The Dreaded “List” Again

Rollo Tomassi left the following link at Sunshine Mary’s blog so that she could use it as source material for a post, but since she is busy right now I decided to snag it for my own use: The Husband List: 12 Non-Negotiables. The website itself is a real piece of work, one of the most puffed up examples of Princess syndrome (of the EAP variety) run amok that I have ever seen. A sample:

Every woman you meet may seem one way at first. But as you peel the layers by taking the time to talk with her, you realize she is much more than meets the eye. One by one, she is discovered to be more than enough. She has been uniquely gifted in order to carry out a purpose. Her value is rare and precious. The problem is, there is an epidemic of women who do not believe in themselves. Due to the exposure of various negative forces, young women are selling out and settling every day. They have bought into the lie that they are not worthy of a joyous, peaceful and bold life.

Part of me wants to believe that this is a parody site, because it seems too good to be true. I mean, it almost reads like something that Deti would write. Alas, this is no parody. Women really do believe such nonsense, and peddle it all the same. Surprisingly, the “husband list” itself is not nearly so bad. In fact, much of it is quite good. I will reprint it below, with some editing (mostly of scripture) for brevity’s sake:

1. He is a practicing believer.
Issues and conflict are bound to rise in marriage, so it is crucial that there is a common foundation on which to hold the marriage accountable. The last thing you want to be fighting about is your faith, whether or not to pray and your viewpoints on religion. Believe me, I’ve been there before. It is exhausting.

2. God is the center of his life.
He seeks God’s wisdom in all the decisions he makes.

3. He has integrity and does not put himself in tempting situations.
He guards you against harm and protects the relationship.

4. Seeks mentorship and counsel.
It is important that your man is wise in realizing he can’t carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. When he is surrounded by men who are older than him who can offer advice, prayer and mentorship, he can be a better husband to you.

5. He is slow to anger.
There is peace in knowing your man holds an even temperament even when he is provoked. A man who allows his feelings, emotions and anger to determine his actions typically has tarnished relationships and is not a healthy place for you or a family.

6. He holds strong conviction on the sacredness of fidelity.
A man is wise when he understand that infidelity and looking for pleasure outside of the marriage only brings strife. God actually calls him to rejoice over you all of his days.

7. He is honorable of your heart and emotional well-being.
I hated when a guy I was dating exposed my embarrassing moments or the private matters of our relationship with his friends. Picking on you may seem cute and funny at first, but it will get old after a while. You should feel honored and safe knowing you can always trust your husband to cover and speak well of you.

8. He is disciplined in living a life of integrity.
Watch how he handles temptation or sticky situations that test his character. Does he choose to do what’s right even when no one is watching? It is imperative to observe these things because it will indicate if you can trust his decision making. When you’re married, almost all of his decisions impact you.

9. Has solid work ethic.

10. He pursues and loves you passionately.
The man you marry should make you feel loved like you’ve never felt before. Safe, accepted, desired, nurtured, protected and comforted. Jesus loves us deeply, he loves us so fiercely, that he willingly gave up his life to save us.

11. Romances you.
I know women who feel guilty or wrong for desiring romance in their relationship, as if they don’t deserve it. But God desires for your heart to be romanced, just as He longs to romance us.

12. He is humble and can admit when he is wrong.
There is nothing worse than a petty conflict blowing out of proportion because your partner refuses to admit they were wrong. Taking responsibility for his actions and apologizing for his mistakes is the sign of a real man.

Again, much of the list is not bad at all. Points 1, 2 and 3 are all rock solid, indeed, I would consider them essential criteria that a Christian woman should look for in a man. Points 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9 are also commendable as well. Problems arise with points 7, 10, 11 and 12, however. I will briefly address each in turn.

Point 7– While facially this appears sound, the fact that it covers feelings makes it suspect in my eyes. “Emotional well-being” is a fairly vague term, so without clarification this would be a potential problem area. Otherwise, any man must necessarily be a captive to the woman’s feelings, which would be disaster as many would tell you, especially Empath.

Point 10– Two problems here. The first is the comparison to Jesus. With the toxic hypergamy out there, this is just asking for trouble. No man can possibly compare to Jesus, much less His love. Bringing up that kind of comparison invites men to always fail. Second, all of those feelings are inherently tied into the attractiveness of the man in the woman’s eyes. No matter his other qualities, an unattractive man cannot generate them. And an extremely attractive man full of flaws will provide those same feelings regardless. This point could just as well have been replaced with “Attractive”, and the result would be the same.

Point 11– The real problem with this point is the second sentence. But the first is essentially another version of Point 10, aka, attention from an attractive man. I guess this one could be expanded to include that the man have “Beta” traits in addition to “Alpha” traits (see here for more). As for the second sentence, this is Churchian nonsense (perhaps even to the point of heresy). God does not “romance” us. “Romance” implies Eros, which is fine in the context of marriage, but the love that God holds for us is Agape.

Point 12– Again, on its face not necessarily bad. But when combined with the kinds of attitude displayed at the website, it hints at a desire for a man to debase himself in front of the woman. Not exactly a great thing if you want a healthy relationship.

So, that  is the list. I’ve seen worse, but then again, I’ve seen better. What I think is more troublesome than a list like this is the attitude behind it. Reading through this website, you get a sense of entitlement and expectation which is not healthy and will probably ensure a lifetime of misery for most women. The author of the list might have been able to get away with it, but not every woman looks like this. We, men and women both, must temper our expectations and keep in mind that we are not perfect. So we cannot expect perfection in turn. As for anything further, I will leave that to my married readers to fill in.

