Posted on 01/08/2014 7:27:06 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Why are modern men such layabouts? It’s simple. When the family declines. Men decline. Rod Dreher writes about it here. Quoting various articles he concludes that men who are disassociated from family life soon become de-motivated, shiftless and under achieving.
I’ve known men with severe self esteem problems. They are stuck and can’t achieve their potential. Invariably their fathers told them they were crap or they were stupid or no good. What the father says about the child –especially the son–remains a potent force in the child’s life. If the father is no good it’s bad, but if there is no father or a totally disengaged father the child is rootless and drifting. He or she does not have the tools in their toolbox to know how to deal with the world. They’ve got pieces missing.
Of course there are father figures who can help to put things back together and fill in the blanks, but the decline of the family and especially the crisis in masculinity and fatherhood are desperate gaps in our social and familial infrastructure.
As the traditional family disintegrates what we are seeing is the development of supposedly new forms of family life. These new forms of family are supposed to be of equal value or even better than the traditional family, but we should not be deceived. The newly developing forms of family life in our society are not morally neutral, nor are they a progression to something better and more sophisticated. They are a regression to a more primitive and barbaric form of family structure. There are two trends which do not bode well for the future: matriarchy and polygamy.
With the rise of the single mother family, we are seeing a form of matriarchy develop. Women control the wealth, guard the home, rear the children and provide for the family. As new generations of single mothers bear children, the matriarchal structure extends to the grandmother and great grandmother. I lived in England for twenty five years and during that time saw how the state (by giving everything to single teen mothers) created the new matriarchy. A girl who became pregnant at fifteen was given an apartment and everything necessary for the child. If she married she lost many of the benefits so it was to her advantage to remain a single mother. By the time she was thirty she was a grandmother for her daughters had continued the pattern. At forty five she was a great grandmother an the three generations lived in close proximity amongst the underclass in Britain like a modern matriarchal tribe.
The men roamed about like hunter gatherers–living off unemployment checks or casual labor, spending their time in sports and past times while the women (looked after by the state) controlled the home. The men either lived with their mothers or their girl friends–often serially. They had no reason to marry, no reason to get a permanent job, no reason to “get ahead”.
While this was characteristic of the underclass it would be wrong to limit it to the underclass. Through easy no fault divorce, co habitation, and the decline of marriage the new matriarchy also existed within the middle and upper classes. There too, the men were kicked out through divorce. The women claimed the wealth, controlled the family and the men were relegated to roaming about living alone or living with a series of girlfriends or new wives. Families with step children and half children abounded–almost always with the women in charge.
This sort of matriarchy is not an advance. It does not lead to human flourishing, human achievement or any sense of human self worth. The men resent being excluded by the women, the women eventually resent having to do everything. The children are left to fend for themselves.
The other alternative that we will see develop before long is polygamy. There will be plenty of utilitarian arguments for polygamy and the law (once it has approved same sex marriages) will not be able to hold back the so called “advance” that polygamy offers. Many women will turn away from the de facto and accept it’s opposite: polygamy. Rather than do everything they will join a harem of women reliant on the one man who does and decides everything.
Again, we should not be deceived. Polygamy is not an advance. It is not progress but regress. Polygamy will set back women’s rights and self esteem, locking them into a relationship with a man which must be abusive because (when faced with a tribe of pregnant women who can’t support themselves) he will be the one in charge. The woman will become a second class citizen, valued only for her child bearing capability like the roaming stud is valued in statist matriarchy only for the fact that he can give the girl another baby.
Every society that has advanced and moved forward historically has moved beyond matriarchy and polygamy. This must be so because matriarchy demeans men and polygamy demeans women. Only in monogamy are man and woman ideally treated as equals.
The true advancement for humanity was the gradual predominance of not only monogamy, but the Christian ideal of monogamy. It was only Christianity which exalted the union of man and woman to such a high status. The Romans were aghast that Christian husbands and wives actually loved one another. That a woman was to be treated with respect and honor within a marriage was revolutionary. That marriage should be for life (thus offering security and protection to the woman) was revolutionary. That the Christians loaded marriage with theological significance making it a sacrament and the crucible whereby the soul’s salvation was forged, was a radical advance and innovation. That marriage signified the union between God and humanity was an astounding advance in human social and self understanding.
To go back to matriarchy and polygamy is a regression similar to a society drifting back into racial segregation and slavery. Such a prospect should not be laughed at. A society like ours, that has made great strides in the area of racial integration and equality may very well slide back into segregation and even a kind of de facto slavery. How that might happen is the stuff of another speculative blog post, but in the meantime realize that the regression of marriage into matriarchy and polygamy is not something enforced from above, but evolved from below.
