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This series started by noting that many highly-visible marriages have suffered from public problems. Our society's views of marriage appear to be inconsistent.
On the one hand, marriage contracts are no longer enforced; it's easier for a woman to get out of being married than to get out of paying for a refrigerator and the judge will award her both alimony and child support. Nobody seems to criticize a woman who leaves her husband, but there's great indignation when a man is caught playing around even if he has no notion of leaving his wife.
This article discusses ways by which the trauma can be avoided. Benjamin Franklin defined insanity as doing the same thing over again and expecting the results to be different. When people are hurt in relationships, doing the same thing again without thinking about what happened is not likely to lead to success.
If a woman really wants a husband, there's a simple way to get one, but it's not easy; it requires discipline on her part.
Violent rape is pretty rare, but natural selection means that a man will generally go as far as a woman lets him go, and push to see if he can get her to go all the way. Natural selection has always favored men who try to have sex with as many women as possible. Expecting men to stop pushing for sex because sex without marriage damages women is futile; it's up to women to protect themselves.
The first step is for women to recognize that they've been lied to. When the pill arrived, women's libbers gleefully decided that women could have as much fun with sex as men did, but that's not realistic.
Generally speaking, women are driven to form relationships, not to have sex, and having sex strengthens their need for relationships. Being taught only about sexually transmitted diseases as opposed to being taught about whiplash of the heart leaves women vulnerable to being too damaged to try again.
The second step is to recognize that being happily married for a long time is a lot of work. To be practical, if you're married, it is simply not possible for you to make yourself happy because your spouse's happiness or unhappiness has a strong effect on your happiness.
Thus, if you're contemplating marriage, it's important to consider whether you are able to make your spouse happy. If you can, and if you're willing to do whatever it takes to make your spouse happy for the rest of your life, marriage has a good chance to work; but if you can't or won't make your spouse happy, you're going to be miserable.
Suppose a woman is willing to put a lot of work into her marriage. Suppose she wants to find a man, settle down, and have children. How does she fight sexual liberation? How does she persuade a man that she's a treasure, not a toy, and get a man to respect her enough to stay with her instead of playing with her?
The answer is just as simple and just as difficult as avoiding drugs: "Just Say NO!"
Some women are beginning to figure it out. For example, USA Today published "A neo-feminist's view of abstinence" by Elizabeth Sandoval.
She begins, "I don't want to have sex. Clarification: I do want to have sex, but only with my husband. And I don't have one of those yet." In concluding, "Women give it up as if it's nothing, when in fact, it is everything," she stated the issue well.
A man worries that a woman he marries will foist other men's children off on him. The "power of virginity" helps a woman deal with this suspicion:
Against this system of mutual exploitation stands the more compelling alternative of virginity. It escapes the ruthless cycle of winning and losing because it refuses to play the game. The promiscuous of both sexes will take their cheap shots at one another, disguising infidelity and selfishness as freedom and independence, and blaming the aftermath on one another. But no one can claim control over a virgin. Virginity is not a matter of asserting power in order to manipulate. It is a refusal to exploit or be exploited. That is real, and responsible, power.
But there is more to it than mere escape. There is an undeniable appeal in virginity, something that eludes the resentful feminist's contemptuous label of "prude." A virgin woman is an unattainable object of desire, and it is precisely her unattainability that increases her desirability. Feminism has told a lie in defense of its own promiscuity, namely, that there is no sexual power to be found in virginity. On the contrary, virgin sexuality has extraordinary and unusual power. There's no second-guessing a virgin's motives: her strength comes from a source beyond her transitory whims. It is sexuality dedicated to hope, to the future, to marital love, to children and to God. Her virginity is, at the same time, a statement of her mature independence from men. It allows a woman to become a whole person in her own right, without needing a man either to revolt against or to complete what she lacks. It is very simple, really: no matter how wonderful, charming, handsome, intelligent, thoughtful, rich or persuasive he is, he simply cannot have her. A virgin is perfectly unpossessable.
People who scorn the idea of a woman "saving herself for her husband" forget how possessive men are and how concerned a man is that his wife belong to him. Virginity helps a man believe that a woman would be faithful if he married her. It also gives her leverage in asking that he postpone sex until after they're married. Natural selection has favored possessive men. If she has sex without marriage, his worst suspicions are aroused and he's less likely to marry her.
To get a man to stay with her in marriage, a woman must convince him that she's a treasure instead of a toy. The best way to do that is to put marriage on the table BEFORE THE FIRST DATE! When a man asks her out, a woman could say something like:
"Before you spend any money on me, I want you to know that I want to get married. I'm looking for a husband; I'm not looking for a good time. I'm not saying you have to agree to marry me before we go out at all, but I want you to agree that the purpose of being together is to decide whether you and I should get married."
