Why Men Don’t Marry Bitches: My Response to the book “Why Men Marry Bitches”

Table of Contents

Vernacular aside, the title alone tells you everything you need to know. I will start with the initial premises as to why this is wrongheaded and then end with some places where we find common ground. I will discuss the three opening premises of the book and then discuss the area where the author gets it and we seem to have common ground. In many of the following paragraphs, I will revisit my theory about the projection attraction that women engage in when it comes to what they tell each other men find attractive. The basic premise of this principle is that what women find attractive in men, men find the same thing attractive in women. This is often not the case, and I hate to spoil a half century of feminism, but men and women are not exactly alike and therefore do not necessarily find the same things attractive. That being said, the following paragraphs contain the aforementioned discussion of her initial book premises.

Premise 1: Confidence
“This first item on his checklist: She is confident.” Now, if you were to ask men about their checklists, I promise that this would not be the first thing virtually any men say is their number one thing. Women absolutely find confident men attractive, but for men, this is more of a nice-to-have than necessary for attraction. It may enhance a man’s attraction to a woman, but it is not a make-or-break unless all other things included are equal. If a man is not already attracted to a woman in the first place, her being confident is unlikely to make it so. On the other hand, this is often the case for women. Confidence is a personality trait that is a strong marker for competence among other positive personality qualities women would find attractive.

Premise 2: Being Interesting
“The second item on his checklist: She is interesting.” And again, this is engaging in the same attraction projection that we have discussed so far in this article. This again tends to fall into the category of it would be nice for a woman to have this but is not necessary in order for a man to appreciate a woman. I understand that for women’s attraction, an interesting man implies someone who has likely achieved a lot, seen a lot, and knows a lot of things. But for men, oftentimes one of the greatest parts in life when it comes to women is sharing the finer things in life with them and showing them and teaching them the way. If a man is not given this opportunity because she already knows all of these things and has already done all of those things without him, then what does he have to share with her?! And often, a man might wonder, how does she know about all of these things?! How did she learn this?! Who did she already go there with?! And if she did it all on her own via her own work ethic, what price did she pay in years of her life to get and endless hours in the office to achieve this?! Again, this would be filed more in the category of nice-to-have, but not necessary for attraction.

Premise 3: Independence
“The third item on his checklist: She doesn’t need me.” This one is interesting to me because I would say I come down somewhere in the middle on this one. Overall, it is probably best when looking for a wife for a man to find a woman who is emotionally independent, i.e., she can take care of things on her own without his help, so I do agree here. But in addition to that, I think it is a bit more nuanced than that because if you are going to have a true partner in life and, as Jocko Willink would put it, “Marry someone you would go to war with,” I think rather than independence here, you’re looking for something more like interdependence. In a marriage or long-term relationship, two people can get much further together by working together as one via interdependence than they can working independently and alone. But to her point, I think independence to start with before you are with someone else is a prerequisite for interdependence.

Finding Common Ground
That being said, these three rules aside, I do think the author has a better understanding of the interplay of masculinity and femininity than her initial opening stanzas let on, and I may have judged her too harshly. Not long after these rules are laid out, she talks in her chapter, Changing the Game, about how all a woman needs to do to hook a man is to be “soft, charming, and feminine and enjoyable to be around; he will hook himself.” She goes on to say, “Men want to be chivalrous. They want a woman they can cherish and do everything for.” Now, those are statements that I agree with and are absolutely true. They tend to contradict her initial checklist but are correct nonetheless.

I think this is the main thing that has been lost in much of the interplay of sexual dynamics and dating advice for women in 2024. Yet here it is in the exact book I am critiquing for giving bad advice. So maybe what I’m trying to say is the divide isn’t as big as I initially thought it was. There is just a bad signal-to-noise ratio making it more difficult to find the good, accurate, and true stuff, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.

In the above paragraphs, I went through some female dating advice for women on how to achieve a better dating life with men. I went through three of her opening arguments on what she proposes are on men’s checklist in what they look for in women, why this isn’t necessarily true, and then I went through a place where I agree with the author on how true commitment from a man is achieved in a relationship.