The Barter System
Except from the Chapter.
THE ART OF THE DEAL
In the “Fairytales” the princess gives the hero her kingdom. This is symbolically true, but the material reality, the patriarchal reality is that wealth was kept from women. In fact, women were considered property themselves. This has changed in many parts of our world where women are gaining in this arena, but the collective memory of this remains, and women are still taught to look to men for material support.
During her junior year of high school, my oldest daughter went through an exhausting period of schoolwork (she was in the top of her class), busy social life, gymnastics, and student government. She realized that life, especially as a successful engineer (her goal), would be real work, not necessarily fun at all! Her response was, “Maybe I will just get married and raise a family.”
First, know that I consider raising children to be God’s most important job. However, I didn’t hear her say she wanted to take care of kids because she felt it was her calling. What I heard was that she saw it as the easy way out. I just said, “Hmm, boys don’t have that option.” She replied sympathetically, “I know!”
Women inherently know this option. And they are not being forced into it either. They are being lured into it. But is it just society’s training that lures them, or is it their own laziness, or lack of self-worth, or the easy convenience that brings them to this option?
Recent statistics say “the percentage of women in their twenties who are extremely or highly likely to marrying for money is sixty-one percent.” This source went on to further say “the percentage of women in their thirties who are, is seventy-four percent.”**
“Well, what’s wrong with that?” said a physics professor I know named Andy, literally as I am writing this. “Isn’t that the way it is? Isn’t that wisdom to choose a better provider? Doesn’t evolution dictate that a wealthier husband would be a better provider for one’s offspring?” In fact, he went on to say that, “if it weren’t for these instinctual evolutionary dictates, mankind would not have survived.”
I replied, “In other words, you’re saying the caveman that brought home the most brontosaurus burgers won the cavewoman? He was the best provider, therefore the best choice for a mate, right?”
Maybe, maybe not, but what seems true is that not much has changed with this underlying belief system that predates the Patriarchy and modern civilization. The question is, “Who are we really?” Are we just cavemen and cavewomen, Neanderthals in modern-day garb, or are we beings with the potential to be more, to be more evolved? And either way, does our living based on these old beliefs leave us feeling fulfilled? In the U.S. the divorce rate would indicate it does not.
Okay, there was and still is truth in the need to raise children and have help in doing so. True, a provider can be useful; but at the cost of pretending a feeling relationship exists where it doesn’t, bartering one’s soul, and losing one’s integrity? This is the state of a majority of relationships, and men know it.
Men are deeply damaged by this model of behavior. It is extremely disheartening to think that I, as a man, have no value other than to provide a lifestyle for some pretty little fluttering thing – a bird I must cage – or else I will be left abandoned and alone. Our lifelines to feelings, heart, and soul – what men hope women will be for us – will be gone.
Most men resent being seen as “Johns” in bartered-for relationships. We know we are not really seen or wanted for who we are, not truly cared about or loved. Of course, there may be the “show” – the illusion of caring put on by the women in these relationships – but it’s not real. It’s just part of the bartered-for arrangement, and we men don’t trust it. We believe we are being used as lifestyle providers. Many see no other option than to just use women back, resigned to this shallow dance we choose; we were not forced into it. To participate in this lie that is a bartered-for relationship, a man must further shutdown emotionally, walling off what little access to his heart he has left after his patriarchal training. (For more on this read Men – The Gods of Love.)
I know this place intimately and have struggled to understand and heal my own misguided beliefs. This book is the result of my work: work that was made more difficult as it became clear that many women participate with such aplomb, a self-possessed easy cool. They carry powerful underlying programming that goes like this:
“A woman’s got to lookout for herself.”
“Diamond’s are a girl’s best friend.”
“It’s just as easy to marry a rich man, as it is a poor one.”
“Marrying right is very important.”
How is this predicament, this relationship paradigm that is so clearly evident, even possible? It is like the pink elephant in the living room that no one wants to speak of. And why is it that we have become so mired in the muck, our own muck? Like swine in a sty, we bathe in it; and we have long since resigned ourselves to this condition, giving it but a passing thought.
**Harper’s Magazine “INDEX”, March 2008, citing: Prince and Associates, Redding, Connecticut.