In today's modern "hookup" culture, that'll boggle his mind, so she might do well to explain:
I want to be a treasure for some man. I want to be such a treasure for my husband that he'll value me so much that he likes being with me and enjoys talking to me. If you're not that man, we can part friends, but I'm not a toy. I want a man to stay with me; I don't want a man to play with me. You're a very nice guy and I could easily fall in love with you. If I end up loving you and you won't marry me, I'll be hurt.
The marriage vows say, "to have and to hold." I expect my husband to have me; I plan to belong to my husband. If that's you, I'll do my best to be a real treasure for you, but I don't want a man to just take me. Being your treasure means that I want to give myself to you whenever you want me because I know that giving myself to you makes you happy with me. You'll want to make love five times before breakfast and start in again when you get home from work. That's a bit much from my point of view, but that's what men think "to have and to hold" means.
But if I'm yours, I expect you to be mine. I want to have my husband, but men don't like being taken any more than women do. Your being mine means that you want to open your heart to me because you know giving yourself to me makes me happy with you. I want you to open your heart to me five times before breakfast and talk more when you get back from work. I want to know what you're doing and how you feel about it. I want to know your feelings, I want to know what's on your heart. Opening your heart to me bores and humbles you just as opening my body to you bores and humbles me. My emotions are made so that it's hard for me to be yours if you aren't mine. Opening my body to you makes me yours; opening your heart to me makes you mine. That's how we float each other's boats.
If you belong to me while treating me as your very own special treasure, I'll be glad to be yours. If I enjoy giving myself to you and being yours, you'll be glad to belong to me. Being glad to belong to each other will bring us great joy all our days. But if you aren't willing to at least consider marriage, please don't waste my time.
I know a few women who've done that and it worked. When their husbands tell the story, most other men agree that they'd be interested in a woman who wanted to be a treasure for her husband. A treasure they'd marry; why marry a used toy?
It's interesting to list some of the natural selection hot-buttons which are addressed by this little speech:
Sex and speech are the two sides of the arch which holds up a family. When a man encourages a woman to talk and thanks her for her speech, he makes her feel loved, valued, honored and appreciated. When a woman thanks, or at least affectionately respects a man for their sex life, she makes him feel loved, honored, valued, and appreciated.
Talking helped women share tips on keeping their babies alive and keeping their men from running off; natural selection favors women who're driven to talk. Talking scares away the game, natural selection favors men who don't talk. Talking enough to satisfy a woman is learned behavior; making love enough to satisfy a man is learned behavior.
Being pregnant and nursing a child until it can eat other food takes a year or two; having babies more often than that hurts a woman's reproductive success rather than helping. A woman can reach her full reproductive potential having sex only a few times every two years. There's no reason for natural selection to favor women with a strong sex drive.
It's a different story for men, of course. A man gains reproductive success by getting as many women pregnant as possible; some of them might raise his children. Natural selection favors men who're always interested in sex.
A man can rise to the occasion only so fast and he isn't able to make love for a while after doing it, but the faster a man can recover and the more often he's able to have sex, the more reproductive success he can have. Since reproductive success is the only goal of natural selection, it's no surprise that men have been selected for a strong sex drive coupled with extreme possessiveness toward women they support and a reluctance to settle down.
By encouraging her husband's possessiveness, a wife helps support her home and children. Natural selection favored men who shared food with women and children; the less a man consumes himself, the more resources are available for taking care of children and the more children he can raise. Natural selection favors men who don't want much for themselves.
Women have a hard time finding birthday and Christmas gifts for husbands and brothers because selection favored men who want only one thing. If a man's wife belongs to him so that he can't have sex any more often, he doesn't want much else and they can spend all the money on their house and children.
Jewish wisdom literature records King Solomon's observation that if a man's wife doesn't belong to him, he'll be so unhappy that his soul is empty (7:28-29). King Solomon had life and death power over his harem. His women belonged to him, there was none of this nonsense of "I have a headache," or "I'm not in the mood," but a man can't possibly relate to that many women closely enough to keep them happy, and their unhappiness made him unhappy.
Solomon spent vast sums on building projects, music, wine, wisdom, and on other toys trying to make himself happy, but this didn't work (2:1-11). Solomon taught that a man's only hope of joy was to rejoice with his wife (9:9) All a man has is his work and his wife, and if his wife's not happy to belong to him, his work isn't worth much to him.
