartest men the world has ever seen, didn’t anticipate for even a second in his life that his marriage could one day break down? Of course, he did, he couldn’t just be bothered—because he is aware of the exit path and he knew he could use it if necessary without completely losing it.
If there was no divorce, an astronomical number of smart men in the world wouldn’t ever get married. All that a smart man requires as a buffer to taking risks is an option to pull out of the risky enterprise when it becomes too much to bear.
Do not be deceived for a minute that a lot of men are unaware that these relationships or marriages they enter benefit them less compared to women.
In Africa, a man literally walks into the home of another family to “adopt” an adult woman as his dependant—to protect and provide for this woman—and it is added that he has to do this until death does them apart.
And some men will have 3 or 4 of such arrangements concurrently. That’s really a bad deal—but then a man is a man—he is also conditioned to feel important this way and some sort of masculinity is found in providing and protecting for women and children.
In many other contemporary settings where modern women and men reside today, it is not as blue as this. The woman actively contributes to the relationship and could even believe that without a man she would be better—and some are indeed better without men.
But that’s not the case for many. Men are undeniably at a disadvantage in these settings too—especially when the union ends and children are involved.
Even when the wheel of the vehicle is on the road, the man has to push harder for the comfort, sustenance, and general well-being of the relationship—compared to the woman.
It cannot be argued that the modern man’s disregard for marriage or anything akin to marriage is not founded on the discovery that such arrangements put them at a grave disadvantage—and that many women are just looking for an easy way out of life by clutching at them.
Marriage or durable relationships used to be the only go-to shop for a better life for many women. Now having a child with a sensible man can also offer you this comfortable lifestyle—a far less stressful arrangement with little to do for this man in return for a desiring lifestyle or support.
So, the smart man is aware that all these relationships including marriage are part of those societal scams but what drives these men is the ability to look at fire and walk into it—with the mindset that if the pain becomes excruciating, they have the power to quench it or just leave.
This is why someone like Rupert Murdoch, 92, is still set to marry his 5th wife, Ann Lesley Smit (66 years). Do you think Murdoch has not learned anything from his 4 failed marriages already?
All I am saying is, smart men, are well aware of this scam—they are just cooking strategies to minimize the impact and counter the control the scam offers women. Some are even completely avoiding it for their own sanity.
–Chris-Vincent Agyapong
