I have been reading Charles Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle. In the 1830s, Darwin spent nearly five years aboard the Beagle, which conducted a variety of scientific/geographical surveys mostly of Argentina and Chile. After this main task, they traveled to Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, before heading back to London.

This ship was crewed, naturally, entirely by men. A group of men spent five years together, with no women. When Darwin was ashore, he was also engaged in studies that mostly consisted of difficult overland travel, with no women. They struggled up rivers, crawled through the forests of Tierra Del Fuego, and crossed deserts populated primarily by bandits. Since this was Charles Darwin, he was also engaged in an intellectual adventure. He collected many samples of flora and fauna, and engaged in countless studies of geology. This led to his own theories of speciation, and also some interesting studies on the origin of atolls, the geological history of these regions, and other interesting subjects.

It was, in short, a wonderful adventure. This is a man’s idea of adventure: going off, in the company of other men, to discover something interesting.

Women like adventure too. But, a woman’s idea of adventure is, in the first instance, sexual adventure; and, in the second instance, in the company of men, primarily her husband. For example, a woman today might also daydream of spending five years aboard the Beagle, in the company of the young Charles Darwin and a hundred other men whose hard, tanned bodies have been tempered by the physical toil of life on the sea. Hubba hubba. But, do you ever find a woman who daydreams of spending five years on a ship with a hundred other women, and no men? This never happens. It also never happens in real life. In real life, perhaps in the entire history of humanity, a hundred women have never set off on a five-year sailing adventure, with no men on board, and where they could not expect to ever meet a man.

In the second instance, a woman’s adventure is not quite sexual adventure, but it takes place alongside men, primarily her husband. Many women joined their husbands to explore and populate new and remote areas, raising children along the way. It is practically the whole history of America from the seventeenth century to about 1920. Today, women can take adventurous paths, for example becoming a Hollywood actress or starting a business. But, most adventure for women today is sexual adventure: a string of exciting bad boys. She imagines that home and family is the end of adventure, and the beginning of drudgery and toil.

Women, although naturally somewhat cautious, also like to have a share of adventure. The problem with sexual adventure is that it doesn’t end well: a woman ends up a worn-out slut incapable of forming a stable relationship. Even if she manages to get married (which she usually does), she will then tear apart her own family and end up as before, a single woman in search of sexual adventure. And then, there is still another forty years to get through. Also, sexual adventure normally requires a woman to be a single, working woman. Most employment is drudgery and toil; a housewife has far more sovereignity and freedom to do as she likes. In the past, this adventure was commonly alongside a husband. A husband and wife, together, would do something adventurous.

Unfortunately, I think that most men today are not very adventurous. They have had to temper their natural sense of adventure to succeed within the constraints of school and corporate work. Women find them boring. They do not hold out much promise of adventure together.

I do not think it is necessary to take long sailing voyages to be adventurous. You can simply think adventurous thoughts. Most men today are terrified at the idea of thinking thoughts that are deviant from what they are being told to do by the media or their school teachers. They are terrified at wearing any kind of interesting clothing, or driving an adventurous car, or doing any sort of interesting thing — of being a creative force in the world. I sometimes wonder what women think of the typical successful men of the professional class. These would seem to be some of the most desirable men around. They make high incomes, and have positions of responsibility and expertise. From a man’s point of view, they are often quite impressive. They do a difficult job well, and are reliable, trustworthy and cooperative. From a woman’s point of view, I think most of them seem like pasty, out-of-shape lumps with a pathological attachment to khaki pants and denim shirts. An office of these men gives the impression of a koala bear farm. They do not have an energy of adventurousness, even though they may actually be involved in something quite adventurous.

Earlier, I mentioned the example of Steve Cohen, one of the top hedge fund managers of the past thirty years:

Not only is hedge fund management inherently adventurous, but Cohen also built a huge organization, became one of the top funds in the industry, and became a billionaire along the way. From a man’s point of view, a very impressive guy. Very very. But, if I didn’t tell you all that, and said only that he was a successful professional in the financial industry in New York, and worked long hours in the office, I can see how a woman might not be very turned on by this prospect. It seems dull. She would rather hang out with some rock band drummer.

Earlier, I mentioned that Cohen participated in a video dating service — he probably omitted some of the details to weed out the gold diggers — and contacted twenty-seven women. Only one responded, a single mother who grew up in public housing. They got married, and apparently, she has been a very good wife. Good for them.

Here is another successful professional who spends long hours in the office in New York:

While this is a particularly good looking actor, nevertheless I think that, on top of that, he expresses a possibility of “adventure,” from a woman’s point of view. But, this is rare today. So, when I suggest that the proper sphere for adventure for a woman is alongside her husband, I can understand why women might look at this prospect with a little skepticism.

I have been suggesting that a woman today should get married around age 18-20, and launch right into the big adult responsibilities of raising children and managing a household. One reason for this is that, a woman waits until age 28 to marry, then the ten years in between will typically be occupied either with celibacy, sexual adventure, or a near-marriage with the man that she will eventually marry, or perhaps not marry — four bad options. But women nevertheless cling to this pattern, in part from their desire for adventure.

So, I will suggest that marriage can also be a forum for adventure, for a woman. Even if a woman gets married at 18, she might delay having children until perhaps age 23, and spend those five years traveling and doing fun things, with her husband — just as women do with their boyfriends today. Her husband may be involved in something adventurous — starting a new business for example, or moving to a new city — that she takes part in alongside. Even if her husband is, to some degree, a boring provider, she would likely have plenty of flexibility to do something interesting during the day. Just having children is an adventure. This is particularly true now, when the whole process of motherhood and family must be hewn out of raw materials. We cannot do what others have done in the past, and are doing today. There lies only degeneracy and failure.

Or, as Jack summarized well in the comments below: “Getting married, joining her husband in his life mission, and having a family should be a woman’s greatest adventure in life. Unfortunately, there’s too much propaganda telling women the opposite.”

