The Knowledge Base Spreads

A long time reader and commenter has clued me in to a series on the Orthodox Blog “Russian Faith” concerning attracting a spouse. The first post in the series is “How to Attract a Christian Spouse-Marriage Advice from a Christian Dad.” The author cites my LAMPS/PSALM model favorably at one point, although he adds on a final S to include Spirituality. I think I will respond to that point sometime later, as it is good to understand what my model is, and what my model isn’t.

He then wrote a follow up post, title Attractiveness: Beauty is Not Just On the Inside. It is very Un-PC in all of the right ways. A snippet from it:

A woman’s physical attractiveness is the most immediate and pressing point of interest to most men. Morally and spiritually, this can be quite dangerous — we all know very attractive women whose spiritual lives are a mess — but attractiveness itself is central to attraction by most men (whether godly or not).

A young lady may be a devout Christian, but if she is not physically attractive, the vast majority of men will pass her over.

This is absolutely true, and something which unfortunately is not taught enough in Christian circles (of any faith tradition). The reverse is of course true for men as well, and is one of the reasons why we have the Christian side of the ‘sphere.

One thing I found very striking about the second post is the photos. They showcase beautiful women who are very feminine and modest in appearance. Not the vulgar “sexiness” the world loves to push out.

I will be curious to see where the author takes the remaining posts. At the same time, I am already pleased to see this kind of article happen. Especially because it showcases my LAMPS/PSALM model and the understanding that goes with it. Hopefully more Christian outlets will take advantage of those kinds of resources in the future.

Toxic Femininity

These days we hear plenty about so called “Toxic Masculinity.” The phrase is naturally enough a ruse- the whole point of it is to tar all masculinity as toxic. Its goal is nothing more and nothing less than to eradicate all signs of masculinity from the public sphere.

Rather than go into a full on rebuttal of this distorted thinking, I want to take a different tack today. I want to talk about the possibility of a “Toxic Femininity.”

What would such a thing be? What would it look like? How would it manifest?

---

As Dalrock and many others have pointed out for years, there is a massive wave of female rebellion going on in the West. Such a rebellion has likely not been seen in all of recorded history. And this rebellion is manifesting itself in some truly ugly ways.

What I want to explore is which feminine behaviors have become toxic in the west today as a result of that rebellion. And I hope that my readers can chip in and help out too. There is a lot of truth to the old saying that many hands make light work. So hopefully my readers will offer their thoughts in the comments below.

The way I see it, there are a few steps to all of this. They are:

• Identify what constitutes female nature
• Determine those parts of female nature which either are, or can be, destructive if left unchecked
• Identify which of those are now running rampant in the West today

Some things are easy enough to identify- hypergamy, for example, is a major and obvious one. But there is more to be found. I’ve written other posts before which have covered some of these behaviors, but I want this post to be a sort of compilation of all of them. A go-to resource in the future, if you will. Hopefully it will be useful to more people than just myself.

---

Examples of Toxic Femininity:

Hypergamy-

[To be updated as time passes]

 

Power And Control

Zippy has a new post up which demands a follow-up: With great power comes great incontinence. Short and to the point, I am tempted to repeat all of it. Instead I will merely quote what I see as the key parts. They are:

 

• The most primal power of men is violence

• The most primal power of women is sex

• [O]ur society is willing to punish crimes of violence but is not willing to punish crimes of sex

I think it should be readily apparent to all my readers, but I will repeat it all the same-

Society and Civilization can only exist when there are structures in place which control the base, primal natures of human beings. Failure to control that primal nature leads to savagery in the end, and that means chaos. Towards that end, the building and the maintenance of civilization requires that the primal nature of both men and women alike must be strictly controlled and regulated.

For men our most primal power is violence. Thus, to control our primal nature requires the strict regulation of male violent tendencies. Fail to do so, and you have disorder.

For women, their most primal power is sex. Thus, to control their primal nature requires the strict regulation of female sexual tendencies. Fail to do so, and you have disorder.

