How To Choose Your Man - Family - Nairaland
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| How To Choose Your Man by ihedinobi2: 12:51pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
Hi there. This is gonna be a bit long, but that's to be expected: the subject is worthy of a book. Yesterday there was a topic on Front Page about the definition of a guy with potential. The discussion soon evolved - as expected - to include hypergamy on the part of women and, to some limited extent, irresponsibility on the part of men. It brought to the surface ruminations that have been happening subliminally in me for quite a while. I was particularly impressed yesterday by the fact that, generally, the women who commented and held discussions on that thread (see link at end of article) seemed to both not like to be considered mercenary and comfort- and ease-seeking and to defend their need for material guarantees and security. I think there's some insight waiting to be unlocked in that considering that these two expressions appear contradictory. Why do women think that some form of guarantee of material security is not too much to demand while at the same time they don't want to appear unsupportive to struggling partners? Is there something natural to womanhood that can explain this apparent contradiction? Hypergamy is, loosely defined for the purposes of this writing, the constant trading off of partners in the direction of better and better personal benefit. For women, this benefit is material, especially financial. The unsavory thing about this phenomenon its mercenary nature. It is predatory. Its working principle is to avoid loss and maximize gain. As a result, commitment to working out life with another person, to delivering on trust reposed in one is unacceptable to its proponents and adherents. Hypergamy seems then to be very close to this need women have for guarantees. If women want assurance of their material well-being, then there are two ways that they can secure it: they can work hard for it or they can demand/secure/bargain it from somebody else. Hypergamy is the natural endpoint of demanding/securing/bargaining material well-being from somebody else. It can be argued that demanding that a man be able to provide is neither the exact same as trading partners up for better and better material providers nor is it irrevocably bound to end up in hypergamy. This is because it is not a debatable fact that there really are examples of women who stuck with one man through hard times even when all they had as a guarantee was his determination to defeat circumstances and carve out a life for himself. And they did so even when other men who already had materialized financial ability made themselves available to her. How does this fact help establish that argument? It does by pointing out that a woman can actually stick with a fighting man while demanding that he gain the ability to take financial responsibility for her. If he was not fighting, she would not be there. If she was hypergamous, she would not be there either. This is a valid argument. It seems that it is in that particular place that we find the two apparently conflicting expressions in agreement. A woman can actually express both the, shall we say, demand to be taken care of and the strength to stand with a man through dark, turbulent times. But it doesn't quite tell us how this works out and what it is about really. There is no doubt that men have a natural need to provide for and protect their families and that women have an equally natural need to demand for that provision and that protection. But if marriage was designed purely so that one man can take one woman and devote his life to making her and the children they produce comfortable in every respect, there is a very big question mark on how that eventually translates to anything meaningful for the world at large. It is really very hard to imagine that all life is about is this one separate nucleus of man, woman and children. Obviously, there is more, judging by the inherent curiosity and wanderlust in mankind, that thing that sends us exploring beyond what is known. After all, even the children of this unit prefer to go out and find their own mates rather than marry one another. Why do we venture? What are we looking for? I think that question offers a real opportunity to understand what drives women to both demand so much of men and at the same time long to support them even when it is uncomfortable to do so. It also gives us a real chance to learn what makes men so fiercely proud and protective of their ability to provide for and protect their families. Because these primal instincts should ordinarily create isolated clusters of blood-related humans and inhibit curiosity and adventure. But it doesn't? Why doesn't it? Human beings are wildly imaginative, some more so than others, yes, but even the least imaginative is considerably more imaginative than the most imaginative chimp. If in doubt of that, ask evolutionary scientists to pick a baby human and a baby chimp and leave them without any form of tutelage for years. I'm betting that the differences in expression will be wildly different. That's an experiment I haven't heard of yet. And what a loss to the human kid to be used thus, so I guess we'll never see it. All the claims that chimps can be almost as intelligent as humans have been grounded on one thing: we humans can teach chimps to behave like us. And the stories of human children who were raised by various animals suggests that the converse is true. But if we want to find out just how different/similar humans are from/to chimps, we should perform the experiment that I