In short, we should reconcile the conflict that is felt by women between being married at 18, and having a bit of adventure. People did it in the past. Caroline Ingalls, of Little House on the Prairie, was very adventurous. Mostly, it is a matter of just doing it — doing something adventurous, within the context of marriage and family.

Most women today don’t really have much notion of what being a full-time housewife may entail. Mostly, it seems like they imagine that it is cooking and cleaning. While that is necessary (it is necessary also for those women who work full-time), things certainly do not stop there.

Rather, I would suggest something rather more all-encompassing: that the Home should be the center of all life; and that the stay-at-home Mom is what makes this possible.

This was always the normal state of affairs. The Home was often not only the place of residence, but also of production: husbands were farmers, in the fields outside the home, and often returned for the midday meal (then called “dinner.”) Or, they might be craftsmen or merchants, in shops and offices on the first floor, with the home on the second or in the rear. Women engaged in a lot of primary production. Food preparation not only included what we call “cooking” today, but a number of steps that were integrated with the husband’s work in the fields, pasture and barn. Women would milk cows, collect eggs, churn butter, mill wheat, preserve hams or vegetables, make sausages, and organize cellars and pantries for the long winter before next year’s harvest. Women would spin thread and yarn, weave cloth, sew clothes and knit sweaters. Alongside all this, children were raised in the household, and elderly parents were cared for. Orphaned children or sometimes widows or unmarried sisters of relatives were taken into the home.

Leisure and fun activities took place at home. When they had free time, people read books, at home; they played the piano, at home; they visited their friends at their homes, or invited their friends to their home. Even the wealthy who had nannies and governesses for their children, nevertheless included these servants in their homes.

Today, we have two tendencies: to export activities outside the home; or to integrate them within the home.

The husband’s activities were exported outside the home especially in the latter nineteenth century, as work on the family-owned farm or small business was replaced by employment labor in large corporations. This is changing a little today, as working from home becomes more common.

Over time, and especially as wives and mothers began working outside the home, more and more activities that took place at the home became items of external commerce. Cooking is replaced by processed and prepared foods from supermarkets (nearly all of it unhealthy), and food from restaurants. Children were increasingly raised by the Government, in the form of public schools. Wealthy parents who didn’t like public schools much would send their children to private schools, at great expense. Daycare replaced early childcare. Elderly were shunted off to Social Security (again the Government), nursing homes and other solutions, all of which cost money. All kinds of leisure activities, which took place in the home, are now exterior: this includes all kinds of child-related activities such as sports or a wide variety of after-school activities. Weekends and vacations are spent somewhere else, which usually costs a ton of money. Commerce is the basis of all life; it seems that you can hardly stand up or sit down without constantly spending money.

I suggest that the stay-at-home Wife should actively and purposefully aim to re-integrate many of these activities back into the Home. We have already mentioned proper cooking (from single ingredients; no processed and prepared foods), combined with proper meals, where the family sits down together. There is really no need today to be involved in the productive activities that nineteenth-century women engaged in. We don’t have to milk cows ourselves, or sew our own clothing, or make soap from tallow and lye, or can vegetables for the winter.

To this let us now add some new things. A stay-at-home Wife today can be, and I think should be, the center of the child’s upbringing and education. Small children should spend all day with their mothers, rather than being shunted off to daycare. As they get older, they can be homeschooled. Leisure activities can again be centered in the home, including again reading or music, or, to be more social, visiting others in their homes. Young marriageable women live at the homes of their fathers until marriage. Men leave the home of their parents to, eventually, create a new home, for their new wives and families. Wedding parties, birthdays and funerals take place in the home. Commerce with the outside world tends to focus on basic supplies: home maintenance, grocery shopping, utilities.

I think that we should again adopt the practice of integrating elderly parents into the homes of their children. Probably many people don’t necessarily like their parents very much. But, do you think they liked living with you, when you were a tiresome little brat? Maintaining a separate household, for the elderly, can become quite difficult, not only in terms of expenditure, but also in terms of time and effort. After a certain point (it is commonly around age 70), the basic household duties become difficult to sustain. Vacuuming or yard care is neglected; home maintenance goes unattended; the standard of cooking declines. Most people over about 75 or so should not be driving automobiles. Elderly parents can help with a variety of tasks, including childcare. At some point, if the difficulty of maintaining elderly parents becomes too much, a live-in domestic helper can be integrated into the home. This was a common solution in the past, and may become common again. Considering that room and board is included, probably a live-in domestic helper could be found for less than the cost of maintaining a separate household; and thus, the net cost is less than zero.

Beyond these practical considerations, I think we can imagine the home as the center of all civilization — what is now taking place outside the home. “Civilization” has a number of aspects such as food, clothing, the decorative arts, the fine arts, literature, society, and so forth. The ambitious woman (and her husband) understands that when she decorates her own home, she is engaged in the construction of civilization.

This is a little different than as sometimes happens today, where a woman may make an effort to have a beautiful home, but not much living takes place there. The children again spend their days at daycare or government schools. She has a beautiful dining room, but nobody uses it; she meets her friends at restaurants. She has a beautiful kitchen, but doesn’t cook much. For the Woman who Lives Life at Home, these are not static displays, but essential tools for everyday life, and are in constant use as the tableau in which daily activity takes place.

We today tend to ascribe our sorry state of affairs to the feminist movement of the 1960s. But, the poisons of feminism have been around a lot longer than that. Today’s essay is The Discontented Woman, written in 1896 by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr. An online source is here. But, I am going to put the whole thing here, because it is worth reading. This was the first round of modern feminism, which resulted in the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote in 1919. This was related, I think, to what we have talked about in terms of “dating,” which was related to women leaving their father’s home and making a living in the cities while single. Before then, a woman was rarely not part of a household — either her father’s, or her husband’s. The household was considered the voting unit, and the man was the representative of the household. But, it goes farther back than that. Already by the 1850s there was a lot of talk about “eliminating marriage and family,” which was related — just as it is today — with Marxism. The Marxist ideal is for all adults to be interchangeable serfs in service to the State, and actually, in service to those that run the State. There is no family, no mothers, and no fathers. Children are transferred to the State soon after birth, and raised by the State. Today, this is “pre-K” and soon, “state daycare,” which has already been preceded by “HeadStart” and “Early HeadStart” beginning at age 2. Consequently, there are no brothers, sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts or cousins either. When you get too old to work, you just disappear one afternoon, like they used to do to horses, and nobody cares because you have no family. One day, your apartment is vacated, and your next-door neighbor shrugs and goes to work.

