"If an average man’s natural desire were to be a good husband and father, then their work would have been easy. But in early Rome, for example, bachelorhood had to be forbidden by law. The problem with the view of the social conservative is that it assumes a man’s duty to his wife and children is more natural, and therefore more easily enforced, than it actually is. They often do not see the immense work that had to go into making men good husbands or fathers, nor the great privileges through which men had to be enticed to accept these duties; still less do they see or dare to mention the great work—some would say oppression—that had to be exerted to make women faithful wives and mothers. Social liberals and feminists make the same mistake. They assume the problem is that men desire patriarchy and ownership over the wife and family, that men desire dominion over wife and children. They do not see these are, in part, methods some civilizations resorted to in order to induce men to accept the responsibilities of father and husband. Men deprived of patriarchy have no reason to accept duty or responsibility, nor the loss of freedom that goes with family life. Social liberals and feminists make the same mistake. They assume the problem is that men desire patriarchy and ownership over the wife and family, that men desire dominion over wife and children. They do not see these are, in part, methods some civilizations resorted to in order to induce men to accept the responsibilities of father and husband. Men deprived of patriarchy have no reason to accept duty or responsibility, nor the loss of freedom that goes with family life. Modern societies are faced with men who either reap the fruits of sexual liberation through easy copulation, or men who for any number of reasons won’t or can’t put up with the stress of this chase and instead become apathetic, at least so far as women are concerned. The problem, as social liberals and feminists are finding out, isn’t that men seek by nature or education to dominate wives or children, but that men simply don’t care."
January 1, 1970