What I find appalling are the womens magazines on the checkout line. I can't even take my son to the store with me anymore. Seems like every story involves 101 great positions and how to look better naked.

I told my wife: women complain that men think about sex constantly. Judging by these magazines that appeal to women, we have nothing on them.

At least men's magazines talk about sports on occasion.

It seems like billy joel (jew) glorifies the worst in women, in his deceptively gentle sounding song, "she's always a woman to me."  

I was allowed to read whatever I wanted growing up.  I was scandalized early on as I became a young teenager and read various books from our local public library.  From horror novels to romance stories to paranormal investigations...

Back then, in the late 70's, early 80's, there was TONS of junk available to anyone with a library card.  It ruined me in many ways of learning about things I had no business reading about. My innocence was lost forever...and even though I've become a Catholic since that time ... those earlier corruptions stay with me to this day.  And it's this knowledge that has caused me to see a monster around every corner with regard to my children re: books and movies.  And they are there!

The other thing about books and libraries and liberals.  The liberals have, for centuries, rejected the Bible as Sacred and worthy of reverance and adherence to it's teachings....But what have they done instead?  They now revere ANY book, other than the Bible or one of Catholic spiritual merit.  Now they hold up Harry Potter,  or some other such drivel as "good "for the masses.  I remember that whole thing with Harry Potter..."as long as the kids are READING, it doesn't matter WHAT they read!"

In regard to women and romance...It seems to me we women have been manipulated to seek and believe in this type of thing.  We are emotional, we care about our families and it helps us to feel secure in this life to believe in a "true love" (really, a fixation, where he can't think of anything else) from our husband's that will bind him forever to our sides.  The emphasis on romance (and further down in the degradation process, sɛҳuąƖ obsession), has grown directly proportionate to the decrease in Faith in God and Love and Trust in Him....now we are encouraged to make our marriage an idol and we want our H's apparently to make an idol of us...to be "worshipped and adored" ..I guess for pride and vanity, and as a way of trying to make the marriage permanent.  

Even, I hate to say it, Jane Austen's books, "Pride and Prejudice" for one .. have this somewhat new to the time, focus on making a "true love" match ... not for money or security or family...but for romance.  For some "feeling" of being connected for life to the one person who can make you happy.  It seems to me that it's making a man an idol to worship.

Even, I hate to say it, Jane Austen's books, "Pride and Prejudice" for one .. have this somewhat new to the time, focus on making a "true love" match ... not for money or security or family...but for romance.  For some "feeling" of being connected for life to the one person who can make you happy.  It seems to me that it's making a man an idol to worship.

Mrs. Z, when Adam met Eve, were they thinking of money and security?

A defect in Jane Austen's novels is that the spiritual aspect is lacking.

But a love story, being about love, is not wrong.  Nor was the emphasis on love an innovation, no matter what the feminists say about it.

I agree that the spiritual element is lacking in the Jane Austen books.  It took me a few years of reading them off and on to catch onto that fact ..(I was a new Catholic) and that the ministers in the stories were often objects of amusement and mockery.  

I also agree that marrying for money alone is not admirable . However,  marrying on the basis of physical attraction and superficial interests ... both of which fade and change with time, doesn't seem to work over the long haul either.  And much of the romances focus on that "catch of the breath" type of thing which ultimately is, if not an illusion, than only temporary and nothing to base a lifetime on.

I've been married for 22 years.  Shared faith is #1, friendship #2 and common interests and view of life #3.....

I would think women have a biological need to seek a mate just as men do. They love "romance" novels because they are , um, 'romantic' creatures- women are the feelers, men are the workers, or so it has always seemed. Women are emotional, men are visual, which is why men like visual porn and women like textual porn- text conveys emotion much better. IMO.

This is only my opinion...

As I see it, the main issue in Pride and Prejudice, is that the women do not have an inheritance from their father to live on when he passes away.  If they do not marry "well" they will be left impoverished, dependent on charity. Therefore, at least 1 or 2 of the 4 sisters need to marry well in order to secure their own futures and that of their mother when the time comes.  The main character, Elizabeth Bennett does not want to marry only for that security.  She rejects a proposal from a cousin who is also a clergyman because she does not love him and could never respect such an insipid self important character.  Ultimately, she gets to have it all: security, fortune, status and love...

So, in other words, the potential spouse's religion and morality seems like sort of a side issue, not one of prime importance.  Money, romance and personal enjoyment / fulfillment in other words, seem more important, to the main characters.  

It seems to me that a person's religion / faith is sort of just assumed.  It is so much a part of the fabric of their everyday lives: everyone goes to church, and marries in the church (except for an errant sibling who causes great scandal to everyone), baptises their children, etc.  But it is not discussed, nor is there mention, if I recall' of saying prayers ...

This may just be the reality of being Protestant.  If they were a Catholic family of that time, I'm imagine they would be depicted as saying prayers and using expressions in their daily conversation that would relate to their faith as active and important.

But the people in Jane Austen's novels, and Charles ####ens and the Bronte sisters ... there seems to be a strict avoidance of expressions of anything remotely religious.  One of the Bronte sisters wrote a book about being a teacher in Paris...the main character goes through intense depression, and ends up talking to a Catholic priest.  But the way in which this is all described is as though the character finds it almost horrifying: the church, the rituals, the ceremonies...I read it many years ago, but that is the impression with which I've been left.  It's called "Villette."

They sound like a bunch of self-loating/very "lukewarm" christians