The following is adapted from my opening statement in my debate with Pearl Davis. A lot of people in the so-called Red Pill community claim that marriage is a bad deal for men. They use false statistics and fallacious arguments to get men to reject marriage, but in today's episode, I'm going to show what's wrong with their case. And usually it boils down to one of the following fallacies, or errors in reasoning. First, there's the wrong target fallacy. This happens when a critic focuses on a bad thing related to marriage, but concludes that this proves only marriage is bad. For example, anti-marriage advocates often talk about how marriage is a bad deal, because men are sometimes mistreated in child custody cases. But that's not unique to marriage. If you cohabit, or even just hook up with a woman, you can still father a child and deal with custody issues. However, marriage makes a man the presumed father of the child, with natural rights that unmarried men don't have. Even though unmarried fathers can still be liable to pay child support, the children of unmarried men are 10 times more likely to be aborted. And if the child does survive the pregnancy, he's 3-6 times more likely to live in poverty. Another wrong target is women themselves. Marriage skeptics often say that marriage is a bad deal for men, because modern women are worse than previous generations of women. These critics say that there just aren't any women worth marrying. But once again, this argument says nothing about the goodness or badness of marriage. For many red pillars, women are good enough for hookups that can result in child custody issues, or cohabiting relationships that superficially feel like marriage, but are far more likely to fail. But for some reason, women aren't good enough for marriage, which, as we'll see, benefits men far more than hookups are cohabiting. Also, if there aren't any good women, that means there aren't any good men either, because men can't meet these red pill standards as well. Modern men are just as promiscuous and even more overweight than modern women. A 2019 experience study found that men carry more credit, auto, and mortgage debt than women. Millennial and Gen Z men have weaker grip strength, and they make less money than older men did at their age. These critics have not shown women aren't good enough for men. Instead, the data shows men and women are both in bad shape compared to older generations. But there's hope. Marriage is the best way for men and women to mature together and bring out the best in one another. Number two, red pillars often rely on the anecdote fallacy. But one sad story about a marriage doesn't show marriage itself is bad, because for every sad story, there are statistically two to three stories of happy marriages. And there are many stories about sad, sick, lonely men who never marry. Even marriage skeptics in academia will only argue that, at best, marriage doesn't increase happiness.