ajax18 wrote:Well regardless of what my bishop said, real life taught me the truth all too quickly.
If I were agnostic, I'd choose the single life. Marriage is a martyrdom. I suffer it because it's what I believe is right, not because I like it. Being single in the Church is its own form of suffering. I firmly believe that attending singles wards would help motivate people to stay married.
"By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher."
Socrates
That said there is some truth in the OP. Women, like men, want to feel secure. However, there are other aspects to relationships that can enter into a male looking attractive to a female. For one thing, a man who is intelligent and creative can still land an attractive wife even though he may not have much of an income. A man who has looks can do likewise or a man with tremendous religious convictions. Women will often accept a man based on his brains or looks who is not rich. Come on, most men are not rich yet most men marry. In fact a lot of what one could call freelance polygamists (not affiliated with FLDS for instance) wind up with a bunch of women, often highly educated and attractive. Again, wealth is not essential.
Then again wealth can make an ugly guy look pretty good to a woman and I admit there are a lot of conservative religious women who will marry an agnostic rich dude, or one who may come from a totally different religion. To say otherwise would be to ignore reality. If you are 55 or 60 and work at 7-11 it is doubtful you will be getting married to a hot 24 year old. Then again if you happen to be a 55 or 60 year old artist who thinks way out of the norm you actually will have a greater chance of landing that 24 year old, even though you don't make much more than the 7-11 clerk. In fact I think I have seen more of this happening than the 55 or 60 year old who is wealthy getting the young woman.