suggested. Let the expressions be utterly natural and uninfluenced by previous tradition, let us see what totally undisciplined human nature is like in contrast with totally undisciplined chimp nature. I think we will find that it comes naturally to humans to "check things out", to wonder about things, to poke and prod and taste and peer. That would mean that we have a natural imperative to learn life, to understand our environment and to master it. Think about it. Yes, animal groups behave remarkably like humans. There are wars, there is sex, there is even lifelong sexüal partnership. There is migration. There is quite a bit of display of resourcefulness and, arguably even some technology (the badgers and beavers and their carving and building). But there is nothing in the realms of animals to compare with the wild imagination and extraordinary creativity that man displays. Beavers build remarkable dams, humans split atoms and their nuclei. Birds sing so beautifully, humans create "space drums" (just discovered that one last night). We witness incredible hunting strategies among animals, humans build high-powered rifles and very complex military campaigns. The differences can be explained however the extraordinarily creative human mind pleases but in the end we all admit that the gap is too wide to say that man and animals are the same. We obviously are not. If we never taught a chimp to count, it would never have bothered trying. Don't teach a kid to count and one day, his children or their will reinvent calculus without ever having heard of or seen it. My point is that there is more to man than a primal need to survive or guarantee survival either for himself or for his own tight group of relatives. Man continues to find the need to look outside himself and his immediate cave. So perhaps the reason a woman would feel guilty or, at least, perturbed enough in her conscience to make a case for her abandonment of a struggling man may be rooted in some deep and unconscious understanding that her need to survive and continue to survive is not the acceptable primary need. Perhaps also, the need a woman feels to stick with a striving man when she could easily take the ready-made options available to her is because there is something beyond survival in the dreams that the fighting man talks about that calls to something deep, unconscious and unexplained in her. Because if survival and material well-being is really all that matters we really would have no need to talk so much about it. We would just take it for granted. No one is arguing, for instance, whether it's alright to breathe even though by doing so, all seven billion of us fill the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. The very thought that we should do something about our breathing would be inconceivably absurd to any of us humans, except the insane and the genius whose IQ is immeasurable (the same thing, if you ask me). What is it then that marriage, or whatever we choose to call our partnering, is about? I think it is directly linked to man's natural imperative to govern the world around him. I think that women look for responsibility, or responsiveness, if you like, spiced with resourcefulness in a man. That is the bare necessity but this is mostly clouded with other desires that end up throwing off her focus. Here's why I say that: A man who has made money today can and frequently does lose it tomorrow. And there has never been a guarantee that a history of wealth will be repeated. I personally come from a home replete with examples of that statement. So insisting that a man show that he can provide by what material asset is emergent actually does little to actually guarantee tomorrow's comfort. I have seen it enough: a man has it today, tomorrow his wife is the one who's providing for day-to-day existence. The argument that because he did it once he'll know what to do to fix lost wealth does not account for the lull that gain draws people into. You can say that "achievement is its own worst enemy". The feeling that one has made it is generally why one is paralyzed when one loses "it". And there is nothing more uncertain than material wealth of all sizes. Bigger has never been better. Neither has smaller. What is constant in life? Work. One will always have to work. Man was built with busy-ness inside him. You never hear of a real hibernation in humans. We are always doing something, good or bad, for good or for bad. Even lazy people are busy, just with wasteful activity, that's all. We work. Even if we had no wish to work, the environment pushes hard at humans. They say, "uneasy lies the head that wears the crown". You see that at work in man and the environment. We are forever having to respond to the environment. And while we may start by running away the first few times, we soon realize that we have to start pushing back or else we will go extinct. So you start to see bursts of imagination, creativity and unparalleled energy. So, one day we're living in caves and the next we're building skyscrapers and sky cities. One day, we're running inland to put down roots, the next we're building islands and siting cities and airports on them and building the world's longest bridges to connect them to the.mainland. The list stretches on. Man's incredibly poor adaptation to the wild forces him to rule the wild and adapt it to him. He creates artificial lakes, makes water transport for which he is very poorly adapted possible. He learns to fly and in shorter time than birds who are naturally adapted to it. And on and on and on. This resourcefulness and responsiveness is what defines leaders, rulers, and thus man. It is what drives us. It is