Read The Trash Generation, it is precisely on this subject of the change from the Patriarchical family of the Old Testament Jєωs, continued by the Catholic Church, and the modern Matriarchical sytem of today, where women get custody and everything in a divorce. Very interesting reading. The matriarchical system is more primitive, and also primitive, still practiced among the black Africans, and other primitive cultures like the American Indians.

1.0 out of 5 stars Garbage heap from which patriocentrism springs, October 23, 2008
By JR Corry "Jenny" (Fl) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)  
This review is from: The Garbage Generation (Paperback)
This book is without a doubt the most cold-blooded work of misogynism that I've ever seen. You must understand, this book is not just an anti-feminist book; it goes beyond even mere anti-woman attitudes. Daniel Amneus scorns women with ice-cold contempt that's clear in almost every paragraph. Even men who have hearts and care for women are not highly regarded in this book. In fact, love and companionship in general are not encouraged practices here. There are many anti-women and anti-men books out there today, but this one manages to use both types of nastiness in a level I have yet to see anywhere else.

Make no doubt, Amneus is pro-patriarchy, or perhaps patriocentrism, which goes further and requires pretty much earthly orbit around the male sex. Amneus spends the entire book trying to convince everyone how extreme patriarchy benefits everyone, even those darn womb-carriers. I was rather surprised he even pulled the trick of trying to prove that "patriarchy's best for everyone" since he seems pretty unapologetic about hating women and not caring a fig for their personal preferences. Either way, his ideas of patrio female-benefits are laughable at best. Here are two of his quotes attempting this:

"the success of the system in generating male overachievers who create wealth, social stability and progress--all beneficial to women--proves the arrangement to be desirable. Women would not have accepted it unless its benefits were greater than those offered by matriarchy. The wife of an impoverished burgher could have been de-classed by her husband's behavior, but she chose to be his wife because through marriage her status and income were more likely to be raised than lowered. This is the way the patriarchal system works, and it benefits everyone."

Sure it does, or did historically, until a marriage didn't work out and the wife was cut off entirely. Do we need to remind Mr. Amneus that historically, most women had no property rights or titles and ended up with nothing after divorce? It's been proven more than once that the system of "cling to a man or you got nuthin'" doesn't work for the greater good. And that one sentence, "Women would not have accepted it unless its benefits were greater than those offered by matriarchy", is another blatantly false statement. Ultra-patriarchy was established the same way white-power was: force and a lot of brain-washing. Following Amneus's logic, we might conclude that black people must have personally accepted white prejudice because they thought it beneficial and, after all, they did "accept" it for hundreds of years.

Next quote:

"The best thing for the women's movement now would be (if it were possible) to restore the patriarchal family and hope that it could once again solve women's lower-level needs and bring them back to where is could be said, "Blessed are those who feel their spiritual need." Let the Scriptures be fulfilled. The patriarchy which brought them this far couldn't carry them all the way to moksha experience but it was the best friend women ever had"

"Lower level needs"? What, are women masochists or constantly horny now? I don't think I even need to dwell much on that quote; it speaks for itself. I guess co-dependence, sɛҳuąƖ control, and domination were always good for women.

In case you were actually buying Amneus's apparent concern for women and their needs, here's a quote to disprove that:

"Samual Blumenfold "object to the moral codes that the patriarchal system evolved as aids in the subjugation of women. But we must marvel at man's intellectual genius in creating such effective cultural and social devices to maintain the integrity of the family, as well as his control over women with a minimum of physical force."

Wow, man's a genuis because he learned a new way of dominating women! And without even beating them up!

It's really no wonder, though, that Amneus doesn't have the first clue about what's best for women: he doesn't know the first thing about their needs, wants, and nature. Here's a summary of Amneus's theory of what women want:

"The man desires a stable patriarchal family system; the woman desires a return to matriliny and de-regulation, a return to the sɛҳuąƖ anarchy of the Stone Age and the ghetto and the Indian reservation. The only possible resolution of this is to make women grow up and choose either to accept sɛҳuąƖ regulation as the quid pro quo for the benefits of patriarchy or to reject the benefits along with the regulation."

