I have been reading Edgar Rice Burroughs (writer of Tarzan, and John Carter of Mars). His heroic ideal includes devotion in love, in the face of tantalizing temptation; as well as a distinction between the love between two hearts and the lust between two bodies caught up in circumstance. The Outlaw of Torn, circa 1914, almost 100 years ago.
In the Godfather, DeNiro is shown the beautiful actress girlfriend of his friend up on stage, “Isn't she gorgeous?” he asks. “For you, she is pretty. For me, there is only my wife and child.”
We need a return to THAT as a masculine ideal (perhaps without the criminality, but examples are hard to come by!).
I've never gotten around to watching "The Godfather" all the way through. I have to use the subtitles, because of Brando's mumbling ;-).
Another criminal example is Jesse James. He was a nutcase killer, but all accounts agree that after he met his wife (when she was 15 and he was 18, or something like that) he literally never looked at another woman as anything but a robbery target.
Salvation quoted someone who said, "Sexuality is not a 'thing,' it is a person: the person of your spouse." G.K. Chesterton, I suppose, would be an example who is not a famous criminal ;-).