Shattering the Delusion

[This has proven to be the most difficult post yet for me to write. It started as a series of smaller posts that I have merged into a single, larger one in the hope that it will be more approachable and easier to follow. My non-Christian readers will likely find it of little value, because it is entirely religious in nature.]

The Delusion

Life isn’t fair.

For most of us, this is something we are “taught” while we are young. On a surface level, we know it to be true. But deep down inside, I think that many of us still harbor a belief that life is fair. That everything will turn out alright in the end.

Why?

Because we live in a wish fulfillment culture. A culture that says that dreams do come true. A culture that tells us, from an early age, that we can have our cake and eat it too.

How so? Think of all the life scripts that we hear about. Here is one:

Study hard in school, especially high school, so that you can get into a good college. Once you are in college, study hard some more so that you graduate with good grades. Then maybe you can get a job right away, or perhaps go to graduate school for an even more impressive degree. Perhaps during grad school if you go, or more likely a few years into the work force after graduating, you find a mate of roughly equivalent SMV whom you marry. Then you have two to three kids, live in a three to four bedroom house with two and a half baths, and get involved in the community in some minor way, such as PTA or the Rotary Club. Eventually the kids all grow up and follow the same pattern as you, giving you the freedom to take those trips that you couldn’t beforehand. Then the grand-kids show up, you retire and get the chance to enjoy life.

This kind of life script is peddled to many of us from an early age. And it is far from unique. There are others longer, and others shorter. Except for those coming from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, we all get something like this. It never occurs to us to think that maybe, just maybe, it won’t happen. That something will come along and interrupt it. We have a plan for our life that we are going to live… because that is just how things work. Right?

How are these life scripts anything but wishes and dreams which provide a façade of being grounded in reality? Consciously we may not think this, but our unconscious or sub-conscious selves do appreciate them for what they are. And these messages are everywhere. Television, books, movies, magazines… all these sources spout them. We hear them at home, at school and at church. Unless parents make a concerted effort to isolate their children from all aspects of mainstream culture, this message will seep through.

And the central, and hidden, subtext of these messages is that life is fair. That hard work always pays off. That those who deserve to win always do.

I know that many around these parts like to condemn the “entitlement culture” which seems especially prevalent in some circles, especially female ones. But I think that the rot which infects our culture runs much deeper than that. It is my belief that we, in our pride, our wealth and our security, have lost sight as a people of the fundamental truth that life isn’t fair.

Not all among us are so deluded. Reality has a way of cruelly teaching us otherwise. But even still, most of us are insulated from the kind of experiences which would impart that kind of lesson. Christians, despite numerous passages in Scripture indicating otherwise, are not immune to this disease.

And I am no exception.

God as a Matchmaker

Recently it has been bothering me whenever I see or hear someone say something along the lines of “I’m sure God has someone special set aside for you.” It was not always so; I have been the recipient of such statements before and will admit that for a while they were actually a comfort to me. But as time passed I grew uneasy with such statements, and wasn’t quite sure why.

Initially I thought that my unease was because such statements seemed awfully close to the idea of a “soul-mate.” As has been pointed out many times before on this blog and others, there is no such thing. Yet such sentiments are far from unheard of in some Christian circles. But after careful thought I understood that wasn’t the reason for my distrust of such statements.

Then I wondered if it didn’t make sense in light of free will. After all, couldn’t that “someone special” decide that they weren’t interested? The only way such a scheme could work would be if God knew what choices that person would make beforehand. That is hardly beyond God’s power, of course. Yet I had trouble with the idea of God taking on the role of Yenta. But that wasn’t what was troubling me either.

It was only while I was re-reading the Gospel of Luke recently that I realized the problem with those statements is that they evinced a hidden sentiment: that a special someone had to be out there for me because I deserved it. And the thing was, I believed this too. You see, because I was a good person, someone who always did the right thing, God was sure to reward me for all my good deeds. As I read the following passage I understand just how wrong I was:

⁷ “Will any one of you who has a servant^[c] plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? ⁸ Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly,^[d] and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? ⁹ Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? ¹⁰ So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants;^[e] we have only done what was our duty.’”

I am an unworthy servant. All I’ve done is perform my duty. Nothing more. In my mind I had turned God into some kind of cosmic Santa Claus; someone who would reward me for all of my good deeds. But there is nothing special about what I have done. All I was doing was what I was obligated to do all along. If that places me above many others, it only means that I fail less often. Hardly something worthy of distinction.

Now, Scripture does teach us that we will be rewarded for our actions… in Heaven. Not on Earth. Ostensibly I knew this, or at least, pretended like I knew it.  But deep down inside I must admit that part of me believed that I would receive earthly rewards as well.

An Unpaid Debt

As I reflected on these misunderstandings, I realized to my great shame that my errors were even greater than at first glance. It wasn’t simply that I believed God was going to reward me for being a “good boy,” I believed that God owed me for being a “good boy.” In effect I was telling God:

See what carrying out your Will has cost me? Now you owe me for all of that.

Oh, I wasn’t thinking that out loud. But it was etched into my heart. Motivated by my earlier epiphany, I looked back through all of the Gospels until I found this passage from Matthew:

²³ “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.^{[g] 24} When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.^{[h] 25} And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. ²⁶ So the servant^[i] fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ ²⁷ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. ²⁸ But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii,^[j] and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ ²⁹ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ ³⁰ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. ³¹ When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. ³² Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. ³³ And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ ³⁴ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers,^[k] until he should pay all his debt. ³⁵ So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

At that time a talent was worth something like 19 or 20 years’ worth of wages. Which means that the King forgave a servant who owed him close to 200, 000 years’ worth of wages. Translated into today’s money, that total amounts to billions of US dollars of debt. In short, a debt which the servant could never hope to repay.