what a woman unconsciously seeks in a man and why she has crises of conscience for leaving a man whose circumstances are poor in the currency of the moment. It is also why men have a natural loathing for women who failed to stick with them when the going was tough and came back later to confess love and failure. It is also why a man is normally afraid to fully commit himself to a woman at all times: he cannot be sure that she will stick with him when all he has (and really, that is all a man ever has) is the fight in him; if she leaves, it will take the fight out of him. Is a woman wrong to demand that a man should be able to take care of her? Not quite. At least not until she fails to realize that it goes both ways. A man can make it his duty to care for a woman (in fact, he has a natural imperative to do so) but he needs her faith in him - which is demonstrated not by friendly advice and connections but by a commitment of her resources to the fight to achieve his dreams such that his failure is her failure and his success every single bit her success as well - to survive and thrive. A woman may demand what she will of a man but she cannot do so without a matching commitment on her part. Every man at every stage in life really has nothing more to offer than their determination to rule their world. Take that away and it wouldn't matter how much money he has. It would only be a matter of time or some unforeseen disaster to tear life up from its roots for him. Global economic recessions are an example of such disasters. The world is so economically interconnected that bad decisions made by men and women you'll never meet in very distant places can affect how much food you'll have to eat in the near future. A tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan can decide whether you will have to sell your house and all your jewelry to have even a small chance at starting your life over. These things may or may never happen to you, but that they can and you are in no way immune to their effect is why the one thing that matters is a man's disposition to work and along with it a woman's disposition to support the work he does. There are no guarantees in life that life will always be comfortable. None whatsoever. In 2008 a man married a woman he'd loved for nine years (I think that's what he said). Within the same year he lost nearly all of his money which ran into more than half a billion naira. He had been building that wealth over that period of time, at least (and thus he was always something of a "big boy"  , although I think the bulk of it came within the last two years before his wedding. Till date, day-to-day expenses are handled by the wife and only capital expenses are his full responsibility. Another man that I know graduated with a first class and married after he started work with an MNC. He lives fairly comfortably but has lost money at least once. He tries to be frugal and very careful with his expenses but he works extraordinarily hard even learning to play the office politics and whatnot necessary to keep it coming. Billionaires (in US dollars) have lost all their money and been hurled to jail to top it off. Some have died from the heartbreak of such a loss. There is nothing more uncertain than material wealth and comfort.The only thing that is certain is that life will push at you, harder sometimes than others but it certainly will. What do you have to push back or take what's thrown and make something beautiful and satisfying out of it? That will ever be the question. What should a woman look for in a man? A determination to fight, to rule his world, to conform it to his worldview and to his imagination. That also means that her worldview and her imagination will have to be synchronized with his or their partnership will not work no matter how hard he works: their resources will not fit. What should a man look for in a woman? An ability to support his fight. Each fight requires a certain blend of abilities and resources. So each man should be careful to choose a woman who matches him in ability and resources to deliver on his mandate on life. I know that with all the theories in today's world, everyone tends to look for the path of least resistance when they look for the criteria for making all kinds of decisions. And when they find the best path but it demands (as it cannot but do) much from them, they say that it is impractical and shunt it to the side and accuse anyone who challenges them of "judging them". So I'll attempt to put this simply and in the most practical way I can manage: If your marriage or romantic partnership is based on selfish interest, read what you will gain, you will have severe problems until you learn to compromise and be more accommodating of your partner's needs. If this is the case, then it only makes sense and serves your best interest for you to choose your partner based on criteria that exceed any selfish interest that either of you may have. After all, that is where you will end up when saving your marriage or relationship is all that matters to you. Why wait till the trouble starts to do the right thing, right? Therefore, choose your man because he has a vision you believe in (not a milestone, being a millionaire/billionaire/entrepreneur/doctor is not a vision, it's a milestone. A vision is an encompassing definition for a person's life) and which you can invest yourself in. Choose him because he is working hard and smart at it. Choose him because you can and are working hard and smart at it too. Stick with him no matter what. Let it define you both. And you'll see that a three-fold cord is impossible to break, it can only be unravelled. To men I say, it is hard, very hard to recover from a betrayal of trust, so be careful which woman you trust with your life. If she betrays it, well, she doesn't quite deserve the kind feelings you'll want to yield to but which will keep you ill-disposed to pressing on with your life. That anger can do good things for you. It can spur you to heights you may have been a little afraid to dare because now you've nothing to lose and everything to gain including what satisfaction you imagine you'll get from her regret. Personally, I prefer to simply expunge her existence and carry on like I never met her or trusted her. That's what works for me. Refered link: www.nairaland.com/1884027/guy-potential. 5 Likes 1 Share |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by echobee(f): 12:59pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
