Across the world, a silent crisis is unfolding.
Men are retreating.
They hesitate to approach women, hesitate to marry, and hesitate to step into a covenant.
What was once natural, a man pursuing, proposing and protecting now feels like a battlefield strewn with traps, risks and confusion. The question burns: Why are men no longer approaching modern women?
The answer is layered: Cultural, economic, emotional and spiritual. And unless the church, families and society confront this, the collapse of marriage will accelerate worldwide.
Collapse of roles
For centuries, the pursuit was clear. Men pursued; women received. Men provided; women nurtured.
This was not oppression but design; a complementary dance.
But modern culture has blurred or mocked those roles.
The word “patriarchy” is wielded like a weapon.
Men who lead are branded “controlling.” Men who pursue are called “predatory.”
Men who hesitate are mocked as “weak.”
The result? Paralysis. Men no longer know which role is safe.
If they pursue too boldly, they are shamed. If they wait, they are accused of passivity.
The pursuit of the covenant has been choked by cultural confusion.
Rejection once happened in private.
A man might approach a woman, hear “no,” and lick his wounds quietly.
Today, rejection is public, viral and humiliating.
Screenshots of messages are posted online.
TikToks mock “cringe proposals.”
Group chats dissect men’s attempts like autopsies. For many men, the risk is too great.
Why risk public ridicule for private desire? Better to stay silent than to be turned into digital entertainment.
Economic pressures
In many nations, the cost of living has skyrocketed. Housing, education, and health care weigh like millstones.
Traditionally, men feel the duty to provide. But when a man can barely sustain himself, the idea of sustaining a wife and children feels impossible.
Add to this the fact that many women are now highly educated, financially stable, or even wealthier than their male peers, and men quietly retreat, feeling disqualified before they even begin.
Divorce courts, legal risks
Here lies a major unspoken fear. Around the world, divorce courts are tilted against men.
Stories abound of fathers losing custody of children, homes seized, incomes garnished, and reputations ruined.
Men watch their uncles, fathers, and friends destroyed not just emotionally, but financially.
They ask, “Why risk my life’s work if Caesar can strip it all away?”
This is why we must expose the deeper issue: When marriage is bound by ordinance, it becomes fragile, subject to Caesar’s courts.
Where marriage is sealed as a covenant, it is guarded by YHWH Himself.
Not all women have embraced an attitude of independence that borders on hostility toward men. The popular slogans ring out: “I don’t need a man.” “Men are trash.” “I am the table.”
Men hear this. They sense that many women see men not as partners in covenant, but as accessories to be replaced.
In such an atmosphere, pursuit feels unwelcome.
And so, men choose silence, not because they lack desire, but because they lack trust.
Digital substitutes
A darker trend is numbing pursuit: alternatives.
Pornography offers the illusion of intimacy without responsibility.
Casual hookups promise pleasure without commitment.
Gaming, virtual reality, and even AI companions create fantasy escapes that require no courage, no risk, no rejection.
These substitutes dull the hunger for real pursuit.
Why fight for a woman’s honour when cheap illusions are available at the click of a button?
At its root, this is not merely cultural or social.
It is spiritual. Marriage was the first covenant YHWH created, the first altar where man and woman stood as one flesh.
It is the living picture of Christ and His Bride, the Church.
No wonder the enemy has targeted it with relentless fury.
By confusing roles, weaponising shame, twisting laws and corrupting intimacy through substitutes.
Satan has systematically dismantled the pursuit of the covenant. The result is global: hesitation, mistrust and retreat.
How covenant heals
Yet there is hope. Covenant can heal what contract has destroyed.
• For Men: Rediscover your identity in Yehoshua. You are not hunters of approval, but sons of the covenant. Pursuit is not ego-driven but scroll-driven. When you know your marriage is written in heaven, you can approach without fear of rejection.
• For Women: Recover the language of honour. Men rise where they are respected. To signal that you are approachable, you need not dim your strength, but you must extend honour. This awakens pursuit.
• For the Church: Stop discipling couples into Caesar’s contracts (Ordinance). Restore covenant marriage scrolls, elder-led courts and biblical dispute resolution. Let heaven, not the state, be the judge of holy unions.
Prophetic call
To the men: stop hiding. Your silence is costly.
Nations crumble when men retreat.
Find your courage in covenant, not culture.
Rise and pursue not recklessly, but righteously.
To the women: your words can open or close the gates of pursuit.
If your mouth declares independence and contempt, men will flee.
But if your heart and words breathe honour, men will approach with fire.
To the pastors: stop betraying the covenant.
Do not train couples in scripture only to bind them with Caesar’s pen.
You are midwives of destiny, not clerks of the state. Guard the altar.
Final word
Why are men not approaching modern women?
Because the pursuit has been poisoned by fear, law, pride, shame and spiritual warfare.
But this paralysis is not the final word.
If we restore the covenant, pursuit will return.
Honour will rise. Families will flourish.
And the image of Christ and His Bride will shine again on the earth.
For in the end, it is not Caesar who writes marriages, nor culture that defines pursuit.
It is Yehoshua, the Bridegroom King, who calls us back to covenant love, bold, sacrificial and eternal.
