There’s a sappy allegory among conservative religious types about the relationship between the sexes. It has to do with the bone God took from Adam to form Eve. It goes like this:
God didn’t take a bone from Adam’s head so that woman could rule over men. God didn’t take a bone from Adam’s foot to make women to be trampled beneath men’s feet.
God took a rib from Adam’s side…
Now note, the allegory doesn’t say that this means women should stand side by side with men in equality.
Nooooo, the allegory says that God took a rib from Adam’s side to form women, so that they may stand by the side of men within the safety of men’s arms, protecting women from the harshness of the world.
At least the version I read somewhere put it that way.
Now me, I’ve had a lot of hardship in my life. It made me strong. Long story short, I find the thought of needing some man to protect me from the harshness of the world extremely insulting. It makes my blood boil, along with my stomach.
But I’ve known women, usually older than me, who thought this was the natural order of things. They thought that if a woman could find a strong responsible man who took care of his wife/woman, that woman was lucky indeed. In fact, my parents found it very strange that I would find the concept of being taken care of by a capable man as disgusting as I did.
But how about Doper women? Would you be okay with the thought of a man seeing that you want for nothing? Would you even welcome such a scenario?
I’m married to that type of man. He looks, to all intents and purposes, to be the master of his domain and subjects.
He is not. He can’t make a sandwich right. I taught him a few things to cook so he could eat while camping or hunting.
He’s mostly helpless with any household chores.
I’ve known since early childhood I had to look after myself, mostly. I’m not above accepting help when needed.
I get a lot of help from my kids who I hope I’ve raised to be self-sufficient.
Somedays, I’m not so sure.
I think ‘kept’ women are not so kept. They probably all have a plan ‘B’.
I would.
A couple is celebrating their 50th anniversary and someone asks them for the secret of their success.
The husband said
“I’m the master of my house, the lord of my domain. I told my wife that she could make all the little decisions, but I would make ALL the big decisions.
Then the wife added
“Luckily, during 50 years of marriage, we never had to make a big decision.”
My maternal grandfather died when my mom was young and the family being without a “breadwinner” during the tail end of the Great Depression made one hell of an impression on mom, apparently. (Older brothers dropped out of school/joined the Marines to provide for the family so they didn’t quite starve.)
Mom’s attitude towards us kids was basically “if you can find a wealthy man and don’t have to work that’s great, but Stuff Happens so you better be able to take care of yourself”
Dad also lost his dad early in life, so he seemed largely in agreement with mom and also raised us to be independent and capable.
In my life, my attitude has been while I want a man I don’t need a man. I can (and do) take care of myself.
That said, I wouldn’t turn down a man because he was wealthy or able to help me in some way. Frankly, even if I am able to take care of myself the thought of someone being able and willing to take care of me/protect me has appeal. It doesn’t necessarily require either party to be subordinate to the other.
I wouldn’t have a problem with a man “seeing that you want for nothing” because my choice isn’t between that and helplessness. It would not be the basis of the relationship.
This is different than a woman raised to believe that she’s not whole without man, that she needs a man, that she can’t take care of herself on her own.
A few weeks ago, I had a sofa bed delivered. The delivery men wouldn’t take it up the stairs because Covid, so just left it on the doorstep. My wife and I sweated for hours (it feels) trying to haul this thing up the stairs. I sure wish I’d had a man (or two) around that day.
But otherwise, 100% not. I’m gay anyway, so having a man around isn’t really a thing. I can do my own taxes, and take the rubbish out, and earn a decent salary, and reverse-park a large car just fine, thank you.
I’m married to a physician. He will always have a job (even if it’s a facet of health care he’s not all that happy about doing), and as he’s not remotely stingy I will, in that respect, always be taken care of.
However.
Up until very recently he earned the majority of the money and I did everything else. And I do mean everything, with the exception of the household computer systems. This was brought into sharp relief when he was badly injured a few years ago, and spent over a month in hospitals and rehab care, and then another 6+ months recuperating at home. When he was in the hospital my life changed not one iota except that I added visits and insurance wrangling to my weekly schedule. Nothing else changed at all in my daily duties, the things I worried about doing, the tasks I accomplished.
The man loves me and will buy me anything to see that I’m happy. Getting him to DO something to help me on a regular basis is like pulling teeth. It’s gotten better lately (because I’m now also working 30+ hrs outside the house and simply don’t have time and if he wants clean underwear he’d better deal with it) and he is realizing just how much he relies on me to take care of him.
I often tell my students, if you’re bad at something, that’s a sign you need to practice it more, not less.
But if you:
Are bad at something,
Don’t like doing it, and
Have someone who will do it for you all the time,
there’s very little chance that you’ll ever learn how to do it.
If y’all are happy with things the way they are, that’s genuinely and without snark all that matters. But if you’re only doing all the chores because he’s helpless at him, I think cause and effect is mixed up.
If I wanted for nothing but was controlled, I’d be a pet and not a woman. No thanks, I highly value my independence, and I take pride in being able to provide for myself.
I think the thing with the conservative meme is that it’s not a wholly independent man with a dependent woman but that they actually are both dependent in an unhealthy way on each other. The notion that men shouldn’t have to/don’t know how to cook or do laundry and thus need a woman (either a wife, a mother, or a hired housekeeper) to take care of them on the domestic side, and a woman’s only role is to be the domestic caretaker and need a man for financial security and taking care of “physical” stuff.