Ops, Its too long  . I no fit read. |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by Zehner(f): 1:07pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
Honestly you need to do a summary of this writeup. It's too long  |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by ihedinobi2: 1:07pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
^^  |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by Tallesty1(m): 1:24pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
ihedinobi2:By a maga that she is fooling ihedinobi2: and the strength to stand with a man through dark, turbulent times.She can do this for a guy she wants to marry. This guy if lucky, unknowingly enjoys the maga's wealth. Lemme read the one wey remain. |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by TV01(m): 1:30pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
Ihe hi, how far? I read it. You will try NL' patience with the length of your write-up  !I'll say this much. Hypergamy & the female imperative have to be properly understood and placed in context. It would be madness for a women to take a husband without a sense of his long-term economic ability to provide for her and her offspring. Think of it in reductionist terms. She's tending the nest and the children, he's making provision. Can she, should she be expected to do both? My point is about when this desire becomes hyper in women and it is considered above and to the exclusion of other important criteria. And further when they are decietful and manipulative about it. Hypergamy in it's basic sense is not bad or wrong (marrying up), especially given historical context. It simply makes good sense for a woman to find a man who can give her 1.the best genetic material for her offspring and 2. provide for her & them. I may touch more on the Female Imperative later. TV 4 Likes |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by Nobody: 1:38pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
Awww @ihedinobi2.... Ihe di n'obim bu gi biko summarize dis ogonogo akuko gi a, ka'm me nwa'ta ofuma.... Oti n ge gi zara gi oku a. Shey u get? |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by Nobody: 1:43pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
LyndaRoyce: Awww @ihedinobi2.... Ihe di n'obim bu gi biko summarize dis ogonogo akuko gi a, ka'm me nwa'ta ofuma.... Oti n ge gi zara gi oku a.interpret jor, by the way, where u dey since ? |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by ihedinobi2: 2:11pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
TV01: Ihe hi, how far?I'm fine, bro. How are you, sir? Of course you did. That's why I bothered to write at all. I understand NL, but when I'm looking for a certain level of engagement, well, I haven't figured out how to accommodate NL tradition then.  You make a very strong point, as far as I can see. But I wonder about some basic realities. Although it is in antiquity now, in my culture, this is how it went: a boy grew up learning his father's work or maybe apprenticed to someone who taught him a skill. By early teenage, he went through a rite of passage that made him a man. Then his father typically married him a wife and gave him something to start off life with. This actually is pretty much the story of all cultures. When the world was much simpler, you gave a boy a skill, married him a wife and gave him stuff to start with. She spent her life helping him build that seed into something substantial. In my specific heritage, women farmed certain crops and traded them in addition to what the man also farmed and traded. It was always a joint effort. And the crops she farmed were typically less strenuous but highly valuable so she could still tend the house and kids. Besides a good man helped her out too in the house unless he went and married more women so that it became impracticable to do so. You'll find this story rather generic across Igboland. Today's world may be more complex but basic human nature has not changed. Women may marry up or however the sociologists think it should be described but women still have this need to claim ownership of the outcome of a marriage. They still want to be able to say that they made a contribution that resulted in the wealth of the home. And ordinarily they do make that contribution. Tending the nest is a tasking activity, I'll be the first to say. But I have not ceased being amazed at the energy and ability that women display. I keep wondering how they can manage to do so much at once but they do. It appears that all a woman needs is a base to jump off and she can do any...no, just about everything. I've seen it up close and it both puzzles and fascinates me. And then, there's Proverbs 31. |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by ihedinobi2: 2:15pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
