There is one thing most men hate and it is dealing with an overtly emotional female who is prone to fight over every trifle. In fact, they hate it so much, they write articles about it (WARNING: language, content).
There was time not so long ago, when people, both men and women were taught to control their emotions, and never let themselves go. You still find the references in old books, like Little House On The Prairie, for instance, where girls from an early age were taught that "crying is shameful" and that they should always behave like ladies, which included not throwing temper tantrums like two-years-old.
Being able to control your temper has been traditionally considered a mark of class. Nowadays we are taught that it's OK to vent and "to blow up steam", and women in general are constantly taught that they are victims and should moan about everything, including their own children.
In reality, complaining has never made anyone attractive, and it won't make your own husband more in love with you. If something, constant complaining will encourage people to avoid you. I heard about men who worked long hours to avoid the society of their nagging, complaining wives.
Bad as constant nagging is, the situation described in the first article is even worse. A woman screeching like a banshee because her husband forgot to do something trivial demonstrates one thing, the total lack of class, manners and good breeding. I don't care whatever nonsense the MSM is pushing right now, the stereotypical behaviour of the underclasses is not something one should be aspiring to.
In marriage, both husband and wife should respect each other and give each other (some) personal space. For women, it means not acting like your husband's conscience (seriously, the idea that the husband must leave his own home in order to watch a TV show that so many women enjoy or is forced to sleep in another bedroom because his wife doesn't agree with his choice of entertainment is simply insane. Anyway, the wife refusing marital bed to her husband for such a trivial reason was, is and should be grounds for divorce).
For men, it means not micromanaging your wife and giving her some choice in how she runs the household, which clothes she wears and space for personal hobbies and friends.
In a healthy relationship, problems should be solved without shouting, screaming and stomping one's feet. My husband would never tolerate me screaming at him. He normally doesn't raise his voice talking to me, either.
Stay classy, ladies!
Crazy, Ms. Gregoire is.
ReplyDeleteRemember we are not talking some hardcore p0rn over here. I´ve read somewhere that more women than men watch Game of Thrones. My own mother watches it! I wonder should the husband kick his wife out of the house if she reads bodice ripper stories?
ReplyDeleteIndeed.
ReplyDeleteYelling and nagging are really a form of manipulation. Kind of like kids when they keep on asking for something. A parent may finally give in (not a good idea), but now the parent is resentful. Just bad all the way around. What are these kids called? Isn't it "zeur peeten"? I have been called that when I was young. A husband has every right to insist that he be respected and so does a wife.
ReplyDeleteThis was very good. :) I so agree with staying classy. Though I have some work to do with it - I yell at my dog sometimes. It is nothing but lack of authority when one has to yell at her dog...
ReplyDeleteWe both like Game of Thrones, both books and series. I do think there is unnecessary amount of nudity in series but I can live with it. I wonder if it more american feature to obsess about nudity? That's why there is so much of it in american series and on the other hand, religious americans take it very seriously. It seems to me that most europians are more relaxed with that matter. I mean seeing naked body doesn't necessarily mean lusting after it.
And if husband is the head of the family, shouldn't wife trust his judgement in all reasonable matters?
Marietta, it's "zeurpiet" :) I agree nagging is a form of manipulation, however with yelling I think it can be a form of manipulation or simply bad self-control. we all tend to get frustrated sometimes, and yelling is an expression of it.
ReplyDeleteHousewife, I have never watched the Game of Thrones, neither am I planning to:) I know my mother and her girlfriends all like it. I'm simply not that much into modern entertainment. My husband watches nearly all new movies, if they bother me I just go sit upstairs. I would never stand behind his shoulder and control which sites he visits and neither would he do the same to me. We are both adults and treat each other accordingly.