Ok, did you catch that? WOMEN are the ones who need to grow up, accept sɛҳuąƖ responsibility, and who secretly prefer wild sex instead of meaningful monogamous relationships. Women really just want wild irresponsible sex! Wow, gentlemen; we sure fooled you. After all those couple therapy sessions, self-help books, and relationship guides your girlfriends made you sit through, it turns out it was all a farce: they'd rather you sleep with them once and never call again. And best of all, the age-old idea that men want sex and women have to reign them in for relationships is really flipped: women are the wild ones who couldn't see the benefits of romance until men showed them the way.

Not buying this? Me either; it's the biggest crock I've heard for a good while. Historically, men were the ones with multiple spouses; it's been suggested that this is why some men prefer casual dating to serious monogamy. Amneus's attempt to actually reverse this historical and psychological fact tells me he's a few skins short of a loin cloth.

It gets worse, though. According to Amenus, any and all ideas of women as monogamous, relational creatures are a load of bunk. He claims,

"Women aren't drawn into marriage by their "nature." They accept it because it is advantageous and because its advantages cannot be obtained without submitting to the patriarchal constraints whose purpose is to channel procreation through families."

Ah, so that's how it worked. The wildly-sɛҳuąƖ females of the human species were drawn into marriage because the wise, sɛҳuąƖly calm males drew them in with promises of shiny baubles and security. I can see this original marriage proposal now: "I Tarzan, you Jane. You have sex with just me, I give you shiny rocks."

The biggest thing that shocks me about all the positive reviews for this book is that its author doesn't know squat about women. I've never seen such incorrect schlock in my life; I can't even believe Amneus got this published. Amneus is wrong about women psychologically, historically, and scientifically; how, in all the world, could even five ignorant people be fooled into buying this?

The guide to ridiculous crud about female nature continues: Amneus claims next that women don't sɛҳuąƖly or mentally mature until adulthood. Or, more specifically, their wedding day:

"This shows her maturity: she is passing through the adolescence that males pass through at puberty. And the legal system agrees with her that her vows and her marriage contract are non-binding: her choices are still there. The difference is that the male's maturity makes his contracts dependable and Ms. Bakos's maturity makes hers undependable. The difference between these two kinds of maturity was the reason Victorian society decreed that "the legal custody of children belongs to the father"--and it is the reason our society ought to do the same."

Now, anyone who's been through elementary school science knows that girls mature much faster than boys; this is a plainer than life, undeniable fact. And, as I've already said and you already knew, women gaining sɛҳuąƖ maturity and relational commitment almost always before men is another undeniable fact. In fact, a great deal of the time girls are ready for committed relationships way TOO fast. And yet, Amneus claims that women don't mature sɛҳuąƖly, mentally or emotionally, until adulthood, a bogus fact which is false in every way and has been proven such numerous times. That statement about why mothers were shortchanged in Victorian times is a crock, too; recall my earlier statements about female repression in history. Men decided women shouldn't get their children, money or property rights after divorce because that's how the society kept women on choking leashes. So Amneus is right about one thing: men did seek to keep women in "control", but it wasn't for anything so noble as their own good or sɛҳuąƖ security.

Throughout the book, Amenus retains his ridiculous ideas of wild female sɛҳuąƖity, claiming that "Women are promiscuous unless male-created social arrangements compel or induce them to be otherwise." Women are sluts until loving, caring men correct them? At this point, you should have dropped the book. And let's not forget how Amneus claimed marriage was made for women's "lower level needs". (Am I the only one who thinks Amneus wrote this book simply by taking all the sɛҳuąƖ differences between men and women and reversing them?)

By this point in the book, Amneus pretty much drops his charade of concern for the benefits of women and begins shamelessly advising that society be constructed in such a way that everything contributes to men's favor. Still, he reminds us, it's all for the good and benevolent purpose of restraining that wild sɛҳuąƖity in women.

Here's his first effort:

""When Nigerian Muslim communities get richer through development," writes feminist sociologist Caroline Knowles, "women are increasingly confined in the home." Is it not the other way round--that when women are increasingly confined to the home, the communities get richer because more stable families are better motivators of male achievement?"

Ah, it's the old Victorian method: when women are shut up inside, society does better (i.e, selfish men are happier). At least Amneus was more honest than the Victorians about his motive for this method. But then, he IS still using the same silly claim that "it's all for everyone's good".

Amneus further explains why men just shut down if they see women succeed:

"If men cannot outperform women they will not perform at all, and society will be lucky if male energies are merely wasted in narcissistic display rather than in disruptive violence and machismo."

