And yet so many women, pleased with the Matriarchy America has degenerated into in 2002, want that. Flip through some of these "conversation of the sexes" threads, and look how many women embrace the advantage that the current system provides them, telling men that if they'd just be good, and please every whim of the women they're with perfectly, be "sensitive" et al, why, they'll never need to worry about the consequences of an unfair system. Embracing a Matriarchal "benevolent dictatorship" is exactly what they're asking of men. It doesn't work: look around. The more matriliineal society becomes, the more of a wreck it becomes.
Most people (and most women) would prefer to live in mutually dependent and equivalent partnerships rather than rely on the benevolency of a supposed superior.
Cute theory.
Actually, I used to be an egalitarian, until I realized that egalitarianism is something the masses don't comprehend. Also, it tends to be a cloak for one-sided agendas; I'd rather just be honest and advocate the agenda I advocate without any cloaking.
Too, caste systems of social organization (of all kinds) have consistently been left behind for better systems over the long span of history.
Let's be honest: it has always been cyclical. One caste system gets replaced by some idealistic new vision, which in relatively short order gets replaced by a new caste system, which foments resentment, which becomes rebellion, and the cycle repeats, ad infinitum, It has not been a line: for better or for worse, it has been a circle.
Look at all of the societies that prosper today vs. those which don't.
Uh, can you name one that does? If you're planning on saying the USA, can you honestly say that the USA is prosperous in terms of intact families, society's most critical barometer, vs. 50 years ago?
Those with rigid class and gender assignment with little social mobility or self determination allowed (for those in the regulated castes) are not doing very well.
That is too broad of a contention: if some sets of rules are counterproductive, does that mean that, therefore, counterproductivity is intrinsic to any set of rules? You have over-extrapolated.
It's plain to see that egalitarianism and individual rights, the bedrock of Western social frameworks, have yeilded the greatest rewards (not perfect of course, but relative to other systems, more perfect).
The more matrilineal (fatherless, fatherhood de-emphasized) society becomes, the less it becomes about legitimate Constitutional rights, and the more it becomes about what groups like NOW want.
I don't think you'd want to have your hands tied behind your back and hope someone else fulfills their social role to "protect" you.
The road that the NOW crowd has set America on is the worst road that America could be on. I offer something better. What I want is a better, more concrete and reliable set of contracts governing the transactions between men and women than the patricidal feminist subjective hogstwaddle that is encoded in law and case law now.
I want every fit father in this nation to know that his kids will live with him whether they were concieved and/or born pre-maritally, extramaritally, maritally, maritally followed by divorce, or postmaritally. I want an end to all involuntary transfers of wealth, assets, and property from men to women.
What do you want? Not in the sense of wanting to see everyone love and respect each other; in the sense of on-paper, concrete public policy.
???
As Z_in_Oregon has pointed out, what we currently have, as far as divorce goes, is the "women as benevolent dictator" model. This is exactly why men are losing interest.
A truly "equivalent" partnership would have men getting custody 50% of the time. It doesn't happen. As somebody else originally put it, for men, marriage these days is like sharing a bed with somebody holding a nuke, and wondering when she's going to use it.
The bottom line: if marriage has more risks and hassles than rewards, from the male perspective, then men WON'T GET MARRIED. You can rail all you want about this meaning that men are selfish and immature and all that, but the fact remains that men won't get into situations with major downsides if alternatives exist. (And alternatives DO exist)
There was actually a better effective balance of power a couple of generations ago. Divorce courts favored the women then too, but everyone concerned operated under the reality that, if they pushed the man too far, he had the option of disappearing and starting over elsewhere under a different name. In the computerized age, this is no longer an option
The whole point of my original essay was that men will energeticly provide for the future IF they are motivated, and that you cannot compel that kind of motivation. It has a price tag attached. If women don't want to pay the price, then they should get off the checkout line
They should also prepare to endure the environment that a matrilineal society produces.
The whole situation with some women reminds me of the Russian Bolsheviks. They decided that the capitalist system was unfair to workers, that workers were oppressed and exploited, that it was possible to create a system where everyone was equal, and the State would enforce the equaliity. Everyone would then live in Paradise
After tens of millions of State-committed deaths later, and 70 years of poverty, they finally were convinced that tossing out workable incentive systems was a bad idea
If you are refering to the judeo/christian patriarchal system of family government, I'm affraid you are simply "dead" wrong.