If you ever get the chance to listen to old radio serials, you should. They are quite entertaining, and it is interesting to see how stories were done before television, to a large audience.
Among those countless radio serials, are The Lone Ranger.
There is an interesting pattern in the Lone Ranger show. At some point, the Lone Ranger will send Tonto to town.
Alone.
Tonto always says “Yes, Kemosabe.” (Which should translate in Potawatomi to “willfully ignorant asshole”).
Tonto would invariably go, and get the living fuck beat out of him.
Again.
To which the Long Ranger would be surprised and dismayed.
Again.
I bring this up because of the Catholic’s church “new” (read conservative) stance it is starting to take. I headed over to read one of the blogs that supposedly represents this sea change in the catholic church and I found this article on men and marriage. (Hat tip: Butterfly Squash)
Once again, the Catholic Church in the role of the Lone Ranger wants to send Tonto (men) back into town, for the same, tired, foolish conservative reasons, and with the same tired shaming language so that Tonto can once again get beat to a pulp.
I have said it before, and I will say it again, conservatives, liberals, and feminists are no friends of men because they refuse to accept the nature of women.
Lets get to dissecting the article.
Among the measures of mature manhood that God Himself sets forth is faithful, stable, committed marriage. After observing, It is not good for the man to be alone (Gen 2:18) God says ….A man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife and the two of them shall become one flesh. Thus God indicates an essential description of manhood. This is what a MAN does.
Emphasis their’s.
Right from the get go we have shaming language. (Code Green: Peter Pan, Code Lavender: Masculinity). They posit the convenient interpretation of scripture that to be fully a man, you must get married. I will not rehash the arguments that this is false, but I will give you a link to a religious gentleman that pretty thoroughly rebukes that notion using the Bible. I recommend reading his thoughts and deciding for yourself the way of it.
I will note that I find it humorously ironic for a church that does not allow its male priests to marry, that it posits that to be a man, a man must be married.
The article’s next point is:
A mature man recognizes that it is not good, not healthy, for him to remain alone and unattached.
Right back to the shaming language. I am almost embarrassed for them. They can’t move on, they can’t even come up with new tactics, just the same old, same old. (Code White: Mental health). The writer does not say how it is unhealthy for the man to do this. He makes no explanation for the health benefits for marriage at all. He fills a very long paragraph with more shaming language: You’re a boy, not a man if you don’t get married. (Code Green . . . again).
The man that wrote this should be ashamed of himself. He writes like a woman. He does not set out to prove his points, he sets out immediately to attack anyone that disagrees with shaming.
I decry all Jesuit teaching methods, if they have so thoroughly abandoned logic and reason.
Next point:
Having properly sought a wife he marries her and leaves his parents to establish a home.
Leaving aside the inherent shaming language of this statement, the paragraph encourages marriage but again it does so with shaming language. It does not go into why this is important, only that you must do it. Because God says so, is a nice way to fall back on moral authority, but since the catholic church has allowed itself to become girlie, it needs to do better than that.
Fail.
Again.
He actually commits his whole life to his wife
Bad Advice. Horrible advice. Advice that will get a man divorced in today’s day and age.
Good advice: A man makes his mission, not his woman, his priority.
The article now descends in so much absolutely horrible advice, that I am truly amazed by it. It’s like the man secretly hates both marriage and men and instead of coming out and saying it, he subverts the whole structure by giving men advice that will destroy them.
“A man says to his wife, “Honey if you ever leave me I’m going with you.”
Needy. A man does not do that, not if he wants to stay married. You want to kill the woman’s attraction for you? You want her to cheat and feel like you gave her the green light to do so? Follow that piece of advice. The contempt the good catholic woman will have for her husband will literally disfigure her face by twisting it up with disgust.
Lets be clear, the best response to a cheating wife? Kick her to the curb.
Too many men are passive husbands. Too often it is really the wife who works hardest to preserve the marriage.
O.k., the first part of this is true, but unfortunately not the way this priest believes. The second part is not true, unless you believe constant tests and undermining the man are in fact efforts to preserve the marriage. This guy is so unbelievably dense about human relationships that it makes me weep with frustration. That he is so arrogant to give men advice like this is proof that being a man of orders does not protect you from that deadly of sins: PRIDE.
Very often when there is trouble in a marriage it is the wife who initiates a call to the priest or marriage counsellor. And if the husband comes at all the wife has to drag him.
If you are going to counselor or the priest, and the woman initiated it, you’re doomed. You have ceded your authority in the marriage to another man, your woman will think less of you. You are going to spend your time apologizing for being a man. Count on it. My only advice for you at this point, is behave completely different than you have in your marriage.
More “real” man use. Congratulations you have just won the misandrist award, you renfield. Can’t stop using the shaming language.
He addresses issues, cherishes his wife and works hard to preserve union with her.
Addresses issues is a good idea, if you handle it right. Being weak about it makes you weaker.
Let me point out something peculiar about human relationships, the one that puts the most into the relationship gets the least out of it. Why? Because the amount you put into a relationship signals how important that relationship is to you, and the other party (women) calibrate how much they have to do based on how important the relationship is to you. You put in a lot, they will put in less, not more. You put in less they will put in more.
This is what God says a real man does.
I challenge anyone to find where God uses the term “real man.”
A man doesn’t whine and say, “But what about the wife?!” He just does what he is supposed to do and does not point fingers. He accepts his own responsibility. Yes, there are men who have worked hard to preserve their marriage and the wife still walked away.
Remember this fool was advocating counseling earlier in his missive? Remember that? Think about what counseling is like with someone with the above attitude. You cannot complain, you cannot whine, you cannot point out wrongs, because that is not what a man does. He just sits and takes whatever shit sandwich is fed to him and he likes it.
When someone is making these statements, what he is really saying that as a man you need to take it like a slave.
You have no right to complain, you have no where to air your grievances in the catholic church, because “real” men don’t do this.
Our culture has granted far greater possibilities to women. This is not bad in itself but it sometimes creates even greater strains on marriage. But in the end, I am convinced that if men are real men as God has tasked them, if they were more serious about seeking a wife, marrying her and clinging to her, we would have far fewer divorces.
Ha ha ha ha. Apparently he forgot that women initiate 70% of divorces and push another 20%. Here we go the reality is that this priest is really a female supremacist. Blame men for divorce. Sorry, wrong answer. Been used for 40+ years, time to start looking at the real causes and not the ones that make us feel better. Sometimes? Sometimes causes greater strain? The king of understatement and ignorance.
So here is what a God says a real man does. How say you?
“a God” note that Freudian slip. Not “The God” or merely “God” but a God and I submit, not the christian one, but a Gynocentric one.
I will leave off the pedestaling article about women in marriage for tomorrow.
Adieu!