The problem right now is what Zippy notes- we regulate violence extensively, but not sexuality. The result is that women are now the primary source of disorder in the “Civilized West.” This will not change until sexuality is regulated with the same fierceness as violence is.

Unfortunately, what we see now is that efforts are being made to double down on the regulation of the male capacity for violence. And further efforts are being made to double down on the deregulation of female sexual tendencies. Rollo has a new post  where this is discussed in the context of The War on Paternity. While most previous efforts to ensure paternity in the past have been dismantled, new technology has changed the field. DNA testing means that a man really can be certain, for the first time in history, that a child is truly his. That naturally conflicts with female sexual power. Thus, it has to go. Hence we are seeing increased efforts to limit when paternity testing can take place, and when it can be used to change a man’s situation (legally, at least).

I have some more thoughts I may add to this post as I develop them. In the meantime feel free to comment below.

The High Ground

I came to an epiphany recently, and I lay the blame at Cane Caldo’s feet. Three of his recent posts made something “CLICK” inside my head and I can’t let go of it. The three posts are the following:

Real Men Don’t Impede Her Desires

Her Buck Stops Here

A Caned Response to the Nashville StatementsA Caned Response to the Nashville Statements

Read all three (they aren’t that long) before continuing. The rest will make a lot more sense that way. Each one, in its own way, address the nature of men and women, and how we are to relate to each other. A (very) brief summary of them could be as follows:

• Men are no longer able to tell women No in any meaningful way
• Men can no longer enforce male spaces, and in fact none exist in any meaningful way
• Men in Christian leadership positions (and in general) won’t teach the truth about women in marriage in any meaningful way

The bit in particular which was the “light bulb” moment for me was this:

Where is the article in which they deny that wives should be irreverent, rebellious, or usurpers? Where do they affirm that wives are to be sexually available to their husbands except for agreement of a limited time? What is more important to marriage than that the wife be submissive to her husband? These are serious and timely issues of marriage worthy of writing in these statements; more so than sodomy and transgenderism.

Cane is right, these are more serious issues. And I think I understand why. Perhaps he has already figured this out, or maybe I am going beyond the scope of his original idea. But everything makes sense to me now. You see, you cannot win on issues like “gay marriage” or “transgenderism” after yielding up the high ground in this battle.

Let me explain.

To begin with, high ground often has two different common meanings. The first is a “safe place”, out of the reach of danger. The second is a height which has strategic military value. It is the second meaning I intend. After all, we are in a war- a spiritual war. Now, the war has already been won, thankfully. However, the fighting has yet to stop. In some respects it is like the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. It was fought after the war officially ended. And while it didn’t change the outcome of the war, it was still meaningful to the men who fought in it. And so it is today- we are fighting a battle in a war the enemy has already lost. But he can still inflict casualties- take souls – and so he fights on. No surprise, really- he was a murderer from the beginning.

The strategic high ground in this battle was twofold- the nature of men and women, and the rights, roles and responsibilities of men and women in marriage. Those two things were places to make a last stand- a metaphorical hill to die on. Unfortunately, they were yielded to the enemy generations ago. And when they were, the battle was lost at that point.

Why are they necessary positions to hold? To begin with, they lay the foundations for any defense of everything to come after. Lets start with “transgenderism.”

The whole point of that particular “theory” is that there are no fixed genders. Male and female, man and woman, are social constructs. They exist because society says they exist. Take that away, and people revert to whatever they want.  On an intellectual level, a strong, vigorous defense of the nature of the masculine and the feminine will over course reveal this to be the rubbish it is. But as is the case with so many things in life, personal experiences which shape someone will trump intellectual argument.

For transgenderism to succeed, people need to grow up where man and woman don’t really mean much. And how do you get that? Simple- you create a society with the following:

• No task or vocations or opportunities, and so on, which are the sole prerogative of men or women.
• Men and women are interchangeable in the various roles and positions which people occupy in life.
• You eliminate any spaces which are reserved for men or women.
• You eliminate any activities which are reserved for men or women.