ReplyDeleteBTW, all traditional cultures/religions have always emphasized women's chastity. Modern American Evangelicalism emphasizes male chastity, that's the main difference between how American Christians react to things and how Europeans do. I mean, even prudish Victorians looked through the fingers when certain men visited the houses of ill repute. You were supposed to stay chaste yourself but cut guys some slack, however, a lot of modern American Christian sites make a huge deal of a man so much as watching a picture of girl in a bikini. It may be a cultural issue, really.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it's a cultural issue, as much as a spiritual issue. I think both men and women are accountable for what they see. I'm amazed when I'm in Holland and see nudism in commercials. That would not be allowed here. I don't find any good reason to have it either. Pornography is a huge problem. I've seen marriages fall apart because of that - there really can be an addiction. Someone once told me that they have rules for the way their daughters dress - cover your boobs, back, butt and belly. I'm thankful today that males are becoming more aware of the dangers of porn.
ReplyDeletePornography is certainly a problem, but nudity or girls in bikinis aren't pornography. Even the Catholic Catechism agrees:) I'm not really bothered by commercials since I never watch them. We live in a trashy society with trashy values and trashy entertainment, it's a fact. However, we can't totally shut ourselves from it unless we go live in a convent, so we'll have to compromise to some extent. Yes, the man is responsible for what he sees, but it's his responsibility. It's not his wife's duty to work as both his conscience and confessor.
ReplyDeleteAlso, while Holland is far from ideal, doesn't the law in Ontario allow women to go topless outside the beach area?
We don't have nude beaches in Ontario. I was never allowed to wear bikinis and neither did we let our girls. My mother used to say, "You don't walk around in your bra and underwear in the mall. What's the difference?" Society has become trashy and we do need to guard our hearts. You are right when you say that a man is responsible for what he sees - not his wife. I don't understand a man wanting his wife to dress trashy. Maybe he thinks he looks better if his wife looks hot.
ReplyDeleteIt's not about the beaches, it's about the law allowing women to go topless in public. Now, granted, may be most women will never do such a thing, but I remember hearing about it from my family. Don't you also have Naked News on the TV? It's not like here in Europe we all living in sin while on the other side things are better. Most porn comes out of the USA, may be that's why their Christians complain about it so much.
ReplyDeleteThe husband telling his wife to dress trashy is different from the husband watching naughty TV shows, btw. If he is asking her to violate her conscience she has the right to refuse, imo. The best thing is to search for a compromise, though.
It was a big case in court - ridiculous! It doesn't happen. We don't get naked news - I don't think that's on the air anymore. I lot of trash comes straight from Hollywood. Just like in Holland - the coastal areas are more liberal. The USA also has a Bible belt. As far as politicians go - probably the same again from very conservative to very liberal. In truth, Canada is more liberal than United States. People in the USA stand up for their beliefs much faster than Canadians.
ReplyDeleteWe are all in it together! TV is trashy; however, what really gets me, is incessant propaganda, that's why I never watch it. I mean it's straight out of 1984, only more creatively made. Feminism, blah blah, global warming blah blah, political correctness blah blah. Wouldn't watch it if I were paid.
ReplyDeleteI want to point out that I also think that chastity is important. But I think that traditionally in protestant Europe people have thought that modesty is a virtue because vanity is a sin. It has very little to do with helping men with their lust issues. Of course lust is also a sin, but if man lusts it his problem, nobody elses. At least here in Finland women were consiered vane by nature and that's why there were so many unwritten rules about how to dress. It had very little to do with men. Women's vanity was maybe considered bigger sin than men's lust.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me, that in many american blogs people seem to think that most important thing in modesty is not to make men lust after you but it is ok to be relatively vain. I mean men can lust over woman's bicycle, there is no point in trying to dress they way that no man would ever lust after you. :) I think that maybe it would be more important to think LESS of how one dresses and how she looks. If we think very much about our apperiances we pay too much attention to ourselves.
My humble opinion is also, that bikinis are not underwear. People assosiate underwear with undressing and therefor sex. But bikinis usually are assosiated with going to beach and swimming, not with sex. It is not just the amount of bare flesh. (I personally do not like bikinis that much. Most women look much better in anything else. When I'm on a beach I like to put dress on when I come from water, I'm more comfortable that way.)
