This story of a cuckolded man court-ordered to continue paying child support to his adulterous ex-wife (with whom he fathered only one of her four children) got me wondering about the appropriate reactionary position on paternity testing.
On the one hand, prudence alone would seem to support it. “Just take her word for it” might have made sense when adultery was severely socially punished and divorce nearly impossible, but today, cuckoldry is cheap, easy, socially permissible, and legally facilitated. The consequences of that cuckoldry for hapless husbands can be absolutely ruinous (financially, socially, and emotionally), and paternity testing provides a fairly quick and inexpensive remedy against it. Signing a birth certificate shouldn’t be like clicking through the terms of service on iTunes, after all.
Actually, the only downside I see would be the hurt feelings of a genuinely faithful wife treated with (what she would no doubt experience as) suspicion by her husband. But I’m also not very bright, so I’m probably missing some things.
Thoughts?
The Orthosphere 
In my oppinion, the truth is always good. Hurt feelings are less relevant then the truth.
Another argument against:
In patrilineal cultures like ours, the key feature of marriage is that all children of the wife are automatically regarded as belonging to the husband. It would be difficult to maintain a patriarchal family structure with some unrelated man being ascribed paternity to some of the wife’s children. Therefore, the children should belong to the husband.
Against that:
A key feature of the natural law understanding of marriage is that biological filiation automatically comes with the social role of father as part of the inherent meaning of the biological fact. Therefore the children should belong to the wife’s lover.
Conclusion:
Neither solution is good; adultery wrecks a healthy understanding of the family whatever policy we choose. Female adultery is particularly ruinous; therefore, we must guard female chastity more carefully and abhor female infidelity more strongly.
Among the two solutions, I lean toward the first. Imagine a man loving and raising children for many years who he thinks are his own. Then suddenly, his wife presents evidence that they were in fact sired by another man. Can it be just that, in addition to the injury of his wife’s betrayal, the law should in addition strip him of his beloved children and recognize as their father another man whose only claim to this privilege is to have committed a monstrous sin?
In patrilineal cultures like ours, the key feature of marriage is that all children of the wife are automatically regarded as belonging to the husband.
That may have been the case in the past, but today children are automatically regarded as belonging to their mother. That’s why the woman “naturally” almost always gets custody.
Can it be just that, in addition to the injury of his wife’s betrayal, the law should in addition strip him of his beloved children and recognize as their father another man whose only claim to this privilege is to have committed a monstrous sin?
The law is going to strip him of his children anyway, because she will get custody when they get divorced.
I am skeptical that most men in this situation would proceed from the feeling that “I still love ‘my’ children even though they are not mine.” Most men will feel rage at this profound betrayal. What would be monstrously unjust in this situation is to impose upon this man any legal or financial obligation to children that are not his. The law should be clear that he need provide nothing in such situations. Let the wife apply to the biological father for all such support.
Female adultery?
We do not have a patrilineal culture anymore. To most people legal = moral. There used to be distinctions and different spheres of ethics (e.g. legal issues, moral issues, etc). Now it has all collided into one place (e.g. the law). It’s excessively fanatical and has paternalistic instincts, but it leads into secular liberalism (whatever road you take), into the abyss.
Many modern Western liberals mistake totalitarian methods for traditional conservatism and religious mores, and so think that America circa 2013 is a reactionary place. It isn’t.
Barack Hussein Obama is a liberal dictator through and through.
This ^^^. “To most people legal = moral.” And moral = legal.
The two overlap, sure, but neither drives the other. Smashing them together into an amalgamated, state-sanctioned-religion is highly dangerous and renders us insensible. It’s just a mess. Keep them apart — or both will fail.
Make paternity testing the default by law; then the wife need have no hurt feelings towards the husband since he’s not the one requesting the test, while suspicion is more appropriate if the wife wants to opt out for unspecified reasons.
This.
A woman should be able to opt out, but by doing so she is forever giving up any legal claim against her husband’s assets for support of the child if it later found not to be his.
It is a solution that is neat, tidy, and will reduce cuckoldry.
It’s tempting, but it could bring up privacy issues. Not for the wife, but for the husband. The authorities would have his data forever.
What data, his genotype?
Yes, they’d have the genetic material of all men who took the test, and the genetic material of their children. Which means that they’d have the genetic material of all of the population in the next generation. Sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen, to me.
“It’s tempting, but it could bring up privacy issues.”
Exactly, because the intended purpose does not dictate what ultimate purpose might arise. Another sweeping solution that would bring disasterous side-effects.
