How to Pick a Husband

That's right, I said, "how to pick". They don't pick you, you pick them. Women have all the power, especially if they know the game they are playing.

That's assuming you want a husband. And if you don't want one now but you think you will later, it's never too soon to start considering it.

There was this show a while back called "Judging Amy". In one of the episodes Amy's friends all (separately) tell her about the guy she's dating: "He's not your type". And Amy wonders aloud, "do I have a type?"
And the answer to that question is, "Oh yes, Amy, you DO have a type."

What her friends really meant, what people usually mean when they say something about someone's type, is that "he's not good enough for you", or "you can do better". Those sentiments have been unfashionable since my mother was a girl (World War II), in fact unsayable, except for in stories about olden times. Because: around that time a pernicious notion became all powerful: that Love was all you needed, and Love could strike any one at any time. (Pernicious, by the way, means harmful. And if you think I should just say harmful....maybe this won't be your favorite blog.) This notion worked well for World War II, when it was in everyone's best reproductive interest to get pregnant as soon as possible, in case the opportunity didn't come again, but on the whole, and particularly now, it is a terrible idea.

Being in love is a real thing, and I'll write another post about that, but it is NOT all you need for a successful marriage. It helps a lot, but there are other things too, things you need to consider logically. In traditional societies, young people were not allowed to make their own decisions about who to marry, and there are a lot of advantages to have parents do the picking. Namely they are older, wiser, and have more life experience.

So, for the logical half. The things to consider are,

• Will this man be a good provider? A good money earner? Faithful? A good father?
• could I reasonably call this guy my best friend? Do we have similar interests? Share a sense of humor? Does he like to talk about stuff I like to talk about? These things will help a LOT when the love glow wears down.
• What is his family like? It's not that it can't work to marry someone with an unsuitable family, it just makes it a lot harder. And in general, the more they are like your family, the better that bodes....unless you are pretty sure that your family is too dysfunctional to count as a role model.
• Is he the same race, religion, and politics? How important are these things to you? Again--not necessarily deal-breakers, but.
• How good a catch are you for him? And (as a reminder, from (What do men want post)), how good a catch you are for him is mainly about looks. That is not 100% true, but--all other factors, for him, matter way less than they do for you.

And, here's a preview of something I'll write more about later: it is a really good idea to "marry down", ie, marry someone for whom you are a great catch, someone whose friends might tell him (at first) that you are out of his league. This man will be easy to catch, and he is more likely to be faithful and devoted in the future.

Does this mean you can choose anyone you want to? Well, no. Not unless you are gorgeous and of a wonderful temperament. What it means is that you can figure out who your real choices are, and pick from that list. Does that seem depressing? Really, it's not. Not unless you have a wildly inaccurate view of your own attractiveness--or unless you are reading from the Disney songbook, or otherwise subscribing to the Pernicious Big Lie that anyone can fall in love with anyone, and all you really need in order for prince charming to show up is a heart of gold.