My Chinese Wife and Marriage Entitlement Ideologues

When I first meet a woman roughly my own age (retired) and start conversing,  typical questions are about occupation and/or family.  Usually the questions about occupation terminate quickly after I mention that I was a scientist specializing in Monte Carlo methods;  there is not usually a mutual interest in science.  Inasmuch as I married late (38 years old) and I married a Chinese woman (27) from Shanghai, people, especially women are often very curious.  After the second or third time answering questions about my Chinese wife, I developed a fairly standard response, as indicated below.  The marriage entitlement ideologues seem to go crazy when I mention that I married a Shanghai woman who was not financially dangerous to me.

Timing

My understanding of family law made a late marriage likely. (I am analytical by nature, which is perhaps why science and mathematics appealed to me.)  Marriage stood out as probably the most financially risky gamble that I would ever make.  (See https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2018/01/dont-think-with-your-dick-valuable.html)  Family law often considered valuable licenses, credentials, and degrees as marital property if they were obtained during the marriage. Family law then credited the spouse with half the value of the degree in a divorce. Thus, it made no sense to consider marriage before obtaining my PhD. So, the law is responsible for some of the reasons that I did not start thinking about marriage and a family until after finishing my PhD.



Why a Chinese (Shanghai) Wife?

The short answer is that she was the first woman I wanted that said "yes."

I had made a very good stock market investment while working a bit between MS and PhD degrees. These large premarital assets needed to be protected by a prenuptial agreement.  I wanted a wife who was intellectually attractive, physically attractive, young enough to start a family, and not financially dangerous to me.

Perhaps it is different today, but 30 or 40 years ago most women I met were fervently against negotiating prenuptial contracts.  If I married a woman who would not negotiate compromises on a marriage contract, why would I believe she would compromise during the marriage? It made no sense to me.  These women clearly had very different values and a very different idea of fairness than I had.   These women and I were mutually unsuitable for marriage.  (At this point many of the women hearing my story volunteered, unprompted, that they would never have negotiated a prenuptial contract. Perhaps it was their way of confirming my assessment that most women would not compromise on marriage entitlements.  Judging from the tone of the comments, it sometimes seemed to be almost a matter of pride?)

When asked what I meant by "financially dangerous", I pointed out that family law punished good deeds and argued as in
https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2018/01/marriage--no-good-deed-goes-unpunished.html
https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2018/01/beggar-psychology-and-family-law.html
Most of the women did not argue with the logic behind avoiding a "financially dangerous" wife.  Many commented that they had never thought about the legal aspects of family law.  Most women were just interested and were not hostile toward me.

A small (20% ?) fraction of women seemed offended that I had analyzed the situation and had acted accordingly.  This small fraction was outright hostile and expressed an amazing list of accusations.  One would have thought that I had somehow negatively affected them personally.  Some of the accusations do not make much sense to me, but I will list them anyway.

1. Apparently wanting to negotiate a prenuptial contract is misogynistic. (Why?)
2. I was accused of having an Asian fetish. (I like all attractive women of any race.)
3. The reason I married a Chinese woman was to have a submissive wife. (I lived with her for 5 months before marriage and had no illusions that she was aggressive and not submissive.)
4. I had taken advantage of an uneducated Chinese woman's willingness to sign a prenup. (Nope, she has a MS degree in electrical engineering.)
5. The only reason she married me was that I was an American and she could stay in the United States.  This, of course, was my fault and not her fault. I was exploiting her due to a "power inequality" because I was an American. (She was a graduate engineering student at Clemson University in South Carolina.  There were probably ten times as many men in her classes as women. Additionally, she was physically fit, trim, attractive, and very smart.  I do not think she had any trouble attracting men.  It boggles the imagination that I had any special "American advantage" over the American men in her classes.  She had lots of available American  mate choices if she simply wanted to stay in the United States.)
6. The only reason that she would sign a prenuptial agreement was so that she could stay in the United States. (There were plenty of men in her engineering classes that did not have enough assets to need a prenuptial agreement.)
7. I married a Chinese woman to evade "feminism". (Nope, I married her because she said "yes," even though there would be a prenup.)
8. I was among too many men that were marrying foreign women and this was "unfair" to American women.  It was not clearly expressed, but it seemed to be some sort of supply/demand argument.  (This is absurd. First, I am not responsible for what other men do. Second, nothing stops American women from marrying foreign men. Interestingly, my argument was rejected  because it was  "far easier for American men to attract foreign brides than for American women to attract foreign grooms." Apparently, American men have a good reputation among foreign women and American women have a bad reputation among foreign men? No evidence was supplied that this was true.  But, even if true, I am not responsible for this reputation difference.) 

I emphasize again that only a small fraction of women were outright hostile.

Among the hostile woman, the verbal attacks almost never ceased;  the arguments just kept shifting.  They were determined to label almost anything  "unfair" and a result of a "power inequality."  First,  I was exercising a power inequality because of an assumed salary difference.  Second, when the first assumption turned out to be wrong, then I was exercising a power inequality because of citizenship issues. Third, when the second assumption turned out to be wrong, then there was a power inequality because of  "white male privilege."

Two things really seemed to irk these women. First, they were angry that because of good planning (a prenuptial contract and a wife with comparable salary) my wife got no post-divorce goodies. She got none of my premarital assets, she got no alimony, and she got no child support. In fact, at divorce time, she was making slightly more salary than I was.  It was somehow unfair that I had successfully protected my premarital and post-marital assets.  Second, they seemed angry that I had married an attractive, slender, younger woman from Shanghai instead of an American woman my "own age."  It seemed not to matter that the American women my age would not sign a prenuptial contract and were past their most fertile period anyway making children less probable. In fact, this further irked some of the hostile women.

I  do not know how many of these hostile woman had been married and what their financial circumstances had been. It is a good guess though, that had I married one of these hostile women, I would have been financially skewered in divorce because they would not have had a salary commensurate with mine.   Instead of picking up the skills and language of science and engineering like my Chinese wife, these hostile women seemed to have picked up the language (and skills?) from the lunatic fringe of the women's movement.  I wonder what fraction of these hostile women spent time in women's studies?