I’ve implied this before, but now I will make it explicit:
Patriarchy is civilization. Civilization is patriarchy.
The two concepts are indistinguishable, differing only in emphasis.
Any time someone says patriarchy, they are, whether consciously or not, referring to civilization.
****
Civilization is built when men produce more than they need to satiate their desires; civilization is the surplus value males create for the future, particularly their children.
Men will only produce surplus value if it will increase their returns in the marriage market (h/t:RPR). It is not that marriage itself is of value to men, rather marriage provides a means by which man can ensure paternity of his children. With the paternity of his children assured, man can invest invest in his children. Assured paternity binds father to children.
This binding of father to son and daughter is civilization, it may even be humanity itself.*
Patriarchy is a word encompassing all the mechanisms society has created so that man can be assured of the paternity of his children and will bind himself to them. It includes monogamy, pre-marital chastity, prohibitions on adultery, slut-shaming, the criminalization of prostitution, cad-shaming, father as the household head, proscriptions on divorce, patrilineality, and fatherhood itself.
These mechanisms are what create civilization.
****
From the wiki for JD Unwin who completed a marriage study on civilization and marriage in the 1930s.
Unwin’s conclusions, which are based upon an enormous wealth of carefully sifted evidence, may be summed up as follows. All human societies are in one or another of four cultural conditions: zoistic, manistic, deistic, rationalistic. Of these societies the zoistic displays the least amount of mental and social energy, the rationalistic the most. Investigation shows that the societies exhibiting the least amount of energy are those where pre-nuptial continence is not imposed and where the opportunities for sexual indulgence after marriage are greatest. The cultural condition of a society rises in exact proportion as it imposes pre-nuptial and post-nuptial restraints upon sexual opportunity.
…
The whole of human history does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it has been absolutely monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs.
****
The problem is free-riding. For both men and women, it is in an individual’s self-interest to get around the mechanisms of patriarchy. A man can have more darwinian success if he impregnates a woman and another man raises the child or if he impregnates many women. A woman can have more darwinian success if she has is impregnated by a fitter man than she can marry then has an attainable man raise the child. When free-riding becomes too common, the assurance of patriarchy weakens, then disappears.
What we experienced in the 20th century was the triumph of the free riders over civilization. The culture that was indispensable for suppressing the free riders was hijacked and turned on its head. Not only does culture now fail in its primary pro-civilizational mission, it actively discourages women from cooperation and makes it as easy as possible for them cheat their responsibilities… The cost of this failure is civilization itself and there can be no greater price to pay than Eden.
The bond between father and child is destroyed. Men lose their will to create a surplus and build for the future.
Civilization dies.
****
Patriarchy is civilization.
Anybody opposing patriarchy is opposing civilization. The destruction of patriarchy is the destruction of civilization.
Whatever feminists and liberals may think of patriarchy, the violence and rapine of barbarism is far worse.
****
* The binding of father to children has many benefits on an individual level as well.
FN. You are often incredibly insightful but I think you need to proofread your stuff before you post. The grammatical errors make it hard to follow what you are saying. I have seen this on your last two posts. Another great piece all the same.
Correct except for one detail: Criminalization of prostitution is a feature of feminism, not of patriarchy. No society ever approved of prostitution, but it was not a crime in the West until women started voting in the 1910s.
I’m going to agree with Dave; a healthy society acknowledges sin (by which I mean ‘missing the mark’) and that some men and women won’t be able to keep it in their pants. The establishment of legalized and categorized prostitution shunts these desires into a particular area. In contrast, the less-evolved societies have casual prostitution, where there’s no clear line between prostitute, and ‘expensive date that ends in sex’ – a feature in many Asian expat countries, where men mistake ‘having money’ for ‘learning game’. With no professional cadre of prostitutes, every women is a potential semi-pro.
In Western society, we see this happening in the bar/club scene. Both women who are prone to chastity, and women who aren’t, wind up associating at the same venues, and the prostitute ethos winds up dominating.
“The whole of human history does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it has been absolutely monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs.”
This statement isn’t true. Lots of civilizations have arisen where men where allowed to have multiple wives(Islam, China, Babylon, ect). Men having mistresses is also very common in all civilizations. The rise of having of only one wife become common around the time of the Greeks and it’s proven superior to having multiple wives due to superior social stability.
