Champions

Those who have your back

There are times, when a man has to sit there, and listen to his woman go on about something. He’ll engage in the conversation, because, well, bottom line, it’s in the job description of devoted man to this devoted woman.

They may ramble a bit, they may argue a bit, but that is not the point here. The point is, when the man is the champion of the woman, he finds patience where he never had it before. He can sit still, because something inside of her needs him to listen, and that something, inside of him, needs to hear it. It’s instinctual to know this. It is instinct to want the relationship to survive.

Certainly, some of what she says may be irksome. May even anger him. And yet, the man, that part that we refer to as the real man, takes it.

When was it that so many men stopped wanting to be champions to their ladies? Some guys will retort back, when I find a lady.

The question I ask here was generated during a conversation I had with a younger, male friend. I didn’t ask him that question, because it was later that it came into my head.

The second inspiration for this piece, is this painting by Edward Bourne-Jones. It is titled, St. George Kills the Dragon. It is full of all sorts of meanings, but the one I deal with here is that of a champion taking on a monster for a woman. She may, or may not, know St. George. Well, if you were a knight, back in the day, it didn’t matter. She was a woman confronted by a monster, and the knight took care of business.

The monster is a stand in for any crappy situation the lady finds herself in. Anything, from dealing with the kids, to a lousy job, to fighting with her own mother, to being confronted with the rapist during her morning jog. Statistically, women are more likely to be hurt by men, than men by women. Men are hurt more by other men. In this world, a bad guy is a monster who does much harm.

In the image, the woman observes the scene. I interpret that to me she has learned from her observation. She has learned that there are solutions to her problems. Because in  real time, an overactive kid can wear a parent down; in real time, a lousy job can try the patience of a saint; in real time, an argument with a parent, especially one that has gone on for decades, can bring tears of frustration. In real time, confronted with a male who is intent on harming you, well the dude is stronger.

Enter the champion. He demonstrates how to slay the monster. Because men will see things differently than women do. That Y gives him a different brain, plus that upper body strength. He’s got different solutions, different strategies, just like the warrior has when taking on any enemy.

Let me put this here. There’s nothing like a man of noble character. He’s a damn rock, he is. You can tie your boat to him in the storm, and stand behind him in a war.

Ah, that brings us around to this: When you stand behind him, you’ve got his back.

Wait, aren’t we talking about the man as the woman’s champion? Yes, we are. To flesh this out more, let’s look at this from the perspective of the past.

Throughout all history, you will find what I call are authentic marriages. What does that look like? Like a team of horses, walking side-by-side, down the road, pulling the wagon together. Whatever comes at them, they are a united front.

Many say that there is no I in the word team. It’s meaning is, work together, as in pull together. At the same time, all teams have members who are interested in winning. Their self interest, in belonging to a winning team, is what makes them cooperate.

All partnerships have someone who is the creative force, and someone who is the driving force that makes it happen. Or makes it possible. Marriages work that way as well. They aren’t equal partnerships because there is no such thing.

Did that statement tick a few of you off?

You can find equality in weights and measures. Two rocks can weigh equally the same. Two streets can be the same length. But the rocks don’t look the same, nor do the streets. People have preferences- you can like one rock over the other, and would prefer living on street B rather than A-because they are not the same. You can give the woman the same salary as the man for doing the same job. That is a value that can be measured. But you can not make them equal in the marketplace, or in their biology. As humans, we were made to be in communion with one another. Like all animals, mammals, and primates, we will die if left alone. That is where the equality enters the picture. We are all of equal value in the great scheme of things.

To look at ourselves in terms of value, gives us a different story. But that takes us back to pre-Enlightenment ideas, about how to live with other humans. It takes us to a time when women were valued for their female skills. It is my suggestion, based on evidence, that it was women who made commerce possible. That made her of great value in her household, and in her community. She wasn’t a spoke in the wheel of commerce; she was the hub. Weaving, making beer, stringing jewelry, nursing the sick and dying, and, on top of that full scheduled of hers, she produced the next generation. She was also good at portending the future, as well as making it. What she needed, and got, was the support of the men folk. The guys she dealt with, husband, son, father, business partner, had her back. All were her champions.

