Fundamental to our modern Western notion of what men and women ought to be to each other is the Western Medieval Mythology of Mariolatry.
Please note: I don’t attack revering Mary as the mother of Jesus, and this is not about religion, per se. What I refer to here is the social mythology which arose from the primitive version of Mariolatry which lurked about in the Middle Ages. If you can’t recognize the differences between current teachings of the Roman Church (and others) on Mary versus the typical mythology some nobles and churchmen exploited during the Middle Ages, you won’t understand what I’m trying say. Mother Mary as a figure of religious devotion is one thing; fallen human women are quite another. Medieval noble and royal women aspired to divert some of the reverence for Mary toward themselves. While I don’t subscribe to Catholic teachings on Mary, I also won’t waste time attacking it.
The point is some women and men with a hand on the cultural pulse of their Medieval world exploited religious devotion to create various false idols, seldom because of any grand altruistic motives or actual religious self-denial, but because they found it useful in promoting their own welfare is some way or another.
Scripture makes clear we cannot possibly know the motives of another without a revelation from God. However, we are encouraged to discern probable motives based on behavior, and apply the standards of God’s justice accordingly. The Laws of God have always offered lots of room for mistaken perceptions, misguided beliefs, and mixed motives, all with ways of cleaning up your mess so as to claim whatever blessings God offered under His Laws. Further, He still requires victims to generously offer absolution for most human foibles, and demands a vigorous pursuit of restoration of good relations.
Now is the time — it’s always the right time in the mystical sense — to fix past mistakes. We can’t pretend any crusade to correct the rest of the world will ever accomplish any good thing. But we can always proceed with fixing our own mistakes, and we should do so whenever they are made apparent to us. I invite you to examine the good, clear explanation offered by Vox Day on the big lie of modern femininity. Human nature has not changed since the first day we were kicked out the Garden of Eden. Lots of externalities have shifted, but the root nature of humanity is immutable from where we stand. There is no such thing as evolution on that level.
I assert this without apology as the Word of God. Vox’s explanation, best I can tell, reflects that Word of God:
First, you can’t argue with the facts and you can’t really hold people morally responsible for the vagaries of biological chemistry. The reason women were never permitted to vote or be involved in government isn’t because ancient men hated ancient women or got their kicks out of oppressing them, they simply lacked the ability or the desire to permit abstract idealism about sexual equality to trump what they observed in their daily reality….
Second, understand that society is extremely vested in deceiving men and taking advantage of them for the benefit of propagating both the species and the society. If most young men truly understood what a little slut their pedestalized picture of ideal young womanhood actually is, even if her sluttiness is only in her own mind, they would tend to recoil. All are fallen… and Eve fell first.
He goes on to say lesser men would not marry the gal who was finally ready to settle down if he knew where she had roamed before she met him. What he doesn’t say is the whole thing simply excuses immorality, both in the profligate evil of uncommitted recreational sex and in deceiving the bulk of men to manipulate their behavior. There are very good reasons the Ancient Hebrews had such a straight-laced social structure: It restrained human evil efficiently. If we pretend there is no human evil to restrain, we call God a liar.
Men with a mission do not particularly like claiming abandoned, well-used female flesh. There remains a very high risk she’ll continue seeking opportunities to sate her own brand of lust. This is far more than simply having to face the risk of raising someone else’s children. Scripture imbues the whole thing with a much higher, mystical quality, while bluntly rejecting the doctrines of Gnosticism:
Or do you not know that anyone who is united with a prostitute is one body with her? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But the one united with the Lord is one spirit with him. Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin a person commits is outside of the body” — but the immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:16-20 NET Free Bible)
It matters. Taking sex lightly is evil. You can nobly choose to overlook the former indiscretions of someone truly penitent when it comes to selecting a spouse, but don’t be a fool. Look at it realistically, and toss all the cultural mythology in the trash. Women are what they are, and men are no better, just different.
A good man is not boastful, but does what he says. He tends to avoid discussing himself in the first place, but makes himself known by his efforts at pursuing his mission. He has a strong conviction what that mission is, even if he can’t or won’t tell you. Where things don’t matter, he absorbs a lot of crap and doesn’t take himself too seriously. On the mission, he is resolute and will die before surrendering. He selects a woman who supports his mission as her own, and is contented with whatever gifts she brings to that. He could do without her, but prefers facing the mission with someone he can trust beyond the bounds of this life.
A good woman knows her own weaknesses, and willingly submits to a good man. She knows the fire of envy burns in her own soul simply because she is a woman, and can’t trust her own feelings, even as she knows her variability is part of what make her so fascinating. She takes advantage of her youthful beauty to build a deep and lasting love that will outlast her looks. Her salvation is in building the nest, and she knows it, knows the nest is always bigger than just her own household. She never forgets she can’t do it alone, and patiently waits for her man to reach some sense of accomplishment because that’s what makes him worth her admiration. So she encourages him to drive on with whatever he can’t put aside, and does her best to fire his quest with full devotion, while never pretending she could possibly decide for him what it is.
