Men - Seek Helpmates, Not Soulmates (Encore)
December 12, 2023
Thomas Hardy and T.S. Eliot married their secretaries.
Dostoevsky married his translator. I married my webmaster.
Love perfection but do not seek it in a flawed fellow human being, a woman.
"And God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a help meet for him." Genesis 2:18
Updated from Oct. 10, 2018
by Henry Makow Ph.D.
I wish I understood the following 53 years ago when I was 21.
Men, marry a helpmate, not a soulmate. I have been married to one for 22 years. It works for me. If you can find a "soulmate," I tip my hat to you.
To those who say helpmates are boring, I say "Hallelujah." I don't depend on my marriage for excitement. However, my wife is not what feminists call "a doormat." She has a masters degree and a career. She's smart, honest and has a good sense of humor.
"You contradict everything I say," I tell her.
So, here's my advice in ten points.
1. Man is governed by his thoughts. Imagine steak and he salivates. Imagine a beautiful half-naked woman in handcuffs and he gets aroused. Whoever controls his thoughts controls him. Obviously, it's best if he controls his own thoughts.
2. Society suffers from mass hypnosis. We have been inducted by Hollywood into a bogus religion of sex and relationships which has supplanted genuine religion. Hollywood's Cabalist Jewish assumptions have become our assumptions. They include:
3. Romantic love is a bogus religion- idolatry. "Love" is an ersatz of our relationship to God. We love perfection. People are not perfect. "Be ye therefore perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect." Matthew 5:48. The soulmate we seek is really God.
4. For heterosexual men, "love" usually involves a woman. But, are women lovable? Most men mistake sexual attraction for love. After survival, sex is our most powerful natural instinct. But that's all it is. Programming. We shouldn't allow nature to control us any more than Hollywood.
5. What else can she do? In the "olden days," men looked for women who could cook, clean, sew, milk the cow and look after babies. Sometimes they could play the piano. Women were facilitators. They made things happen. Nowadays, many young women think they need to be good for one thing only, and that gets old fast.
6. Men were not intended to "love" women in the sense of adore them. That invariably leads to trouble. We adore what we want and we want sex. But that gives them too much power. Let's look at women, minus sex appeal. Let's demystify them. They're human and they most want a husband's lifelong love.
Women are different from men. They tend to be more passive, emotional, subjective and concerned with down-to-earth practical considerations. On walks, my wife warns me about stepping in dog shit. I have my head in the clouds. She has her feet on the ground.
Women are primarily interested in security and perhaps are less scrupulous than men. They tend to be insecure and harbor feelings of worthlessness unless a man gives them purpose. These are fine qualities in a helpmate but not a soulmate.
Paradoxically, this kind of realism makes a man more attractive to women who naturally disdain men they can control. They want to be lovingly controlled.
8. Distance is actually better than intimacy. It's intimacy elevated to a higher level. It involves a realization that "hey, you're totally different from me" and "are pretty limited in some ways" but "so am I in other ways and we don't have to be alike." It involves respecting differences.
"Love" as commonly understood forces people to be too close. It holds men and women to an impossible standard. We're not all that lovable. I'll settle for a bond based on respect, trust, consideration, and gratitude. Marriage is better when the societal pressure "to be in love" is removed.
9. Love is based on self-sacrifice. I love the people who sacrifice for me and give me the benefit of the doubt. It makes me want to reciprocate. We need to clear away the romantic mist and recognize that the basis of real love is mutual dependence.
10. We don't recognize how oppressive and time-consuming our sexual obsession really is. We're feel-good addicts. We've been trained to search for that "special someone" who will make us "feel good." Usually, this ends in disaster because we cannot depend on others for this and call it love.
In conclusion, women used to sacrifice for husband and family and were cherished in return. They have since been reprogrammed to seek power instead of love. Their minds are at war with their hearts. They are ticking time bombs.
There is no Santa Claus. "Romantic love" is a crock. Sex is meant to be linked to procreation, or at least marriage. It was not meant to be a recreation and full-time obsession. You don't need to be sexually attracted to your partner to have great sex. Inversely, sexually attraction does not translate into great sex.
I advise men to seek women who want to serve them and their goals, who want to have their children and make a home.
Christopher writes:
Your «Seek Helpmates» hits the proverbial nail on the head. You are NOT alone in realizing these truths somewhat later, rather than early on.
I suffered horribly from «being a romantic» and chasing all the unattainable, yet seemingly perfect «Les Wilis» (spirits). One woman, to this day, regrets throwing out all my amazing, uber-romantic love poems (inspired by her); an action dictated by her confused state of mind, thanks to the bi-polar nature of over-the-top absurd romanticism directed towards newbie feminist hysteria.
Despite a plethora of perfectly good, kind-hearted, helpful, and attractive women; I seemed driven to chase down and capture «the goddess.» Unfortunately, the majority of such «goddess» creatures were racked with psychological issues and conditions, from anorexia to kleptomania, and far beyond - often creating even dangerous relations. It became obvious that society was targeting such people, through indirect as well as direct means.
Talk about giving up one's innate power?!?
It wasn't just a somewhat faulty family dynamic that inspired this - it is was plain old programming, like the kind you find on TV. The average dating period, at that time in my life, never went over six months. Sadly, few - if any of these love interests ever remained even friends.
On any and every level, it was all an absurd waste, based on pulling out the dysfunctional threads of problematic family life, followed by the enhanced narcissism and hedonism programmed into a young, open mind.
Even the clothes of the period (the 1970s and early 80s) tell the story. Young men were pushed towards decidedly feminized fashions, with blousy shirts, skirt-like, large bell-bottom pants, and platform shoes; while young women moved either from the demure towards sex vixen outfits (like super short hot pants), or took on masculinized (see: Annie Hall) garb. This was just before the «I hate you - come here-go away», blackened eyes, bitch-vixen look, of the late 80s and early 90s fashions for women. And the Wall Street shark/slime-ball look, in that same following period, for men.
Finally, after «growing up», as well as reassessing the true nature and meaning of manhood, I began to see that the «Babe-age Factor» is quite short-lived, and utility - in the end - actually DOES become the real romance. It took a long time, but, at long last, I can now appreciate and respect ALL aspects of true womanhood, including those that ARE attainable, like; loyalty, exclusivity, trust, honor, faith, patience, charm, and the simple pleasure of just «being» with an important member of that gender that is different from my own... Vive la difference!
Don't believe it? Just ask my wife of seventeen years.
rh said (December 13, 2023):
"A woman should not be loved for her sex appeal or beauty."
Henry,
If I play solitaire or chess on my I pad, I get these ads for women's clothes of all sorts. (I have tried to block them.)
If I look at the dresses in the ads, I say to myself, "Where would a woman wear such a tiny piece of clothing?" "Why?"
Then, there's the women's bathing suits and underwear ads...after a while...you can say, "When you've seen one, you've seen it all."
Men and women, over my lifetime, have done this to ourselves. We need to learn and appreciate modesty again. Men can encourage their wives, daughters and others to dress nicely and appropriately. The dresses of the Victorian age come to mind as beautiful and feminine. Would it be wise to find a healthy middle ground of then and now? I think so.
This might be an indicator of our societal mental health, that is, we are not healthy until we regain a modesty in our clothing.