I don’t deny that women hatred has been something we of the female sex have had to deal with. That hatred makes for the dichotomy, that the same guy who visits the Pythia at Delphi, can go home and ignore his wife’s advice, even though she tells him the same thing. He thinks of her as  “just his wife.” Sort of like those Catholic men who venerate the female saints, but eschew women. Or the Muslims who hide away their women, thinking to protect them from the prying eyes of, well, other Muslims.

The world is complex in its reasons for doing things they way we do. Yet, here in the West, though women may be liberated a great deal, it does not seem to be enough. For there is no contentment. Indeed, the modern West has become even more rigid because of its emphasis on identity. It is so intense! Progressives twist and turn the language to suit their needs, and bully the rest of us to accept their beliefs.

Progressives have become the new Protestants: In their zeal to be ever more pure in their beliefs and actions, it has become this, “I’m more woke than you are,” shouting match.

Trying so hard to be theoretically correct,  makes them as tedious as those who constantly quote Bible verses to prove their point. Both miss the beauty of human relationships based on choice. Their dogmas need stripping away so that we can pursue our relationships based on empathy, i.e., we like the person based on our personality that synchs with theirs. My brother, eloquently, told me decades ago that: if a guy likes you, he likes you. That’s as organic as it gets.

Is this relationship, the woman in jeopardy, the man taking on the monster, a cliche? Or could it be that women no longer wish for a man to fight their monster for them? Or does this scenario present other views? A broader interpretation?

The woman does watch as the man slays the monster. Therefore, she is obviously not squeamish. An important lesson she can learn is that monsters always feed on fear. The man shows no fear. He simply takes care of business. She has confidence in him. In the future, she can have confidence in herself, for she has found out how these things are done.

The important thing for moderns to learn is that today’s feminism has both sides not trusting the other. Like so much in today’s world, people shout at one another, saying, it’s your fault, no it’s your fault.

It’s no one’s fault, and it is everyones fault. Now, everyone, take a step back, for it is time for our history lesson.

Much of today’s feminism is a backlash against the Victorian era. Truly, an over reaction. The Victorians were a part of the 2nd romantic period, that began in the late 18th century. The first romantic age began in the 12th century. Those are the days of the troubadours.

Troubadours were a part of the knightly class. These were bad ass poets, songwriters, and storytellers. Many had spent time in the crusades. They came back to Europe with new perspective. Their love songs were extraordinaire.  Their stories ran the gamut of humor to depth psychology. Indeed, Jungians study these old stories for clues to the human psyche, 900 years after they were written. They are universal stories, and eternal. These stories are referred to as romances. Romances were about guys practicing chivalry. They were narrated as well as written down. Troubadours were the Netflix of their era.

The Catholic Church did not like this style of music and stories. Why? Because the troubadours pushed the idea of romantic love, which is to say, women should be allowed to fall in love. This idea was revolutionary in an age when the rule of thumb was arranged marriages among the nobility. It was all about alliances. Love of country took precedence over love of the individual.

The peasant also arranged their marriages, but they had much more leeway in their choices than did the nobles.

In spite of her limited choices, the noble wife understood her duty. The women of that era also had a different attitude towards marriage. They shared goals, as well as their bed, with the men they married. Indeed, there is many a story about a wife taking on a fight for her husband, and children.

Julius Caesar, in his memoir of Gaul, tells us of the German tribes whose women accompanied their husband into battle. They truly had their backs! In addition to the Germans, the people of the Steppes, who were nomadic, taught their daughters how to ride horses, and handle weapons. We know these women today as Amazons. It is suggested that these women also had sexual freedom. That they married who they wanted, when they wanted. They were not lesbians, but women brought up to be the partners of their men. When it came to their survival, it was all hands on deck.

Among many of the early civilizations, as I have mentioned, women had many responsibilities. There was no fuss about what was his work, and what was hers. He took on the heavy loads, and she took on the lighter ones. At harvest time, she worked the fields alongside the men, and older children. Marriage was truly a partnership.

Mythology also gives us examples of women taking on dangerous, physical work for the men. Firstly, there is Psyche and Eros. Psyche’s story is a hero’s journey tale. She risks death to fulfill tasks given to her by Aphrodite. She enters Hades, and then later,  faints away into a coma, because she opens a box of sleep, before Eros comes to find her. His kiss of life awakens her. They fly up to Olympus where they officially marry.