So basically Amneus, men are selfish arrogant "anything you can do I can better" machines who shut down if their sex toys do better or as well as they do. It sure is a good thing I see men in a better light than you do. And how do you like that threat? If women don't sit in the sidelines so the boys can keep their egos intact, the men will get upset and become destructive. And whose fault would that be? No doubt the womens', if you asked Amneus.

Inspite of all this trash logic, the worst of Amneus's dismissal of women as human beings is yet to come. In the issue of rape, Amneus actualy defends the dirt-poor treatment of the rape-survivor's father as the real victim. Surely, caring fathers do suffer in these cases, but historically their suffering was often due to the fact that their daughters were now damaged goods. Society now realizes that the true injured parties are, of course, the ones who were raped, but you wouldn't know this if you relied on Amneus's views.

The interesting thing about Amneus is that, while he's undoubtedly the type who doesn't let feminists get away with over-generalizing, he does plenty of this himself. While he blames virtually all sɛҳuąƖ promiscuity and rash male acts on women, he loves making excuses for men. Two examples: firstly he whines about the unfairness of custody courts towards men, even though he defended and approved of the historical unfairness of these same courts to women. Secondly, while discussing the injustice of custody courts to men, he describes the case of a divorced man who went insane and murdered his son and himself. Amneus concludes, "A hideous crime. It might not have happened if Charles had not been goaded and crazed by the knowledge that he had no chance of getting a fair custody shake from the court." In other words, the father was not to blame for his crime; the court and women were. If women make immoral choices, it's their fault and their "nature". If men act cruelly, that's womens' fault too; men are never given the burden of responsibility in this book, for sɛҳuąƖ faults or anything else. It's also worth noting that, while Amneus condemns any feminist for blaming society for unfairness towards women, he's perfectly happy to blame society for any and all unfairness towards men, as shown in his description of the murdering father.

To expand on the absence of male responsibility in this book, Amneus comes right out and says that male chastity, even in marriage, is not that important. He claims,

"The entire fabric of patriarchal civilization rests upon female chastity. It would be ridiculous to refer to a man's chastity as his virtue because his unchastity does not destroy his family and his wife's reproductive role. But a woman's chastity is her virtue because her unchastity destroys her family and her husband's reproductive role--and civilized society along with them, because civilized society is built on the patriarchal, nuclear, two-parent family."

A man's unchastity doesn't destroy his family? Has this man paid any attention to the Clintons, Kennedies, Edwards, or any number of families in a given day who are destroyed by the father's sɛҳuąƖ cheating? Don't get me wrong, female unchastity destroys a family just as effectively, but according to Amneus, it's not because it breaks the husband's heart or hurts the kids: it's because the woman takes away her husband's role of screwing her. And that, Amneus tells us, destroys a family far more than the hurt caused by disloyalty.

To continue with this "logic",

"Would it not be fairer to regulate both male and female sɛҳuąƖity with equal strictness? No; male sɛҳuąƖity isn't important enough."

Not important enough? Well, there's a good message to give young men: their sɛҳuąƖity doesn't matter. And what does he mean by saying it's not important enough, anyway? Just a minute ago he said taking away the husband's role of humping his wife is the worst thing you can do to a man.

To conclude on this issue, here's Amneus's last quote:

"Feminists protest against the double standard required by the regulation of female sɛҳuąƖity. The double standard is an essential part of the patriarchal system. Male sɛҳuąƖity requires less regulation because it is less important. Male unchastity sets a bad example and demoralizes wives who find out about it, but otherwise damages society little."

So scientifically worded. Let me break it down for you: it's not important how many women a husband screws, because men aren't the ones who need control. The fact that cheating demoralizes women doesn't really matter either, because women aren't that important in society or, apparently, family. All that's important is what women do with their vaginas; they must reserve their vaginas for one man, because if they don't, men get upset and society breaks down because men are the only really important members of it. It doesn't even matter if children are crushed by their father's infidelity, because what are children to society? As long as the men are happy, things will run peachily.

