Fighting Cultural Mythology: Manhood

Let’s pick apart some folly.
The ideal symbol of manhood is the shepherd, not the hunter or any other image. It has nothing to do with how he feels about the sheep. He sacrifices a significant chunk of himself to protect them and get them to pasture and water. They are a huge pain in the butt to herd, full of risk, but the payoff is pretty big. In the process he learns to care regardless of emotional attachment or lack of it. Real men look to the long term, and work patiently. They fight threats but don’t take them personally. When there’s a major loss, they simply start over, keeping an eye on that long term result. It’s not the money, nor really the expertise, but the moral competence of doing the right thing, the best they possibly could.
God uses the family court system and child welfare agencies the same way He used Babylon II. Despicable in every way, Babylon was the rod of iron to punish those who refuse to listen to His demands. Because we have ignored His fundamental judgments about things, He has allowed us to be thrashed and punished by the government family welfare system.
While I have certainly known some real jerks in my time, and a few who honestly deserve death, the family courts are utterly unjust even to criminal dads. This is not the way to do things. I highly encourage any man capable of evading family court “justice” to do so, because it’s an abomination to God in its very structure. Anyone who cries against any man the popular label “deadbeat dad” is calling the curse of God upon themselves.
God never called for alimony. If a woman was determined to leave her husband, she knew her economic prospects were toast. There had to be really powerful reason. If he’s an abusive jerk (as husband specifically), he risks vengeful abuse from her family — an eye for an eye. In some rare cases, some peculiar crime he commits may justify a forfeiture of some kind to her family, always based on his genuine economic prospects. It was a single judgment due, not a continuing payment. No one was permitted to make a man a slave on those grounds.
In biblical culture, should there be any reason a man is a crappy dad (as father specifically), only his own family has standing to correct him. Failure is an abomination to God, and because we have developed a culture preventing this, God has afflicted us with the family courts. But should things necessitate separating a man from his wife, only in the most egregious cases of dissolute lifestyle should the mother lose custody. Those words seem to resemble what the family courts say, but they seldom judge by any rational standard what constitutes dissolute motherhood. That’s in part because the entire Western Civilization doesn’t understand it. Still, the whole point is not justice for either parent, but a genuine threat to the children. There is no jurist in Western Civilization who understands this from God’s perspective.
The mother’s family takes up the burden of providing fatherly care, their duty before God. The dad knows he must release them into their care, and embrace the burning sorrow of loss. He must know this of a certainty before he takes the path of divorce, before marrying in the first place. Boys belong to mom until at least age nine, and girls always do. The mother’s family takes full responsibility, like it or not, for deciding in those rare instances when the mother is a threat to the kids. It has nothing to do with economics, because being raised dirt poor is not a crime against children.
Given the idiocy of Post-Modern Western decline, I heartily recommend no man marry legally, particularly in the US. There may be compelling reasons to do so, but start from the assumption it’s not a good idea. The single greatest problem is legal marriage makes all children and all economic assets property of the state. If a woman does not understand how this is a threat to her, she is not worthy of being anyone’s wife. Any woman who thinks the state is a good ally against any possible future disputes, she is a slut already, an adulteress who plans well ahead to be unfaithful to the covenant. It really has nothing to do with sexual infidelity; a faithful body without a committed heart is just a slave.
Nobody says sluts cannot live, but no man with any sense takes them seriously. The man who is needy in romance in not a man. You aren’t a man until you can live without her, regardless how unpleasant it may be. Children are a liability, but a culture which claims to put them above all other considerations is a culture which deserves to die, painfully and slowly. It’s nothing more than an excuse to make the state god.
Who makes the state god serves Satan in disguise; tribal patriarchy is God’s only plan for fallen mankind.