If I support patriarchy, then it is only because I am no fool and know that the rights and well-being of women are better off in the hands of men than in the hands of women. Whenever only men made the laws, they made laws that protected women and imposed duties and responsibilities upon other men on behalf of women. Whenever women became “equal” and starting making the laws and voting, they stripped away all of those protections and responsibilities. I guess they’d say that a woman like me had the “toxic femininity” and was in dire need of severe psychological brainwashing and therapy.
In his classic article, The Aims of the Criminal Law, Henry M. Hart Jr. speaks about––as the title suggests––the aims of the criminal law, as well as what precisely separates it from the noncriminal, or civil, law or other misfortunes that might befall a person. What pops out most distinctively about this otherwise rather philosophical and slightly dull classic law article is the examples he uses in his discussion about what the method of the criminal law is:
A penal code that reflected only a single basic principle would be a very bad one. Social purposes can never be single or simple, or held unqualifiedly to the exclusion of all other social purposes; and an effort to make them so can result only in the sacrifice of other values which also are important.
… But the criminal law, like all law, is concerned with the pursuit of human purposes through the forms and modes of social organization, and it needs always to be thought about in that context as a method or process of doing something. What then are the characteristics of this method?
1. The method operates by means of a series of directions, or commands, formulated in general terms, telling people what they must or must not do. Mostly, the commands of the criminal law are “must-nots,” or prohibitions, which can be satisfied by inaction. “Do not murder, rape, or rob.” But some of them are “musts,” or affirmative requirements, which can be satisfied only by taking a specifically, or relatively specifically, described kind of action. “Support your wife and children,” and “File your income tax return.”‘
2. The commands are taken as valid and binding upon all those who fall within their terms when the time comes for complying with them, whether or not they have been formulated in advance in a single authoritative set of words. They speak to members of the community, in other words, in the community’s behalf, with all the power and prestige of the community behind them.…[1]
Support your wife and children. Not “support your family” or “support your spouse” (a gender-neutral term), or “support your children,” but support your wife and children.
Support your wife. Clearly a gendered admonition upon men to provide for the female half of the marriage partnership. Clearly a cultural value that has been long lost to a society that has pulled out all stops to ensure that women––married, mothers, or not–– remain in the workforce at all costs and one that no longer has all of “the power and prestige of the community” behind it.
Whenever I said “no” to going out in the workforce many years ago, this was not me being some bitch or gold-digger. It was simply me expressing my femininity and what I believed to be my right as his wife and the mother of his child to be taken care of and provided for. Women today don’t realize the power that they actually have, because the culture has robbed it from them in the name of “equality.” And when I speak about women’s power, I do not mean simply sex––though sex is a major bargaining chip greater than what most women, especially young women, realize––but I mean the entire feminine package.
When a man loves or desires a woman, he’d give or do just about anything for her and to have her. Clearly, there are many modern-minded women out there who don’t want to be taken care of. Good for those women, and good for those women many decades ago that also felt that way. They could have forfeited their own right to be provided for financially in marriage if that was what they wanted, but they had no right to rob that right from the women who did not, and do not, share their sentiments and viewpoints.
For any women out there, if you are unhappy with your relationship or unhappy about “having” to work, then don’t give your full love and affections to the man. Don’t give him sex. Tell him flat out and make it plain as day how you feel. And at this point someone will inevitably scream “financial necessity.” So, scream it. If the family needs a greater income, then let the man push himself and work harder to achieve instead of falling back on his wife’s income as a crutch. Most men even as little as fifty years ago would have considered it an affront to their masculinity if their wives went out to work, because it meant that the man couldn’t provide fully for her and their children (if any). The provider role was synonymous with masculinity and manhood and men attached great pride and value to it. If his wife “had” to work, then it meant that he had failed. I know that failure or feelings of failure hit directly at a man’s manhood––and that they always have.
Right after we were married, I remember my husband mentioning one time about things “taking two incomes” and I said “no” and turned away from him. I made it clear that I wasn’t happy with that and that if I went out to the workforce he wouldn’t have my love nor affection. The end result was that he found a way even through the rough times. He found a way to provide and he proved that he could do it without having to rely on me to help support us.
Fast forward many years later, far away from where we grew up, and there was a time where all of a sudden he was out of a job. Everything fell apart at once. In a couple of months there was the real threat that we would be completely homeless. The reader can picture us all alone: no family, no help–– nothing to fall back on. Maybe we could have survived (my husband calculated) for another two months maximum with the minimal savings that we had and by maxing out all the credit cards. Yet not once did I fill out a job application (nor did he ever suggest that I do so). I was scared, but also upset. I even remember telling him that I’d even go run to my mother before I’d live on the street with him.
The result? He not only found a job in time to make sure the mortgage payments kept being made on time and that the lights still stayed on and that we were all fed, but he found a better job than what he had ever had before. A few months later he even quit that job for an even better one and repeated that pattern one more time to move up even higher. Doubtful that any of that would have ever happened if he knew he could fall back on and depend upon a woman, his wife, to provide for us where he had failed to do so. But he didn’t fail. He didn’t fail one time, and undoubtedly one of the biggest reasons why is because he knew I wouldn’t see him the same, that I wouldn’t be happy, and that he’d probably end up losing me and my love––or, at best, that I’d only half-heartedly give my affections to him begrudgingly and with great resentment.
Women shouldn’t ever underestimate the power of their sex. If you’re not happy with your relationship, then make it clear and don’t put up with the types of relationships that you don’t want. Men will do what it takes to get and keep women. If they’d toss their savings away at strippers, prostitutes, and even on pornography, then how much more would a man do for a flesh and blood woman––especially one that he loves? Men will pay (and I don’t mean here just money wise, as in prostitution, though, as mentioned, they’ll do that too and always have since the beginning of time) and they will pay dearly where women are concerned––to be able to love, have, and possess a woman. That’s a powerful lesson women should never forget. If you don’t like the terms, just say “no.” In the past, the general cultural ethic was that a man wouldn’t call upon a woman (old-fashioned speak for dating or “going out” as men were the pursuers of women, initiating dates and relationships and it was not considered proper for a woman to be the pursuer or call upon a man first), start up a serious relationship or marry until he knew he could financially support her. It’s a tradition and cultural ethic worth reviving. And surely our society and economy today is in no way better off with egalitarian relationships and wives and mothers in the workforce that what it was even a half century ago with men who were motivated and driven to succeed and provide for their wives and when marriage rates were high.[2]
[1] Henry M. Hart, Jr., The Aims of the Criminal Law 23 Law & Contemp. Probs. 401, 403 (1958).
[2] See e.g., Myra Adams Five Reasons American Decline Appears Irreversible, The Hill (January 19, 2024, 7:00 AM), https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4414582-five-reasons-american-decline-appears-irreversible/ (“…the $34 trillion national debt, as a percentage of the nation’s $27.8 trillion economy entails a debt-to-GDP ratio of 122.30 percent, headed to 150 percent by 2028. That’s up from 56 percent in 2000 and 36 percent in 1980.… Pew Research, conflating the ideas of “middle class” and “middle income,” recently found this vital group to have shrunk from 61 percent of households in 1971 to just 50 percent in 2021. Although a net increase in upper-income households accounted for most of this net decline of the middle class, the latter are still bringing in a disproportionately reduced percentage of the nation’s total income — down from 62 percent in 1971 to just 42 percent in 2021. A clearer warning sign is the decrease in homeownership, long a benchmark of middle-class status, financial stability, and wealth-building.”)
B. A. Hunter 