Real Men Honor Their Wives

As a species, humankind comes in two basic types – male and female.  References to our bisexuality are several, including boys and girls, men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, ladies and gentlemen, bastards and bitches.  This diversity, based upon our biological sex, is far greater than even racial or ethnic diversity.  All of our adaptations to the vicissitudes of life are marked by the necessity to recognize and make allowances for this sex differential.  Failure to do so leads to confusion, disharmony, unresolved conflict, and worse.

Marriage is the fundamental human institution that has evolved to contain the innate tensions that are consequent to this sex differential.  Mating is natural.  Marriage is not.  It is civilized, however, and is the most ideal relationship within which to raise children and prepare them for life.  There are many advantages attendant to a successful marriage, but the establishment of a home for the rearing of children is indispensable to advancing civilization.

Men can do many things that are more challenging for women to do.  In general, they are bigger, faster, and stronger, though not always more adept.  However, they cannot bear children.  This special prerogative is reserved for woman alone.  If a man wishes to have children, he must find a woman willing to bear them.  If his children are to grow up to be well adjusted members of civilized society, they need the care and affection that is best given by a loving mother.  A man can add to this effort, but he cannot duplicate it.

Marriage has never been easy.  When a woman agrees to share her life with a man in the exclusive relationship we call marriage, to bear and nurture his children, she makes herself particularly vulnerable to his regard for her.  The love, respect, and honor that a man bestows upon his wife is the full measure of a man’s regard for himself.