Most who read this passage understand that we are the principal servant (with the great debt), and that our fellow men and women are the second servant (who owes roughly 100 days’ worth of wages). And they correctly interpret that this passage is about the importance of forgiving one another, for unless we forgive one another we won’t be forgiven by our Master in turn. But we often overlook that initial debt which we all owe to God: 10,000 talents. A debt that we can never hope to repay.

Which makes the problem with my mindset becomes obvious: God doesn’t owe me anything. I am the one who owes God, and my debt is one that I can never hope to repay.

Or rather, my debt was one that I could never hope to repay. Because it has already been paid in full.

Despite this unwarranted generosity, I still have inwardly acted as though it was God who owed me. Once I understood the depths of my error, I sat down and tried to discern how it was that I was led astray. In time, I realized that I lacked a spirit of sacrifice.

Take Up Your Cross

This discovery was one that I made on my own, but its significance was not something that I fully appreciated until I read this comment by Sunshine Mary:

…I had two choices at the end of my first date with my husband: put out or no second date. He didn’t directly say so, but it was understood. So I put out. I wanted to anyway, so it wasn’t like it was some traumatizing thing. But the fact that I wanted to was in conjunction to the fact that I had to do so if I wanted to continue seeing him. Understand?

So, I willingly became his concubine, like 80% of other women do with their men. And I (and they) enjoyed it, but I was very much wanting his commitment, too. My choices, again, were this:

– Put out immediately. Continue to see him. Have a slim hope that he will put a ring on it.

– Do not put out. Do not see him again. Have no hope that he will put a ring on it.

(Reminder: I was a lapsed Christian and he was an atheist, so two sexually-active Christians *might* have a slightly different script, but it will probably only be a matter of how long they wait to jump in bed together).

The right choice would have been the second one: do not put out, do not see him again, do not get a ring.

But…and here is where it gets tricky…suppose I had done that? Suppose I had continued doing that? I’d be 44 and single. I would also be righteous and blessed by God…but I’d probably have no husband. As it stands, I was unrighteous and I got the prize. I have a man who committed to me.

I included most of her comment to provide context, but the part in bold is what matters. What Sunshine Mary expresses here is an admission that she might have been confronted with a scenario that placed righteousness on one side, and getting what she wanted on the other. More than that, I think that her comment betrays fear on her part. A fear that she would have been required to sacrifice something of great value to her (a chance for a husband)  in order to serve God and keep His commands. I mention this not to excoriate her, but to provide an object lesson in how we all fear making sacrifices in order to serve God. This is a failing that I am just as guilty of as she.

While I never placed the idea of marriage ahead of serving God (I’ve always though that the former would be part of my efforts towards the latter), I never considered, much less acknowledged, the possibility that I might have to choose between the two. I can no longer put off that confrontation, but must instead face it head on.  Because now I cannot help but conclude that my efforts to get what I want, a chaste Christian bride, would be bolstered if I were to engage in sin. Not only do women not have the qualms that men do in terms of marrying an unchaste spouse, but pre-selection means that they actually find previously unchaste men more attractive (although not necessarily undesirable). And even that last part is debatable, because I cannot say I’ve ever met a Christian woman who has insisted that she would only marry a chaste Christian man. In addition, the experiences gained from sleeping with other women would improve my skills at handling the other sex, not to mention boost my confidence. Furthermore, just as Sunshine Mary’s strategy can work for women, a male strategy of sleeping with other women to marry the chaste Christian girl you want works too.

To say that this process has been difficult for me would be something of an understatement. But it shouldn’t have been. Its not like there is a dearth of scripture to remind Christians that sacrifice is necessary:

²⁴ Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ²⁵ For whoever would save his life^[a] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. ²⁶ For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? ²⁷ For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.

No, not in the slightest:

²⁵ Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, ²⁶ “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. ²⁷ Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

As I said earlier, I lacked a spirit of sacrifice. I suspect that the reason why is because I have never had to make any serious kind of sacrifice before as a result of my faith. It has caused me some minor inconveniences, yes. And has limited my circle of friends noticeably. But nothing truly life impacting. Because I have never really had to suffer for my faith, I have been able to maintain (at least until recently) that delusion I spoke of earlier: that life is fair. No longer.

The delusion has been shattered in my mind. I am finally starting to accept that my life may not go according to plan. That I might have to sacrifice what I want in order to follow the Lord. That I might not be able to have my cake, and eat it too.

This acceptance does not come easily. I will not lie, part of me is refusing to go along. My hamster has been spinning furiously on his wheel, trying to convince me that it won’t really come to that. You know, that. A lifetime of celibacy: no wife, no children, decades of loneliness. In a way the rodent is admirable. He is pulling out all the stops to keep the dream alive, to preserve a spark of hope.

But it is a false hope, because it is not grounded in God. No, I will put my trust in the Lord. That trust may not gain me anything in this world. In fact, it may cost me everything I want and care for. It is a reality that I will continue to struggle with. But what I lose in this world, I will gain in the next:

²⁸ Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world,^[a] when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. ²⁹ And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold^[b] and will inherit eternal life.

There is nothing more to do at this point other than to take up my cross. I have everything to lose, and yet, everything to gain.

 

Update: David Taylor II has written an excellent companion piece to this post, titled Life: Is it Fair or Not? I highly recommend it.

Reader Book Plug: A Christian Man’s Guide to Love and Marriage in the 21st Century

Today’s post is a bit of a break from my usual sort. I was contacted a few weeks back by a long-time reader of my blog, who wanted to alert me to the fact that he had created a book in response to his experience with taking the Red Pill. The title is “A Christian Man’s Guide to Love and Marriage in the 21st Century: Why Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong.”

