Even if you understand partial facts, it is not obvious what kind of balance they create. You understand what, you still don’t understand why. You can’t think about “what if...?” scenarios.
Like, those unmarried 25 years old girls in the 19th century… okay, I understand that if the most attractive men had a social approval and encouragement to marry 20 years old girls regardless of their own age, then yeah, the most attractive men were no longer available as partners. But what about the other men?
Did they have a large group of single women and a large group of single men, who regarded each other as marriageable? Or did the men die so much more (e.g. in wars) that there were simply too many women, so under the rule of monogamy many of them couldn’t marry? That would surprise me a bit, because I expected the opposite situation: women dying at childbirth.
After discussing this with my wife (who is more familiar with the 19th century literature), my best guess is that there were indeed both many unmarried women and unmarried men, such as too old women, and too poor men. We perceive the situation asymmetrically, because (1) no one cares about the suffering of poor men, so we only have stories about the suffering of 25 years old girls who missed the train; (2) the situation for women was irreversible, once you are over 25, you will always be over 25, while the poor man still has a chance to e.g. win a lottery, so it’s not like it is completely over for him. Basically, for average men the situation changes from worse to better as they start making money, while for average women the situation changes from better to worse as they start running out of time.
EDIT: Also, there was a lack of jobs for the unmarried women, so the unmarried woman over 25 was also doomed economically, regardless of how smart and conscientious she was. The unmarried man could at least get a job (and if he couldn’t, then it feels like he deserved the poverty).
it used to be worse in 90s, when we used to have severed human heads in flower pots and whatnot.
Yup, can confirm. Kids these days don’t know how bad it used to be relatively recently, and how about 50% of people voted for the bad things back then.
There must have been a group of solitary men, but there was no social stigma attached to being a bachelor. Zweig discusses the topic in a chapter dedicated to women and does not mention solitary men per se. However, there are few pages about prostitution and how crazy widespread it used to be. He compares it to inter-war period—which itself may seem pretty bad to us today. The prostitution of course cuts in only one way and the whole chapter sheds some light on the dynamic. The entire book is worth reading. Recommended.
Even if you understand partial facts, it is not obvious what kind of balance they create. You understand what, you still don’t understand why. You can’t think about “what if...?” scenarios.
Like, those unmarried 25 years old girls in the 19th century… okay, I understand that if the most attractive men had a social approval and encouragement to marry 20 years old girls regardless of their own age, then yeah, the most attractive men were no longer available as partners. But what about the other men?
Did they have a large group of single women and a large group of single men, who regarded each other as marriageable? Or did the men die so much more (e.g. in wars) that there were simply too many women, so under the rule of monogamy many of them couldn’t marry? That would surprise me a bit, because I expected the opposite situation: women dying at childbirth.
After discussing this with my wife (who is more familiar with the 19th century literature), my best guess is that there were indeed both many unmarried women and unmarried men, such as too old women, and too poor men. We perceive the situation asymmetrically, because (1) no one cares about the suffering of poor men, so we only have stories about the suffering of 25 years old girls who missed the train; (2) the situation for women was irreversible, once you are over 25, you will always be over 25, while the poor man still has a chance to e.g. win a lottery, so it’s not like it is completely over for him. Basically, for average men the situation changes from worse to better as they start making money, while for average women the situation changes from better to worse as they start running out of time.
EDIT: Also, there was a lack of jobs for the unmarried women, so the unmarried woman over 25 was also doomed economically, regardless of how smart and conscientious she was. The unmarried man could at least get a job (and if he couldn’t, then it feels like he deserved the poverty).
Yup, can confirm. Kids these days don’t know how bad it used to be relatively recently, and how about 50% of people voted for the bad things back then.
There must have been a group of solitary men, but there was no social stigma attached to being a bachelor. Zweig discusses the topic in a chapter dedicated to women and does not mention solitary men per se. However, there are few pages about prostitution and how crazy widespread it used to be. He compares it to inter-war period—which itself may seem pretty bad to us today. The prostitution of course cuts in only one way and the whole chapter sheds some light on the dynamic. The entire book is worth reading. Recommended.