Hello Noone,

I really dislike the term "feminization of men." I agree that sometimes men could take a better leadership in their families and marriages. The men I know are not like women, even the ones who are not taking a great leadership role in the family. The are still very much men, with veins full of testosterone. They grow facial hair and tend to be more aggressive in sports. They tell different jokes and the like to read different reading material. They do not in general talk like women, or socialize like women. The are taller, and more muscular. They are not feminine. They smell like men, they lose their hair like men. They do not have babies, or breastfeed, or mother for that matter. They are not growing breasts.

Maybe men are acting more asexual. I do not mean to cloud the issue, but there is a difference from being manlier, and less feminine. Since my husband stood up the to the plate to take a leadership role in our family he has not become less feminine he was never like a woman, not even a little feminine. It would be the last word anyone would ever have used to described him. Maybe he is just using his sexuality differently now.

I wish that Taken in Hand relationships were more the norm. I would rather not feel that we had to hide the way we are from everyone. I do not think that most women have this need for their husbands to take them in hand the way I do. I believe that the majority of women would like men to take more ownership in their families and marriages. I have known many women who lose respect for their men, because they are too "wishy washy." Women do not want men they can walk all over. Men can be more assertive, use their masculinity more, even if they are not physically taking their spouses in hand. I need my husband to take me in hand physically, but I do not think every woman needs this.

Take care,
Tevemer

An interesting article, Noone, thank you.

I believe that most women respect a strong man. However, what makes a man "strong" in the view of a woman will vary from individual to individual and from era to era. For some, it is the strong, masculine, classical role-model -- stubborn, honest and physically stronger. For others, it is the ability to provide a home and security, possibly financial. For others, it might be the ability to look after babies and do the ironing (thus the "new man" - ugg).

A Taken-In-Hand relationship is not for everyone, and it's probably a mistake to romanticise the past as being all sweetness and light, with men being "men", and women being feminine. In years gone by, it was assumed that a man was in charge whether the partners wanted that or not -- a situation that resulted in pain and frustration for many women, held to the kitchen and stove, at home bringing up children. Many men of the time (I would call them weak by today's standards) felt threatend by any challenge to their authority, especially by a woman, so they "kept women in their place". Whilst I accept that this may have resulted in the *appearance* of a society where the man was in charge, and was dominant, I would question whether many men were truly dominant in the sense we use that word today.

I cherish the fact that in today's society women can do pretty much as they want to -- have a career, have children, have both (tough to combine, but some do it). I cherish the fact that a woman recognises me as a strong man, and chooses to submit to me of her own *free* will. If there is no free choice in that decision (as it used to be in the Victorian era, or even the 30's, 40's and 50's), then the "choice" is meaningless. I treasure that a woman, given a free choice on what she wants from life, chooses to be with me as head of the household. For those who do not -- good luck to them, and I *truly* wish them well and hope they have a happy life.

In closing, I suggest that in the past, though people may have accepted that men and women are different, they *also* enforced an image of what was acceptable and what was not -- as bad (or worse) as the "feminisation" of men today.

I quite agree it should be about choice, though whether in the past women were all that frustrated being at home with the children I don't know, it is worth remembering that the role of housewife was not always regarded with the contempt it is now, moreover in the past most people who worked, whether men or women, did so out of economic necessity rather than because they regarded it as some sort of privilidge (this is still true of most of the people I know).

In cases where the man being in charge resulted in pain and frustration I would think it was more often because a woman was stuck with a brutal or abusive husband rather than because she was yearning to be out at work. When domination of the female by the male is sanctioned by law, as it still is in those Eastern societies Noone romanticises, it can lead to savage acts of cruetly and opression. I recently read a newspaper interview with a Dutch woman MP who comes from Somalia, she wrote of her feelings on being circumcised when she was five, worse than the pain, she said, was the knowledge that women existed only for the pleasure of men.

Patriarchy has an ugly face as well as a benign one, though you'd never know it from reading the above article. If submission is compulsory, rather than freely chosen, it can be nasty. It would be no pleasure to me to sumbit at all if I was living in a society where it was required by law, and enforceable by violence, and there are still many such societies in the world.