I was busy at the time, and so it took me a while to finally read through the book (which is actually quite short). It was a pleasant surprise: a good summation of manosphere teachings in a Christian context. While not perfect, it is certainly a far cry from other books like it out there, and so I think it deserves some attention and recognition. The author, Don Riefstahl, has provided a brief bio so that folks can understand where he is coming from and why he felt compelled to write the book. Here is his story:

My name is Don and I’m a happily married computer technician living in central Georgia. I was raised in a Christian home with both parents present and actively involved in my life. Like most young men raised in the modern church, I was solidly Blue Pill with a big romantic streak. My biggest goal in life was to settle down and get married, and I worked hard to prepare myself for this eventuality. I paid careful attention to what women said they wanted in a man and tried my best to conform to their ideal. I carefully molded my interests to sidestep traditionally male activities and, instead, became a Sensitive New Age Guy.

I began to read Christian books about marriage and attended marriage seminars to get a head start on the competition. In time, I saw myself as more evolved than those other guys. They were loud, they were obnoxious, and they *shudder* watched football. Heck, they were practically cavemen! I, on the other hand, was in touch with my feminine side and unafraid to explore my feelings. Yep, I was on the fast-track to the marriage of my dreams. All I needed to do was strut my stuff and the ladies would descend on me like a pack of starving wolves.

Only that’s not what happened. To my utter amazement, women consistently chose to date those masculine jerks instead of me. So I re-doubled my efforts and started to orbit most of the the young women I knew. I had learned from the books I’d read that the secret to a strong marriage was a solid platonic friendship, so I became good friends with the women around me. The FriendZone would surely be my ticket to marital bliss. Once they saw firsthand how sweet and sensitive I really was, I would be in like flint.

But, of course, that didn’t work either. Woman after woman would call me up at three in the morning so that I could rush over and let her cry into my shoulder about what a jerk her boyfriend was. Inevitably, she would end up telling me what a great guy I was and how happy I was going to make some lucky woman someday. Just not her and not then.

 

By the time I was 23, I was at my wit’s end. I had done everything I was told to do and it had gotten me nowhere. Alone and disenchanted, I decided that the problem had to be me. I came to the conclusion that I must be so inherently flawed that, despite all the effort I had put into preparing myself for marriage, I was just not worthy of love. This was the only answer that made logical sense. It simply never occurred to me that everything I thought I knew about inter-gender relations could be wrong. I had read books by reliable sources, after all.

A poster Don created before he took the Red Pill

In the interest of brevity, I will end my narrative here even though there is plenty more to tell. Suffice it to say that a crippling case of Oneitis, nearly marrying a woman I didn’t love just to ease the pain of my loneliness and consuming copious amounts of pornography all contributed to a life of deep and unshakeable depression by my mid-20’s. There were times when I seriously considered suicide as a viable option because the pain was so hard to bear.

Thankfully, this story does have a happy ending. I am, as I said before, now married to a wonderful woman and finally living the life I always wanted. The Red Pill has played a huge role in all of this, not only in shaping my current life but also in healing the wounds of the past. I now realize that most of the pain I experienced was due to my incorrect assumptions about what women were attracted to, and not, as I believed for so many years, because I was inherently unlovable.

Which brings us to the book. My life may be on the right track now, but I know that there are other men out there who are in the same position I was in just a few short years ago. They need the Red Pill desperately. The problem is that the Manosphere is an ongoing conversation between many writers and not an organized archive of information. When I first discovered it in late 2011, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things to learn and the disorganization inherent in such a system. I felt like I was seated at a table heaped high with thousands of puzzle pieces, trying to put them together without knowing what the picture was even supposed to look like when it was done. I dug through the archives of dozens of blogs and pored over hundreds of entries before I really started to grasp the big picture.

When I finally got it sorted out, I realized that we really need a short book that covers the major bases and gives beginners an overview of the topics being discussed. A field guide to the Manosphere, so to speak. Something you could hand a young man who has no idea what the Red Pill is, that’s short enough he might actually read it and interesting enough that when he’s done he will will want to learn more.

 

Since no one else had done this, I decided to give it a go. A year later, the result is a 98 page summary of the Red Pill, written by a Christian man for Christian men. It’s short, bitter, and politically incorrect. That means you’ll probably never see it in a Christian bookstore near you. Nevertheless, it’s full of truth that will hopefully lead young men to a better understanding of their own masculine nature and the God who created them that way.

Don’s book is named “A Christian Man’s Guide to Love and Marriage in the 21st Century: Why Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong.” You can purchase it from Amazon here. Hopefully other members of the manosphere will follow suit and write their own books on their experiences, as well as guides for men and women. I know that I sure could have used something like this a decade (or two) ago; my life would likely be very different now if I had been exposed to the truth at a much younger age. Hopefully Don’s book, and those that follow, will enable the upcoming generation to avoid the pitfalls that I and those like me have experienced.

Wisdom From the Golden Age of Cinema

[Reader Donald R., who will be the subject of a post later this week, has passed along a link which I just have to share with folks.]

The Onion has created a terrifically brilliant video segment on the true story behind the Wizard of Oz. Take the time and watch it:

http://www.theonion.com/video/the-onion-looks-back-at-the-wizard-of-oz,32852/

Since it is the Onion, its hard to be sure, but I could swear that the person who wrote the script for that was Red Pill aware. There is too much in there which covers Manosphere topics for the ‘sphere to not have been a source of inspiration. Either way, I’m sure it was as enjoyable for you, my loyal readers, as it was for me.

