ABSTRACT

Aspiring patriarchs would seem to have little to cheer about in recent decades. Equal pay statutes have destroyed the "family wage" regime that once rewarded the breadwinning father as "head of household". Feminists have long obsessed over the origin of patriarchy and its key institution, the family. Early on, they found little in the then understood human record that was encouraging. While lose their own individual patriarch, they do not lose their subordination to other patriarchal structures and practices. Indeed, they become ever more exposed to certain of the more diffused sets of patriarchal practices. Manliness brings change or restores order at moments when routine is not enough, when the plan fails, when the whole idea of rational control by modern science develops leaks. Manliness is the next-to-last resort, before resignation and prayer. Marriages to sole patriarchs make women happier, as well.