As the essay states, this “discontent” is irrational. There is no better plan. Women can have careers, but they cannot then be effective mothers, and perhaps, not mothers at all. After fifty years of experiments, there is no clear success. Most women don’t have careers. They only have jobs — and these jobs are inevitably more exhausting and less rewarding than being mistress of your own house and spending time with your own children. But, women are not rational enough to figure all this out, not even after three generations of real-world failure. They are easily conned.

***

Discontent is a vice six thousand years old, and it will be eternal; because it is in the race. Every human being has a complaining side, but discontent is bound up in the heart of woman; it is her original sin. For if the first woman had been satisfied with her conditions, if she had not aspired to be “as gods,” and hankered after unlawful knowledge, Satan would hardly have thought it worth his while to discuss her rights and wrongs with her. That unhappy controversy has never ceased; and, with or without reason, woman has been perpetually subject to discontent with her conditions and, according to her nature, has been moved by its influence. Some, it has made peevish, some plaintive, some ambitious, some reckless, while a noble majority have found in its very control that serene composure and cheerfulness which is granted to those who conquer, rather than to those who inherit.

But with all its variations of influence and activity there has never been a time in the world’s history, when female discontent has assumed so much, and demanded so much, as at the present day; and both the satisfied and the dissatisfied woman may well pause to consider, whether the fierce fever of unrest which has possessed so large a number of the sex is not rather a delirium than a conviction; whether indeed they are not just as foolishly impatient to get out of their Eden, as was the woman Eve six thousand years ago.

We may premise, in order to clear the way, that there is a noble discontent which has a great work to do in the world; a discontent which is the antidote to conceit and self-satisfaction, and which urges the worker of every kind continually to realize a higher ideal. Springing from Regret and Desire, between these two sighs, all horizons lift; and the very passion of its longing gives to those who feel this divine discontent the power to overleap whatever separates them from their hope and their aspiration.

Having acknowledged so much in favor of discontent, we may now consider some of the most objectionable forms in which it has attacked certain women of our own generation. In the van of these malcontents are the women dissatisfied with their home duties. One of the saddest domestic features of the day is the disrepute into which housekeeping has fallen; for that is a woman’s first natural duty and answers to the needs of her best nature. It is by no means necessary that she should be a Cinderella among the ashes, or a Nausicaa washing linen, or a Penelope for ever at her needle, but all women of intelligence now understand that good cooking is a liberal science, and that there is a most intimate connection between food and virtue, and food and health, and food and thought. Indeed, many things are called crimes that are not as bad as the savagery of an Irish cook or the messes of a fourth-rate confectioner.

It must be noted that this revolt of certain women against housekeeping is not a revolt against their husbands; it is simply a revolt against their duties. They consider house-work hard and monotonous and inferior, and confess with a cynical frankness that they prefer to engross paper, or dabble in art, or embroider pillow-shams, or sell goods, or in some way make money to pay servants who will cook their husband’s dinner and nurse their babies for them. And they believe that in this way they show themselves to have superior minds, and ask credit for a deed which ought to cover them with shame. For actions speak louder than words, and what does such action say? In the first place, it asserts that any stranger — even a young uneducated peasant girl hired for a few dollars a month — is able to perform the duties of the house-mistress and the mother. In the second place, it substitutes a poor ambition for love, and hand service for heart service. In the third place, it is a visible abasement of the loftiest duties of womanhood to the capacity of the lowest paid service. A wife and mother can not thus absolve her own soul; she simply disgraces and traduces her holiest work.

Suppose even that housekeeping is hard and monotonous, it is not more so than men’s work in the city. The first lesson a business man has to learn is to do pleasantly what he does not like to do. All regular useful work must be monotonous, but love ought to make it easy; and at any rate, the tedium of housework is not any greater than the tedium of office work. As for housekeeping being degrading, that is the veriest nonsense. Home is a little royalty; and if the housewife and mother be of elements finely mixed, and loftily educated, all the more she will regard the cold mutton question of importance, and consider the quality of the soup, and the quantity of chutnee in the curry, as requiring her best attention. It is only the weakest, silliest women who cannot lift their work to the level of their thoughts, and so ennoble both.

There are other types of the discontented wife, with whom we are all too familiar: for instance, the wife who is stunned and miserable because she discovers that marriage is not a lasting picnic; who cannot realize that the husband must be different from the lover; and spends her days in impotent whining. She is always being neglected, and always taking offence; she has an insatiable craving for attentions, and needs continual assurances of affection, wasting her time and feelings in getting up pathetic scenes of accusation, which finally weary, and then alienate her husband. Her own fault! There is nothing a man hates more, than a woman going sobbing and complaining about the house with red eyes; unless jt be a woman with whom he must live in a perpetual fool’s paradise of perfection.

There are also discontented wives, who goad their husbands into extravagant expenditure, and urge them to projects from which they would naturally recoil. There are others, whose social ambitions slay their domestic ones, and who strain every nerve, in season and out of season, and lose all their self-respect, for a few crumbs of contemptuous patronage from some person of greater wealth than their own. Some wives fret if they have no children, others just as much if children come. In the first case, they are disappointed; in the second, inconvenienced, and in both, discontented. Some lead themselves and others wretched lives because they have not three times as many servants as are necessary; a still greater number because they cannot compass a
life of constant amusement and excitement.