Patriarchy consists of two things: One, Women having to choose between being either monogamous to their husband or a whore to be used by the community. Two, Bastard children are legally treated as sub humans. This creates a powerful feed back loop where women who want their children to do well won’t fuck around because there kids will never get anywhere in life. Thus most women choose not to be whores and ones who do choose to be whores are useful to motive men who are too undesirable to work hard so they can pay for sex.
@Red
How are bastards then to reintegrate into society?
Great article. I endorse it wholly except for the bits about prostitution and polygyny. I’m no expert, but there is some investigation to be done on those topics. Multiple wives and legalized prostitution were common in many civilizations (and not during their downfalls).
Infowarrior
You don’t. They live on the fringe. Ugly but works
You have to do the ugly things like that if you want to create and preserve cultures and civilizations. When you pretty them up and try to address every wrong you get the f#cked up mess the West has become
In a society in which men are forced to be monogamous there can be no true patriarchy.
Augustine wrote:
“For by a secret law of nature,
things that stand chief love to be
singular
; but things
that are subject are set under, not only one under one, but, if the system of nature or
society allow, even several under one, not without becoming beauty.
For neither hath
one slave so several masters, in the way that several slaves h
ave one master
.
Thus we
read not that any of the holy women served two or more living husbands; but we read
that many females served one husband
, when the social state of the nation allowed it,
and the purpose of the time persuaded it: for
neither is it co
ntrary to the nature of
marriage
. For several females can conceive from one man: but one female cannot from
several men (such is the power of things principal)
as many souls are rightly made
subject to one God
.”
—
from “A Selected Library of Nicene and Post
–
Nicene Fathers of he Christian Church,” Ed. by Philip Schaff, Vol. III, pg. 407
–
408
(pg. 22 of
Man and
Woman in Biblical Law
)
Yes, patriarchy = civilization. Very well said. Patriarchy is a creation principle. If we do not adhere to God’s way of doing things, we will ultimately fail. He has given us His Law/Torah (i.e. teaching; i.e. way of doing things), and we should live according to that.
Agreed. Inconsequentiality of bastardy and children going to the mother during divorce are two of the most obvious signs of breakdown of families.
Thanks for the linkage,
I went ahead and got the full text for that paper you linked to
http://ge.tt/5iOlY8p1/v/0?c
FN, have you considered the implications of what you wrote? You made the connection that patriarchy=civilization, and everyone knows patriarchy is dead in the anglosphere, which is why I call the remaining civilization a zombie. Why is finding a wife and having children a priority when there isn’t a civilization to house them? Shouldn’t the priority be burying the zombie under the left singularity and rebuilding civilization from scratch? Once order is restored in a small corner of the world, then you can take a wife and bring children into a world that isn’t going to eat them alive or cause them to handicap your ability to build that world.
Others have pointed out that there was civilization without monogamy. I would point out that the Germans were very patriarchal in the organization of their society without being civilized.
Patriarchy is necessary, but not sufficient, then.
On the one hand, I can see the value that surplus production, and the resulting leisure/ruler class has had in terms of all the technology that’s been developed. On the other hand, I honestly don’t see modern, post-industrialized culture as inherently better or more “civilized,” than, say, the culture of the Yekana Indians of South America or of any other non-industrialized group.
As another example, I don’t see the culture of the Mayflower immigrants as inherently better or more civilized than the cultures of the First Nations.
I do see that hierarchical institutions like patriarchy, slavery, and industrialization played a pivotal role in terms of creating the opportunity for an elite group of people to spend their lives simply thinking and inventing — but at the same time, I think we are all seeing that the old model of production, production, production, and creating a need and a market where none existed before, have served their purpose and are now doing great harm to life on Earth.
So I think we can say that, okay, these institutions served as stepping stones for humanity even as they caused a tremendous amount of suffering for many people. But we’re now at a place where we can create something better — and, indeed, at a place where we NEED to create something better if humanity is going to survive. We can now study all cultures and philosophies with an open mind, and choose the best and most helpful elements to incorporate into our lives and communities today.