LyndaRoyce: Awww @ihedinobi2.... Ihe di n'obim bu gi biko summarize dis ogonogo akuko gi a, ka'm me nwa'ta ofuma.... Oti n ge gi zara gi oku a.Summary: to choose your man in today's post-post-modern world, get a grip on what your life is about and where you want to end up and find a man who's headed the same way. But you can simply marry money and think that that is a practical move. Time, global recessions, market crashes, wars, terrorism, new industries and whole new economies and innovations, and peacetime will tell just how practical that is. 2 Likes |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by crackhaus: 2:22pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
I'm glad I caught this piece on time as opposed to having missed the other thread on 'guys with potential' by 8pages. Hypergamy is not an entirely bad thing per say, it is natural for people (both man & woman) to want and desire something better, something they can hold on to as hope or guarantee for the future (long term). My issue with some responses from a number of females on that thread was the attempt at whipping up sentiment regarding how they define a guy with potential. Only a few kept it real by effectively hitting on the fact that to a woman, a man with potential is more about what he already possesses (or what it seems like he possesses) as opposed to what he aspires or dreams to accomplish in the future. I threw a question to some posters there asking how they would alternatively define a woman with potential...needless to say, it was a deliberate question on my part. I was trying to find out something or rather confirm my opinion on 'hypergamy' in women as their motivation for classifying how a man with potential is seen. If I was to create a topic asking Nairalanders to define or state how they would define a woman with potential, I bet that the responses would struggle in getting to 7pages. This would be because, the majority of males would base their definitions on physical, as well as character requirements & attributes, hence no argument, while most females on the other hand may struggle in coming up with more than five sentences defining a woman with potential. In a situation where something tangible is said however, it would almost not touch on ambition, dreams, or financial capability of a woman (which are the basis for their alternate definitions of a man with potential). I believe hypergamy is really a determining factor and an underlying subconscious motivation or in some instances, the conscious basis with which women choose and select their lifelong partners. 1 Like |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by Godmystrength: 2:31pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
Tallesty1: By a maga that she is foolingShe can do this for a guy she wants to marry. This guy if lucky, unknowingly enjoys the maga's wealth. |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by ihedinobi2: 2:43pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
crackhaus: I'm glad I caught this piece on time as opposed to having missed the other thread on 'guys with potential' by 8pages. Ok. My question then is this: Is it possible to guarantee the future? |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by ihedinobi2: 2:43pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
Tallesty1: By a maga that she is foolingShe can do this for a guy she wants to marry. This guy if lucky, unknowingly enjoys the maga's wealth. |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by crackhaus: 3:23pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
ihedinobi2:There's never a guarantee for anything in life except death. Hope is what we hold on to, and since hope is not tangible or visible, people make use of something tangible/visible to act as an anchor for holding on to it. In this case and with most women of this day and age, their anchor for a 'seemingly' guaranteed (hopeful) future with a man is more about what the man 'seemingly' possesses materially (usually of greater or equal value to what they possess themselves), than it is about his ambition, dreams, or set goals...the latter is what they would have us believe. This is why the Hypergamy theory is true in reality. |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by MizMyColi(f): 3:46pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
Crackhaus, please summarize. Maybe that'll stimulate me to read up and drop a comment. ***modified*** It's been a hectic day. I haven't forgotten your mention either. My head needs to be calm enough. |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by TV01(m): 3:56pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
ihedinobi2: Actually you have a point about the length. Smart thinking, it may serve to keep the low-brow and the unintelligible away .A really inspiring picture of “what used to be” you’ve painted up there. And I really mean inspiring. Long term, I hope to engage in an endeavour that will enable me to bring my wife alongside. In many cultures, and up till relatively recently, what you’ve described was the norm. And indeed, the world is ever more complex and cultures are fast changing. But we can’t get away from the complementarity nature and need that males and females have for one another. I’m not against changing the deal per se, just questioning whether any changes will accord in the best interest of both and the whole (including children and wider society). As to your “ownership of the outcome” claim for women, I simply cannot attest to that as a rule or norm. I’m sure some feel this way and many more voice it, but I don’t think it’s the default in these times. Hypergamy was never left