Incidentally, my husband fits all the different definitions of 'strong' that you give in the first paragraph!

So let's not turn around and march proudly back into the past thinking to find a paradise that never existed.

Whenever I read articles condemning traditional patterns of relationship between men and women I can't help wondering what they propose as an alternative. It is all too easy to diagnose the "illness". Yet, it is often the prescribed remedy that scares me to death. Noone's claim that traditional relationship "is a successful survival strategy that has withstood the test of time in both Eastern and Western cultures" is hard to ignore. Looking out on the current state of affairs does not give me much confidence. The modern notion of relationship leaves alot to be desired. Can anyone really say that what modern western society has produced is better? And I have one question for the Taken In Hand reader, why does my wife like it so much when I drag her by the hair back into the cave? I say, stick with the things that remain.

I realize this is an old thread, but reading through it, I found myself thinking there's a point none of the other posters raised which I think ties both the ideas of choice and biology together.

The way I see it, it's both. It's biology, but it's not everyone's biology, which is why it needs to be a choice. There are many people all over the world whose biology supports what is essentially a patriarchal model of living. It has given rise to great civilizations. This IS a time-tested survival strategy. However, it is not the ONLY one, and not everyone's biology supports it.

Just as we ofen feel stifled by the current state of modern relationship dynamics, many people would feel completely lost if forced to live this way. My entirely unresearched hunch is that an equal number of people exist whose biology is quite the opposite, while most people fall somewhere in the middle, along a continuum. Some women are far more dominant than some men, and some are not in the least maternal while some men are...and that doesn't even scratch the surface of the sexuality and gender diversity that exists in human populations which would be entirely off topic here.

I also know that, while I definitely feel more comfortable with a man in charge of things, it couldn't be just any man. Without the right man in charge, I'd be terrified to have to give up control. In a purely patriarchal society where I had no choice, I'd be doomed if I couldn't find the right guy. Not to mention that, even if I want my guy to make decisions for us a lot of the time, it doesn't mean that outside my personal life I want a bunch of other men making decisions for me without some women in the mix balancing the priorities and perspective. The advances in women's health and safety and countless other things have been dramatically improved by having women involved in business and lawmaking.

Maybe those women also want men running things at home, and maybe they don't. But the point is simply that these are separate issues: who should be running things at home needs to be decided at home, not by society.

My ideal world would be one that allowed us to move freely amongst levels of leadership and control as individual situations warranted, and according to our strengths and qualifications, not some pre-established norm.

[MODERATOR'S NOTE: the boss requests that posters avoid making sociobiological arguments. Any such posts will be deleted.]

I think the implication is that Taken In Hand is the natural way for humans to behave, and therefore is not simply one kind of way to live, but THE way to live. It is not a point of view with which I agree.

Living in a Taken in Hand relationship is nothing to be chosen at random. It either satisfies a very deep and urgend need from both, man and woman - or it will not work in the sense that the relationship will not benefit from this kind of interaction. Once it is obvious that both spouses need this kind of interaction in order to be at peace, it is not possible to change ("back" or "forth") to any other way fo living together as man an woman. The couple has to "stick" to it or they will lose their source of happiness. They "must go on" living like this way, even if they are looked at as performing a very old fashiond relationship, and even if they have to hide their special source of happiness from "friends" and relatives. (This "truth" is in no opposition to the fact, that quite some people will need many years to find out what they are really longing for and/or that they have to overcome deep concerns and dislikes, because education - from family and from society - has twisted them so much around that they are cut off from their basic needs.)

Well, the associations that go along with the word "lifestyle" are leading in quite a different direction. A lifestyle is usually chosen at random. It suits us as long as our "peer group" in society has the same lifestyle. In that moment where a new lifestyle comes up in our peer group, we will willingly settle down with this new lifestyle. The association that come up using the word lifestyle are quite similar to the ones by using the word "fashion": not very long lasting, easy and frequentliy changed, no connection at all to the deeper needs of man or woman. And, of course, those associations have nothing at all in common with the feelings/thoughts/intentions that go along with living (or wanting to live) in a Taken In Hand relationship.