Ready Made For Me, Not For Thee…

[Ed: This post has been updated. See the bottom for the update.]

Something which struck me in my last post, Some Assembly Required, is that while I (and those like me) will likely have to “train up” a woman to fit my (our) criteria for a good wife, I (we) must be ready-made myself (ourselves) for this to begin. In order for the process talked about in that post to work at all, men  have to be actualized masculine man beforehand.* When you think about it, how is this not the Feminine Imperative at play? Stop and think about what was discussed and now try to explain it in stark, raw terms. It would look something like this:

High-value or potential high-value man invests time and resources in woman who is presently not suited for marriage, with uncertain results.**

Can anyone imagine that this scenario would ever be reversed successfully?  That is, you have high-value women who invest time and resources in men of questionable value with uncertain results. Does anyone see that working more than once in a blue moon? In fact, doesn’t it sound like one of the more common refrains from the Christian manosphere? You know, “good Christian girls” chasing after bad boys in order to convert them and reform them? We all know how it ends: poorly.

Life is not fair, and circumstances like this are proof-positive of that fact. That God-fearing men have to carry on such as this only goes to show just how far we have fallen.*** And how much, MGTOW protestations to the contrary, men really do need women. Otherwise, why would we ever go through all of this trouble?

I’m going to stop now, because I’m just rambling at this point. But expect to see more incoherent posts over the next few days. Do not be surprised if some are quite dark.

*[Yes, I know that marriage is a learning experience, and that I will have to adjust my behavior as well. But it isn’t nearly the same thing, because that will come as a result of marriage, not as part of a process to make me worthy/capable of marriage.]

Update: One reader interpreted this post to be something of a “woe-is-me” lament. If others had the same impression, then I apologize. It was not my intent. Alas, this post was a victim to poor editing and content control on my part. I will endeavor to avoid such mistakes in the future. This post was not meant as a lament but as an observation. Several observations, really.

The first is that this process is not really one between equals. That is, a man and a woman who are equally unready for marriage working together to try and make each other ready for marriage. That wasn’t the process which I examined, or what The Woman Margery suggested. Instead, you have a man who is already (sufficiently) prepared/suitable for marriage finding a woman who isn’t and helping/guiding her to become ready to be his wife.

The second is that the reverse scenario doesn’t seem to be one likely to succeed. Sunshine Mary suggested that what I proposed was similar to women in the past marrying men whose final value was uncertain, and given the language I used, this was an entirely correct response. However, the corrected language (see above) makes it clear that the scenario is about a man suited for marriage investing time and resources in a woman who isn’t ready/suited for marriage at that time. The reverse is a woman investing time/resources in a man who isn’t ready/suited for marriage. That is far afield from the scenario SSM described. While the man’s value might be uncertain when a woman marries young, he was often still suited for marrage (in that he was raised by his parents properly). The actual reverse scenario is one that is generally recognized to be a foolhardy plan, at best. Certainly one that no one would encourage any woman to follow. And yet here we had people seriously discussing the scenario from a male-led perspective.

The third is the novelty of this all. It is true that a husband always needed to have some kind of leadership role over his wife, to the point of guiding her and correcting her. The definition of husband as a transitive verb from Merriam Webster defines it as : to manage prudently and economically. And so it has been, and will continue to be. But what Margery suggested, and I discussed, in the last post was something more. It was a man taking over a role that beforehand would have been the sole responsibility of a woman’s parents and extended family: making her ready for marriage in the first place. Grooming her for marriage, essentially. All without actually marrying her. While I cannot think of any examples of this happening in Scripture, perhaps I am forgetting one or more. So if someone does know of one, it would be appreciated if they alerted me to its location in a comment. But even outside the Bible, I am having trouble thinking of similar examples of this process being conducted in any other culture.

** I corrected it to fix the issue that Sunshine Mary spotted.

*** Sentence corrected to be more humble.

Some Assembly Required

Margery, of Margery and The Man, left this comment earlier today:

I was just reading your ‘about’ and saw that you are very, for lack of a better term, picky about your prospective mates (no judgement! I completely understand why!). You then listed some things you wish to see in a woman. This brought to mind the idea of “training” a woman. What I am asking is- do you have to have the woman already “as is” or are you open to having a woman that wishes to be those things and would like to be trained up in it? What would the process look like do you think?

This isn’t a proposition and my question isn’t just for you but in general I have to wonder if it wouldn’t be more prudent for men to be open to “good wives” in the making and be educated in how to aid in their training as our society is not the place currently that automatically puts out these sorts of women. Certainly this could be an option?

For those who are curious, the section of my About page she was referring to was this:

At this point I am unmarried, but (despite the considerable risks inherent in what is left of the institution these days) hope that I will marry in the near future. However, I am very discriminating when it comes to whom I will consider for marriage.

[In case there are any marriage-minded young women who are curious about what I am looking for, here is an idea: devout, chaste, feminine, at least somewhat pleasing to the eye, and a combination of sweet, gentle and respectful in attitude and behavior.]

I thought that Margery’s questions were good ones, and deserving of a post so that they might be addressed in detail. As I see it, there are three questions that are being asked here:

1) Does a woman have to meet all of my criteria before I would consider her wife material?

2) Assuming that I was open to “training” a woman in the qualities that I am looking for, how would that process work?

3) Would it be more advisable to me to be open to wife candidates for whom “some assembly is required” instead of focusing only on women who already meet my criteria?

I know that Margery indicated that her questions were directed at men in general, and not specifically me. But I feel that it would be necessary, and more appropriate, for me to answer them in relation to myself first before providing any general thoughts on the matter. In fact, it might be better if others voiced their thoughts first.

