"Marriage Stands Up for Itself"

I just finished reading this article in the New York Times, which dispells common claims about marriage and divorce by examining trends emerging over the past few decades.

 This article underlines an important fundamental change that modern relationships have undergone. The choice of marriage is less likely to result from the consideration of how well each spouse will fulfill respective traditional gender roles. The impetus (4th declension and correct plural) of modern marriages are strong feelings of connection and understanding, shared interests, and the committment to the nurturing of mutual happiness and fulfillment. Divorce rates in the United States are falling at astonishing rates because:

• Men and women are more likely to recognize the importance of the sharing of roles.
• Marriages occur later in life.
• Earlier, less compatible relationships are not pursued.

Education level is also influential - the divorce rates for the highly educated are markedly lower than those of married people with high school diplomas. Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance inhibits one's ability to speak cannily, to connect with others, to comprehend and love complexity and multiple perspectives, to question and share and explore and understand. Parents have a direly important responsibility to ensure that their children participate as much as possible in the rainbow of discourse provided by academia.

If you know me well, I've probably told you about my ongoing survey of blogs and articles written by women across the world who subscribe to traditional beliefs regarding the roles of women and men, usually for reasons rooted in religion. Their claims are universally primitive, unsupported by scientific fact and invalid in reality. They are also arbitrary and condescending, and their arguments unravel only to the point where the "rock" of religious scripture nullifies all further questioning.

Early humans were hunters and gatherers. Females and males evolved to be different for evolutionary-advantageous reasons. Male promiscuity is evolutionary advantageous, as males are constructed to spread their genes, and females are constructed to carry and nurture young.  Females and males were naturally and biologically more skilled at different things. Women have more developed skills at recognizing patterns and can see more clearly in darkness; they were heavily involved in food-gathering and defense. Men can track moving objects more accurately than women and are built with more upper body strength; they were more skilled at hunting. Both skill sets were equally vital for survival, and male/female differences were not so marked as to prevent role-sharing.

When humans begame agrarian, physical strength was highly prized, which put females at a natural disadvantage. Female value was found only in the biological ability to become pregnant and produce offspring, which could be used in agriculture as either muscles and hands, or wombs.  This mindset has pervaded what is now western culture... Until now.

Now, biological differences between men and women are less valid. Our intelligences are evenly matched, even as the differences in our thought patterns are advantageous to innovation and problem-solving when utilized in tandem. This is the age when differences, not similarities, are valued, and societally-reinforced gender roles become more fluid, allowing those men and women who desire to make traditionally-rejected lifestyle choices to seek fulfillment.

Claim:  Women are naturally inclined toward the home, and thus all women should be allowed to stay there.  If you are a woman and are not naturally inclined toward the home, you have been twisted by the vagaries of feminism and are out of touch with your true nature.

Some women are, some women aren't, some men are, some men aren't, regardless of whether one's motivations originate from nature, society, personality, experience, whatever.  If you are, make that choice, and if you want, find a mate who connects with you and helps you fulfill your dreams. If you aren't, the same freedom applies. Neither way is better or worse, wronger or righter.

Claim: Men are naturally inclined to competition.  If you're a man and you're not competitive, you've been twisted by the vagaries of feminism and are now a girly-man.

Agrarian society ftw!  Some men are, some men aren't, some women are, some women aren't. Truly.  Why am I explaining this?!

Claim: It is not fair to the bottom line for women to choose both motherhood and a career. The inherent value of a female employee is less, as female employees may demand "concessions" based on maternity.

Interestingly, this is not the view of modern employeers. It is the female perspective that is valued. Women have a significantly larger corpus collossums, allowing the two hemispheres of the brain to communicate more efficiently. Problem-solving techniques of women tend to be less linear. Additionally, in the public and nonprofit sectors,the bottom line is irrelevant. Business strategies across fields benefit from multiple approaches, and the participation of males and females in the development of problem-solving strategies is beneficial for all involved.

True egalitarianism is not the avid rejection of social roles and traditional ways of thinking. It's not found in bra-burning, an immature, a vapid campaign against motherhood for the sake of "female-freedom," or in the situation of a father rejecting competitive corporatism out of hatred of tradition. It is the recognizance of the irrelevance of these ways of thinking, and the awareness of how our differences can be used in tandem to promote the flourishing of all life. It is the freedom to choose according to the urgings of one's true preferences without the coercion of society.

Shared experience = understanding, connection and enlightenment. Be productive. Grow. Better yourself and the people around you. Find joy.