What prevents men from building a domain?

Readership: All;
Theme: Awareness and Introspection
Length: 2,500 words
Reading Time: 14 minutes

Intro

Thinking about motivation through the lens of how Patriarchy builds Civilization has been revealing.

In writing the last two posts, I’ve come to ask myself why I’ve found it so difficult to build a strong domain and what has held me back.

Here, I’ll speak from my own experiences, but I believe these insights would apply to most all men.

Overall, there are several categorical reasons why men are hampered from developing, maintaining, defending, and ruling over a domain:

  1. Ignorance and Naïveté
  2. Faulty Faith Beliefs
  3. Chasing Women Instead of Building a Domain
  4. Entering Marriage Unwisely
  5. Disrespect
  6. Divorce
  7. Emasculation / Humiliation
  8. The Tedious Boredom of Headship / Governance

At the end, I’ve included a prayer for men seeking to build a strong, healthy domain for themselves.

1. Ignorance and Naïveté about Domain

Continuing my story…

Earlier in life, I wasn’t very ambitious about building a career or making money, however, I did feel very motivated because I had the hope of having a wife, regular sex, children, and a stable life.  But what I didn’t understand was that these things alone do not constitute a domain, so these things remained elusive.  Even if I had obtained these things, it would not have been sustainable without a domain.

After reading Fish Eaters, my Frame was widened to see that my Bible reading during my youth had led me to assume a Patriarchal worldview, when in reality, this system hadn’t existed since before my grandparents’ day.  Nevertheless, I chose to believe I could carve out a patriarchal niche for myself.

I did develop a modest domain — several times — despite NOT exerting a concentrated effort to do so.  But because I didn’t recognize the importance of having a domain, I didn’t defend it or maintain it when events led to my domain falling apart, mostly because of competitive forces and/or conflicts of interest.  I also think I was too young and inexperienced to know how to handle it.

In addition to NOT knowing why having a domain of authority and a sphere of influence is important, there were several other things I was unaware of.

  • I had no idea I was supposed to be building a kingdom to rule over.
  • Because of (1), I wasn’t making a conscious effort to do so.
  • I didn’t understand that I would be fighting against the culture, against women, and even against the church in trying to accomplish this.  I continually faced challenges from all these sources, yet, it never clicked that this is institutional, NOT situational.
  • I didn’t have any domain-minded mentors to make me aware of what’s important.  In fact, many of my mentors were Blue Pilled Boomers — the generation that actively dismantled what little remained of patriarchy in the West.  That figures.
  • I also had many mentors from the Greatest and Silent generations, however, the Greatests were mellowed out with age, and the Silents were very relaxed and laid back.  They could not teach me much about defending my domain.

2. Faulty Faith Beliefs

I’ve had experience with Calvinism, Evangelicalism, and Lutheranism.

There is something about Calvinism (i.e., the TULIP stuff) that is extremely demotivating. (Calvinists call this the “Rage Stage”.)  I’m not sure if this demotivation would affect a man’s domain and/or marriage, but I think it might for some men.

Evangelicalism has its own set of troubles in the form of Boomer theology, complementarianism, and “Servant Leader” teachings. Here, man’s motivation is hijacked to serve feminine interests.  This has been covered extensively by Dalrock, et al.

When I look back at my own life, I see that I was taught to be a better Beta within a feminist system, NOT a patriarchal one. I’ve written about all these things before, but here’s a shortlist of issues.

  • Loyalty
  • Chivalry
  • Altruism
  • Nice Guy
  • Self-sacrifice
  • Individualism
  • Anti-materialism
  • Romantic notions of love
  • Blue Pilled / gynocentric thinking
  • Churchianity, AKA The Beta Factory
  • The notion that women are more spiritually attuned than men.
  • The belief that women are “Sugar and spice, and everything nice”.

Take anti-materialism, for example. I was not focused on earning money, because I believed that it was materialistic.  As Jesus said, it is hard for the rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  But lately, I have come to see how this belief has severely limited me.  I should’ve been more intent on making money and establishing a career, a domain, and a home for myself.

The others on the above list were similarly deceptive.  For each one, there was something about it that led me to believe it was ‘Christian’, or important, or virtuous (or that’s how it was framed by the church and/or the culture), but the reality was that it eroded Kingdom Rule.

