The concepts of piety and filial duty reigned when the monarchy was established. They gave way to individualism starting with the Enlightenment. It is now rampant, dissolving the bonds that have held society together since before we civilized ourselves.
I can quite agree with many of your arguments. There is a bit too much dipping into the current malaise caused by the pandemic and the awful vaccine issues. I suspect as we move past that we will restore some balance. I also think that women have been tricked into work by notions of feminists who were well supported by businesses eager for cheaper labor. Spinsters have always existed to work in areas that men rarely aspired to, like teaching of children and nursing. As women moved into the larger work force, the brightest of them no longer became teachers so we see a general decline in teaching quality. Worse the profession has lost considerable social status; teachers are no longer respected not even by the parents who send their children.
One aspect missing is the very real notion of partnership. Successful marriages are based on that much more than the sex involved. Sexual attraction is an impetus to developing such a partnership and IMHO the partnership combines two minds to create something more that the two individually. Each partner supporting the other against the perils of work and life. Not everyone achieves that as you well appreciate and we don't emphasize it's value anymore. It is no longer self-evident so might be something society needs to redevelop. Two humans who trust each other are much more inclined to reproduce.
Short term perhaps there are reproduction issues that likely will disappear. The joy of children and their open minds is something worthy of appreciation as you are finding with yours. Seeing the world through their eyes if you care to look is a special reward. My joys now lie with my grands.
The god that looks with favour on one son and rejects the second seems to be a poor sort of god to me. Is this where some of this deadly resentment arises? Prince Harry seems a bit churlish to have bucked a system which has been in place in the UK for at least a thousand years and served the countries well. Without it, Britain could well have gone the way of France with its top heavy and useless aristocracy. Primogeniture in Britain made sure that property was not constantly carved up between aristocratic families who expected to live off the smaller and smaller shares of land they inherited. The result was incredibly heavy taxing of those who were lower on the social totem pole. At last the camel's back was broken and the French Revolution destroyed the whole system. Across the Channel, Britain, with primogeniture firmly in place, moved smoothly into the Industrial Revolution. Younger sons were the next level of infrastructure: the Church, the Army, the Civil Service. If only Harry had realised he had a place, not as a spare, which is a ridiculous concept, but as someone other than a King or Prince, but a man who worked for his wife and children in one of the many place available to him and which his extreme privilege allowed him.
Pity he never got much of an education or he might have realised this.
Women want a strong man, who is brave and true. And also smarter than her...is that too much to ask!?!? Lol
After trying to “do it all” in my 20s I realized that my time/energy is finite and I can’t do all the things, not well anyway. Only so many hours in a day... so I chose my children. Why?? I guess instinct of some kind. Being a way from them all day long and essentially having other people raise them (teachers) had always upset me and felt very wrong.
Luckily I was in a position to make that choice and my husband supported my decision. So, I quit working and pulled the kids out of private school to homeschool them. At the end of the day, I just want to be able to be a good mom to my kids...I wish I had figured it out sooner, but better late than never I guess.
Anyway, thanks for writing this, it has given me much to think/reflect on. Oh and thanks for the book recommendations, very helpful!!
Thank you so much for the comment! Writing on this topic is fraught with danger. To hear some appreciation from a woman's point of view is very encouraging.
I'm happy for your kids that you decided to stay home and home school them. By the time I was in a position to do that for my first family they were too far gone. I'm lucky that it is different with the second.
Yes I enjoyed your article as well Graham. Now going down the home stretch and having raised three successful children mostly as a single mother, but with very involved fathers, my opinions have changed a great deal over the years. I was fortunate to have a father myself who was a good example of a man who tried very hard to provide for his family and worked very hard physically to provide for us, first as a fruit farmer, then as a logging superintendent in the British Columbia forests. Unfortunately the life of a wife in the fifties was not particularly stimulating for many women. My mother took up office work in a nearby town with great relief after about twelve lonely years at home with four children and I can't blame her. We no longer lived in closely held communities where women shared all the jolly things you mention. The many children who came out of these not very happy families in the 1950's had a skewed vision of what family life might offer and began to experiment like mad. I wont go into all the experimental lifestyles I tried out but suffice to say that at the end, I agree with you on most points. You are describing general trends and I appreciate so much of the research you have offered. At the end of the day we tend to be individuals with different needs and for some women that is exactly what they need, but of course need to have fairly ideal husbands to make a woman's life full. We are all deeply flawed but finding our way. Even the children who have been vaccinated with a deadly poison (my grandchildren) have to make their way into this Brave New World which I have no way to protect them from, only my love to speed them on their way. This aspect of a woman's life does not make very good copy: a man's life sounds so much more interesting but that is because feelings don't communicate themselves in words particularly well.
Thank you for this thoughtful essay and I hope you all stay safe.
Great song, but I prefer the two that follow it on the youtube playlist: Visions of Johanna and also Wild Horses which I think are a deeper portrayal of the complicated and endless topic of what women (and men) want.
It is a given that the human should not die out. I don't think it should be so. Why not die out?
And there seems to me to be an inconsistently or something: failure to account for change.
Like if the race dying out it is something the race doesn't want then that alone could be enough to motivate women to have more children.
If there's so many people that no fear of the race dying out causes such a reaction then numbers sink until there is such a reaction.
As in all of biological nature it could be a question of competing factors rising and falling within the organism which makes for self correction and overall stasis around some level.
i.e. It's all under control, just let nature take its course.
The concepts of piety and filial duty reigned when the monarchy was established. They gave way to individualism starting with the Enlightenment. It is now rampant, dissolving the bonds that have held society together since before we civilized ourselves.