unrestrained. Be it religious or societal norms, or simply womens general lack of agency, there was always a tempering force. Now with the notions of individual autonomy and satisfaction of personal desires – as opposed to the communal good and societal norms – and the march of the “rights machine”, hypergamy in women will tend towards being even more hyper. The biological imperative - and to a lesser degree the social or different types of social - remains, but with fewer or no restraints the true nature of many women will be given reign You mentioned Proverbs 31, so let’s talk bible. Women range in goodness from Sarah to Eve, from Eve to Jezebel. Think of it as the LovePeddler /Madonna complex if you aren’t Christian. The more women tend towards Jezzy in nature, the more the current cultural trend towards licentiousness will see them demonstrate the worse traits of hypergamy and the feminine imperative. Not to derail, but the “right” to murder their unborn children at any time and for any reason is one manifestation of this http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2375411/J-J-Redicks-abortion-contract-girlfriend-revealed-promised-dating-year-ended-pregnancy-hed-pay-25k.html TV **and I'm not claiming men don't have their evils or part to play. If a thread is opened I'll talk about my take on that there** |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by crackhaus: 5:35pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
MizMyColi: Crackhaus, please summarize.Uhmmm, where do I start...that piece is long sha. So basically, I believe the write up tries to rationalize and understand the whole concept of 'potential' in a guy. It also touches on hypergamy and women wanting to commit more with men who are of a higher means... Then there's talk about selfish interests, tolerance, making right choices, and so on and so forth. Abeg read the thing jor  |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by MizMyColi(f): 6:52pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
crackhaus:Phew!!! I have......I thought to attack one part of the post but he addressed it in another. A good writ albeit. Though I feel we could have done without some "ruminations" up there. Only a deep person can write like he did, and only a deep person will get the message behind the message. Thing is some of us are trying to "undeep" & "de-overserious" ourselves, hence the call for a shorter/bullet approach (It's okay if you don't get me ) |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by crackhaus: 7:03pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
MizMyColi: Phew!!! I have......I thought to attack one part of the post but he addressed it in another.I get you. 1 Like |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by ihedinobi2: 9:14pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
crackhaus:Hope. That's an interesting viewpoint. How do you reconcile that hope matter with one of the examples I gave? Like I said, the man was worth more than half a billion naira by the time he wedded the girl and throughout their relationship he had always been something of a big boy because of his business runs. And he lost practically all of it the same year he wedded her. Till date he hasn't recovered. How does the whole tangibility thing play here, do you think? |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by ihedinobi2: 10:00pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
TV01: I knew you'd get it. I have to confess though, I don't deliberately try to make it hard for people to read stuff I write when I want to have a serious discussion. It's just that the very nature of serious discussions turn unserious people away. Not my fault really, is it? A really inspiring picture of “what used to be” you’ve painted up there. And I really mean inspiring. Long term, I hope to engage in an endeavour that will enable me to bring my wife alongside. In many cultures, and up till relatively recently, what you’ve described was the norm.I'm very honored that you found it inspiring. The way I think about things is first what the Bible says and then what our history says and then how times have changed. It's why I'm uncompromising about the kind of woman I will entrust my life to. My whole life is one project and I have no wish to hand it over to an untrustworthy, immature person. And indeed, the world is ever more complex and cultures are fast changing. But we can’t get away from the complementarity nature and need that males and females have for one another.Actually, I said that even the fact that the world has become very remarkably complex has not altered human nature at all. Thus there is no real change required. The principles are still the same even if their expressions have to be adapted to obtaining realities. As to your “ownership of the outcome” claim for women, I simply cannot attest to that as a rule or norm. I’m sure some feel this way and many more voice it, but I don’t think it’s the default in these times.About this, I thought hard about it. You know how terribly grasping women get in a divorce, particularly in the West, insisting that they contributed and thus must have a share of the estate and stuff like that. In my home, an older bro had a bad outing in marriage and he lived in the West and married a Westerner. He lost his houses in the divorce to the lady. That was maybe early 90s or late 80s, I'm not sure. I'm hearing it still right here on NL and on the news. Here in Nigeria, you still hear women claiming that they did this or that, introduced the man to one person or another or spent whole nights in prayer and fasted for one endeavor of his or another and thus they helped to create