A very disagreeable kind of discontented woman is the wife who instead of having a God to love and worship, makes a god of her religion, alienates love for an ecclesiastical idea, or neglects her own flesh and blood, to carry the religious needs of the world; forgetting that the good wife keeps her sentiments very close to her own heart and hearth. But perhaps the majority of discontented wives have no special thing to complain of, they fret because they are “so dull.” If they took the trouble to look for the cause of this “dullness,” they would find it in the want of some definite plan of life, and some vigorous aim or object. Of course any aim implies limitation, but limitation implies both virtue and pleasure. Without rule and law, not even the games of children could exist, and the stricter the rules of a game are obeyed, the greater the satisfaction. A wife’s duty is subject to the same conditions. If aimless plaintive women would make strict laws for their households, and lay out some possible vigorous plan for their own lives, they would find that those who love and work, have no leisure for complaining.

But from whatever cause domestic discontent springs, it makes the home full of idleness, ennui, and vagrant imaginations; or of fierce extravagance, and passionate love of amusement. And as a wife holds the happiness of many in her hands, discontent with her destiny is peculiarly wicked. If it is resented, she gets what she deserves; if it is quietly endured, her shame is the greater. For nothing does so much honor to a wife as her patience; and nothing does her so little honor as the patience of her husband. And however great his patience may be, she will not escape personal injury; since none are to be held innocent, who do harm even to their own soul and body. Besides, it is the inflexible order of things, that voluntary faults are followed by inevitable pain.

Married women, however, are by no means the only complainers. There is a great army of discontents who, having no men to care for them, are clamoring, and with justice, for their share of the world’s work and wages. Such women have a perfect right to make a way for themselves, in whatever direction they best can. Brains are of no sex or condition, and at any rate, there is no use arguing either their ability or their right, for necessity has taken the matter beyond the reach of controversy. Thousands of women have now to choose between work, charity, or starvation, for the young man of today is not a marrying man. He has but puny passions, and his love is such a very languid preference that he cannot think of making any sacrifice for it. So women do not marry, they work; and as the world will take good work from whoever will give it, the world’s custom is flowing to them by a natural law.

Now, earnest practical women-workers are blessed, and a blessing; but the discontented among them, by much talking and little doing, continually put back the cause they say they wish to advance. No women are in the main so discontented as women-workers. They go into the arena and, fettered by old ideas belonging to a diflferent condition, they are not willing to be subject to the laws of the arena. They want, at the same time, the courtesy claimed by weakness and the honor due to prowess. They complain of the higher wages given to men, forgetting that the first article of equal payment is equal worth and work. They know nothing about what Carlyle calls “the silences”; and the babble of their small beginnings is, to the busy world, irritating and contemptible. It never seems to occur to discontented working-women that the best way to get what they want is to act, and not to talk. One silent woman who quietly calculates her chances and achieves success does more for her sex than any amount of pamphleteering and lecturing. For nothing is more certain than that good work, either from man or woman, will find a market; and that bad work, will be refused by all but those disposed to give charity and pay for it.

The discontent of working women is understandable, but it is a wide jump from the woman discontented about her work or wages to the woman discontented about her political position. Of all the shrill complainers that vex the ears of mortals there are none so foolish as the women who have discovered that the Founders of our Republic left their work half finished, and that the better half remains for them to do. While more practical and sensible women are trying to put their kitchens, nurseries and drawing-rooms in order, and to clothe themselves rationally, this class of Discontents are dabbling in the gravest national and economic questions. Possessed by a restless discontent with their appointed sphere and its duties, and forcing themselves to the front in order to ventilate their theories and show the quality of their brains, they demand the right of suffrage as the symbol and guarantee of all other rights.

This is their cardinal point, though it naturally follows that the right to elect contains the right to be elected. If this result be gained, even women whose minds are not taken up with the things of the state, but who are simply housewives and mothers, may easily predicate a few of such results as are particularly plain to the feminine intellect and observation. The first of these would be an entirely new set of agitators, who would use means quite foreign to male intelligence. For instance, every favorite priest and preacher would gain enormously in influence and power; for the ecclesiastical zeal which now expends itself in fairs and testimonials would then expend itself in the securing of votes in whatever direction they were instructed to secure them. It might even end in the introduction of the clerical element into our great political Council Chambers — the Bishops in the House of Lords would be a sufiicient precedent — and a great many women would really believe that the charming rhetoric of the pulpit would infuse a higher tone in legislative assemblies.

Again, most women would be in favor of helping any picturesque nationality, without regard to the Monroe doctrine, or the state of finances, or the needs of the market. Most women would think it a good action to sacrifice their party for a friend. Most women would change their politics, if they saw it to be their interest to do so, without a moment’s hesitation. Most women would refuse the primary obligation on which all franchises rest — that is, to defend their country by force of arms, if necessary. And if a majority of women passed a law which the majority of men felt themselves justified in resisting by physical force, what would women do? Such a position in sequence of female suffrage is not beyond probability, and yet if it happened, not only one law, but all law would be in danger. No one denies that women have suffered, and do yet suffer, from grave political and social disabilities, but during the last fifty years much has been continually done for their relief, and there is no question but that the future will give all that can be reasonably desired. Time and Justice are friends, though there are many moments that are opposed to Justice. But all such innovations should imitate Time, which does not wrench and tear, but detaches and wears slowly away. Development, growth, completion, is the natural and best advancement. We do not progress by going over precipices, nor remodel and improve our houses by digging under the foundations.

Finally, women cannot get behind or beyond their nature, and their nature is to substitute sentiment for reason — a sweet and not unlovely characteristic in womanly ways and places; yet reason, on the whole, is considered a desirable necessity in politics. At the Chicago Fair, and at other convocations, it has been proven that the strongest-minded women, though familiar with platforms, and deep in the “dismal science ” of political economy, when it came to disputing, were no more philosophical than the simplest housewife. Tears and hysteria came just as naturally to them, as if the whole world wagged by impulse only; yet a public meeting in which feeling and tears superseded reason and argument, would in no event inspire either confidence or respect. Women may cease to be women, but they can never learn to be men, and feminine softness and grace can never do the work of the virile virtues of men. Very fortunately this class of discontented women have not yet been able to endanger existing conditions by combinations analagous to trades-unions; nor is it likely they ever will; because it is doubtful if women, under any circumstances, could combine at all. Certain qualities are necessary for combination, and these qualities are represented in women by their opposites.

