Much discourse has been had regarding the crisis of men in our times; it appears, in this modern age of both technology and ideas, that millions of men around the globe are succumbing to an abject melancholy and reduction of spirit. While one might assume that the evolution of society would disproportionately affect the elder generations — those rooted in their outdated ways and susceptible to “wrong” ways of thinking — many of the ills fall squarely upon the shoulders of the boys and young men of the day.
The troubles for boys are mounting indeed. They struggle in academics compared to their female counterparts; to the point where some say boys should be held back for a year in order to “catch up” to the girls who are mentally and socially more mature and thus prepared for grade school sooner. After they have (eventually) matured, chaps are also less likely to attend a post-secondary institution than their counterparts. UFV’s own data shows that the female-to-male population ratio is 57 per cent to 43 per cent, which is in-line with Canada’s overall discrepancy. This trend does not simply disadvantage men in the workforce. College-educated women are less likely to partner up with a man who lacks a comparable collegiate background. This has made men with degrees a commodity, while those without are rendered less-viable prospects. There may be more fish in the sea, but the ones with degrees are not biting.
The workforce has also changed for men. Many jobs requiring physical labour have been offshored, and as workplaces shift to a knowledge and service economy, men are finding fewer opportunities for jobs that pay well. This continues to hurt their prospects for long-term romance, as many educated women still prefer relationships with fellows who earn at least a comparable salary. Those who seek a life in the military are also at a disadvantage, as “Gen Z’s” sedentary upbringing has resulted in a pitiable skeleton prone to injuries in training.
Simultaneously, technology has aggravated anti-social behaviours. Lads raised like veal develop fewer meaningful relationships, and many struggle to fathom basic social agreements. That a woman posting provocative photos or selling online content does not greenlight the universal sexualization and commodification of all women should not be an enlightened concept, and yet this reality seems entirely outside the grasp of many. The village it takes to raise these pups has replaced accountability and instruction with shame and societal rejection. A systemic lack of appropriate mentorship, guidance, and empathy leads to many juveniles slowly transforming from their mother’s sweet Jekyll, to the Hyde of their online avatar or gamertag.
A gravitational force in their own right, these wayward adolescents find each other online and congregate behind truly toxic personalities. These guru bros are more than willing to separate their woeful flock from whatever modest earnings haven’t yet been spent to see a boob. Devoid of deep friendships, romantic partners, academic successes, and fulfilling careers, a bounty of lost boys are becoming lonelier, angrier, and starved of hope. The rising rates of the involuntarily celibate (“incels”) points to a troubling undercurrent of societal washouts, and it seems that neither these despondent man-babies, nor their respective nations, are equipped to address the root causes.
These new challenges have arrived just as the economy kicked an entire generation squarely in the genitals. The prospect of home ownership for those not already in the market has become almost unimaginable, save three factors: a substantial dual-income relationship, help from parents, and inheritance. It is here that I make my proposal: we should, with all due haste, return to the normalization and institutionalization of the dowry.
A dowry is a gift in the form of money, goods, or property — typically paid by the family of the bride — in exchange for marriage. It is, in part, an incentive a family would pay to marry off their daughters, who were societally deemed less favourable than sons. To put it crudely, fathers would shell out to unload their daughters onto a husband, and a hefty dowry could increase the pool of suitors and better their child’s prospects. The practice has largely fallen out of favour, but the custom leaves traces, like a traditional expectation that the bride’s family pays for the wedding.
It seems we need the dowry again — but this time for our young men. It is a win-win proposition. Women are better educated, more hirable, and more selective in their mates, but despite these advantages, struggle to find either a suitable partner or an affordable home. Alternatively, many men have become ill-suited to modern school and modern work, ill-prepared for close relationships, vulnerable to predatory “alpha” influencers, and infused with a deep-seated doubt about any tangible self worth — but they are worth something — a handsome down payment. If society writ large doesn’t value the lads it’s leaving behind, perhaps their parents will.
I do not make this case for myself, and I’ve no children of my own. I make this plea for the good of society as a whole. This proposal has been given a great deal of care and consideration, and the tangible benefits are clear. First, the pairing of partners based on real estate will help to form more lasting unions, as many couples who have signed onto a mortgage will quickly find themselves house-poor and lashed together by circumstance. Once firmly pushed from the nest, young men will have little choice but to ensure that they remain an acceptable partner. The housing and rental market being what it is, it would certainly be preferable for men to be dutiful husbands, rather than venture out into a basement suite that evaporates a majority of their income.
As well, although birth rates are historically low, many people still desire to have children who would benefit from a stable home environment. Especially in situations where the father earns less, it makes sense for them to spend the first years of their child’s life at home with the kids. Having an active and engaged parent throughout a child’s earliest stages of development will serve as a social benefit for all — in part, because children who have such supportive upbringings do better later in life — but also because it may be possible for fathers to absorb some of the pro-social themes of their children’s entertainment, which sadly, many seem to have missed out on themselves.