his success and have a claim in it. Honestly, I have more of that in my experience than the opposite. Women claim co-ownership of the outcome (or seeming outcome or products) of their romantic partnerships and marriages. They like to. Hypergamy was never left unrestrained. Be it religious or societal norms, or simply womens general lack of agency, there was always a tempering force.I agree with you. I remember Ruth's story. Orpah was yet young and she was not looking to suffer for the rest of her life so after paying the necessary lip service to escorting Naomi back to Israel, she took the first chance her mother-in-law gave her to head back home to find a better deal. Cultural systems were put in place to manage the female lust for ease and comfort. In very many cultures, betrothal was a huge deal. You just didn't default on that. You did not. Simple. Terrible consequences awaited default. Many, in fact, secured their daughter's future with a betrothal from birth. It was just not conceived that she would head in some other direction. It's mostly in modern times when youth have so much free rein that you find them hopping around. I think that has a lot to do with some basic existential education systems that have been lost. We tend to not know what life is about and what to do with ourselves so we multiply foolishness and are forever concocting frighteningly vacuous arguments to excuse it. You mentioned Proverbs 31, so let’s talk bible. Women range in goodness from Sarah to Eve, from Eve to Jezebel. Think of it as the LovePeddler /Madonna complex if you aren’t Christian.Yes indeed, they do. And you're right. My approach to that now is not to appeal to morality directly but to appeal to inert human tendencies. Unless of course it is with religious-minded people I'm speaking. About Proverbs 31, my tender from there is how the virtuous woman is shown to be a master homemaker, a strong administrator and an enterprising business person...all at once. It took a while for me to get with that, honestly. |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by bukatyne(f): 10:19pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
In summary, A man to marry is one that has a vision A woman to marry is one who supports the vision Just a question OP: What of women who have visions? Your write up seems to suggest that only men have vision/drive. I may be wrong though, It is a very interesting read I must say |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by ihedinobi2: 10:22pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
bukatyne: In summary,Very good question indeed and thanks for the compliment. A woman can hardly support a vision if it is not truly native to her. In other words, it is because a woman has a particular vision of her own that she can choose to support a man with whom she finds resonance. |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by bukatyne(f): 10:24pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
ihedinobi2: A lot of people quote that scripture to define a good wife aka housewife I used it as a base for one article I wrote about wives/women back in University |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by bukatyne(f): 10:29pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
ihedinobi2: Thank you for the clarification and I quite agree Your post suggested otherwise but again it is about choosing the right husband. I have never seen marriage as an end too; that's why I never got the 'I choose marriage over a, b, c for ladies'. God is not a waster of resources and I do not believe He will create us to wake up, cook, clean, feed, etc. for a lifetime Welldone |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by ihedinobi2: 10:39pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
bukatyne:Yes they do. Earlier in my journey through understanding a lot about this whole marriage affair, I insisted that a wife cannot be a piece of furniture in the house which just happens to be able to cook, clean, provide great sex and have babies. I never really abandoned that but I did get close when I went to war against feminism. I will gladly stand on the fact that women were created with enormous ability just as gladly as I will stand on the fact that she is not therefore equal to a man. In that particular passage, I saw a woman tending her home, administrating her home and managing wide-ranging businesses and I promise you I've seen this in real life and found it tremendously surprising. And I like it very much. I just think it is tragic when people claim that women have to be equal to men to do all of that. |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by ihedinobi2: 10:42pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
bukatyne:Thank you kindly. If my post did, it was not intended. In the paragraph where I said the woman should choose a man who has a vision that she believes in I also said that she should choose him because she is working on such a vision. It should be a combination of energies for a common goal, not the foisting of a goal upon her. That was the idea that I meant to pass across. |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by TV01(m): 10:43pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