1. Ready Made

Margery’s first question asks whether a woman would have to meet all of my criteria before I would consider her as wife material. This depends on the trait or quality in question. The qualities I mentioned before that I was looking for in a wife were “devout, chaste, feminine, at least somewhat pleasing to the eye, and a combination of sweet, gentle and respectful in attitude and behavior.” Looking at it again, I think that feminine and the character traits that I listed at the end probably could be collapsed together. Pleasing to the eye essentially translates as attractive (see here for an idea of what that means to me). That leaves me with: 1- Devout, 2- Chaste, 3- Feminine, 4- Attractive.

Chaste- This is not a trait that a woman can be “trained” in. Or rather, this is not a trait that I can train a woman in. She has either been chaste, or she hasn’t. Some lines can only be crossed once, and a woman who has been sexually active has crossed one of those lines. Any training here would have to come from her parents and others in authority, and well before I meet her. All of which means that this is something I can’t “compromise” on; either she is (and therefore meets my criteria), or she hasn’t been (and therefore will never be suitable).

Attractive- With only one or two exceptions, this is another trait that I can only train a woman so much in. A woman’s value on the “1-10″ scale” is pretty much set at birth. Physical appearance is nearly all genetics, with some early environmental factors also playing a role. One exception would be if a woman was overweight, but otherwise had good features such that if she lost the weight she would be pushed up to the attractive range. For an example of such a woman, see here. Which does raise the question: assuming everything else about her was ideal, would I be willing to consider a woman who was overweight?

My answer would be a tentative Yes. But with some big caveats (no pun intended). For one, I would definitely not marry her until after she had lost all the weight and kept it off for a while. I would probably not even propose until she had made significant progress already and I had every reason to expect that she would continue with her weight loss. And until I actually proposed, I would not be “exclusive” either, both because I despise the concept until engagement and because it would serve as a bit of “dread” to encourage her to keep up her efforts. Oh, and I would need to have some assurance that these efforts would pay off to begin with (such as photos of her when she was younger without the fat).

Devout- This is an interesting trait/quality. In many ways it is linked to Chastity, because I think it would be highly unlikely to find a chaste woman who isn’t also devout (although not impossible). If she isn’t devout, then what I would look for in a woman is whether she wishes she were more devout, that is, a genuine desire to deepen her faith and embrace my beliefs if hers and/or her faith tradition and background were different.

Feminine- I confess that this quality is one that has been bugging me for a while. For some time I have thought about writing a post on the subject of femininity and my association with it, because exposure to actual feminine women has left me repulsed at the unfeminine women around me. On an intellectual level I know that this is the easiest of these qualities for a woman to be trained in, and so I am inclined to be accommodating here. On the other hand, I am also very wary about a woman who has been infected by popular culture, and the risks that it poses to marriage, and unfeminine behavior is a major sign of this. But yes, if everything else were met, I would be willing to accept a woman who fails in this quality but is willing to work on it.

2. Warning: Men at Work

This leads to the second question which Margery asked, which inquired about the sort of process necessary to “train up” a woman to match my required qualifications. Again, with each of the qualifications the process will be different.

Unfortunately, there is nothing really to be done about Chastity. Women who fail this qualification will need to look elsewhere.

As for Attractiveness, any changes that need to be done here, and that can be done here, will probably involve weight loss. That means physical fitness and careful dieting. As a potential suitor, the role I would play would be a mix of gym instructor and nutritionist. I would oversee the woman’s exercise regime, setting what days would involve which workout, as well as ensure accountability and track progress. For dieting it would be somewhat similar. I would expect to set a menu for the week, including meal times. Most likely it would involve some sort of low or no carb Paleo diet. In many respects this is perhaps the easiest of the processes, but also the most time intensive and longest-term. Being a source of encouragement and support would likely be vital here, given how easy it is to slip and revert to your old ways.

[For other men I imagine the process would be quite similar.]

With regards to Devotion and faith, it would probably be a mix of personal instruction and observation by me alongside more formal teaching. As a Catholic I would insist that if she isn’t a Catholic already that she convert if we are to marry. Too many problems would result from a mixed-faith marriage. If she would need to convert, or she never advanced very far in her faith, this would include her attending RCIA (adult religious education essentially). My role in this would be to gently guide her and encourage her along. I would observe her and question her to see if this is something she is truly invested in, or if she is just playing along for some reason.

[For other men this would depend on their faith tradition, although I suspect that matters would be very similar as well.]

Lastly we come to Femininity, which is the area where I can do the least to help. Here I would be relying on outside help the most, especially other women who can hopefully guide this potential wife in her quest to become more feminine. Sadly, I don’t know a whole lot of truly feminine role models, so I will probably have to rely on those I know online. Peaceful Single Girl and Girls Being Girls come to mind when I think of older role models. Embrace Your Femininity would probably work for a younger one as well. I can’t really teach much here at all, as I know nothing about feminine hygiene, dress or anything of that sort. The biggest role that I would play would be to correct and encourage. By that I mean I would point out, and rebuke if necessary, any unfeminine behavior I see in the woman, and compliment her when she acts especially feminine.

[Other men might have it easier if they personally know women in their lives who could act as a role model, whether it be a family member or a friend. But otherwise, the male role will essentially stay the same.]