Considering discontented women of all kinds individually, it is evident that they must be dull women. They see only the dull side of things, and naturally fall into a monotonous way of expressing themselves. They have also the habit of complaining, a habit which quickens only the lower intellect. Where is there a more discontented creature than a good wateh dog ? He is forever looking for some infringement of his rights; and an approaching step, or a distant bark, drives him into a fury of protest. Discontented women are always egotists; they view everything in regard to themselves, and have therefore the defective sympathies that belong to low organizations. They never win confidence, for their discontent breeds distrust and doubt, and however clever they may naturally be, an obtrusive self, with its train of likings and dislikings, obscures their judgment, and they take false views of people and things. For this reason, it is almost a hopeless effort to show them how little people generally care about their grievances; for they have thought about themselves so long, and so much that they cannot conceive of any other subject interesting the rest of the world. We may even admit, that the women discontented on public subjects are often women of great intelligence, clever women with plenty of brains. Is that the best ? Who does not love far more than mere cleverness, that sweetness of temper, that sunny contented disposition, which goes through the world with a smile and a kind word for every one? It is one of the richest gifts of heaven; it is, according to Bishop Wilson, “nine-tenths of Christianity.”

Fortunately, the vast majority of women have been loyal to their sex and their vocation. In every community the makers and keepers of homes are the dominant power; and these strictures can apply only to two classes — first, the married women who neglect husband, children and homes, for the foolish eclat of the club and the platform, or for any assumed obligation, social, intellectual or political, which conflicts with their domestic duties: secondly, the unmarried women who, having comfortable homes and loving protectors, are discontented with their happy secluded security and rush into weak art or feeble literature, or dubious singing and acting, because their vanity and restless immorality lead them into the market place, or on to the stage. Not one of such women has been driven afield by indisputable genius. Any work they have done would have been better done by some unprotected experienced woman already in the fields they have invaded. And the indifference of this class to the money value of their labor has made it difficult for the women working because they must work or starve, to get a fair price for their work. It is the baldest effrontery for this class of rich discontents to affect sympathy with Woman’s Progress. Nothing can excuse their intrusion into the labor market but unquestioned genius and super-excellence of work; and this has not yet been shown in any single case.

The one unanswerable excuse for woman’s entrance into active public life of any kind, is need, and alas! need is growing daily, as marriage becomes continually rarer, and more women are left adrift in the world without helpers and protectors. But this is a subject too large to enter on here, though in the beginning it sprung from discontented women, preferring the work and duties of men to their own work and duties. Have they found the battle of life any more ennobling in masculine professions, than in their old feminine household ways? Is work done in the world for strangers, any less tiresome and monotonous, than work done in the honse for father and mother, husband and children? If thev answer truly, they will reply “the home duties were the easiest, the safest, and the happiest.”

Of course all discontented women will be indignant at any criticism of their conduct. They expect every one to consider their feelings without examining their motives. Paddling in the turbid maelstrom of life, and dabbling in politics and the most unsavory social questions, they still think men, at least, ought to regard them as the Sacred Sex. But women are not sacred by grace of sex, if they voluntarily abdicate its limitations and its modesties, and make a public display of unsexed sensibilities, and unabashed familiarity with subjects they have nothing to do with. If men criticize such women with asperity it is not to be wondered at; they have so long idealized women, that they find it hard to speak moderately. They excuse them too much, or else they are too indignant at their follies, and unjust and angry in their denunciation. Women must be criticized by women; then they will hear the bare uncompromizing truth, and be the better for it.

In conclusion, it must be conceded that some of the modern discontent of women must be laid to unconscious influence. In every age there is a kind of atmosphere which we call “the spirit of the times,” and which, while it lasts, deceives as to the importance and truth of its dominant opinions. Many women have doubtless thus caught the fever of discontent by mere contact, but such have only to reflect a little, and discover that, on the whole, they have done quite as well in life as they have any right to expect. Then those who are married will find marriage and the care of it, and the love of it, quite able to satisfy all their desires; and such as really need to work will perceive that the great secret of Content abides in the unconscious acceptance of life and the fulfillment of its duties — a happiness serious and universal, but full of comfort and help. Thus, they will cease to vary from the kindly race of women, and through the doors of Love, Hope and Labor, join that happy multitude who have never discovered that Life is a thing to be discontented with.

This is why you need Courtship, not Dating.

A lot of men these days are “going MGTOW,” whether they choose those terms overtly, or as the unplanned result of a mood of coolness and caution regarding all interactions with women. They simply see nothing to be gained from interaction with women (beyond a certain point set by personal preference), and much to be lost. This requires men to give up things they hold dear, including children and family. But, the problem today is that marriage does not lead to children and family. Instead, it is the leading cause of divorce; and divorce often results in a man’s children being stolen from him, financial annihilation and multiple years of financial servitude to a woman who is his declared enemy. Even men who avoid divorce find that they are in unhappy marriages. I’ve said that only about 20% of American women make good wives. From that, it follows that only about 20% of American marriages work out well, for the man.

But, I think that this produces the wrong impression. I don’t think MGTOW men (and those that sympathize, the broader red-pill community) are against marriage. They are in favor of marriage. They would like it if, as in the past, a man that marries has a good chance of benefiting from the arrangement; and that, if things don’t work out, the consequences are not total financial and emotional annihilation. They do not have any alternative solution that works on the societal level. But, certain things need to happen before we get to that point.