Dylan was a genius. He nailed this one, and he saw through the pretense of the whole hippy thing. They idolized his satire.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=nS5_EQgbuLc&feature=share
Back in the USSR. You anticipated today's post!
All my former fiction is coming true! Flying from Florida to Commifornia is this song! George Orwell's 1984 is now a documentary!
I can quite agree with many of your arguments. There is a bit too much dipping into the current malaise caused by the pandemic and the awful vaccine issues. I suspect as we move past that we will restore some balance. I also think that women have been tricked into work by notions of feminists who were well supported by businesses eager for cheaper labor. Spinsters have always existed to work in areas that men rarely aspired to, like teaching of children and nursing. As women moved into the larger work force, the brightest of them no longer became teachers so we see a general decline in teaching quality. Worse the profession has lost considerable social status; teachers are no longer respected not even by the parents who send their children.
One aspect missing is the very real notion of partnership. Successful marriages are based on that much more than the sex involved. Sexual attraction is an impetus to developing such a partnership and IMHO the partnership combines two minds to create something more that the two individually. Each partner supporting the other against the perils of work and life. Not everyone achieves that as you well appreciate and we don't emphasize it's value anymore. It is no longer self-evident so might be something society needs to redevelop. Two humans who trust each other are much more inclined to reproduce.
Short term perhaps there are reproduction issues that likely will disappear. The joy of children and their open minds is something worthy of appreciation as you are finding with yours. Seeing the world through their eyes if you care to look is a special reward. My joys now lie with my grands.
https://unherd.com/2023/01/prince-harrys-unbrotherly-resentment/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=ac05c37204&mc_eid=ef74a80f05
The god that looks with favour on one son and rejects the second seems to be a poor sort of god to me. Is this where some of this deadly resentment arises? Prince Harry seems a bit churlish to have bucked a system which has been in place in the UK for at least a thousand years and served the countries well. Without it, Britain could well have gone the way of France with its top heavy and useless aristocracy. Primogeniture in Britain made sure that property was not constantly carved up between aristocratic families who expected to live off the smaller and smaller shares of land they inherited. The result was incredibly heavy taxing of those who were lower on the social totem pole. At last the camel's back was broken and the French Revolution destroyed the whole system. Across the Channel, Britain, with primogeniture firmly in place, moved smoothly into the Industrial Revolution. Younger sons were the next level of infrastructure: the Church, the Army, the Civil Service. If only Harry had realised he had a place, not as a spare, which is a ridiculous concept, but as someone other than a King or Prince, but a man who worked for his wife and children in one of the many place available to him and which his extreme privilege allowed him.
Pity he never got much of an education or he might have realised this.
Women want a strong man, who is brave and true. And also smarter than her...is that too much to ask!?!? Lol
After trying to “do it all” in my 20s I realized that my time/energy is finite and I can’t do all the things, not well anyway. Only so many hours in a day... so I chose my children. Why?? I guess instinct of some kind. Being a way from them all day long and essentially having other people raise them (teachers) had always upset me and felt very wrong.
Luckily I was in a position to make that choice and my husband supported my decision. So, I quit working and pulled the kids out of private school to homeschool them. At the end of the day, I just want to be able to be a good mom to my kids...I wish I had figured it out sooner, but better late than never I guess.
Anyway, thanks for writing this, it has given me much to think/reflect on. Oh and thanks for the book recommendations, very helpful!!
Thank you so much for the comment! Writing on this topic is fraught with danger. To hear some appreciation from a woman's point of view is very encouraging.
I'm happy for your kids that you decided to stay home and home school them. By the time I was in a position to do that for my first family they were too far gone. I'm lucky that it is different with the second.
Yes I enjoyed your article as well Graham. Now going down the home stretch and having raised three successful children mostly as a single mother, but with very involved fathers, my opinions have changed a great deal over the years. I was fortunate to have a father myself who was a good example of a man who tried very hard to provide for his family and worked very hard physically to provide for us, first as a fruit farmer, then as a logging superintendent in the British Columbia forests. Unfortunately the life of a wife in the fifties was not particularly stimulating for many women. My mother took up office work in a nearby town with great relief after about twelve lonely years at home with four children and I can't blame her. We no longer lived in closely held communities where women shared all the jolly things you mention. The many children who came out of these not very happy families in the 1950's had a skewed vision of what family life might offer and began to experiment like mad. I wont go into all the experimental lifestyles I tried out but suffice to say that at the end, I agree with you on most points. You are describing general trends and I appreciate so much of the research you have offered. At the end of the day we tend to be individuals with different needs and for some women that is exactly what they need, but of course need to have fairly ideal husbands to make a woman's life full. We are all deeply flawed but finding our way. Even the children who have been vaccinated with a deadly poison (my grandchildren) have to make their way into this Brave New World which I have no way to protect them from, only my love to speed them on their way. This aspect of a woman's life does not make very good copy: a man's life sounds so much more interesting but that is because feelings don't communicate themselves in words particularly well.
Thank you for this thoughtful essay and I hope you all stay safe.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbxm_sKC90&feature=share
Great song, but I prefer the two that follow it on the youtube playlist: Visions of Johanna and also Wild Horses which I think are a deeper portrayal of the complicated and endless topic of what women (and men) want.
It is a given that the human should not die out. I don't think it should be so. Why not die out?
And there seems to me to be an inconsistently or something: failure to account for change.
Like if the race dying out it is something the race doesn't want then that alone could be enough to motivate women to have more children.
If there's so many people that no fear of the race dying out causes such a reaction then numbers sink until there is such a reaction.
As in all of biological nature it could be a question of competing factors rising and falling within the organism which makes for self correction and overall stasis around some level.
i.e. It's all under control, just let nature take its course.