And on and on.

When this is the society you have- the society we have today- then men and women essentially become interchangeable- fungible even. If that is the case, then the concepts of “man” and “woman” will lose any sense of meaning in the minds of those exposed to it. And this is what everyone is exposed to these days, especially youth. It should come as no surprise that “transgenderism” is on the rise right now. They don’t see any real difference between men and women, save minor biological differences, and those can be changed by surgery. The truth is, “transgenderism” was an inevitable byproduct of this organization of society. It was just a matter of time.

Let’s look now “gay marriage” in the context of the rights, roles and responsibilities of men and women in marriage. In the past they were clearly defined. Now, no one dares to defend any real difference whatsoever. At least, a meaningful difference. What is the end result of this? Well, when men and women have the same rights, roles and responsibilities, they become… you guessed it, fungible. They can be swapped out without changing the fundamental makeup of the marriage unit. After all, husband and wife are both equal, right? And since they are equal, they both can do whatever needs doing, right? And are deserving of equal, well, everything, right? In that context husband and wife are no longer meaningful terms.

Instead husband and wife are replaced in the minds of people with “spouse 1” and “spouse 2” [Update: Reader Lost Patrol suggests Partner 1 and Partner 2 work better, and I agree. I’m going to update the rest of the post to fit that.] And of course if mother and father are also essentially the same- equal- then they are likewise fungible. And so you get “parent 1″ and parent 2.” Well, if spouse/parent replaces husband/father and wife/mother, you get some interesting outcomes. Because, after all, if marriage in the eyes of people is Partner1 + Partner 2, then does it really matter who happens to be Partner 1 and Partner 2? Of course not! It is all about two people who love each other who decide to becomes spouses.

And when you think about it, there isn’t really any reason to restrict it to just two spouses together. After all, love is the important part, right? As long as you have that, the nature and number of spouses doesn’t really matter. Dwell on where that line of thinking will take you.

I could continue at length, but I think I’ve made my point. Without a viable, effective and vocal defense of those two principles, nothing else can be defended. The battle will be lost- guaranteed. And it isn’t merely about logic. In fact, I believe that logic takes a distant backseat compared to the way that people’s common experiences affect their perception of the issues. Those experiences shape their views to a degree that rational argument never does.

If Christians want to have any, and mean any chance of turning this battle around, then those two strategic positions must be re-taken. There is no other recourse.

 

Leaden Weights

Apologies to everyone for the lack of posts these past few weeks. Free time has been sparse, and I have been trying to spend it wisely. Which usually means away from my computer. One of those activities as of late has been dancing. I’ve written on it before, when talking about the importance of a good smile for women. Now there are a few things I want to talk about: weight and following

One of the first things I noticed after taking up social dancing was how much of an impact a woman’s weight had while dancing. It is more difficult to lead around a woman who is overweight. And much more difficult to lead a woman who is significantly overweight. Not to mention, it is also less fun as well.

And being so close, I cannot help but notice that a woman being overweight is a huge turn off (pun intended). Weight has a significant impact when it comes to a woman’s SMV/MMV. A few dozen or so pounds really can be the difference between several points on the 1-10 scale (Deep Strength’s post here includes good example).  At the same time, a woman who can keep a healthy weight (18-22% body fat or so), can usually rate at least somewhat attractive for most men. All of which means that single women who want to have a chance of grabbing a good man should take care to keep their weight at a healthy level. As for married women, keeping the weight as close as possible to that level will help keep your husband attracted to you.

Another problem is when your follow doesn’t, you know, follow. I don’t mind so much when it is due to inexperience. In fact, if she is open to learning and improving, then I don’t mind teaching at all (in so far as I am able). That can actually be an enjoyable thing, and demonstrates the right kind of mindset. However, I don’t care much for a follow who wants to do her own thing.