I've explained exhaustively how factually incorrect and downright bogus this author's claims are, and his quotes more than speak for themselves. However, it should also be very clear to anyone that Amneus is not MORALLY correct either. His dismissal of women's and even occasionaly children's feelings is evidence, along with his shameless promotion of male-only benefits, that male-rule is more important than anything else. To him, families are not important unless the wife is upsetting her husband, and only if the husband is upset will there be any important or significant change in the family. Everything in this book is dedicated to making the machine of society move; personal feelings are not important. Even marriage is treated like it's nothing but a contract of financial and greedy means. Amneus ultimately even shoves aside men's feelings, claiming that "A man who supposed his wife married him only out of love..would be a ruddy fool and--what is really bad from society's point of view--an unmotivated fool, for society needs the man's work and wealth, and if his family no longer expects him to be a provider he won't work too hard--which is why single men earn so much less than married men earn."

Even aside from the fact that Amneus's formula for a good society is bogus, I would hope that you'd find the cold-bloodedness of his solutions discouraging and revolting all by themselves. This author clearly has no real morals or virtues; he views society as all important, treats marriage like a contract, women like sɛҳuąƖ villians, and men like almighty and yet dull money machines.

If you view human beings as people with noteworthy feelings, this book is not for you. Even if you're a militant traditionalist about patriarchy, this book will not help you if you have any hope of training boys to be responsible and moral leaders.

Quote from: Santo Subito

"The man desires a stable patriarchal family system; the woman desires a return to matriliny and de-regulation, a return to the sɛҳuąƖ anarchy of the Stone Age and the ghetto and the Indian reservation. The only possible resolution of this is to make women grow up and choose either to accept sɛҳuąƖ regulation as the quid pro quo for the benefits of patriarchy or to reject the benefits along with the regulation."

Ok, did you catch that? WOMEN are the ones who need to grow up, accept sɛҳuąƖ responsibility, and who secretly prefer wild sex instead of meaningful monogamous relationships. Women really just want wild irresponsible sex! Wow, gentlemen; we sure fooled you. After all those couple therapy sessions, self-help books, and relationship guides your girlfriends made you sit through, it turns out it was all a farce: they'd rather you sleep with them once and never call again. And best of all, the age-old idea that men want sex and women have to reign them in for relationships is really flipped: women are the wild ones who couldn't see the benefits of romance until men showed them the way.

What world do you live in? Have you not observed the sluttiness of "liberated" women at universities and urban meat markets? Such women behave this way because their fathers have either been excluded by their divorcee mothers or have been emasculated by feminist propaganda. Of course it goes without saying that young men would behave this way if they could, but women once served as the gatekeepers to sex. "Liberated," matriarchal women shower attention on the bad boys but still serve as gatekeepers in the sense that they ignore and despise responsible men who show old-fashioned respect for women. Matriarchy satiates criminal bad boys while law-abiding nice guys are left involuntarily celibate. It does not take too long before the nice guys figure out that they need to become criminals so that they too can have access to the matriarchal women.

Patriarchy is absolutely required for civilization to triumph over anarchy. BTW, why would you make such a rabidly feminist post on this traditional Catholic forum?

Bowler
For example, welfare and government run health care are paid for primarily by working, married men (only married men?) yet benefit primarily unemployed, unmarried women and their children. Yeah, I feel bad for those kids (really?) but enabling their mothers by elevated single, poor motherhood to a sacred calling creates more problems in the long run for many, many others.

Quote

Our Lord said to the men who were about to lapidate St Mary Magdalen, let him who is without sin cast the first stone... We would like to see a little more of this charity and men helping women to be what they should be.

Your reference to that passage has nothing to do with this topic, it's about self-righteous presumption of loose young women (Really, so what was Mary Magdalen?  :roll-laugh1:.  It's about falsifying the Gospels to insist women never be held to account for their actions. (Eh?  falsifying what?)  

Catholics believe that women are subject to penalties for adultery (which can even be death, according to St. Thomas), that passage does not take away the penalties that society imposes on young women for sɛҳuąƖ immorality. (I thought the 10 commandments were for both men and women!!! in equal measure!!!  Yes, men walked away, women got stoned ... Our Lord did show us what His attitude was to that.)

"Men helping women what they should be" - they do that by imposing social standards.

Catholic men should absolutely refuse feminist minded "trad" women - particularly those who think the Gospels obligate young men to marry them after they "repent" (realize they're older and want children) of giving themselves to strange men during their best years. (The Gospel = Truth according to Catholic doctrine.  Did you really mean according to the Gospel?  He should marry her for love ... where does it say that he HAS to marry her?  So these Catholic men have been going around marrying these poor fallen women who have repented throughout the centuries  :roll-laugh1:  I'm sure there will be thumbs down from the dishrag men!