This re-imagining of the nuclear family dynamic should appease both progressives and conservatives alike, as the former have advocated for greater opportunities for women for many decades, while the latter has pushed for a re-emphasis on the importance of two-parent households on child-rearing, and the value of a stay-at-home parent. As far as I can tell, neither camp has taken a favorable position on reducing male role-models in the home, so this compromise should be satisfactorily non-partisan.
The return to a dowry for men of marrying age will also have ripple-effects throughout the culture, as parents reassess their roles in preparing their children for adulthood. Lads who might otherwise be left to their own devices will begin to see a shift in their adolescence. Certainly the modern incarnation of “Prom” will adapt to an earlier conception.
Prom is of course, short for promenade, a tradition rooted in debutante balls in which families would introduce their children to society. Prom was a coming-of-age expectation with a long and storied past, as any fan of the works of Jane Austen (or Bridgerton) will quickly recognize. However, while young men of the age could demonstrate their manners, social standing, and their ability to procure a good tailor, women’s experience was somewhat more transactional. Promenade, borrowed from the French term “to walk,” was a means of parading one’s daughters about like horses at a country auction. Fathers could appraise would-be suitors, rejecting those who did not meet their standards.
In January of this year, Xochitl Gonzalez, a writer for The Atlantic wrote “The New Case for Social Climbing.” In the article, Gonzalez states:
“I am here to make a modern case for social climbing. (…) To destigmatize and demystify the art form — because it surely is an art. One that I don’t believe any of us can afford to ignore in this era of growing income inequality, decreasing social mobility, and increased isolation — particularly not young people who are stymied by the state of capitalism and boxed in by lack of opportunity, and who, more and more, work and socialize online. Meritocracy is make-believe; wealth is elusive. But there’s one form of capital that is not finite, and it is social.”
This seems to reinforce the virtues of my proposal. Merit and hard work alone can no longer be counted on to wrestle established wealth and equity from the clutches of the twenty-first century landed gentry. Those who own property outright can leverage that capital into new wealth — for example — by buying up all the new condo developments and living on the income of the exorbitant rents they charge. The very idea that tenants can simultaneously save for their own down-payments while supporting a new leisure class of rentiers would be laughable if it weren’t so profoundly sad. The marriage of income to inheritance has clearly also become one of necessity.
With this expectational shift, parents may take greater care to educate their boys in virtues that often go underserved. Selective women will want to ensure not only that their prospective mates are well-mannered, of good breeding stock, and capable of grilling more than a cheese sandwich. They will also select against men who believe Clitoris to be the name of an Elf in a Lord of the Rings adaptation that they intend to deride regardless of their eventual enlightenment. If tutoring boys in the art of seduction seems radical, it’s worth pointing to the past education of aristocratic young women for just how far we’ve taken that idea before.
It’s even possible that pornography will change. Previous generations of young lads whose sexual awakenings were rooted in provocative cinema, troves of stashed magazines, or the finding of a random Sears catalog, are often taken aback by the accessibility and content of today’s pornographic ecosystem. Publications like Playboy, which would print completed questionnaires on the back of their centerfolds — alongside interview-based articles specifically to humanize their subjects — have been replaced by content that often reduces women to objects of strict sexual gratification who are coerced into performing increasingly dehumanizing acts to satiate their ravenous audience. The commodification of sex, combined with a reduced appreciation for women as human beings and revolutions in artificial intelligence (AI) has led to an uptick in “deepfake” videos and revenge-porn. Parents who fear their sons minds could be corrupted by this content may finally stop avoiding “the talk” and invest in producing sexually literate youngsters.
I am, of course, open to all suggestions for rectification. The challenges we face are significant and mounting, and we must put our collective shoulders to the societal wheel if we want to avoid a future of gender wars seen elsewhere. Wealth is being consolidated at an alarming rate while opportunities to bridge the economic gap are dwindling. Prices, like isolation, anxiety, depression, and addiction, continue to rise. Hope, on the other hand, is plummeting. We could, as a society, decide to address these plagues — to ensure adequate affordable housing, rebuild communities, diversify jobs, stem the impact of toxic media, curb addiction, reform education, guide our children, and generally give people a reason to cherish the future. But that seems hard when we can just pay someone to take the most hopeless of our boys off our hands — so it’s probably what we’ll end up doing anyway.
Long ago, when DeLoreans roamed the earth, Brad was born. In accordance with the times, he was raised in the wild every afternoon and weekend until dusk, never becoming so feral that he neglected to rewind his VHS rentals. His historical focus has assured him that civilization peaked with The Simpsons in the mid 90s. When not disappointing his parents, Brad spends his time with his dogs, regretting he didn’t learn typing in high school.