Even if I can adapt to her “technique”, it is a lot more taxing than it should be and takes much of the fun out of dancing. If I can’t adjust quickly enough, then the dance both becomes awkward, and would look bad to anyone observing it. And again, the fun is gone. Perhaps someone with more experience and skill with me wouldn’t mind as much, but for someone trying to leave beginner status I’d rather not deal with it. All of which means that I keep a mental note of who is a good follow and who isn’t, and will dance accordingly.

 

 

Market Watch

In my previous post, A Poor Example,  I mentioned a post that Scott and Elspeth wrote about how June Cleaver might be unmarriageable right now. What I want to do with this post is make a series of observations based on what they mentioned in their post, as well as in the comments. I will likely expand on it over time, as I have a chance to re-read the comments. This won’t be an in-depth post, but rather more of a list with perhaps a comment or two of my own.

So here are some of my observations:

• The Market for devout Christians, men and women alike, is awful. I wrote previously on this topic in my Market Failure series of posts. You can read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 via the links. As for who has it worse, I think that is mostly an academic exercise. My gut says men more than women, but not by a huge amount.
•  Geography play a huge role in the difficulties of the marriage market right now. Different geographic locations are more or less favorable to men or women. My suspicion is that where I live the ratio between marriageable men and women heavily tilts to men, and that of course makes the market tougher for men.
• Demographics also plays a significant role. As various Christian groups have splintered, and there is even more separation in belief within groups, the overall pool of eligible mates has dropped precipitously. So while absolute numbers might be up, the actual pool is perhaps smaller than it has been for perhaps even centuries.
• Most Christian parents are not raising devout Christian children. Much less marriageable ones.
• Young men are much less interested in marriage than they were in the past. Having a few more years under my belt since I started blogging, I have seen this more and more. Younger men are just less interested in marriage. The why of this is worthy of a whole post of its own.
• Too many people are doing too little to make marriage happen these days. Marriage needs to be a matter for the whole community.

 

Also, the answer to this:

Is it possible that parents of the last several generations, responding to the cultural cues from blue-pill pastors and other sources have raised both sex children to be pretty useless at “traditional” marriage, and therefore a different approach to finding matches for them may be required?

…is yes and yes.

More to come as I think on it.

Update: A few more observations-

• The market is seriously hampered by the amount of deception going on. The worst lies, from what I have seen, tend to be those that people tell themselves. Self-deception makes hit harder to diagnose problems, among other ills.
• Introverts and shy people are especially vulnerable in the market right now. Given how few effective venues there are for meeting eligible mates, each one has to count that much more. For introverts, that is much more difficult.
• I am among the most the most “pro-marriage” of guys in the Christian manosphere. At least as it applies to my own life. Only a couple might be at the same level as me, such as Deep Strength. I don’t know if that was the case originally, but it seems to be the case now. And even despite my subjective “gun-ho” approach I am still very cautious.

Something Else

Today’s post is a Masculine Monday post. Male commenters only, please. Also, somewhat stream of consciousness as well.

Rollo has a new post up titled “The Something Else.”

If you want to sum up Rollo’s post, it would be in this simple phrase:

If it wasn’t X-Box it would be something else.

The reality of male/female relations these days is driving more and more men to seek out “something else” to occupy their life.

For some it is escapism- merely an attempt to drone out the overwhelming meaninglessness they feel marks their lives.Whether it is porn or video games or something else, they want to blur out reality. There is no drive for something more, something greater. Merely something to distract.

For others it is a genuine desire to find something of meaning and value. To obtain a purpose for life. Some Red Pill sites call this “your mission.” As a Catholic, I recognize that the word they are searching for is vocation. These men are looking for a calling that they can hold fast to and make their own.

Unfortunately, for many the vocation that most will be called to, marriage, seems mostly out of grasp. And for most probably will be (if they are smart, anyways). The problem, from the Church’s perspective, is that there is nothing in place to really help men who find themselves so frustrated. They will instinctively search of that “something” to replace their vocation, but how much is really there for them? Just among Catholics many will not be called to be priests, or monks (in the traditional sense).