The basic complaints of the RedPill/MGTOW group are two:

1. The legal/institutional structures today — family court, domestic violence, “sexual harassment,” the university, the corporation, Twitter’s thought police — make all interaction with women fraught with peril. Not all women have to be like that. If even 1 out of 100 women begin attacking a man with completely false or exaggerated “sexual harassment” or domestic violence claims, leading to job loss, career destruction, a criminal record, fines or imprisonment — the risk is too high to interact with the other 99.

2. Women’s behavior. Women today are simply badly behaved. This can extend to false/exaggerated “sexual harassment,” “sexual assault” or domestic violence claims. But, it also includes a wide range of behaviors that simply make all relationships with women, especially marriage or other long-term relationships, perilous and unrewarding. This is related to the first item: when women are given the ability to do harm to men, they take advantage of this, either in the form of direct harm, or the threat of it. The legal/institutional structure today demands a higher standard of behavior from women. It demands a higher virtue. No longer are women constrained by laws or social strictures — external punishments, or even guidelines. They must discipline their actions themselves. Obviously, this is rare.

Much of the purpose of this website is to fix these problems. The fixes are:

1. Men need to become politically active, and change the legal/institutional structures. This means that men need to join together into influential groups. That is why I say that, as a way to begin this process, give some money to some men (for example an MRA group) who are doing this work. Some women will support this change. Not a lot, perhaps — let’s say it is 30% — but that is enough to give a majority.

2. Tell women what to do. Women need to be given a simple, easy to follow template of good behavior. The traditional word for this is “morality.” Much of the RedPill space devolves into extravagant analysis of the present situation. This has been worthwhile, but there is more to it than that. Along the way, we can also give men a similar template. Unfortunately, men’s behavior is not so good either, although it is not so harmful to others as women’s. It is more in the nature of being weak, confused and complacent. That is why my admonition is:

Get up off your knees.
Get your patriarchy on.
Tell women what to do.

It is a three-step process.

We can debate what, exactly, we should tell women what to do. But, oddly, there seems to be consensus on that. If you look at such disparate sources as RooshV or Lori Alexander, or Stephen Molyneux or myself, it is almost the same thing: get married young, have lots of children, and be a stay-at-home mom.

The point is: MGTOW is a last-ditch strategy for self-preservation. It is not supposed to be a lasting, long-term “solution.” Most RedPill/MGTOW men would cheer if Problem #1 and Problem #2 above could be fixed, so we could get married and have families again.

Against this, we have the “conservative pro-marriage group.” These people are also in favor of marriage and family, which is a noble and correct thing. However, they have not addressed, and have no solution for, Problems #1 and #2 above. Thus, they are simply tossing good men into the meatgrinder, which in turn makes MGTOW even stronger. Instead of taking a stance on Problem #1 and #2, they have “converged” with mainstream feminism, which means that they are actually making Problem #1 and #2 worse. Their reaction to the problems of the legal/institutional framework is commonly to make them even worse — even more harmful to men.

For example, conservatives have backed the escalation of punishments for “deadbeat dads” which can lead to a prison sentence for many. This is perhaps the only financial obligation in existence today which leads to prison. If you default on your home loan, car loan or credit cards, or even your taxes, you will suffer consequences but you will not go to prison. If you don’t make your childcare payments — because, let’s say, you lost your job and you can’t — then off to the big house you go. Men conclude: don’t get married, out of simple self-preservation.

Conservatives have taken women’s side — the feminist stance — on every moral issue. Every conceivable problem in a marriage is claimed to be the man’s fault. If a woman flat out cheats on her husband, and the base reason is nothing more than a “fear of missing out” on the Sex In The City sexual escapades that other women seem to be enjoying, that is her husband’s fault for not being sexually appealing enough. If a woman divorces her husband for no other reason than “I’m not haaaaaappy,” destroying the family unit with lasting consequences for the children, that is again the husband’s fault. Men look at this and see: we will get no support even from Conservative sources, including the Church. They conclude that they should not get married, out of simple self-preservation.

Thus, I find that MGTOW today should, at least in principle, also become champions of marriage and family — in principle, if not exactly in practice, under today’s conditions. Traditional conservatives need to get to work fixing Problem #1 and #2, rather than making things worse, and leading another generation of men to their doom.

The Young Wife, in our model, perhaps age 18-23 and not yet with children, does not go to college. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t educate herself. Self-education, as a subset of self-improvement, should be a theme throughout her life, but especially in the early years. The Young Wife should remember that she will be raising her children, and thus she should have the kind of education that she wishes to give to her children.

Since we will assume that the Young Wife got an adequate education regarding Math and Science in high school, her focus will be primarily literature, arts, history and culture. She should also study government or economics, but women tend to be less interested in these topics.

In general, a Young Wife can study about 2-3 hours a day, reading books of merit, in addition to her other duties. This is a level of involvement that can be quite pleasurable, and is not terribly demanding. A Young Wife can also study 6-10 hours per day, if she is serious about her education, but that is for those special women who value that kind of high-level education.

This reading should be “educational.” It can also be fun and interesting, but it should consist of books of lasting merit. Disposable thrillers and romance novels don’t count. Nor do a wide range of books on what are basically degenerate topics, including all sorts of “social justice” books today. Self-improvement should be a constant theme.

One goal of this reading should be to master her native language. The Young Wife should read high-quality literature, not only “high-quality” in the sense of the quality of expression, but also the moral content. Much “serious” literature of the twentieth century can be summed up as: “everyone behaves badly.” Avoid immoral and degenerate topics. Look for stories with a strong moral element. This can be found at every reading level. A Young Wife should start at a reading level that she is comfortable with, and move up as appropriate. For some women, they will have to start at what amounts to a preteen level. Look for books like the Little House on the Prairie series, Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, and The Secret Garden. Moving up a bit, we have books like Little Women and Laddie. At a little higher level, we have some of the big adult novels that are nevertheless easy to read. David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens, or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain might be good.

Getting more complicated, we have books like Middlemarch, War and Peace, and all of Jane Austen. Somewhere along the line, we should include a survey of poetry in English, and start reading the plays of Shakespeare. These bear many rereadings. Eventually, we will be at a level to tackle the Harvard Classics, with some very weighty items including the Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost and the Aeneid.