3. What Choice Do I Have?

Margery’s third, and final question, was whether men should be more open to women who could be “trained” rather than hold out for a woman who could meet all four criteria. Frankly, I don’t think that I have much choice, and I suspect most other men don’t either. I can count on one hand the number of women I know or have met in my whole life who meet all four criteria. Margery is quite right when she states that “our society is not the place currently that automatically puts out these sorts of women.” This is an understatement of epic proportions. Western Civilization has, by all appearances, adopted policies, practices and mores which are aimed to ensure that as few women as possible meet these criteria. Instead of the Godly, feminine women who were commonplace a century ago, we now have a population of creatures who strain the imagination to be called women in many instances.

What Margery calls an option, I call a necessity. Western Civ is, in my opinion, falling apart around us. I’m not sure that it can be saved at this point. And to be honest, I’m not sure it deserves to be saved. Which means that those of us who care about such things are going to have to approach courtship as a salvage operation. The odds of me ( or men like myself) finding a woman who is marriageable off the bat are diminutive, and drop every day. And even if I were to find such a woman, there is sadly no guarantee that she will be open to marrying me. All of which leaves me, and those like me, forced to make do with what is available.

As I think on it, the actual process of “training” a woman is not the real difficulty. It will be challenging, yes, but overcoming challenges is my purpose as a man, it is what I was designed to do. No, the real trouble lies in find those women who are willing and able to be trained in such a way. At this point I’m not entirely sure how to discern such women. Ever since I took the Red Pill I’ve been trying my best to hone my skills in terms of finding worthy women, and sadly have had little success. Or perhaps they really are as rare as I perceive. Either way, this is a subject that requires further examination in the future. Hopefully some others will chime in with their thoughts and advice on the matter, because I fear that I have little to offer.

Update to Blogroll

Just a few additions to the blogroll today-

TempestTCup has been added to my Red Pill Women section.

Margery and The Man has joined it in the Red Pill Women section.

Lastly, I’ve added Amos and Gromar to the Neo-Reaction blog section. (BTW, I strongly encourage everyone to read A&M’s latest post, “A Girl named Mackenzie,” for a dark look into the carousel)

If there are any regular readers who feel like they might make good additions to my blogroll, please feel free to mention so in the comments.

Smashing Pottery

I was taken aback recently by something Vox Day wrote over at Alpha Game, in his post “What to do when a girl hits you.” Before reading further into my post, I strongly encourage everyone to read the story that Vox links. Its a rather long one, and context is critical. Done reading it? Ok, here is the line that struck me (pun intended), and probably also caught your attention as well:

The solution is simple. It is very simple and it’s very effective. If a woman physically attacks you in a manner that indicates her serious intent to harm you, then you beat the living shit out of her. Beat her so badly, so painfully, that she fears for her life.

The severity of what Vox argues for here stunned me. Before any kind of  legal consideration, I remembered that Vox is, or at least claims to be, a Christian. And that the women whom this advice applies to are often wives. All of which appears to me to run in stark contrast to these words by St. Peter:

⁷ Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with youof the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

I am having trouble in my mind reconciling these two statements. Yes, I understand that Vox is talking about a specific circumstance here: a woman trying to actively hurt a man. But I fail to see how beating a women to the point where she is worried that you will kill her is acceptable under even that circumstance.

Frankly, the whole topic of men striking women leaves me deeply uncomfortable. I have always been aware of my greater power when interacting women, and have instinctively known that I must restrain myself in order to keep from harming them. This has been especially true in intramural sports, where I, on several occasions, was too aggressive when playing with female colleagues.

So, given all of this, I think that what we have here is a good topic for discussion. Several questions present themselves, and I invite my readers to offer their thoughts on the matter. If there is a question that belongs her but isn’t, feel free to mention it as well.

1) When is it permissible for a man to strike a woman? Or perhaps better put: When can a man deliberately hurt a woman?

2) What kind of force can a man use when he needs to be violent towards a women?

3) In the context of marriage, when it is permissible for a husband to use force against his wife? And what level of force can he use?

The Answer is No

The question being, of course, the subject of a previous post: Should a Single Woman Know Where She Ranks on the “1-10 Scale”?

After thinking it over further, and reading what others have said on the subject, I have come to the conclusion that a woman shouldn’t try and find out her number on the scale. Here are some of the reasons why she shouldn’t try:

1) The scale is highly subjective. Once I talked with several women who had investigated their “number” on the scale, I quickly realized how subjective it was. Men really do have a wide variety of tastes and preferences when it comes to women, and this impacts the scale tremendously. It really requires a large sample of men whose answers you average together to get an accurate picture. And even then, that is an average. You have no guarantee that a man whom you are trying to attract will see you as a “7”, even though that is what your average is. This difficulty is also compounded by the fact that many men will let biases about desirability impact their answers. They will let preferences for non-attraction features of a woman (her dress, for example, or some part of her personality) get in the way of their analysis.

2) Many women won’t use this knowledge in a helpful manner. Or, as Cane Caldo puts it:

Women are crazy.

Sadly, they will not use this information to tailor their efforts to marry towards a man around their value. Instead, you will get something like this:

Wherever you go, if the threads of conversation veer into the importance of the 1-10 scale, the women start throwing out their numbers, bolstering each other, etc. I’m speaking of Christian, married, and ostensibly sane women. (And perhaps they are; with passing moments of madness.) You can’t stop them from wanting to know; from trying to dictate; from competing with each other, and trying to make sure no one gets too far ahead of the fold. They’ll protest that they don’t mean to be competitive. As the saying goes: “Numbers don’t lie”, and self-referentially invoking the 1-10 scale is nothing but numbers. So what we see here is that, untrained, women are short sighted, vain, and envious; which looks a lot like cruelty.

The “1-10 scale” is a male invention, and serves male needs. Dare I say it, perhaps it should stay in the hands of men. Women are not apt to use it as they should, and would in fact be better off not having it at all.