As we've seen, natural selection made it possible for a charming "lady killer" to have reproductive success without settling down. Thus, men generally don't value homes as much as women do and they don't value talk as much as women do. If she wants a man at all, a woman wants that man to hang around the house and pay attention to her and talk to her.
Men know that women are better at talking than they are. Talking as openly as a woman wants goes against a man's nature, so she needs to guide the way she talks to him based on ancient advice:
She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and the law of kindness is on her tongue (31:28).
A woman's manner of speaking to her husband has a lot do with how her marriage turns out. Jewish history points out that a woman has the power to vex a man's soul unto death. (It's off-topic, but this story also illustrates the proverb, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Taking the account as written, Sampson betrayed Delilah first. What she did wasn't nice, but he betrayed her first.)
Natural selection favors a woman being able to irritate a man for the same reason that a baby's cry has to be irritating and penetrating. It does a mother no good to give birth if the child dies before reproducing. A baby has to have a way to get the mother's attention. Natural selection favors babies who can really irritate their parents and it favors mothers who're sensitive to crying; women appear to pay closer attention to crying babies than men do.
Similarly, a woman has to be able to get a man's attention when she's in danger. Most men aren't smooth enough to achieve reproductive success by taking other men's women, so natural selection favors men who hear and respond to a woman's cry for help. Keeping his wife alive helps a man's reproductive success. Thus, men are selected to pay attention to a woman's voice when she's in extremis.
Some women take advantage of this; we call it "nagging" when a woman pesters a man to get her way. That's a way to deal with a man, but does it promote her long-term security and happiness?
If a woman speaks kindly and wisely to a man, he's going to want to hear what she has to say. A man can always get another job and tell himself he's staying away from home out of love for his wife. A man doesn't have to hang around the house, but if his wife makes the ten-foot area around her the most pleasant place in all the world for him to be, that's where you'll find him.
Stating her desire to marry up front process facilitates the "quick no." Most prospects aren't going to buy whatever you're selling. If someone isn't going to buy, the faster and cheaper you find out the better. The more time you waste with a "no," the less you'll sell.
A woman isn't going to marry most of the eligible men she meets. Given that the answer's going to be "no" most of the time, the quicker she finds out the better. Telling men up front that she wants to get married before having sex may send a lot of men away, but why should a woman get herself involved with a man who doesn't want to get married? There's no possible gain for her, it only leads to hurt.
A woman can follow this plan even if she's given away her virginity. If she stops having sex, she can explain, "I made a mistake. Giving myself to a man who wouldn't marry me tore me apart; I won't do it again. But if we get married, you'll have me whenever you want me and I plan to be yours forever." Secondary virginity won't be as persuasive to a man as the real thing, but making a man think that sex means nothing to her makes it hard for him to trust her enough to marry her.
If a woman lets a man take her without committing himself to her, there's no reason for him to marry her. Having had her without marrying her, he's aroused her emotional desire to preserve the relationship so he can probably have her again.
He reasons that she gave herself to him so she'll probably give herself to other men when he's away. If she wants a man to stay with her and belong to her, she's got to let him know that her price is that he treat her as a treasure and take her to wife instead of just taking her.
This isn't as strange as it sounds - any serious man should be interested in a woman who declares that she wants to be a treasure for her husband.
Our society teaches girls to be toys, but the divorce rate shows that being toys doesn't make anyone happy. Marriage prospers if the man treats his wife as a treasure and she acts as a treasure.
Old-fashioned? Perhaps, but the modern method is damaging women so badly that they want nothing to do with men or with children. As Ms. Sandoval pointed out, a girl chooses whether to be a toy or a treasure by when she gives herself. Toy or treasure, play or stay. Which is best for women?
So far, we've discussed natural selection, courtship, and mating patterns from the point of view of what women want. We don't have much to say about members of the National Organization for Women, they're more interested in gaining political power for themselves than in improving the lot of women.
Natural selection isn't destiny, but it sure shapes the odds. Both men and women are able to disregard their instincts when they have to - most men can control themselves enough not to urge sex on all the women they meet and women are able to suppress their instincts to form relationships and ignore crying babies for a while, but going against your instincts is a losing game in the long term.
It is not at all reasonable for a man to expect his wife to have sex with him as often as he wants it if he consistently frustrates her deep, instinctive need for a relationship. It's not reasonable for a woman to expect her husband to remain faithful to her if she consistently frustrates his deep, instinctive need to have sex.
The next article in this series summarizes what natural selection says about the deep, underlying instincts of men and women. If you don't know what you want, you're unlikely to get it. If you do know what you and a prospective long-term partner need, you may be able to back out of a doomed relationship before you're badly hurt.