Patriarchy Requires Cooperation

Laura has a good post up on the inadvisability of just telling Christian men to 'man up'.
It is worth a read, so go over there and read it. Over here, you get to read my take on the dynamics of this thing.

What Christian women are basically saying on this thing is that they want someone who behaves like a potential patriarch. They are unlikely to actually say they want a patriarch because the whole idea of patriarchy has been manipulated a thousand different ways, but biology is a hard one to conquer, and if you are at all open to having children and intelligent to an extent, you want a man who thinks past one generation.

Meanwhile what Christian women do, mostly, makes this impossible. At some point, men realize how unlikely the whole thing is, so they drop it. Women sort of vaguely notice, and then we get the shaming lecture, which is often actually written by some pathetic guy. (I once attended a three day event put on by a priest about improving relationships. There were very obvious moments of 'selling out' to females, who comprised the most of the audience. I assume at least some subsection of the females there actually wanted to improve their relationships rather than just congratulate themselves on caring about their relationships, so I think he did a disservice to them.)

This is akin to exhorting the heirs to the various thrones in Europe to 'just rule', despite the rather obvious fact that the bureaucrats and a good chunk of the badly informed people would draw and quarter them if they put any serious effort into it. Most of Europe would be better off, especially if it were a legitimate return to the smaller government of the past and spelled the end of the massive modern state, but everyone is clear that the monarchs have been ousted, or at least have had their power seriously curtailed- by force when necessary.

A family is a firm, requiring a pattern of life. The corporate/government career world isn't conducive to it. Neither is the propaganda shoveled at us from academia. If you want to live, you have to chose a very different path, one that will make you look different from your friends- even, and sometimes especially your Christian friends.