How others make it through life without Steve Sailer, I don’t know…
My wife raises an interesting point that I’ve never heard anyone discuss. Many of the single women of a certain age who are still actively in the husband-seeking market spend a fortune on themselves to look good and be in the right (i.e., expensive) places to meet Mr. Right.
Thus, an awful lot of them have a lot of debt, especially credit card debt, which they keep rolling over to the tune of many thousands of dollars in interest each year.
The question is: when she finally meets a suitable guy, does her debt tend to discourage the fellow from popping the question?
(…)this emerging system in which two thirtysomethings are interested in getting married, but the potential bride is heavily in debt, so her would-be husband is likely to end up on the hook for it, is more like the African “bride price” system in which the groom pays the bride’s father (or maternal uncle in some societies) fifteen head of cattle (or whatever) for the woman. The groom pays in Africa because he’s going to get a lifetime of hard work hoeing the fields out of his wife. (According to Borat, in Kazakhstan, the going price for a bride is 15 gallons of insecticide.)
But, certainly, the African system is less conducive to monogamy, paternal investment in children, and other socially beneficial things than the European dowry system.
So, maybe this explains some of the ever-increasing illegitimacy rate in America?
