Modern Marriage

How men can prepare for the battlefield

Modern marriage is a battlefield. It would be foolish to overlook the risks:

• Family law favours women

• No-fault divorce looms

• Governments and most churches undermine male authority

• The pill, porn and abortion poison sex

But failing to focus on the rewards would be more foolish still.

What’s at stake is the future of the family. And the family is the foundation of society. The foundation of society depends on men marrying women. Women are not the enemy. The enemy is the institutionalised forces of liberalism.

The masculine man understands this.

He knows men are made for combat — physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual — and wither in sheltered selfishness. The pearl is formed by abrasion. Universally, a man’s task is to procreate, provide and protect. By procreating, he contributes to his family and his nation. By providing for his family, he benefits his community. And he protects not only his wife and children but also the religious traditions of his ancestors.

He doesn’t live for himself. By submitting to God, who has legitimate authority over him, he in turn exercises authority over his family for the common good. Everyone involved is participating in something greater than himself. And the masculine man understands that breaking this order of things means the death of his nation.

He knows the fight is here whether he wants it or not. A marriage boycott is folly. So is fornication. And so, too, is celibacy: the only alternative to marriage for a moral man, it is necessarily only ever for the few. ‘For fear of fornication let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.’ (1 Cor 7:2)

He knows the rewards of marriage are so profound for the family and for the future of his society that they are worth the risks. For the sake of himself and his wife, their children and their future society, he must get as close as possible to the ideal of traditional marriage:

1. The husband as head of the house

2. A youthful, submissive and virgin bride

3. Fulfilment of the marriage debt (sex)

4. Lifelong commitment.

The further modern marriage falls from this, the more it becomes merely a state-approved version of boyfriend and girlfriend. And sadly many churches offer little more than that.

The masculine man understands he is not called to save society. Let the liberals pursue their airy abstractions. He deals in personal responsibilities — flesh and blood. It is his duty to lead his wife and children. But this starts with first purging himself of the poison of liberalism so he doesn’t infect them with it.

Fornication has to stop first. That is behaving like a feminist, trying to get pleasure without responsibility.

But the entire liberal paradigm must be discarded. This is hard. He knows it will cost him friends and perhaps his job. But the masculine man doesn’t just survive hardship. He thrives in it. And as far as possible, he blames himself for his problems. Although wisely wary of most women, he does not mistrust all women. They are not the enemy.

Men going their own way, he reminds himself, is gay.

Young women, brainwashed by feminism, require his help. Men led them into feminism (all the foundational feminist thinkers were male), but men can lead them out of it. He understands practically all women have been infected with liberalism in the form of feminism. Contamination occurs on contact with modern society.

But he is unafraid because he knows many women have changed their minds, especially after having children. ‘The woman shall be saved by bearing children’ (1 Tim 2:15).

He accepts the challenge of the damsel in distress as preferable to permanent celibacy or fornication. And he knows that rescuing her will also rescue himself because no quest means no hero. Women look to men for leadership, and he accepts the challenge.

But he chooses wisely:

He courts only feminine women who are interested in marriage and would make a good match for him. And he heeds the warning in the Bible about being “unequally yoked with unbelievers” (I Corinthians 6:14), so he seeks to marry only a Christian woman who believes divorce, abortion and same-sex marriage are all abominations.

He looks for a virtuous woman who delights him. Chastity is the main quality he looks for, paying careful attention to her habits of modesty and decorum: ‘The whoredom of a woman may be known in her haughty looks and eyelids.’ (Ecc 26:9)

If she is quarrelsome, he knows she won’t make a good wife. Neither will she if she disrespects him or is lazy, greedy, angry or selfish. Knowing that she will be trying to impress him while courting, thus hiding her habits, he watches how she treats her family, especially her father. Does she ever speak badly of him? If so, that is a warning sign.

She will be young because that means fertility. It also means health, and childbirth and children are physically demanding. A woman who wants to spend her twenties focusing on her career does not have the right priorities. Her family should get her in her prime.

A younger bride is also more adaptable and less likely to have been married before. A divorcee will compare him to her former husband, invariably negatively because it’s easy to idealise absent people. A divorcee will also find it easier to divorce him, and if she has children from a former marriage then they rightly won’t respect him as their father, undermining his authority in the home.