On the island of ancient Crete, Ariadne, King Minos’ daughter, risks the wrath of her parents, and the entire government of Crete, when she decides to help Theseus kill the Minotaur. She does this by shielding him, and then showing him the way to the door of the labyrinth, wherein the Minotaur is hidden away. Ariadne also has a plan on how to get Theseus inside-she’s the brains of the operation- and out of the labyrinth. She gives Theseus a ball of gold thread. She holds one end, and he unwinds it as he travels through the many paths of the maze. She also has his back, as she guards the entrance so that no one enters. Once Theseus has destroyed the monster, he rolls up the string as he makes his way back to the entrance.

Much of our confusion about male and female relationships are born out of the Enlightenment, and the revolutions, of the past 350 years. The Enlightenment brought us individualism, and the idea of equality.  The American Revolution told us all men are created equal, whilst the French Revolution gave us the rights of man.  After that, the machines took over,  and much of what women had done was now done by machines. Protestants had their influence in this as well. They stripped away the saints, including the female saints, and called the goddesses of old, demons.

Women also lost their domains and spaces. Even in America, the laws governing women could be ever as bad as those of Iran. During the Victorian Era, and on through the early 20th century, men could divorce their wives, and take the children. Women could divorce the men, but he took the children. Sometimes they didn’t divorce their wives. They just locked them away in an institution. In the 1920s, these practices, and then laws, began to change as women won the vote.  By the 1950s, divorce was on the rise, but it was a messy affair. No fault divorce was the answer. But no fault divorce brought its own set of problems. It set men easily free, sure, but it allowed the women to get a divorce, for no reason, and take the children with them.

Simeon de Beauvoir, never married,  and Betty Friedan, a divorcee, wrote books that shook the foundation of marriage. So, too, did birth control. Didn’t have birth control?  No worries. Abortion laws went the way of the Dodo.

Boomers set into motion ideas that had been set forth by the previous generations. Ideas about open relationships.  Boomers did marry consistently, and just as consistently, they divorced. Women wanted jobs, and got them. They wanted the same freedom men had, and got it. The virgin bride became a rarity. The stay-at-home mom was considered a waste. She was looked down upon by the other women. She was criticized for “just staying home with the kids.”

With divorce so rampant among the Boomers, it was a wise choice for a woman to have a job. No fault divorce meant no one had to have a reason to divorce. The prenup contract came onto the scene. Nonetheless, it took its toll on the relationships between men and women. The idea that women wanted what men wanted opened the door to the idea that individuals could choose everything, even their sex. Make that gender in today’s parlance.

When the intelligentsia cannot define a woman, you know the society is in trouble. Love has taken a back seat to correctness in thinking and acceptance. The attempt is to force relationships, to not allow for the organic. In an age wherein nature is worshiped, natural life is frowned upon.

In short, people try too damn hard to be accepted by the crowd.

In all this muddiness, authentic relationships are difficult to come by. Champions are few, and far between. For the past 20 years, I have seen more, and more single males who are adamant about not wanting to marry. So much of their chatter revolves around the fear of divorce, and the fear of not getting enough sex. The thought of being a woman’s champion never enters the conversation. They will wear a team’s colors, but not hers.

Yes, of course, females have become foot loose and fancy free themselves. They come home to houses staffed with cats and dogs as their partners in life. The trouble with these partners as they cannot answer questions, or carry on a conversation about where to go for a vacation.

The cat is not a champion. Nor is the dog. They are warm, and cuddly, but they are not human beings who can give you feedback.

Too many moderns don’t even know what a real relationship between a man and a woman looks like. Same sex relationships are easier because they don’t deal with the differences of the sexes. Those hormones matter. Those brain differences matter. Male/female is a tough go, more so today with all those modern ideas and behaviors floating around. Back in the day, marriage was an accepted fact of life. Yes, not everyone was married. There were alternatives. Monks, nuns, vestal virgins, temple sex workers, maiden aunts, mountain men, mercenaries, explorers, and great whores, did not marry. Some were loners, but not many. Most people, including the religious, lived in communities. They took life partners in other forms.

In the United States, 30% of the population lives without a partner. Frightening, really, when we think of the individuals toughing life out on their own. Frightening too, the way they go from relationship to relationship.They are detached. There is no team work, no united front. No one has their backs. No one to step in and take on the monsters. No champions.

Recall those noble horses that pull the wagon down the street. They are valued, and valuable. They are champions. One to the other. They each have the others back.

The call to action here, is to have someone’s back.