Most women are rather ill-educated these days, so it would be good for many women to start at what, in the nineteenth century, would have been considered a preteen level.

Our Young Wife can also read many contemporary works of merit. This could be Created to be his Helpmeet, by Debi Pearl, Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, or the Closing of the American Mind, by Allan Bloom. Probably, she should be guided in this by someone, or some resource.

The Young Wife will soon be busy with children. But, she can continue this process of self-education, reading 2-3 hours a day, for a decade or more. This is one of the nice things about being a stay-at-home wife. You can educate yourself to a far higher standard than those other women who have a career, and must devote all their time and energy to vocational issues.

Lori Alexander, at The Transformed Wife, pointed out a YouTube video (which I watched when it came out), about a 27yo woman doctor who had come to realize that her career path did not have any room for a family in it.

The woman is “Georgia Free” on Youtube, and I have watched many of her videos. I generally say that there are about 20% of American Women today who actually do make good wives (at least, good enough). Mostly, you never see these women, because they usually become attached to the man they will marry between the ages of 16 and 23, they stay married and they don’t cheat, and thus they are never single and available. I think this was also true of Georgia Free, who (as I understand it) was in a long-term-relationship with a man for five years, who she planned to marry, which means that it would have begun around age 21. But, it didn’t work out for some reason.

The point is, Georgia Free is, by appearances, a high quality woman. She is capable of long-term attachment. She has not had a sordid past of hookups (I think). She is rather attractive, at least a 7/10. She has had a good upbringing, has self-discipline, and is smart and so forth, enough to be a doctor. She values family and marital stability, and loves children. She embraces traditional women’s roles such as cooking and housekeeping. She says that she would not mind being a stay-at-home mother. She is not a feminist nutjob. She does not have a collection of bastard children from uncertain and absent fathers. These have all become rarities today.

As far as I know, she has now found a new man, and is on the way to marrying and starting a family, although I am guessing that she would continue to work afterwards.

In other words, Georgia Free represents the best you can get, while following the Feminist career path — from either a woman’s perspective (successful career, and beautiful too) and a man’s (potential wife material among a swamp of unfit women). So, let’s see where the best you can get gets you.

At age 27, she has used up about 11 years of her period of peak marriageability and fertility (16-32), and has about four years left. I recommend that a woman plan to have all her children before age 32 — that the last child, not the first, be born before 32. Fertility drops off quickly after that, and many women find themselves going to the fertility clininc for IVF or egg freezing beginning around age 35.

But, she is not even married yet. She has to find a man. Then, if all goes well, they will probably spend at least a year “dating.” Perhaps they will want to cohabitate for some time. Then they will decide to get married. Then there is often a year between deciding to get married and the actual marriage itself. Then, if you get to work right away on your honeymoon, you still have another nine months before birth. So, if everything works out great, and her husband is on board with all of this, and doesn’t have issues with low sperm count, she might have her first child around age 31. But, things could go wrong during any of these stages, and often does. Then, she will be out of time, back to square one, looking for a man, at perhaps age 29 or 30.

As a doctor, she had a path of preparation which looked something like this:

1) Four years of high school, during which she probably first started to attract male attention around age 14, and entered her time of peak attractiveness, fertility and marriageability around age 16. For at least some time, she was a Debt-Free Virgin Without Tattoos — perhaps, even past her high school graduation. But, since she was planning to go to a presitigious university, all of her high school “relationships” she treated as temporary and transient, and not the beginnings of something that might lead to marriage. She refused the idea of a premarriage “relationship” (courting) with an older man (beyond high school) out of first principles.

When relationships are assumed to be transient and temporary to begin with, then it is not very important if your “boyfriend” is the kind of fellow who would eventually make a good husband. Thus, a girl can indulge her fantasies about sexy bad boys, relationships with no future, which soon becomes a habit.

If she had been married at age 17, which used to happen, to perhaps an older man who can support a family, then at age 27, she might be a mother of four already. From the man’s point of view, he can spend his Tenth Wedding Anniversary with a wife who is still a vision of youth and beauty. Can’t do that when you marry a 35 year old.

2) Now she has four years of college. Even if we set aside for now all the bad things that can happen to a girl at college, in terms of mis-education (Social Justice/Feminist poison), alcohol abuse and sexual degeneracy, we have another four years spent during her period of Maximum Beauty, Fertility and Marriageability during which again, as in high school, potential relationships that could lead to marriage are treated as transient and temporary, since she plans to go to a prestigious medical school, rather than follow her future husband, that she met in college, to wherever his career takes him.

Again, since these college relationships are assumed to be temporary and transient, she can hook up with sexy bad boys, and ignore all the boring hardworking guys who are preparing for successful careers and supporting a family. Her choices in men can be all for the present and no thought for the future, because they are not supposed to have any future.

She is not likely to get out of college as a Debt-Free Virgin Without Tattoos.

3) Now she has four years of medical school, ages 22-25. In this case, I would guess that she began her long-term possible-future-husband relationship around the beginning of medical school. Perhaps, another future doctor. At some level, maybe she decided that she was in a position to finally start the process of finding a husband, and relationships were no longer transient and temporary, on principle.

But, again she is in medical school, which is hardly the time to get married and have children. Then, she graduates, and begins work as a doctor. Now she probably has no tattoos, but a ton of debt.

Having debt is OK for a doctor, theoretically, because they can look forward to many years of relatively high income, with which they can pay off the debt. But, this high income period does not begin right away. After graduation, a doctor has a further apprenticeship as an Intern, with long hours and lowish pay.

Now she is 26 or 27, and for some reason, she breaks up with her long-term boyfriend that she had hoped to marry. So, now, on top of all the demands of working as an Intern, and paying down debt, getting home tired late at night, she has to somehow find another high-quality man that could be a potential husband.

