If you type the words “why do marriages fail” into your search engine, you’ll find dozens of lists by both religious and secular writers. They include the basics, like “financial stress”, “failure to communicate”, and the like. Those lists are definitely valuable and you should check them out, but this is about something else. This will take some time, and it might take some patience for you to read. If you’re struggling with your marriage or some other relationship involving how men and women get along though, I hope you’ll take whatever time is needed to understand it and to share it with your wife or husband. The Bible says in proverbs, “Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird“. For our purposes, WE are the birds. Just seeing that can make a big difference if your marriage is in trouble. Please read on!
There are three basic points that you may not have considered.
Point #1: Men MUST please their wives
In 1983 my then wife and I were shopping for our step-up home for our growing family. We used a technique known as the “Ben Franklin list” to help in our decision. That entailed listing all the pros on one side of a page and all the cons on the other. The idea is to go with the longer list.
After a month or two of searching without success, my wife and I, along with the real estate agent, were growing impatient. Then one day my wife brought up a place that we’d seen, but that our Ben Franklin list definitely ruled out. It was a fixer-upper that needed way more work than I wanted to get into. The roof sagged, there was foundation damage, and sumac had taken over the barn area. When my wife said that she could see us living there, I quietly walked away and began to think. The next day I asked her to see the new Ben Franklin list I’d done on the place and to my surprise and hers, it included almost twenty reasons to buy it, and only one or two against.
I wasn’t pretending: I really REALLY didn’t like the house, and for very good reasons. When she said those words though, it only took a few hours to completely change my mind to the point where I actually was searching for reasons to put on that list, just so it would still be MY idea to buy it… that is, to make it a smart move. It was humbling to see how powerful my wife’s words were to me. I was too insecure to admit any of this to her at the time, but I felt like a dog on the end of a leash anxious to please my master. “Wow”, I remember thinking. “Do the advertisers know anything about this?”
We did buy the house, and it turned out to be a great place to raise our family. I didn’t forget the way I changed my mind though. My wife’s words put me on a white horse, and I just HAD to provide what she wanted, no matter what. What a powerful selling tool! Sell the women, and let the women sell their men.
Point #2: The advertisers finally get it
Television is the most powerful influencer ever invented. I read Vance Packard’s “The Hidden Persuaders” when in college. In it he describes the early 1950’s television ad campaign that turned a losing cigarette into the number one brand in only a year or two without changing the cigarette itself at all. It simply showed a man on a horse with a cigarette in his mouth. Men by the millions saw themselves on that horse, and the cash registers have been ringing up Marlboro cigarette sales ever since.
So television ads certainly work, but what about using women to sell men? I’m not an expert on television programming, but the earliest show that I can think of that showed any interest in cashing in on this “win the female and you’ve won the male” idea was Home Alone. Recall that Tim Allen played a slightly goofy comedy guy who was always blowing up the home with his garage projects. In the background you can probably see his wife with her arms crossed and a “there he goes again” look on her face. The kids of course were on board with it. Mom was the brains in the family. We love our Dad, but everybody can see that Mom’s really the one who knows best. Guys: Who decides what programs your family watches? Are you sure about that?
Home Alone was in the early ’90’s. We as a family stopped watching television altogether about then, but years later when TV series became available without commercials as DVD sets, I discovered Law and Order. The first two seasons from the early nineties featured “alpha” males as leaders, but included women mostly as comedy-relief judges. Suddenly in season three we see a major reversal, showing female captains who were definitely NOT there for their comedy value.
Once the advertisers learned that they could get an automatic boost in their client’s product sales of 20, or even 30 percent, the hand-writing was on the wall. The era of dumb blond and women driver jokes is over. It’s womens’ turn now. Until men stop needing to please the women in their lives, which is to say NEVER, then get used to it. Everything you see on a page or screen will be geared to please women from now on. Unfortunately, the bad news for men doesn’t stop there. Read on.
Point #3: The 30-second principle
Q: What do billboards, website home pages and TV ads all have in common? They each need to make their point and persuade in 30 seconds or less.
Of this whole process, this is the part that’s probably most damaging to all male/female relationships, and the best single answer to the question, “why do marriages fail” in America today. Why? For a moment, imagine that you’re a television ad executive:
If you’re a creator of television ads that sell, then just creating media that focuses on women isn’t enough. Here’s the real challenge. How to you first grab women’s attention, then convince them that you’re on their side? Communicate what your product is and what it does. And finally, your ad has to somehow evoke an emotional response in women that’s powerful enough to move them to buy whatever it is that you’re selling. “Impossible”, you say? That’s not what the creators of the online hotel scheduling company said when they made the following television commercial.
A young couple is standing in a hotel room that the husband arranged without the wife’s help. She looks disappointed with the room, and he tries to reassure her when an air hammer outside drowns out his words. The stupid husband/wise wife approach is easy to create and it works! In this ad the wife wears successful business executive clothing. The husband wears a baseball cap cocked to the side with hair sticking out like a foolish teenager.
Coincidence? NOTHING in these ads is ever coincidence. Not when corporations are spending millions to create and broadcast them. Like the guy on the horse smoking a Marlboro, this is the world of subliminal influence. You’re being tricked into buying their product. If it stopped there that would be one thing. Sadly, falling for their marketing plan, you’re also inadvertently learning how to treat the opposite sex. That’s the part that’s costly: Not the cost of the product they’re trying to get you to buy.
While here, let’s differentiate between equal rights for women and how men and women treat each other. I’m talking about how men need to please their wives, and how the advertising industry uses that fact to make more money. Some of the ways they achieve that create unfortunate dynamics in male/female relationships. Of course women should be eligible for roles previously held by men. And of course they should make the same money as men in the same roles.