Traditions are important. They lend a continuity to our lives, they bind us together, as friends, as couples, as families, as communities, and as societies. Some traditions are essentially trivial, like the fact that my wife and I have pizza every Friday night. Some are more important, like our traditional family reunion that happens every November. They're all important.
Some things are traditional for a reason. The Western nuclear family and the traditional relationships between men and women are such; these things are traditional because they work, at least for the vast majority of us. There are variations, of course, but the overall pattern is there. When we try to stray too far from that pattern, people often end up unhappy.
The Federalist's Nathanael Blake brings us an interesting example.
Consider a recent piece by Jean Garnett titled “The Trouble With Wanting Men,” which portrays the sexual and relational landscape as a hellscape, or at least a dreary purgatory in which Garnett longs for men who are just not that into her. She is, as she eventually explained, on the dating scene because she recently divorced after her “open” marriage fell apart partially because she fell in love with a paramour who had no interest in a relationship. One writer on X was quick to point out that Garnett had written a long, positive piece about said open marriage only a few years ago.
Open marriages - marriages in which there is an understanding that either or both spouses may seek and engage in extramarital sexual affairs and relationships as they please - frequently do fall apart. I've never heard of one lasting more than a few years. They fly in the face of human nature; the very basis of a spousal relationship is fidelity, trust, the exclusive attachment. Such extramarital adventures are frequently the basis for divorce.
Here's the onion:
Now, Garnett is learning a painful lesson, as seen in her account of how she and her friends commiserate together, wondering, “Where were the men who could handle hard stuff? Like leaving the house for sex?” The answer should be obvious: Ladies, you’re competing with younger women — and endless internet porn — for the attention of guys who do not want a relationship. Even if you were once irresistible to men, did you really think you would remain so forever?
It's a classic tale: The "modern" woman, who apparently doesn't need a man around for anything but sex, as she grows old and lonely, finds even that door closed to her.
If you enter into a relationship expecting nothing, that's what you're going to get. If you enter into a sexual relationship with no initial expectation other than sex, then sex will be all you'll get, and even this urban liberal woman, and yes, it's a certainty that she's a liberal woman in purest New York City fashion, will find that when the bloom is off the rose, they won't even get that.
Mr. Blake tells us:
But Garnett doesn’t seem to get this, writing that, “lately I have been bruised by the ambivalence of men, how they can first want me and then become confused about what they want.” Again, they’re not confused. They’ve just learned that saying they are anxious and confused provides cover when they want to keep women of Garnett’s type at arm’s length.
It seems to be working. Though she wants to blame men for her miserable dating life, Garnett still writes that “the men my friends and I are feeling bleak about” are “the sweet, good ones. Dammit.” Of course, they aren’t sweet or good. They are selfish through and through. They’ve just learned that they can get away with that selfishness as long as they cover it with therapeutic language while telling women not to expect much from them. And yet Garnett and her friends are somehow disappointed when the little they are promised is all they get.
Now, here's where some of my own biases and opinions come in. A good part of the problem seems to be with the "men" (use of scare quotes intentional) that Jean Garnett seems to be associating with. These aren't men, not as I'd define the word. They are man-children, emotionally immature, self-centered, with no grounding in what a man should be, how a man should behave, or how a man should treat women. And if Jean Garnett is disappointed in the immaturity of the man-children in her circle of acquaintance, it's only because she and her kind have allowed them to be that way, and have rewarded them for it.
I've written many times on how men should behave, what the role of a man is in a healthy family, of what a man should be. I was lucky in this myself, as I was taught by the best. These things, yes, are traditional. They are traditional because they work. Traditional marriages don't ask a man to face "leaving the house for sex." Healthy marriages keep those things within the house, within the relationship. That's how you build a marriage, a family, a relationship that lasts a lifetime: Trust, love, reliability, intimacy, respect.
Read More: What Makes a Man? A Few Simple Things Dems Don't Know.
What We Leave Behind: Nothing Will Be As Meaningful As Our Children
Jean Garnett would have done well to observe the old caution about the necessity of buying a cow when you're getting the milk for nothing. If she wants to recover from her sexual doom cycle now, honestly, she'd be better off moving to Ohio, Iowa, or South Dakota, where she's more likely to find a steady, traditional man than she is in New York.
