Wednesday, May 27, 2020

You Can't Have It Both Ways, Gentlemen!

Here is an example of young woman being basically called a golddigger because she wants to marry a guy with a stable income and stay home.

By men calling themselves traditional no less. I guess their idea of "tradwife"" doesn't include a breadwinner husband to provide for her. They will whine about how bad and materialistic modern women are while forgetting one thing: marriage in traditional societies is much more a money-based transaction then in our modern liberal one, where most women have their own income or can easily get a job when needed.

Most women in the 1950s or before didn't marry chronically unemployed losers. At least, not on the level of lower middle class and higher. I personally own a Dutch 1960s book on manners which includes a section on proposing to a girl. The would-be husband is then supposed to be interrogated by the girl's father about his family connections going all the way to Grandpa and about his own income perspectives. Until early 1960s, the parents over here had the right to veto any marriage of children under 30 (yes, 30!)

Romantic stories written in the 1930s-1950s show that a "decent man" wouldn't propose to a girl until he could offer her at least the same standard of living as she enjoyed in her father's house (I read somewhere that in countries like Iran it's still an expectation).

Yes, things changed, I'm aware of that. Now it's common for young girls to waste the best years of their lives on penniless work-shy "artistic" types and for mothers of nursing infants to leave them in the stranger's care and help pay the mortgage and the bills.

Yet, it's rather amusing that there are men around us who ostensibly wish for return to "patriarchy" without intention to fulfill a traditional patriarchal man's duty: to provide for his wife and kids. Do some women have unrealistic expectations? Sure. Some men do, too, btw. However, it's a perfectly reasonable thing for a young woman who wants this kind of life to expect that her husband has a steady income and a house which he can afford without her cosigning the mortgage papers. 

It would be a lot easier, btw, if young people of both sexes put some money aside before marriage instead of spending it on night clubs and vacations, and if their parents  (and grandparents) did the same, like it's still happens among Easterners.

Once again, you can't both have your cake and eat it, too, and it's true for both men and women.

6 comments:

  1. There would be probably more traditional families if there existed more of a safety net for women left widows etc. That's what pro-family policy should try to achieve.

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  2. Seems it's not only women who want fried ice...

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  3. Or have an inner hamster or how is it called:)

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  4. Looks like men have been getting the short end of the deal for a long time now.

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  5. With authority comes responsibility:)

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