It seems to me that the Church needs to adapt to the change in the Marriage Marketplace. There needs to be something for all the young men who will not be able to marry in the years ahead. And probably something as well for the men who find themselves divorced. I’m talking more than some support group. Rather, something more akin to a community, a brotherhood. Something that provides support and doesn’t leave all these men discrete individuals adrift in the modern world.

I suppose some sort of urban monastery might be in order. Not a place for contemplatives, but a communal home where everyone is a “roomie” and can uplift and support his fellow men. I invite my readers to offer their thoughts on the matter. All the same, I am sure that something is needed to help devout men find that something. Many men are drifting away from the faith, and given the cold shoulder the Church is basically giving them these days, it is hard to blame them. Furthermore, creating a place for men without a home might help secular men who are also adrift in the same ocean.

Men are looking for something else, and the Church needs to help them find it.

 

The Escape Plan

I.

I have read with interest Deep Strength’s latest posts on submission and marriage. In chronological order we have:

Intelligent submission is not required

Submission is a test of faith

Women’s sin nature in marriage and contentment

Unfortunately, time restraints kept me from responding in detail until now. Since DS has written several follow-ups to the first post, some of what I was going to say is now dated. Some now ideas developed, however, and so I will try and flesh out this post as best as I can.

I should note that I don’t agree with all that DS has to say- sometimes for theological reasons and sometimes practical reasons. But those disagreements can be worked out in other posts (and in some cases already have)

II.

To begin with, I want to explore the notion of “intelligent submission.” As some alluded to in DS’s post, such a term is highly disingenuous. Not because there is anything wrong with either word. The problem is when they are combined together. The addition of “intelligent” is meant to apply a condition to submission- in other words, to limit its application.

Frankly, whenever anyone proposes limiting any expression of faith, be it submission, or charity, or compassion, etc., massive red flags need to be raised. Has anyone among my readers heard of “Intelligent Compassion” before? I can’t say that I have. And if I did, you better believe I would be looking for the con. I rather suspect I would not be alone in this.

Intelligence, or better put, Wisdom, is a trait that all Christian women should posses, or strive to build. Married women are no exception to this:

She opens her mouth with wisdom,
    and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

(Proverbs 31:26)

However, when people start talking about “Intelligent Submission” they aren’t referring to a woman exercising wisdom and submitting to her husband at the same time. No, they are saying a woman should intelligently decide when and where and how to submit to her husband. The gap between those two notions is as vast as that between Lazarus and the Rich Man. No bridging that gap.

All of this drives to my main point: beware of those who try and applies conditions to how they live out their faith. For most, if not all, their intentions are not benign. What they are trying to do is limit how much work they actually have to put into their faith. An example from our Lord:

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ² “Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” ³ He answered them, “And why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? ⁴ For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die.’ ⁵ But you say, ‘If any one tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is given to God,^[a] he need not honor his father.’^{[b] 6} So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word^[c] of God.

[Footnote b: By dedicating his property to God, i.e., to the temple, a man could avoid having to help his parents, without actually giving up what he had. The scribes held such a vow to be valid without necessarily approving it.]

(Matthew 15:1-6)

They want to have their cake and it eat it- to appear righteous, without having to live a righteous life. Which leads to the next part.

III.

This idea of appearing righteous without having to actually be righteous is what Deep Strength covers in his most recent post:

That’s ultimately what it comes down to: women want to let their husband lead instead of following his lead. I had thought that twisted rebellion like the complementarians espouse was the main sin nature of women. However, I believe I am now wrong about that. Covert rebellion which is “I let my husband lead” is probably the main sin nature of women because it’s under the guise of righteousness (e.g. the husband is leading) but it gives her all of the power (e.g authority) in the relationship.