Big differences in age, social standing or wealth are undesirable. Many such marriages fail. And there is also the question of extended family. Marriage should not be contracted without the knowledge of parents or in defiance of their wishes.

Differences in race, although acceptable, require extra attention to the temperament of both partners to ensure they are a good match. Extraversion, impulsivity, sociability and sex drive, for example, are all relevant factors. Some races mix more easily than others.

Considering all this carefully, the masculine man takes seriously the Bible’s warning, ‘Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.’ (Proverbs 4:23) Men and women are made for each other. Spending time with a woman he is attracted to will be pleasurable. This pleasure is designed to bring about marriage and children.

But it is easy to fall in love with an unsuitable woman.  If she’s beautiful but selfish and unstable, she won’t make a good wife. The most suitable woman might not be the most beautiful. She could be: Jacob chose Rachel for her beauty in preference to Lia (Gen 29), and that was acceptable. There is nothing wrong with beauty. But the masculine man is aware that looks can  mislead him, so he guards his heart.

And he knows this means not putting himself in situations where he knows temptation might be too much for him, especially cohabiting (a way to make divorce more likely, too). Even St. Anthony struggled when the Devil tempted him in the form of the Queen of Sheba:

‘Look at these eyes of mine, then!’

Antony gazes at them, in spite of himself.

‘All the women you have ever met, from the daughter of the cross-roads singing underneath her lantern to the fair patrician scattering leaves from the top of her litter, all the forms you have caught a glimpse of, all the imaginings of your desire, ask for them!  I am not a woman—I am a world. My garments have but to fall, and you shall discover upon my person a succession of mysteries.’

 Antony’s teeth chatter.

‘If you placed your finger on my shoulder, it would be like a stream of fire in your veins. The possession of the least part of my body will fill you with a joy more vehement than the conquest of an Empire. Bring your lips near! My kisses have the taste of fruit which would melt in your heart. Ah how you will lose yourself in my tresses, suck in my breasts, marvel at my limbs, and be scorched by my eyes, between my arms, in a whirlwind—’

Antony makes the sign of the Cross.¹

As ‘a stream of fire’, passion can give warmth and light but also destroy.

The kind of woman who will meet his criteria is likely to have similarly high criteria for a man. Being physically strong is a start. So is having at least one important skill such as a carpentry. Competence and confidence in everything else also matters. And the masculine man must never show weakness, including subtle displays of weakness such as bragging.

This is because weak leaders aren’t respected. Throughout nature, weakness invites attack. Anyone who has owned a serious dog breed knows that cream rises to the top. The dog loses respect for you easily. Soft breeds are popular because they are forgiving.

But the masculine man doesn’t want a wife who will submit to someone unworthy. He doesn’t want a wife who will shrug it off if she catches him watching porn. He must work to make himself necessary to her.

Lastly, he will respect her as his friend and equal: ‘The woman whom thou gavest me as a companion’ (Gen 3:12). He is the head of the home; she is the heart. Above all, he will not disrespect her by treating her as a concubine: ‘Thou shalt take the virgin with the fear of the Lord, moved rather for love of children than for lust, that in the seed of Abraham thou mayest obtain a blessing in children’ (Tobias 6:22).

In his introduction to Louis de Bonald’s On Divorce, Nicholas Davidson wrote that,

‘In truth, there are no “women’s questions,” no “men’s questions,” no “children’s questions.” … There are only social questions, which can only be answered in terms of society as a whole. Do you wish to help any of these groups? It can only be done by strengthening the bonds of society. To attempt specifically to help any of these groups necessarily corrodes those bonds, injures vital relationships, and so hurts those it purports to help.’²

The masculine man, then, moves beyond seeing himself through the distorting prism of liberalism, faces fear with courage, and perseveres through difficulties with fortitude because everything is at stake.

He recalls Pope Urban II’s message delivered from a platform in a meadow outside Clermont on November 27th in 1095 to the men embarking on the First Crusade:

‘Let the deeds of your ancestors move you and incite your minds to manly achievements; Oh, most valiant soldiers and descendants of invincible ancestors, be not degenerate, but recall the valour of your progenitors.’

1. D. F. Hannigan’s translation of Flaubert’s Temptations of St. Anthony (1874)

2. Louis de Bonald, On Divorce (Transaction, 1991)