A Tale Of The Times

AS WE BATTLE on in the culture wars, trading barbs and op-eds back at headquarters, it is good to pause and find out what is going on at the front lines.

I was struck recently by this report on a cohabiting couple by Sandra Parsons. She writes about the experience of a thirtysomething woman of her acquaintance.

I’ll call her Anna, who for the past ten years has lived with her partner, who I’ll call Harry. They have two young children. For years, Anna said to Harry she thought that they should get married, for the sake of the children if nothing else. Harry refused.

Well, that’s all right, isn’t it? This is the twenty-first century, after all and women are free from the necessity of depending on a man.

Unfortunately it’s not quite that simple. Let’s go on.

Anna had a job when they first got together but gave up work when she had her first child. This suited her; she wanted to be at home.

And it suited Harry too. He gave his er, partner, $160 per week to cover the groceries and every other expense she might incur.

You might ask why Anna accepted this situation. The answer is because she is a gentle, fragile soul with no stomach for a fight. She pretended to herself for a long time that everything was all right, and then she went to see her GP, who gave her antidepressants.

Shall I go on? Fueled by something, maybe the antidepressants,

Anna has now decided she has had enough. She wants to leave Harry. When she told him, his response was that it was his house, his money and his children.

Oh, and by the way, Harry would fight for custody, “using her depression as his weapon.” Nice chap that Harry.

One of the things we are learning, in this age of independent, liberated women, is what the point of that silly little piece of paper, the marriage certificate, is all about.

It is to protect women—many of whom are gentle souls without the killer instinct—from their own gentle, loving instincts.

You can see that if society sets up a rule—say, no sex without marriage—then it protects a lot of gentle souls who just want to love and have a baby.

Because if a gentle soul cohabits with a man and has his children and settles down to raise them then she is not going to be in a very good situation when it’s time to trade her in for a newer model. Especially if she is depressed because of his continual low-level cruelty.

The bottom line is that there is no such thing as an “independent woman,” any more than there is such a thing as an independent man. When a woman gets in the family way, she needs help. And not just help, but safety. The safest thing for her and the kiddies, studies show, is to be married to the biological father of the children.

You could look it up.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

TAGS

Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

China and Christianity

At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches� they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Civil Society

“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust

Class War

In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status... Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher... The academics lost their power and prestige and... have been gloomy ever since.
Freeman Dyson, “The Scientist as Rebel”

Conservatism

Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

Conservatism's Holy Grail

What distinguishes true Conservatism from the rest, and from the Blair project, is the belief in more personal freedom and more market freedom, along with less state intervention... The true Third Way is the Holy Grail of Tory politics today - compassion and community without compulsion.
Minette Marrin, The Daily Telegraph

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Drang nach Osten

There was nothing new about the Frankish drive to the east... [let] us recall that the continuance of their rule depended upon regular, successful, predatory warfare.
Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

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