Poikamiehet

Bachelorhood And Its Discontents:

If today's gal proudly proclaims her independence, the bachelor remains hopelessly reliant on the fairer sex. "Single men are not in general very good at life,” maintains Gilder. “The key to the singles failure is the profound biological dependence of men on women—deeper than any feminist or male chauvinist understands." Men, he argues, need marriage for psychological stability. Marriage/monogamy increases your chances of surviving and reproducing, which is what our genes demand of us. And he commonly lives a happier and longer life. Without women men revert to packs, and spend summer nights chawing tobacco, swilling moonshine, and baying at the moon. Above all men need to feel useful. And that can only mean one thing.

When, over a period of two decades, pollsters asked men what masculinity meant to them, the normal response was that it meant being a good provider for one's family. Feminists may cackle at such quaint, patriarchic notions, but the female’s refusal to take the male's self-concept seriously is a major cause of distrust between the sexes. The successful wife—by which I mean one more economically successful than her husband—plays hell with a man and a woman’s idea of masculinity. Whether she admits it or not, a woman who brings home more than her spouse thinks less of him, at least subconsciously. Even feminists are grudgingly beginning to accept this truth. One influential relationship therapist told a British newspaper that today's women are tired of being in the role of money maker, but they do not dare confess that they want a man who earns more because that takes them back three decades in the workplace. "Secretly she longs to be taken care of," said the therapist. Gilder concurs: "In general, the successful woman demands that her man be even more successful than she is. The increasing difficulty of finding such extraordinary creatures means that career girls are marrying later and divorcing more. (The real successes lead the league in divorces.) Thus the demands placed on men, insidiously tacit but inescapable, are greater than ever."

Legalised prostitution: a failed experiment.