ihedinobi2:Not at all dude .ihedinobi2: I'm very honored that you found it inspiring. The way I think about things is first what the Bible says and then what our history says and then how times have changed. It's why I'm uncompromising about the kind of woman I will entrust my life to. My whole life is one project and I have no wish to hand it over to an untrustworthy, immature person.I'm also a fervent bible traditionalist. I love my cultural heritage, but am happy to lean across cultures and from history. But in all, my faith takes precedence ihedinobi2: Actually, I said that even the fact that the world has become very remarkably complex has not altered human nature at all. Thus there is no real change required. The principles are still the same even if their expressions have to be adapted to obtaining realities.Point. And that is why understanding motives and reasoning is important for one who would marry well. So far example "equal rights" doesn't mean that women will now actively seek to "marry down" like men have done forever. It doesn't mean that they no longer prefer assertive or dominant men - whatever they say to the contrary ihedinobi2: About this, I thought hard about it. You know how terribly grasping women get in a divorce, particularly in the West, insisting that they contributed and thus must have a share of the estate and stuff like that. In my home, an older bro had a bad outing in marriage and he lived in the West and married a Westerner. He lost his houses in the divorce to the lady. That was maybe early 90s or late 80s, I'm not sure. I'm hearing it still right here on NL and on the news.Those arguments are for the most part a money grab. In fact they are pretty much redundant now. Divorce laws are now such that a woman - with offspring - pretty much cleans up in the event of divorce in the West; regardless of her input. ihedinobi2: Here in Nigeria, you still hear women claiming that they did this or that, introduced the man to one person or another or spent whole nights in prayer and fasted for one endeavor of his or another and thus they helped to create his success and have a claim in it. Honestly, I have more of that in my experience than the opposite. Women claim co-ownership of the outcome (or seeming outcome or products) of their romantic partnerships and marriages. They like to.In some ways it the same special pleading. But whilst it's legally redundant in the West, it's needless for a proper understanding of marriage anywhere. A woman who tends the home and children does not need to validate the importance of her role or strain to demonstrate financial input. Her role, even if it was limited to the hearth & home is just as important. ihedinobi2: I agree with you. I remember Ruth's story. Orpah was yet young and she was not looking to suffer for the rest of her life so after paying the necessary lip service to escorting Naomi back to Israel, she took the first chance her mother-in-law gave her to head back home to find a better deal.Even the Bible says the younger widows should marry. Who really wants to be alone? We are not meant to be. And marriage is by far the best pair-bonding arrangement for humans and any children. ihedinobi2:But those systems are being dismantled and subverted. In some countries - Sweden for example - a woman can have a child and be totally supported by the state. Men are not directly needed. In others, a man can slave for his family and his wife can, on a whim decide she wants out. He is then liable to support her and any kids in the house he purchased. Marriage is now a poor value proposition for men. Most especially as they can get all the intimacy they want without it. As Christians the imperative is marriage, and intimacy within its confines. Hence the need for us to choose wisely - someone from the Sarah end of the spectrum ihedinobi2: It's mostly in modern times when youth have so much free rein that you find them hopping around. I think that has a lot to do with some basic existential education systems that have been lost. We tend to not know what life is about and what to do with ourselves so we multiply foolishness and are forever concocting frighteningly vacuous arguments to excuse it.We are almost a totally dumbed downed society. Driven by lusts, feelings and sensations. No fear of God or real understanding. ihedinobi2: Yes indeed, they do. And you're right. My approach to that now is not to appeal to morality directly but to appeal to inert human tendencies. Unless of course it is with religious-minded people I'm speaking.Be wise and be a man. Place high worth on yourself and don't settle for anything less than high value in her. With a biblically renewed mind and HS leading, you'll know when you meet the right one/s ihedinobi2: About Proverbs 31, my tender from there is how the virtuous woman is shown to be a master homemaker, a strong administrator and an enterprising business person...all at once. It took a while for me to get with that, honestly.It's a great yardstick. And at a time when women were mostly considered chattel. Truly Christianity emancipated and empowered women. It's why I laugh when our homegrown crypto-feminists cry the bible is patriarchal. It's still less so that our indigenous cultures are till this day. Not only is the bible way superior to any feminist notions - as it captures human nature perfectly - without the emancipation it granted, feminism wouldn't have been able to get off the ground. Show us feminism in countries without a Judeo-Christian heritage. TV 1 Like |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by Nobody: 10:46pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
Choose one that compliments u, that's all and work as a team. Shikena  1 Like |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by bukatyne(f): 10:48pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
ihedinobi2: You are welcome |
| Re: How To Choose Your Man by bukatyne(f): 10:52pm On Sep 04, 2014 |
ihedinobi2: You do not believe a man & woman is equal? Ok, then As far as it works for you |
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