We have chosen this regression to a more primitive and unenlightened form of family life. The fruit of it will be a society that drifts corporately into the same attitude of the male within matriarchy and the female within polygamy: a society with low self esteem, lack of aspiration and low accomplishment. It will be a society of the chronically dependent, and when there is a population that is chronically dependent there must always be a tyrant who they are happy to have rule over them.
BTTT!
Great article, thanks!
Gee, Who Could have seen THAT coming?
Generally, a good read, but I disagree here. Polygamy actually flourished amount Native American tribes and was a humane way to care for the surplus of women which resulted from constant warfare and hunting accidents. The man did not do everything, not even close. His job was to hunt, fish, protect and provide. Once the game was harvested, the entire workload was turned over to the women. There was some division of labor. One wife might be skilled at meal preparation, another at processing and food preservation, a third at child care, another at making clothing or sewing hides, etc.
They were not completely without rights. Among the Sioux, the women owned the property and could divorce an abusive husband simply by setting his few personal belongings outside the teepee. Of course, they also forfeited his protection and the food he might bring home. But if they were good workers or otherwise desirable, another man would take them as his wives.
I'm not saying the system was perfect, not by any means. Just that it was more natural than the modern invention of feral males, female headed households and invented gay marriages.
A child, at least, had a decent opportunity to grow up useful in a polygamous society, much more so than the alternatives mentioned.
Thanks.
This is excellent and well written.
OH!!! OH!!! (holds hand up) ;)
Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 has a lot to do with it.
This law has become a tool to enforce political correctness and has played a large role in turning public schools into indoctrination centers to pussify boys.
When boys grow up in an environment that prohibits pointing a finger, playing tag or dodge ball, or innocently expressing their natural attraction to a female classmate you cannot expect them all to grow up to be Type A manly men.
Even men raised in two parent families can suffer from this malaise in adulthood, because with real marriage virtually non-existent in our society, what point is there to a man’s life? Being a wage slave to buy yourself toys, or make your child support payments is not a very fulfilling existence for a man, and it certainly doesn’t encourage one to strive for much.
Not to mention how bad schools have become for boys, to the benefit of girls.
I don’t think girls have benefitted
I think that this happened in many societies because of a paucity of men mainly because of war. You are also correct that a system of Patriarchy ran alongside a Matriarchal system. Duties were divided! Nowadays noticing that there are differences between the sexes in their abilities, capacity to endure different things and just in their general make-up is almost seen as heresy. To the left difference = inequality.
Mel
In the context of schools now catering more to feminine personality traits, they have, and the education disparity shows it. In the long term though, you’re right. Ending up like Sandra Fluke is not exactly beneficial to anyone.
This modern trend has developed, IMO, because of the lack of outside threat to the society.
Having experienced an unprecedented period of relative peace, our country has turned inward and become obsessed with trying to change human nature. Nearly all the problems mentioned in the article have occurred because the MEN that were in charge, facing no outside threat, allowed themselves to be emasculated.
If adversity such as what Americans faced during the 1st half of the 20th Century ever reoccurs, I believe a return to the old standards would be quite possible.
We’ll see.
Political and academic leaders, obeying the commands of the most influential constituents of both political parties and sponsors of the media, instituted many policies and passed many laws over the past few decades to bring the situation about. Very few of us tried to oppose the anti-family, anti-competition policies and laws.
Have fun. Enjoy the slide.
There’s much truth in your comment. Well stated.
Compare the Frankfurt School’s agenda:
1. The creation of racism offences.
2. Continual change to create confusion
3. The teaching of sex and homosexuality to children
4. The undermining of schools’ and teachers’ authority
5. Huge immigration to destroy identity.
6. The promotion of excessive drinking
7. Emptying of churches
8. An unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime
9. DEPENDENCY ON THE STATE OR STATE BENEFITS
10. Control and dumbing down of media
11. ENCOURAGING THE BREAKDOWN OF THE FAMILY
>> This modern trend has developed, IMO, because of the lack of outside threat to the society.
Yup. And also by the aid of technology and abundance of resources.
There’s a degenerate nature in a segment of White males that despises the independent, family-oriented ones. Ultimately, we can point the Country’s failures back at these degenerate White males.
There is much in this article that is true as to cause and effect. However, being a stickler for definitions, a matriarchy must also be a society where women run the tribe or country, a situation rarely seen in history. The writer confuses female run HOUSEHOLDS with female dominated SOCIETIES-A big mistake.
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