Men and Marriage

Here we go with another notes post. George Gilder definitely goes off the rails with some of his work, but the broader take on male/female relationships in Men and Marriage, a reissue of his older Sexual Suicide book, is quite excellent. His essential argument is that women are sexually superior, whereas men find themselves lost searching for an identity in our modern world of hostility towards the smallest signs of manliness.

On Silly Appeals to Physical Superiority

“In primitive societies men have the compensation of physical strength. They can control women by force and are needed to protect them from other men. But this equalizer is relatively unimportant in a civilized society, where the use of force is largely restricted by law and custom. In successful civilized societies, man counterbalances female sexual superiority by playing a crucial role as provider and achiever. Money replaces muscle.” (6)

On Intercourse Driving Identity

“For men the desire for sex is not simply a quest for pleasure. It is an indispensable test of identity. And in itself it is always ultimately temporary and inadequate. Unless his maleness is confirmed by his culture, he must enact it repeatedly, and perhaps destructively for himself or his society.” (11)

“The most obvious relief, masturbation, is a flight from sexual identity rather than an affirmation of it. Relations with girls, moreover, are ambiguous and complicated at this stage.” (26)

“In modern society, sexual relations with women are becoming the chief way men assert their sexual identity. But in most of the world’s societies, sexual relations follow achievement of manhood, or accompany it.” (27)

“But homosexuality is merely the most vivid and dramatic manifestation of the breakdown of monogamy—a extreme expression of the sexuality of single men. […] Homosexuality can therefore feel more natural to many men than their comparatively laborious, expensive, and frustrating pursuits of young women.” (69, 74)

On Money and Providers

“But unlike the warrior’s emblems and hunter’s game, money lacks gender. Women can get it as well as men. The provider role, therefore, is losing its immediate sexual correlation. It is sustained by the greater desire of men to perform it, and by their greater aptitude for competition.” (47)