>Yes, they’d have the genetic material of all men who took the test, and the genetic material of their children. Which means that they’d have the genetic material of all of the population in the next generation. Sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen, to me.
I fail to see why it’s a nightmare. Enlighten me?
I agree with Bonald’s first position. Our tradition follows that fatherhood is equally a biological, social and legal status. To upset this balance, however imperfect it may be the eyes of some, is to capitulate to modern forces which wish to continue their destruction of the institute itself.
This is one reason why recognizing civil unions, similar to what they have in France, may be beneficial in preserving the institute and protecting it from our continuing lax morals. As I understand it, to agree to a civil union in France is to enter a contract which requires neither an oath of fidelity nor the recognition of children produced by the union. Devised to accommodate homosexuals; they are extremely popular with heterosexuals and allow for an ordering of relations that would otherwise bring disorder and scandal to the people and the Church.
When most couples increasingly practice relations that do not fit the marriage institute, and we cannot elect new people, we are only harming ourselves by allowing them to cause scandal to an ancient and sacramental institute. These are not marriages in the Christian sense and they should be encouraged to acknowledge what amounts to concubinage openly, by contract.
I agree with what Erik said. Trust, but verify.
It’s great to have the state’s support on basically anything, seeing as the state has the means of enforcing things.
Of course. As always, the government is here to help.
Heh.
The children were stripped from the betrayed husband in any case. All that he has left of the children belonging to him are his child support payments. This seems to me the worst of both of Bonald’s solutions, at least for the husband.
Agree.
Bonald doesn’t seem to understand that the whole marriage with *other men’s children* inside but pretending (or hiding) that it’s somewhat his is far worse than shacking up with a stupid poor single mother and becoming a (temporary) step-parent and having 1 bastard more kid with her.
There you know it’s somebody else’s child, you know she’s gaming the system for welfare, benefits and other stuff and well you’re probably okay with that (and want to game the system with her) or at least don’t mind it.
Law is too crude an instrument to for cases like this. If the cuckoo egg is the first and only child, it would be best if the mother’s husband knew. If all or most of the children in the family were cuckoo eggs, it would be best if the man who’s paying for the nest knew. But if there were one cuckoo egg in a nest of legitimate offspring, it would be best if he were left in the dark. We all have a duty to seek the truth, but this doesn’t always trump every other duty. If fulfilling my duty to my children required me to live in ignorance of the fact I was raising another man’s child, I have a duty to live in ignorance of that fact. Indeed, anyone who enlightened me–and thereby damaged, and possibly destroyed my family–would have prevented me from fulfilling my duty.
A related question would be: Would you inform a friend of his wife’s (her husband’s) infidelity? Personally, I would first try to shame the wife (husband) into breaking it off, and if she (he) did, I’d let matters be. There’s no need to burn down the house in order to exterminate the rats.
The house is built on a lie. What house? You say “possibly destroyed my family” like your (hypothetical) whore wife and her bastard spawn actually constitute a bona fide family unit. Your duty? You have fulfilled your duty. Your wife was delinquent. SHE destroyed your family.
There is no family outside of paternal certainty.*
Cuckoldry is to men what rape is to women. Maybe even worse. 18 years of betrayal (maybe) only finding out about it long after the fact vs. 5 minutes of sheer terror and brutality. They should both make you shudder. They’re horrible.
Don’t fall into the feminine imperative.
*adoption is different because it isn’t rooted in betrayal.
Wow, cockoldry worse than rape? You need to fund a sense of self before you hurt someone.
I’m against it. If there is no trust in a marriage, will the results of this test really matter either way? Remember Kristor’s post from a little while back: what is the right thing to do right now, at the present moment. I have trouble imagining that absolute certainty of cuckoldry is much help answering that question. If you can’t trust your wife, you should probably be doing everything you can to keep her from the children already.
Exposing cuckoldry or adultery would certainly damage, and quite possibly destroy, a family. It would very likely harm the man’s actual children, and possibly destroy of his relationship with them. If I were watching my own children withering after the break-up of my family, I would not be consoled by the thought that it was not my fault. I’m not trying to belittle the very grave injustice of cuckoldry, but I do believe the world would be a much worse place if every instance of cuckoldry were exposed. Perhaps a house cannot be build on a lie, but I’d guess that every house is held together by secrets and judicious discretion.