This is the true essence of virtue signalling. Grabbing power while maintaining the moral high ground. It’s not enough to grab power. It must be done with the moral high ground.

In other words, a woman must look good while rebelling or sinning. As Looking Glass likes to call it: Vanity. Vanity rebellion. Women’s sin nature in marriage is Vanity Rebellion.

DS is very close here. He is spot on about the specific behavior that women are exhibiting here. Although I think the name “Vanity Rebellion” is a bit clunky, I can’t think of a better name myself, so VR it is.

This VR phenomenon is quite prevalent in Christian circles, and is something I think we can probably call endemic to human nature. Nor is it necessarily limited to women, although I think women are more prone to it.

As DS points out, can also see this virtue signalling when it comes to divorce- women always try to have the moral high ground when they initiate a divorce. It is never because the woman is just tired of marriage. That might be part of it, but there is always some major failing on the man’s part.

At the same time, however, I think that this specific behavior is just a particular manifestation of a much broad behavior that women are prone to engage in. I call it “The Escape Plan.”

It is as simple as it sounds- always have an escape plan in place in case something goes wrong. Whatever the situation is, always have an out for it. You can find this behavior everywhere:

Don’t like what your husband is telling you to do? Claim it wouldn’t be intelligent to submit to him, and that is what God expects of wives.

Don’t like being married to your husband? Divorce him and claim it is his fault, that the moral blame lies on him because he failed as a husband and God wants you to be free.

Don’t need an abortion but want to be free to get one if need be, and at the same time appear righteous? Say that you are personally against abortion but don’t feel the state should intervene in women’s lives/bodies.

Rollo’s Plan B is an example of this. Keep a “Plan B” man around… just in case.

Heck, you see this in domestic violence cases all the time. The woman calls the police, but then tells them she doesn’t want the man arrested. Why? Lots of reason, but a major one is she wants them there to cool the situation down, at least at first. But then she can decide whether to keep the relationship or not. If she decided to keep it, she says she doesn’t want to press charges. If she decides to ditch her man, say she wants charges. You can also see this with women who will stick with a man, but then tell their friends or family they are “in fear of their lives.” This gives them a great out- they can stay if they want, but once they want out they can call the police and point out they warned people in the past. [This is nothing, mind you. Having friends who are cops can provide all kinds of stories- but this isn’t the place for that. ]

Again, the goal is setting up a situation where the woman can bail at any time if she wants to. It is all having options.

This explains Vanity Rebellion- women want to appear to be a good, righteous woman. But they also worry about what the cost of that could be if they actually lived up to everything. So they gain power… just in case.

Now, men do this too. But women, who are more naturally covert than men as owing to their nature, are far and away more prone to this. So prone to it I would argue that it is a standard procedure for women- they will default to it unless they actively resist. For men I think it is much more likely to be an active choice, and thus less common.

IV.

And that wraps up my commentary for today. To recap:

• People who add conditional modifiers to expression of faith, such as submission, are almost always (and should be presumed to be) acting in bad faith.
• Vanity Rebellion is just one example of a larger phenomenon, The Escape Plan- whereby a woman tries to get some perceived good but at the same time leaves an option available to her to bail or escape if the cost should prove too high.

My readers are of course free to disagree and/or add their own thoughts.

Must It Be A Man?

*Both Men and Women Permitted*

Today’s post is a follow up to my most recent Masculine Monday post, found here. Therein I stated the need a man has for a good and honest friend. As part of my argument I explained that this friend needed to be a man. My specific words:

No man can be right all the time. We all make mistakes, we all err (as an aside, they are not the same thing).  So it is essential to have someone in our life who will tell us what we need to hear, even and especially when we don’t want to hear it. Naturally enough, that friend also needs to be a man.

