Manliness—(part 3, Procreate)

Remember, in this article as in the two that preceded it, we are talking about perceptions of manliness—a qualitative evaluation of what has been a core component—an imperative—of manhood since recorded history.  Filtered through my worldview it will not be hard to see where I stand on the matter, but I will try to confine that to the end of the article. 

 

This traditional descriptive aspect of manliness—that it has been a duty of man to try to procreate children—cross-culturally and over time is probably most at variance with modern Western culture and it probably has the least resonance with the hedonistic viewpoint of many late 20^th and early 21^st century men (and women).  Simply put, in our society, especially in the last two generations, it is inconvenient to have children; it requires commitment to something beyond self; and it costs money.  This runs against the grain of the last half-century mantra: do-your-own-thing;  I’m-accountable-to-no-one.

 Having a ‘procreative’ leg on the three-legged stool also contributes, of course, to population growth, and many  feel that the world has too many people already (but of course they are glad they, themselves, are here and are glad that their mothers did not believe in abortion or birth-control in their case.  Oops, I only made it to the end of this paragraph).

 And those men (or their women) who may be infertile may feel or take umbrage to have it thought of them that the male in the couple be considered less than manly, and so to eliminate this perceptual discomfort they take biological parenthood out of the equation or discussion.  But of course in even a normal heterosexual relationship having or not having children is certainly not entirely within a man’s control.   

And I guess that among homosexual men at least one of them must comparatively consider himself manly (for certainly the ‘female’ role in such relationships, according to Gilmore and other anthropologists, historically has been considered the least manly of all human behaviors); or perhaps neither of the ‘partners’ gives a thought to the notion of manliness: manliness does not seem to rank highly in their value system.  

More and more the concept of manliness ranks less and less in any ‘modern’ value system save what I have seen in the distortions of the red-neck counter-culture or America’s ‘cowboy culture’ so often disparaged by  Europeans and our Middle-Eastern critics. 

Traditionally procreation has been thought of as a civic duty—a social function that impacts society at large in a positive way.   For millennia,  a large family strengthened society by giving it numbers to survive by providing boys who would grow up to provide the protective and providing functions for the home and community.  But in our time the generalized protective function has been largely out-sourced, and women have chosen (or found it a necessity) to work out of the home so the value of boys and now even men has been devalued 

Where We Now Stand

Although many now, especially men, contrary to the positive historical view of procreation, do not want children, they cannot escape, nor do they want to escape, the biologically driven process by which children come about.  Though hormonally-driven men usually take the initiative in sex, appropriately or far too often by force, Author Brett McKay in his blog says, “Much of the risks men take, the wealth they try to accumulate, and the showy things they do, are, at their core, attempts to impress women, who have traditionally acted as the gatekeepers to sex. Women don’t just serve as passive enticements either, and may actively goad the men into demonstrations of manhood” (The Art of Manliness, March 2014).  Sex, which is of course the method by which procreation comes about, has become recreational rather than generational.

And so, sadly, many women, too, are finding now that their ‘real’ capital has diminished in value.  Without demanding and maintaining their virtue be earned by a man who must demonstrate the first two ‘pillars’ to win them over, they have ‘shot themselves in the foot,’ so to speak.  They demand less of a man, and that is exactly what they get. 

“In ‘the sexual marketplace,’ the male demand for sex has remained the same, but its ‘price’ has dropped dramatically; there’s no need to slay a dragon, just buy a lady dinner and invite her back to your place. The modern ‘cheapness’ of sex, some theorize, accounts for the way many young men are resisting commitment and floundering in other areas of their lives such as academics or career responsibilities.” (McKay)

 Many young men, in this generation, have found sublimations to get them through their years without conquest or responsibility.  Televised sports and video games, beer or marijuana, an enabling parent (or crime to support their substitutions for earned manliness), pornography and cheap sex are getting many young men through the day (or through life) though not in any satisfactory way for themselves or for society. 

Viewing ‘earned’ and ‘learned’ manliness in our time as a now-irrelevant cultural construct, (wrongly viewed, I believe, in case any reader has missed my point) has contributed to the terrible aberrations and atrocities we have experienced by males (mostly) acting out with bombings, school shootings and crimes against women and children.  I truly believe these conflicted males who have not been taught how to appropriately be a man—a gentleman—are acting out their frustrations and all of society is suffering because of it.  

A boy is taught how to be a man by being with a man who enjoys a proper relationship with a woman.  In other words, a boy needs a dad and a mother in a proper husband-and-wife-led family for him to become a man with all the tools and modeling needed for life success. 

With the huge social shift in the past half-century contributed to greatly by the birth-control pill and an increasingly larger population of women out of the home and permanently in the workplace and in higher education, all three of the three pillars of the triad: Protect – Provide – Procreate are becoming emasculated.  This, I believe, is the inevitable outcome of embracing what is more and more becoming a gender-neutral world. 

  

Manliness, for the first time in history, seems to be on its way out.  Or, as my wife pointed out, has taken an ‘about-face’ and is currently marching in the opposite direction. 

[I had not planned a fourth treatment of this topic, but I see I must do at least a short article explaining my religiously-driven basis for my conclusions.  This will be my next weblog.]