I have a proudly liberal male friend who married a woman some years ago who asked him to take her name. They didn’t end up going that route, but my friend seriously considered it. I thought of him when I read an article headlined, “He said ‘yes’! Why aren’t more women proposing to their boyfriends?” and when I came across this new Booking.com commercial that shows a woman proposing to a man. Both are examples of rejecting tradition in the name of sexual equality.
When it comes to love and marriage, couples typically fall into one of two groups: those who embrace tradition and those who do not. Those in the latter group believe sex roles dehumanize women and thus seek to make the sexes more alike and more interchangeable. “I take every opportunity I can to smash the patriarchy,” writes Mollie Bloudoff-Indelicato, author of the article above, “and my proposal felt like the perfect opportunity.”
Anyone who enters marriage believing the institution is oppressive will never be successfully married. If you think sex roles are a result of a patriarchy designed to be unfair to women, rather than on what they’re actually based on (the biological differences between the sexes), your relationship is doomed. A successful marriage relationship demands a deep understanding of biology and its role in the male-female dance. A strong marriage is in fact predicated on sexual differences or on how much couples let their differences shine.
Unfortunately, many couples don’t recognize this until years later when children come along. When we remove reproduction from the table, men and women do live very similar lives and thus appear “equal,” or the same. But once they become parents, sex differences become glaring.
Almost every one of my coaching clients learned this lesson the hard way. Their marriages are all mired in conflict for pretty much the same reason: they believed in sexual equality and approached their relationship accordingly.
No one told them men and women have different body parts for a reason: because they’re designed to fit like a puzzle. If you want the puzzle to fit outside the bedroom as well, you need to know how the opposite sex thinks and why they behave as they do. The mind of a man and the mind of a woman are as different as their genitals.
Polarity in a relationship is essential. It’s the engine that makes the marriage move. Masculine energy conquers and cogitates — it likes to do things. Feminine energy nurtures and verbalizes — it likes to talk and to feel. That’s why feminine energy is the receiver of masculine energy. It’s why men typically make the first move in a relationship and why the man proposes to the woman rather than the other way around: the male acts, and the female responds.
The fact that men are capable of nurturing and women are capable of conquering doesn’t change the fact that this is typically not where each sex’s natural energy flows. The more you understand and embrace this symbiosis, the more natural and conflict-free your relationship becomes. If you fight it, as the equality argument demands by insisting the sexes be interchangeable, the less successful you will be.
It is no coincidence my friend who nearly took his wife’s name is now divorced. I saw it coming a mile away.
So many couples today, particularly the younger set, pride themselves on having what they believe is an equal marriage by removing any semblance of sex roles. These folks are essentially in a fight with human nature, and we all know how that ends.
Men and women don’t need to think and behave the same in order to be equal in value; they need only work together toward the same goal using their respective strengths, temperaments, and desires. Forcing men and women into the same box in order to score political points, when they naturally want to go in different directions, will ultimately pull them apart.
It may take ten or more years to happen. But rest assured, it will happen.
Suzanne Venker (@SuzanneVenker) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is an author, columnist, and radio host. Her newest book, WOMEN WHO WIN at Love: How to Build a Relationship That Lasts was published in October 2019. Suzanne’s website is www.suzannevenker.com.