If a man has a wife, she cannot be that honest friend. If she is truly devoted to him and reveres him, then she cannot be unbiased when he is concerned. She won’t be capable of the brutal honesty required. And if she is not devoted to him, and reviles him, well then, her words cannot be trusted there either.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, a female reader objected to this argument. She felt that a wife could fulfill the role of objective imparter of the the truth. And unsurprisingly, I disagree with her. I felt a discussion on that particular subject was worth having, but the previous post was not a proper place for that discussion. Therefore I have created this post instead.

So tell me readers- must that friend be a man? Can it be a woman? A wife specifically, or a woman in general? Feel free to let loose in the comments.

 

The Misery Of Too Much Comfort

[This post is a continuation of my post here. Consider this the equivalent of a Sunday Scripture post.]

For over a month I have been mulling something that I read over at 80 Proof Oinomancy:

See, one of the hardest things for “Nice Guys” to understand is this:

Healthy women like pain.

[DON’T CONFLATE PAIN WITH ABUSE.]

It’s a feature; not a bug.

If they didn’t, humanity would’ve died out, long ago.

[Birthing, being what it is, and kids being pains while breast-feeding, and all.

Chalk yet another one up for the Book of Genesis.]

The source was Ace’s post, “That’s why I cut you just to heal you.”  The whole post, short as it is, is worth reading in full (as Ace’s pretty much always are).

Since I read it oh so many weeks ago, I have been trying to formulate my own thoughts on what Ace is trying to describe. I definitely feel he is on to something here. I disagree about his use of the word pain, however. A more fitting word exists, in my opinion. To borrow from myself, it is not so much pain as suffering that is at play here. All pain is suffering, certainly, but not all suffering is pain. Suffering conveys the proper breadth of what is involved.

You see, healthy women “like” suffering.

I put quotations around like because it is not a conscious desire, but an unconscious one. Something deep down inside them recognizes that a certain amount of suffering is to be expected, is natural even. As Ace alludes to, this draws from Genesis:

¹⁶ To the woman he said,

“I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing;
    in pain you shall bring forth children,
yet your desire shall be for your husband,
    and he shall rule over you.”

(Genesis 3:16)

One consequence (among many) of Original Sin is that women will experience greater pain/suffering as a result of bearing and rearing children. I would argue that an expectation of this is “baked into” their genetics.

This leads us to the modern day, and the theory behind this post. The problem is that in the present age women are more coddled than they have ever been. They are, especially in the West and in families not at the bottom of the SES ladder, further removed from suffering than ever before. The level of comfort in the civilized world has never been higher. True suffering, true sacrifice, is alien to most women growing up. Most parents take care to keep their children from having to suffer, often by ensuring as much comfort as possible.

While I certainly understand this behavior on the part of parents, it is at the same time utter folly. Suffering can never really be escaped. It will always be present, and I will use a future post to go into that in further detail. What matters for this post is that this coddling approach is a disaster. Why?

Simple: Women expect suffering in their life- it is the natural thing. [Think about the vast majority of human history- filled with suffering for pretty much everyone.] When women are too comfortable, when suffering is absent from their life, then it sends a message to their unconscious mind that something is wrong, that what they are living is an unnatural life. That message of unnaturalness will only be repeated over the years as they grow up. They will know, somewhere deep down inside, that something is wrong. Unfortunately, because this is unconscious, they won’t know what it is, exactly, that is wrong.

This will, naturally enough, lead them to feel miserable. The misery is only made worse because they won’t understand it. It will gnaw on their mind incessantly, like an itch you can’t quite reach.

I suspect that part of the reason that women act so crazy in the west today is because of this. Using that itch analogy I just mentioned- women act crazy because they are trying to scratch that itch. Only they don’t quite know how- so they do so in extreme ways. Again, deep down inside they know they should be suffering, so they go out and make themselves suffer (without every truly understanding that is what they are doing).

Fixing our broken culture will take a lot (and perhaps cannot even be done at this point). But whether we fix it, or build a new one, I would argue that if we want it to be sustainable then we need that future to be far less comfortable.

[Feel free to have at me in the comments. Even with almost two months of thinking, this theory is still far rougher than I would like.]