Now let’s say there is a happy ending, and she finally manages to marry the best sort of fellow, and they have children. Now what?

Now, she has to keep working, as a working mother, neglecting her children. First, because of the enormous investment in education (eight years of college and medical school), plus the low-paid Intern period, that went into training as a doctor. It hardly makes sense to toss all that in the trashcan after a couple years of full-time work, and then quit and become a housewife. This is the Feminist Merit Badge.

Second, most doctors emerge from medical school with a ton of debt, which they would normally pay off over the first decade or so of their career. Fortunately, since she is married to a high-quality husband, they can probably live on his income alone if they are careful (many dual-income families are not), and then she could put the entirety of her income toward debt payments, and thus pay it down quickly. Then, she could quit working if she wanted to, or maybe keep working and not have debts to pay.

But even this would likely take at least five years. And she cannot wait during those five years. She cannot work hard for five years, pay down the debt, quit the job, and then have children and be a full-time housewife. She would be too old, around age 36. It’s not impossible, but that is running out the clock to the very end.

So we see that it doesn’t really make much sense. All the options are barely functional. Much could go wrong.

Now let’s see what happens if she followed my life plan.

As a sixteen year old, from a good family, she catches the attention of a young man who is in medical school, age 24. This is done with the help of her Mother, and her circle of matronly friends, who are eager to find good husbands for their daughters, and good wives for their sons. Today, Mothers often tell their daughters that they should not get involved with men until they have established their career; and that they should avoid any serious relationships that might derail their career plan, instead focusing on transient and temporary arrangements — aided by birth control pills, which her Mother insists on, and which leads to hormonal distortions of her natural affections.

When our man graduates, and begins to make some money, around age 27, he decides to snap up this fantastic girl that he has known for a while, and she gets married at age 19, living at her father’s house until that time.

She is the same intelligent and beautiful girl. Also, on her wedding day, she is a Debt Free Virgin Without Tattoos, unsullied by all the things that can happen during four years of college and medical school. Because she is brainy and energetic, she continues to educate herself, largely by reading books regularly. She doesn’t know much about biochemistry or anatomy, but she does know a lot about literature, history and philosophy/morality/spirituality, and knows how to play the piano. She reads not only for her own enjoyment, or even self-improvement, but because she knows that soon she will have to educate her own children, and she plans to do it well. Since she doesn’t have to work long hours in the hospital, she is careful about what she eats, and works out regularly, so she has an eye-popping fantastic body, which her husband likes very much.

Her first child is at age 20, and by age 27 she has four children. She spends her days at the park with the children and lovingly preparing meals for her family, especially her husband who gets back from a long day at the hospital. He is tired, but she has a lot of energy, so of course they have sex all the time.

When the children get a little older, she begins homeschooling them, and thus is involved with her children’s care all day, and the company of other wives and their children, who are doing the same thing. This, she finds, is very satisfying. And so they live, happily ever after.

There is a lot of music about falling in love, but not much about getting married, and almost nothing about being in love while married.

To illustrate what I mean, listen to this album of music about happy married monogamy. It is The Man I Love, by Peggy Lee. The year was 1957. Frank Sinatra conducted arrangements by Nelson Riddle — the best of that era.

This was rare even by the standards of the 1950s. Much of the popular music of that time — such as Frank Sinatra’s other albums — was really about unmarried serial monogamy, or “dating,” in a 1950s-style Playboy/James Bond manner. In other words, it was subversive. Today, The Man I Love is both alien, and also, comfortably sweet. It might help you kick the Taylor Swift habit. That stuff is toxic poison.

Find it from whatever music source you use. Here is a link from Amazon

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If you don’t get up and leave, this is your future.

I’ve said it before, but it needs to be said again: the Young Wife should be slim and attractive, just as she was before getting married. Mostly, this means diet and exercise.

By “diet” I mean food quality, not quantity. Calorie counting is not necessary. Eat when you are hungry, within reason. “Quality” means what you eat, not how much. “What you eat,” is, of course, Cooking, and we talked about in the Duties of a Young Wife #3. So, there is nice overlap here. With a good diet of high-quality foods — whole single ingredient foods, with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables while de-emphasizing refined foods such as white flour, white sugar and oils — it is not hard to keep looking good without having to exercise like an Olympic trialist.

Dress should be classy and modest. It should say: “I am classy and married.” No slutwear. No yoga pants outside the yoga studio. But also, no single-girl clothes. Now you are to look like the cherry tree in midsummer, not the cherry tree in flower — even if you happen to be 19. Careerwear is a good example of “classy and modest,” but we are talking about stayathomewifewear here.

Karen Grassle’s outfits as Caroline Ingalls in the Little House on the Prairie TV show exemplify what a young married woman might have dressed like in the 1870s. Mostly, a combo of buttoned shirts and long practical skirts.

When you consider that this woman lived literally on the fringes of civilization, made all her own clothes and washed them by hand, ironed them with an iron heated in a wood fire, and did things like milking cows and chopping wood in them, it’s amazing how well people dressed back then. Yes, I know it is television (the real Caroline was not as good looking as Karen Grassle), but the clothes are about right I think.

If you stacked a hundred sluts from end to end, it still wouldn’t reach to the knees of Caroline Ingalls.

And what about her husband Charles? Wild enough to go past the edge of the known world with three little girls. Civilized enough to wear a bowtie. A man you could rely on to shoot a bear and play the violin. 100% American hardass.

But, on special occasions (the television) Caroline Ingalls knew how to dress up.

Just as a woman is responsible for a house that is not only clean and functional but also charming and beautiful, so she should attend to her own appearance in a manner that is a credit and honor to her husband, family and nation. A woman like that is worth a dozen “trophy wives.” A team of ten of today’s Hamptons trophy wives probably couldn’t split wood for one fire before breaking down into tears and divorce threats. Women like Caroline Ingalls conquered entire continents.

Here she is, ironing her daughter’s handmade dress, while her family is so far into the wild that her house is literally a dirt hole. Women like that are like gold.