Freedom, responsibility and authority.

Our natural state at birth is to be free. Free to express ourselves as we wish and to use our God given talents to explore and conquer the world. We lose some or all of this freedom when it’s taken from us by others or when we give it up knowingly or unknowingly.

With freedom comes responsibility and with responsibility comes authority. My freedom to venture out necessitates that I reap the cost as well as the benefits for taking this risk. If I’m free to have a drink, it’s my responsibility if I cause damage while driving drunk. Likewise, my responsibility for something necessitates authority over it. If I’m responsible for the safety of my child, I have the authority to tell them what they can and cannot do.

In nature, freedom always comes with responsibility and responsibility always comes with authority. It’s simple cause and effect. People can use force to restrict the freedom of others, to burden them with unfair responsibility and to remove their natural authority. However, this is unsustainable in the long run because it’s unbalanced and goes against fundamental human nature.

Needing each other differently

A man has the physical, mental and emotional power, stamina and endurance to conquer and tame the world. To do all the things that keeps civilization humming along. A man needs a woman to be his soft landing spot, his cheerleader and chief admirer. To be the grounding for his boundless creative energy. To love, have sex with and to procreate with. To be the recipient of all he has to give.

A woman lacks the physical, mental and emotional power, stamina and endurance to make it in the world. left to her own devices, she will die in the wilderness. During pregnancy, birth and child rearing, she’s even more vulnerable and requires more resources to survive and thrive. A woman needs a man to seriously invest in her. To risk his health and his life, protecting and providing for her. She needs this on a core, existential level.

This is the essence of hypergamy. To seek out the best man available, to invest in her life with protection and provision. The lure of sex and the love for his children are the biological tools she uses to get him hooked on her. This isn’t bad at all. This is the good side of hypergamy that helped keep our species going over the millennia.

The institution of marriage

Hypergamy has a dark side too. The very desire to find the best man available can lead her to leave her current man for a newly available man who she perceives to be better. It can also lead her to cuck him into assuming responsibility for children that aren’t his own. No man wants to risk his life on an investment that can be taken from him at any moment. Thus, the tradeoff of marriage was born.

Marriage is a business agreement in which the man assumes responsibility for his wife in exchange for authority over her. How exactly “responsibility” and “authority” are defined is something that differed from place to place and from time to time. However, what was always present was: male responsibility for the woman and authority over her. The woman in turn, lost some of her freedom to her husband in exchange for his investment in her.

Signs of hypergamy from married women were societally shunned at best and punished with public stoning at worst. Marriage was for life with few exceptions. Female hypergamy was strictly regulated by her father, her husband and society as a whole.

This pattern can be found in other sexually dimorphic animals. The male is the protector and provider and in turn, the male has full authority over his family. These animals may not be able to speak, write legislation or form governments. Yet, this basic concept is still present because this tradeoff is driven by biological imperative. As sophisticated humans, we codified marriage into law, but the tradeoff that drives it is biologically driven nonetheless.

Women’s liberation

As the world became safer and more prosperous (since the industrial revolution), the absolute necessity for male power began to diminish. No longer was brute force as necessary to protect and no longer was back breaking labor required to provide. Women began to demand liberation from the shackles of male authority. after all, why should she submit to her husband when she too can wield a gun and work in a factory (and later, an office)?

Since time immemorial, men have been burdened with the enormous responsibility of protecting and providing for their wives and children. As the calls for women’s liberation and equality grew louder, men saw an opportunity to share the heavy burden of responsibility.

In other words: equality meant different things to men and women. To men it meant that women are finally capable and willing to be equal in responsibility. To women it meant that they will finally be free to pursue their own dreams and whatever makes them happy. (Of course, there’s some oversimplification here, but I’m writing a post, not a book).

(It’s important to note that neither side was necessarily evil. While some individuals may have been pushing agendas, the overwhelming majority of people were simply doing what made sense at the time. Male authority was in place due to necessity and was given up as soon as it seemed feasible to do so, because men deeply love their women.)

Conclusion

Freedom necessitates responsibility and responsibility necessitates authority. Marriage is a business agreement where female freedom is traded in exchange for male protection and provision. Feminism liberated women from the shackles of male authority, but it did not place upon women the corresponding responsibility. There are countless examples of this mindset in every day life. In light of the above, two questions arise:

  1. What is the meaning and purpose of marriage in the era of feminism?
  2. Is female submission and male authority possible in today’s day and age or is it all nothing but role play?

I look forward to your feedback.

Cheers!