Such is the nature of The Beta Factory.

The comprehensive sum of all these false beliefs from my upbringing caused me to fail at kingdom-building endeavors for the first part of my life.  Essentially, I had a very late start, and fast starts often make the difference between winning or losing a race.

3. Chasing Women Instead of Building a Domain

Single Christian men are prone to spend too much time, money, and effort trying to find a woman to marry, thinking that marriage is immediately urgent and indispensable because…

  1. The blinding, mind-numbing, urgent sexual needs need to be met RIGHT NOW.
  2. Sex should be obtained in a moral context, thus requiring marriage.
  3. Having sexual needs satiated frees a man up to concentrate on other things.
  4. Marriage is regarded as a pillar of financial and social stability in life.

But for all our talk about the importance of marrying a woman who is chaste, fertile, supportive, submissive, teachable, etc., the truth is that a man won’t attract ANY woman at all unless/until he has established a sturdy domain. That’s what the MPS is in LAMPS.

Besides, marriage is NOT a solution to lust.

Moreover, this is sex-centric thinking, NOT Domain-oriented objectivity. The problem with this thinking is that it detracts and distracts a man from developing himself and building a strong domain (Proverbs 31:3).

4. Entering Marriage Unwisely

Men often choose a wife with no thought about their domain or how a particular woman might affect it, for better or worse. Then sometime after marriage, they are frustrated to discover that their domain is stymied by her influence.

Or worse, they’re struck unawares when their domain is subsumed into hers.

Specific to domain, a poorly chosen wife …

  • Doesn’t respect your decisions.
  • Doesn’t encourage you to have a healthy lifestyle.
  • Doesn’t make it any easier for you to focus on your work.
  • Doesn’t allow you to rest after you come home for the day.
  • Doesn’t praise your performance, no matter how good or bad it is.
  • Doesn’t manage your habits and lifestyle in a way that fits your interests, needs, and personality.
  • Doesn’t know when to give you space, or time, or rest, or peace, or a quiet moment, so that you can pull yourself together and find new resolve.
  • Doesn’t appeal to your sexual desires in a way that would constrain you to her side and help you contain them within your marriage. (Yes, women can control this.)

And so far, this is just the basics.  The bare essentials for a man to function.

Once these basic habits are in place, then she can begin thinking about how to contribute, help, and support her husband and family.

The key point is that if she’s not helping, then she’s a dead weight dragging you down, and your whole domain goes down with you.

5. Disrespect

Going further on that last point…

A wife’s disrespect is extremely demotivating … and embarrassing.

It is a downward spiral that works like this.

Her disrespect → He is angry, annoyed, bitter, and self-conscious → He becomes less confident, less focused on his work, more absent-minded, awkward, and clumsy → This draws more disrespect from her → He loses motivation → His domain and influence suffer → His Kingdom Rule is diminished or destroyed.

Worse, it can devolve into a Feminist marriage: a harpy wife and a henpecked husband, thereby increasing the odds of divorce.

How can a man escape this cycle?

Here are a couple of methods that we’ve introduced here on Σ Frame:

  1. The Husband should hold the Wife accountable for her disrespect, as I wrote about in Ideal Women Don’t Exist (2023/9/23).  This will make her angry and contentious, so a man may need to stick with it for months or even years before he sees results.
  2. If the Husband can display joy in spite of her caustic attitude, then this may speed up the process in (1).

6. Divorce

Part of the reason why divorce hits kids the hardest is because it destroys the home domain in which they are incubated.  Without that domain, they’re left unprotected from all the lies of this world and the assaults of Satan.

If a man grew up in a home broken by divorce (as I did), it’s 10x harder to establish a stable domain for himself, because he never had one, and he doesn’t know how to maintain it or why it is important.

