Patriarchy fucks as all (or gather doesn’t fuck at all)
Below is a brief “chat” with a man who is relatively progressive – a good friend, and used to be rather kinky back in the day.
Me: I am still wondering what you meant by “my sex life sucks, but marriage is a trade off”
The Man: i thought that was pretty clear
The Man: different people want different things out of marriage/life
The Man: I am happy with a loving wife who has a golden heart and will be the best mother imaginable.
The Man: and who has time for sex anyway?
The Man: I am mean, there were times when it bothered me, and im sure it’ll be an issue in the future again, just not now.
This man is settling for a woman he hardly fucks, because you guessed it, she “will be the best mother imaginable.”
This framework denies his wife the full humanity she is entitled to – by conceptualizing her as having “a heart of gold” and a cunt of ice. The only good thing that comes out from what’s between her legs are his babies – that she will then mother.
However, it denies the husband his full humanity as well by creating a false choice – where a “loving wife” that will bear children is a trade-off for a sex life that “sucks.”
In the conversation, appropriately, the man defines this false choice by the title – “marriage.” (my sex life sucks, but marriage is a trade off).
This is indeed “marriage.” (I am not implying that marriage cannot be reclaimed).
And marriage as the institution it has been and the institution it continues to be – sucks.
For many it does not suck as obviously as described above – I do not deny that it is possible to have mind blowing sex in a patriarchal marriage.
However, a patriarchal marriage is the relationship that has utility beyond itself (financial, reproductive. social, religious) – and it is in that soul destroying utility that the full humanity of both men and win goes to die.
I read your piece on leaving Orthodoxy, and was quite intrigued. However, this one is unnecessarily vulgar, condesending, and I believe false.
Look, I am an Orthodox Rabbi. I teach in a yeshiva for students from Chutz La’Aretz. I am sure you know the type. That is for full disclosure. But to quote the Rambam “Esma Elchak Mmin Kalam” or don’t be so biased.
I understand much of the feminist critique and egalitarian urges and am sympathetic to that approach. But your understanding of marriage is way off base.
I deeply and pasionately love my wife. Part of our whole is our family which includes many beautiful children. I don’t think that Mother/Wife/Sexual Partner are exclusive or elusive at all. Any and all human relationships include and element of give and take and accepting that people are human and not mythological-phantasmagorical constructs.
IMHO your entire piece is immature. What a shame, because you showed such incredible sensitivety in your other writing.