Going back and resurrecting defunct institutions like patriarchy is just plain stupid. We have something better today: the calling to be more fully empathetic, compassionate, and human. We have the concept that, to quote Alexander Ebert, “Every part of you is just another part of me” — the realization that there is no “us” and “them,” it’s all just us. Why regress when we can evolve?
I want to respond to the following statement by Red: “Patriarchy consists of two things: One, Women having to choose between being either monogamous to their husband or a whore to be used by the community. Two, Bastard children are legally treated as sub humans. This creates a powerful feed back loop where women who want their children to do well won’t fuck around because there kids will never get anywhere in life.”
During my childbearing years, it was very important to me that my husband could trust that our children were his (and now that we’re in our 50’s, monogamy is still important to both of us for many other important reasons, but I want to stay on topic). It was important to me that my husband knew our children were his because of my own experiences of growing up in a home with both my mother and father, and having them both love me and take an interest in me.
My home wasn’t even completely healthy or functional – my dad had a mental illness, for one thing – but when a child has two parents who are at least trying to give him or her the best in life, that child is likely to get a lot more attention and other resources than a child being raised by only one parent.
My desire had NOTHING to do with slut-shaming, or the ever crueler (if possible) practice of blaming children for the circumstances they were conceived in, and EVERYTHING to do with my experience of having my dad in my home as a positive thing.
@electric angel
I think patriarchy is like electricity. It is the harnessing of masculine energy that made civilization signified by the electric lightbulb possible.
@That_Susan
You still buy into the myth of the patriarchy being inherently oppressive?
Infowarrior1, I see any system as oppressive if it uses fear to motivate people. The idea that the only way women will be motivated to be faithful in marriage, is if they’re scared shitless about being branded as whores and their children being branded as bastards and denied opportunities — this idea is definitely oppressive. Women who’ve had positive experiences as a result of growing up with involved fathers tend to want their kids to have these positive experiences, too. If a woman is totally careless with her reproductive capacity, it seems likely that she may not have experienced male involvement in a positive way while growing up.
@That_Susan
Do you think in your view that the state should be abolished? After all law is a declaration of war against those who break it. It uses violence as the last resort to enforce it.
2ndly fear is not the only way to motivate women as demonstrated above. What alternative do you propose to promote patriarchy?
infowarrior1, law is needed as long as there continue to be people who perceive the world as “us vs. them.” Personally, even if there were no laws telling me not to steal from others or harm them in other ways, I would still refrain from harmful behavior because I know how unsafe, violated, and angry I would feel if someone were to harm me or one of my loved ones. My empathy has matured to the point where I see every person, no matter how different in terms of appearance or circumstance, as “just another part of me” (to quote Alexander Ebert).
But there are obviously still people who haven’t yet learned to let their empathy extend beyond themselves and their immediate group — those they perceive as being like them in terms of life experiences and circumstances. There are some people like this in every walk of life — from the very richest to the very poorest. But there are also increasing numbers of people in every walk of life who are growing in their realization that it is really all just us.
I recently watched a video in which the actress Thandie Newton was interviewed about her role as a homeless woman in the movie “Good Deeds.” When the interviewer asked her if she went around and visited homeless shelters to prepare for this role, she said that wasn’t necessary, because that homeless woman was just her under different circumstances. So she didn’t need to go into shelters like someone visiting the zoo — all she needed to do was imagine how she’d feel if something really catastrophic happened in her own life.
This leads into my answer to your second question, regarding what alternatives I propose to promoting patriarchy. I propose promoting empathy, starting from birth. Children develop empathy, first of all, by having their needs and wants quickly responded to, which is best accomplished by having them spend their early, pre-mobile months, in close skin-to-skin contact with their caregivers, being nursed on cue, and so on. As they grow and are learning to interact with the world, they learn empathy by being listened to, as well as by having their caregivers help them see how their behaviors make others feel, and by learning appropriate ways to seek what they want, rather than grabbing, hitting, and so on.
That’s just a start, but this post is already pretty long. :)
This is horrible! Absolutely horrible. It is because of parasitic women like you that I am a MGTOW for life! I am not wasting my resources on you and your kind. You gynocentrists and manginas will feel the pain when men stop throwing free cash at women and enjoy for themselves a life of freedom and prosperity!!