3) Knowing her “number” doesn’t actually do a woman much good. For example,  it doesn’t help her identify men in her SMP/MMP range, because discerning male SMP/MMP is very difficult. So even if she knows she is a “6”, she won’t necessarily be able to identify which men are “6s” that she should pay attention to. Even if it did, if she were to ignore men above her in value, she would risk missing the attentions of one who does find her worth marrying.

4) There is always the danger of receiving bad information. A woman who has an inaccurate assessment of her SMV is in far worse of a position than a woman who has not idea at all.

5) Lastly, there are more important matters that women can focus on if they want to marry. The most critical is to bump up her MMV. Worrying over attractiveness accomplishes little for a woman. Unless she is unfit and/or overweight, there is actually little she can do to change her attractiveness. Elspeth put it bluntly:

Women should endeavor to be useful rather than just pretty. Do your best and leave it at that.

What Elsepth is talking about here is desirability. She is advising women to focus on those traits they have the most control over, and which are critical in convincing a man that you are worth investing in. Looks fade over time, even the densest man knows that. They get our initial attention, but it is your personality and skill-set that makes you worth keeping around. Invest your time and efforts there, and the dividends will be great.

In closing, I leave you with these lovely words courtesy of Embrace your femininity:

Physical beauty is not enough to make you a beautiful person, the heart must also be beautiful so that your beauty radiates from within, in our thoughts and deeds. So I have thought about whether women need to know their “number”, and as for myself, of course there is a curiosity. But I have decided that no, I don’t absolutely need to know. Because our physical attractiveness is just one part of us, it is what will attract a man, but it will not necessarily keep a good man. And why does it matter that every man think we are beautiful? When we think on it a little deeper, we come to realize that it’s only really important that one man find us beautiful.

Ladies, don’t worry about your “number.” Instead, strive to make yourself the most feminine and lovable woman possible.

Belated Advice

I have been busy lately, and so I couldn’t participate in most blogging affairs over the last few days. Fortunately, I have some free time now, and would like to devote it to writing a few posts. This first post is a response, of sorts, to Sunshine Mary’s post “Is it ever advisable to marry a woman who has had previous sexual partners?” Most of the other commentators in the thread covered much of the advice that I was going to give, but there were some points which were stronger than others which I would like to restate, as well as throw in a few ideas of my own.

To begin with, I think that the overall answer to the question is Yes. There are situations where it is advisable for a man to marry such a woman. As a Christian, I would be remiss if I failed to mention Hosea as one instance. Of course, that is a fairly extreme example where God Himself felt it necessary to inflict a punishment on Hosea in order to teach a lesson to the Israelites. A less onerous example would be that of Ruth, who was a God-fearing widow.  For other men, there were also occasions where it was advisable, or at least, not disastrous, for them to marry such a woman.

At heart, this question is over-broad. It really comes down to the man and the woman in question. A man who himself has fornicated in the past is, in my opinion, someone who has less overall to worry about marrying an non-virgin. For the man who was the inspiration of the post, with an N=1, then a potential dilemma is avoided by him. As Sunshine Mary noted in the post, I have expressed a view before that there are four types of marriages:

1. She is a virgin. He is a virgin.
2. She is a virgin. He is not a virgin.
3. She is not a virgin. He is not a virgin.
4. She is not a virgin. He is a virgin.

Now, I would like to clarify that I think my original assertion used “chaste” rather than virgin, but it probably applies. And chastity has no doubt some effect as well  if separated from virginity (meaning there are more kinds of marriages, but I like the simplicity of this, so I will keep it for now).  But applied to this fellow, he has available to him the second and third options. I’m not sure how close they are to one another, but I will say that I believe that the largest gap is between three and four. From what I can tell, option 4 marriages are extremely risky for the man. They require a truly grateful and repentant woman in order to be sustained. So because this gap exists, he doesn’t have to worry about being stuck in the riskiest category of marriages.

Instead, this comes down to two elements: one psychological, one risk-based.

The first element is whether he is alright with other men having had sex with his wife. This is something up to the individual man. Only he can know. My suspicion is that it applies more strongly to men who are chaste than men who aren’t. A guy who hasn’t fornicated will naturally react differently to this situation than a PUA turned serious.

The second is whether he thinks she is worth the risk of marrying. This is an almost economic/utilitarian analysis. And once again, depends on the man and the woman. Essentially, it comes down to determining how much of a risk she is, and balancing this against whether he thinks he is likely to find a better match out there, and what the consequences to him will be of remaining unmarried for the rest of his life.

Again, only the individual man can answer this question. To help this man further, I would need to know more about the both of them. But right now I spotted a couple of red flags that worried me:

– One is the rebellious streak in her. Sounds like she was raised right, and then went off to live a life of sin. This is always worrisome. Now, there are prodigal daughters as well as prodigal sons, but that same personality trait might still be present. And unless she has changed that, it bodes ill.

– Her age. While she has yet to hit the wall, it is still possible she, because of her background, is entering a form of “baby rabies” or “marriage craze”, early. So it is important to understand when she left her sinful life behind her and how long she has been trying to live a Godly life.

Otherwise, more specific answers would require more info. If he wants further advice, he can contact me using the information on my about page.

Oh, and by the way, to answer Rollo’s question: No. I would not marry this woman. Most important is that she was unchaste. As I’ve explained before, that is a deal-breaker for me. Nothing besides a divine command from the Almighty would convince me otherwise. Besides that, those red flags worried me. Marriage is such a risk now I am going to insist that I get as much value from it as I can now, while also minimizing that risk as much as possible.