| | Hong, I just had a private exchange of SOLO mail about this topic with another SOLO man.
To summarize, I think the Western fairy tales about knights in shining armor rescuing damsels in distress set up many false expectations that serve no purpose in our post-industrial era. Too many women have a "Lillian Rearden" mentality in which they expect their husbands to "figure out" what will make them happy without they themselves doing the hard inner work required to understand themselves, what makes them happy and whether anyone besides themselves can augment that happiness.
The point of the joke, for those who failed to grasp it, is that our culture still clings to an old paradigm of men working to supply the basics of food, clothing and shelter while the women are free to pursue other interests -- which may or may not include children, a career, etc. If a person wants to stay home and do a good job of full time parenting, fine. Conversely, to live as a moocher while the marriage partner does all the work amounts to parasitism. But for some reason, people often still find it acceptable, especially in this fashion:
"But he's getting me!" "But I give him sex and he can't get that anywhere else!" "But he's supposed to support me! I'm his wife!" ... and so forth.
Hence, Carrington's comment about his fiance having the mindset of a "hooker" resonates with many men.
Those women in SOLO who have had the misfortune of involvement with "no-good mooching tomcats" can testify that this pendulum can swing the other way as well. Regardless of your gender or orientation, the truth remains that marriage and family offer great venues to transfer life energy in the form of money from the productive to the unproductive. Objectivism offers a blast of fresh air to clear these smokescreens and to expose the moochers for what they are, "family" or not.
(Edited by Luther Setzer on 4/06, 11:02am)
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