Subscribe
Many conservatives view marriage as one of the cornerstones of traditional Western society. Marriage creates bonds of loyalty between individuals, alliances between families, and a stable foundation for child-rearing and social life.
However, marriage entails a degree of risk for the individual. It is an investment in the future. The individual joins forces with another person, pledging mutual fidelity and love—a loyalty that must hold true not only in times of happiness but also in times of adversity.
Consequently, marriage also carries risk. It is not primarily the institution of marriage itself that poses the danger, but rather the person one chooses to marry. After all, one might marry the wrong person, and that can have disastrous consequences.
Certain earlier European writers devoted remarkable attention to the risks inherent in marriage. The 16th-century French author François Rabelais bases the greater part of his 1546 book “The Third Book of Pantagruel” on the protagonist Panurge’s hesitation regarding marriage. Should he really get married? Might he not end up the unhappiest man in the world? Does he not risk marrying a woman who could betray him, thereby bringing shame upon his name and person? And how is he to find out? How can he know whom to choose?
In the 17th century, the playwright Molière revisited this theme. One of his famous comic characters is Arnolphe from the 1662 play “The School for Wives”. Arnolphe is so obsessed with the impossibility of guaranteeing marital happiness in advance that he attempts to raise—and in a sense, create—his future wife himself. She is to be molded exactly according to his dreams of the perfect wife, and she is to be so naive and ignorant that she does not even realize other men exist besides the husband assigned to her.
Naturally, however, Arnolphe fails. In this context, the moral of Molière’s story is that no one can escape the perils inherent in marriage. We can marry the wrong person; we can make ourselves miserable through our choice of spouse. We can be cheated out of both love and money, and we can even suffer psychological and physical abuse. In short, we can marry our way into our own unhappiness.
In modern times, the public debate focuses primarily on the risks women face when they partner with, for instance, violent men. Men can be antisocial; they can be psychopaths or narcissists; they can be violent. Furthermore, men in Europe may originate from parts of the world where women and wives do not hold the same status as they do in the West—a fact that may become apparent only after a few years of marriage or when a woman seeks a divorce.
Recently, however, new and somewhat different voices have emerged in online discussions. Psychologists and other observers are now warning against so-called “Cluster B women”—women whom men should avoid.
“Cluster B” is a classification within the theory of psychological disorders, referring to individuals suffering from various forms of narcissistic and borderline personality disorders. Borderline personality disorder is a diagnosis primarily attributed to women.
Psychiatrist and psychotherapist Hannah Spier advocates for awareness of this issue on both YouTube and her own Substack. She argues that we are witnessing a growing social problem involving “Cluster B” women who are unable to manage normal social relationships. This has repercussions in the workplace but, above all, in family life.
Spier believes that our persistent idealization of women in general prevents us from seeing how many marriages and parent-child relationships are being destroyed today by emotionally immature women.
Common traits among these women include hypersensitivity to criticism, a tendency to dwell on negativity, and constant anxiety or panic; their response to this state is often to lash out aggressively—not only at colleagues but also at spouses, parents, children, and the children of new partners.
Regarding marriage specifically, Spier argues that men today have every reason to be extremely cautious about entrusting their own future, and that of their children, to such Cluster B women. Young men need to examine the life histories of the women they wish to marry, as well as how those women handle relationships with their parents and past boyfriends. And the moment red flags appear—such as unprovoked anger or aggression—they should simply walk away.
We know today that approximately 70 percent of divorces are initiated by women. We also know that lesbian marriages have the highest divorce rates. Perhaps we need to be less naive when urging young men to get married and have children. For many men, marriage and family life are, in fact, nothing but a ticket to hell. Unfortunately, that is the reality.