7. Emasculation / Humiliation

In Emasculation is Irreversible and Cannot be Cured. (2024/2/2), J.M. Smith of The Orthosphere wrote about the permanent effects of emasculation on men’s psychological health. Smith’s essay draws on a 1854 report by Brevet Captain John Pope, who described the Comanche, Apache, and Kiowa tribes in west Texas while exploring a route for the Pacific railroad. Pope described how the Comanches, who possessed bold, manly qualities, and had extraordinary skill on horseback, targeted Mexican settlements, thieving and raiding for horses and slaves. Pope noted that abducted women often assimilated into Comanche society, even after (or perhaps because) of initial r@pe, forming attachments and bearing children, while abducted Mexican men remained permanently humiliated, displaying a “cowed and sullen look, and a shuffling, timid manner”, and a reluctance to return home due to shame or fear.

From this case study, it is evident that while women can and do often recover from degradation (indeed, some women crave it and thrive on it), such emasculation / humiliation inflicts a catastrophic psychological toll in men that is more or less permanent and irreversible. Smith advocates for men to resist dishonor fiercely, even suggesting “death before dishonor.”

The modern parallels of emasculation take the form of schoolyard bullying, or white boys in a minority-majority school, and men in female-dominated workplaces. Also, it is not uncommon for married men to be routinely humiliated by their wives via disrespect (described above), shaming, sexual withholding, etc. Men who have been subjected to such experiences, especially early in life, tend to sink to the bottom of the SSH and have great difficulty in establishing a domain of authority.

8. The Tedious Boredom of Headship / Governance

Why do we seldom have excellent rulers?

I don’t know how many wars have been started, or illegitimate offspring born, simply because a king got bored and envious, but I’d guess it is a major factor in a majority of conflicts.

Why are most people in positions of power so corrupt and lazy?

I don’t know how often politicians get into government simply to cut deals with corporations and lobbyists and line their nests, but I’d guess it is a majority.

Governance or ‘Rule’ (e.g., of a church, or a community, or a family, or a nation, etc.), when done well, is laborious, tedious, and enervating.  It feels like you’re doing all the work of keeping everything together and running smoothly just so that the peons don’t have to worry about those things and are free to waste their time frolicking in the flowers you planted and trampling them on occasion.  But that’s what is necessary for security and prosperity.  It is tempting for those in power to become careless, envious, greedy, lazy, passively cruel through inaction or oversight, and/or to shift their attention to specific activities that are more interesting or personally rewarding in some way. But that is exactly how the seeds of rebellion are sown, followed by the disintegration of domain, and finally the fall of civilization.

Even after a man reaches the top, he must do the hard work of maintaining and defending all that he has built, and guard himself against his own vices.

A Man’s Prayer for His Domain

I’ve put together a prayer to help men understand themselves better, take inventory of their lives, and gain more wisdom about forming a domain.  Readers may like to change some parts to match their own situations.

Lord,

Much of my motivation and my success in life depend on having a secure and viable domain.  Yea, it even determines my value as a man in this world.

I can see with recondite clarity that I’ve been wrong about many things.  I’ve failed in many ways.  I’ve not prioritized Kingdom Rule in my life.  I’ve not given my best effort at establishing the domain of influence that is necessary for me to fulfill your purposes for my life.

Instead of concentrating on building and securing my own domain, I’ve been preoccupied with the small pleasures I wish to have in my domain (James 4:3).  But without a strong domain, I cannot keep those things, no matter how good they are.  So all is lost, like coins placed in a bag full of holes (Haggai 1:6).

Help me to let go of these idols and frivolous, vain desires.  Let my daily thoughts return to who I am in Christ, and the vision of that which you have set out for me to do in this life.

Teach me a renewed lifestyle that is Christ-centered and domain-oriented.  Grant me the power to bring all variables under control, either by my hand or by faith in You, in my home, my work, my church, and my social circles. Give me wisdom to rule over my family / wife / sons / daughters / GF / employees / others well.  Let me remember that I am responsible to You for all that is within my domain, and NOT to those under my authority, lest I become a vacillating people pleaser.

Reward my faithful obedience with more contentment, more joy, more motivation, more optimism, more proactive initiatives, and more productivity.  Let me and mine bear fruit for Your Kingdom.  Protect me from competitors who continually strive to defeat me, and evil doers who seek to destroy and/or steal my inheritance.

Lord, increase my domain and strengthen it, so that I may be content, joyful, productive, and give glory to You in this way; as St. Irenaeus wrote, “The glory of God is revealed in a man fully alive.”  Let your glory rest profusely upon my life and within my domain.

Amen.

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