You know, when I was married my husband took care of the vehicles and the budget, but when he died I took over those things without a problem - he didn’t take of those things because I didn’t know how, but because that’s how we divided tasks. I did the grocery shopping and cooking, not because he couldn’t feed himself, but because that’s how we divided the chores - when I spent the last months of my mother’s life in another state hundreds of miles away he bought his own food, made his own meals, did his own laundry.
We were both independently capable. We took care of each other because we had a partnership, not a state of co-dependency.
I am revolted by the “classic” husband/wife thing where the man is helpless to run a household without a woman, and the woman is helpless at tasks outside the home (or even some within it) without a man. And there are people like that - I knew a guy who was single for the first time in his life in his 70’s. Almost set his house on fire because he didn’t know to clean the lint out of the dryer lint filter. He just didn’t know because he’d never done laundry before. I once knew a woman whose husband was dying and she was panicking because he had always handled the household money, checking account, etc. The irony here was that this lady’s job involved monitoring and reconciling literally millions of dollars in benefit accounts every month. Seriously? Lady, you do this 40 hours a week, doing your own household finances should be a snap. She also had to get her first driver’s license in her early 60’s - The Man had always done all the driving. (She passed the license test on her first go - the lady was intelligent and competent, it was the cultural expectations that had kept her from these things, not ability).
Yes, those folks were an older generation. I’ve always felt that sort of situation was toxic, but I’ve been shaped by my own upbringing and culture.
But if you weren’t controlled would it be a problem?
I think the OP was holding up the example of someone in a subordinate/dependent situation rather than someone able to be independent who simply doesn’t have to exercise that due to circumstances.
I interpreted the words, “taken care of”, as meaning “kept”. A “kept” woman is expected to do certain things and not do others. She is very much a subordinate in the relationship.
In your situation, it was simply how the two of you chose to divvy up all the tasks that needed to be done. That is totally different in my way of thinking from what is, admittedly, MY interpretation of the OP’s question.
I am married to a man who takes care of me, and could also be described as controlling. However, I’ve looked after myself before and know that I can again. As far as him being in charge, I’m naturally the sort of person who goes with the flow (well, mostly ). We also divide responsibilities in a very traditional manner…I cook and clean, he pays bills and does yardwork, etc. It’s worked for fifteen years so far.
I’ve heard a related joke: “The wife makes the small decisions, like where to buy a house, and what schools the kids attend. The husband makes the big decisions, like whether to start a war, or raise taxes”.
I want someone in my life who is willing to drop everything and care for me. If I get sick and can’t care for myself, I hope my husband will do that for me.
Do I want to be cared for day in and day out? No. I like to feel useful and competent and in control, and you can’t feel that way if you are just being cared for. Better to care for other people.
I note that in my parents’ generation it was customary to split the family responsibilities such that the husband earned all the money and the wife did most everything else. And my mother says that all the widowers she knows are finding it challenging to keep up with their households, whereas the widows, while they miss their husbands, find that their daily workload decreases with fewer people to cook and clean for.
I like caring for my wife. She has some health challenges and sometimes she’s down and out for awhile. She is not a kept woman. She is quite independent. She also like caring for me at times when I need it.
One point that has not been brought up (unless I missed it) is that a lot of men and women like the idea of the other partner being somewhat dependent on them. It makes the relationship more meaningful, increases closeness, and makes them “count more” in the other person’s life and vice versa.
I note that in my parents’ generation it was customary to split the family responsibilities such that the husband earned all the money and the wife did most everything else. And my mother says that all the widowers she knows are finding it challenging to keep up with their households, whereas the widows, while they miss their husbands, find that their daily workload decreases with fewer people to cook and clean for.
That’s my theory for the well-documented fact that male mortality increases after widowhood (or even divorce) while female mortality does not. The change men experience in such situations is far greater than that which women experience, since men have to take on a lot of housework that they’re completely unfamiliar with while women continue with their daily routines, more or less.
I guess one of my points is that a woman taught to be independent, to be able to care for herself, is far less likely to wind up a “kept” woman, and if she chooses to be a “kept woman”, whether a traditional housewife or a trophy wife or whatever it will be a choice. She is still able to take of herself independently.
That’s different than being brought up to have no other choice.
I wouldn’t mind having a man deal with the crap I don’t want to deal with, but it’s never been a goal. I was single when I bought my first 2 houses, and I did just fine - even installed a toilet myself for the first time! Help would have been fine, but obviously it wasn’t necessary.
For most of our marriage, I’ve done many of the “man” chores - like mowing or keeping track of when the vehicles needed service - as well as grocery shopping, cooking, and laundry. He would do cleaning and the hated scrub-the-shower chore, and he did a lot of construction and repairs with me standing by to hand him tools and such.
We’ve gotten to the point when we both can have men taking care of us - like the man who cleans the gutters and the man who’s going to paint our house next month and the electrician who climbed into the attic to do some rewiring. Feeling we no longer have anything to prove, we choose to hire out the stuff we don’t want to do. We definitely like that!
Yeah - one of the chores delegated to my spouse for well over 20 years was maintaining the bathroom. I was delighted.
About a month after he was gone I came out of my funk long enough to notice the bathroom was in a terrible state. I’m like WTF, why is this so… oh, right.… I have to do this now.
Still don’t like it, but I’m back to just me doing all the chores. I do miss splitting the household maintenance between two people, but life is what it is.
In the old days, a man was expected to take care of the car and the lawn, and the woman took care of the cooking, cleaning, and child raising. Now it’s different; women can take care of the car and lawn as well if they want to.
). We also divide responsibilities in a very traditional manner…I cook and clean, he pays bills and does yardwork, etc. It’s worked for fifteen years so far.