But this are just my opinions and maybe changed by tomorrow. :)
Modest clothes in Europe were about lust, too. It's hardly a secret to anyone that men get turned on by attractive scantily dressed women. The difference was that the onus was on women to stay chaste, not on men. "Man's honour is courage, woman's honour is chastity". For a man to have extramarital relationships was considered a drawback, like smoking or drinking. For a woman, it would ruin her reputation. The old-fashioned expression was "to lose her honour". It could be restored if she got married, so lots of women gambled. Some, like Mozart's wife, ended up married. Others ended up in the streets.
ReplyDeleteAs for bikinis, I will admit that on those rare occasions I get to the beach (the sea is usually cold throughout the summer) I do wear one because my husband likes it. I doubt I will shock anyone by it these days, when some women go topless, however, bikini isn't really modest. I see it as a compromise, but in a traditional society bathing suits would be more covering.
Of course men are attracted by scantily dressed women but my point was that in that case, woman's sin was vanity and lust is man's sin. So woman wasn't supposed to dress modestly to help men stay chaste (because as you said, nobody cared about man's chastity) but to show that she is not vane.
DeleteDressing vanely is one thing and lusing your virtue is another. I am sure that many plain women lost their virtue too. It was not her clothing that made her loose her virtue but -well, sex.
I think it is very important to be aware of the fact that scantily dressed woman can be very chaste and pure and on the other and most plain and modest woman can be having sex with half of the city.
Nobody doubts that a scantily dressed woman can be chaste, that´s not the point. The point was that you weren´t supposed to advertise your goods, so to say. In Ancient Rome free women wore long loose fitting garments in contrast to the slave girls who ran around in short dresses, which signified that they were sexually available. Our modern society is trying to discard all the outward symbols and rituals because it´s gnostic to the core. That´s why we separate inward chastity with its outward expression. And not being vain was a part of being chaste, since it meant not to draw up too much attention.
DeleteAs a Christian young man, I lament the civilizational loss of the earlier understandings we had about the importance of modesty, not just female but male also; I'm myself not completely comfortable just wearing swimming trunks at the beach (though I do so, a little self-consciously because I am a bit overweight), and wish both men and women alike could dress the way our forefathers and foremothers did a century or so ago when they went to the beach; wearing outfits that bared forearms and the bottoms of legs, but covered up the rest. I don't think there was anything wrong with that; I don't see why we had to change.
ReplyDeleteOf course, back then, there wasn't mixed bathing everywhere; many places, men and women swam in separate places at public beaches. I'm not sure we need to be that extreme, esp. if our swimming costumes are more modest. Moreover, I think families should be free to be together at the beach, mom, dad, and the kids, altogether.
ReplyDeleteThe fashion for men over here is swimming trunks going all the way back to their knees:)
ReplyDeleteI like that style, and myself have had ones of similar length, though other times I've had ones a bit shorter. :)
ReplyDeleteBTW, before you all start throwing stones at me, my bikini has a separate skirt to go with it. Of course, I remove it when going into water. I own a "modest" swimming suit, however, my husband's reaction to it was not encouraging, to say the least.
ReplyDeleteHey, I'm not throwing stones at anyone; like I said, I wear swimming trunks without a T-shirt-like top, after all - unlike our forefathers. I'm just saying that there wasn't anything wrong with the former styles, and I just think it's too bad we collectively, as a civilization, decided to move away from such. I don't judge you or myself as being wrong, or anything. I'm just lamenting a lost world, that's all. :)
ReplyDeleteDearie me, I didn't mean you:) It was written tongue-in-cheek, as the majority of what I write usually is:)
ReplyDeleteAh, sorry; my bad. :)
ReplyDeleteBTW Sanne you are lucky if your husband tells what he likes and dislikes. If I try to ask if he likes or not some clothes my husband just answers: "You are the one wearing them", meaning that his opinion shouldn't matter.
ReplyDeleteMy husband doesn´t tell me what to wear but he always tells me if dislikes what I wear:)
ReplyDelete