If every instance of cuckoldry were exposed, future cuckoldry would be next to non-existent. Women are people. People respond to incentives. If the incentive is to not to screw around behind your husband’s back, then it will be happening less – in this case, I expect it would drop to stastistically marginal levels.
Wow, cockoldry worse than rape?
I agree that it is.
Exposing cuckoldry or adultery would certainly damage, and quite possibly destroy, a family.
NO. The cuckoldry or adultery ALREADY damaged or destroyed the family.
You say “possibly destroyed my family” like your (hypothetical) whore wife and her bastard spawn actually constitute a bona fide family unit.
It is not the traditional position to worship DNA. I’ve seen similar arguments raised against adoption and step-parenting, or to promote child-support for illegitimate children, and I find it lacking.
The marriage defines the family. That is the reactionary position.
It is not the traditional position to worship DNA.
It is not the traditional position to worship a fake family unit.
It is not a fake family. You are the one claiming that adultery is cause for annulment.
“You need to fund a sense of self before you hurt someone.”
You need to read closely before you run your mouth and post something facile and idiotic. Apparently I have to aim really low to get a hit, so here goes. This is my position.
Cuckoldry is equivalent to rape. 5 minutes of brutality and violation is awful and deplorable and rapists aren’t human in my book. And quite similarly, duping your husband into investing in and raising another man’s progeny is the worst kind of betrayal. And we remember which circle of hell traitors occupy, yes?
“Worshiping DNA” doesn’t pass the smell test. But we’re in part physical beings who transmit our identity from generation to generation via egg and sperm. Hijacking this good and proper order for an 11 minute thrill is the worst kind of betrayal. Marriage is a sacrament, yes? This is like trampling the Eucharist because it’s “just a cracker.”
And Vanessa, adoption is different because there’s no deception. You women should really cultivate submission regarding this issue. You’ll make excuses for everything otherwise.
It’s not my intent to throw a tantrum, but the Church’s anemic and pusillanimous stance on female whoring and betrayal is starting to wear on me. Couple that with its near-universal policy of imploring men to be leaders by cutting them off at the knees in front of their families (eg. Mark Driscoll’s “HOW DARE YOU”) has me seriously considering dropping Christianity entirely for the Old Ways – Norse paganism. Because these days, the choice seems to be alimony or Valhalla.
I’m 21 years old, and I can’t conceive of a time when starting a family was more fraught with peril. Future looks grim, man.
>Would you inform a friend of his wife’s (her husband’s) infidelity?
Yes.
If she did it once, was filled with remorse, and had confessed before God, and exposure would break up a family with children? Not me. There’s more at stake in such a case than the honor of the man.
In what circumstance would a Christian wife, having committed adultery and ‘confessed before God’, not have a duty to confess to her husband? Is there any other actual, physical sin we can commit and yet not have to seek forgiveness from the victim for if possible?
Whether this breaks up the family would be my friend’s choice and decision. He would deserve to know.
I agree there’s more at stake than a man’s honor – his progeny.
I agree there’s more at stake than a man’s honor – his progeny.
But the whole problem is that the cuckoo is NOT his progeny.
If she did it once
Given that birth control is readily available, cheap, and effective, bearing another man’s child is NOT something she can do as an easy, spur-of-the-moment accident. She also had to decide to carry the child to term. There is simply no way to excuse such a betrayal as “she did it once”.
exposure would break up a family with children
She ALREADY broke up the family when she cheated on you and bore the other man’s child. She may be remorseful but she should still have to accept the consequences of her choice.
She also had to decide to carry the child to term.
Are you proposing that she should have an abortion in order to protect her husband’s pocketbook?
Tarl@
Your view of family unity is more transcendental or spiritual than mine. I say the family is not “broken up” until Dad moves permanently into the spare bedroom, or out of the house. It is this manifest disruption that damages the children–including the biological children.
I’m not endorsing routine or recurrent deception, and I try to be very honest and forthcoming with my own wife, but social life requires secrets, fictions, and dissimulations. Brutal honesty is just that–brutal. Civilized people use it as they use violence–only when necessary.
Samstarrett@ and angrydrake@
As we all know, adultery is perhaps the hardest sin to forgive, and many people are simply incapable of doing so. I’m not sure that I would be. That’s why I’m not sure that anyone actually “decides” to forgive infidelity. I know men who would be simply and permanently destroyed by a credible report of their wife’s infidelity. They might kill themselves, or her, or sink into alcoholic depression, and they wouldn’t have decided to do any of these things.
Allegations and proof of adultery are dynamite. I say that we handle them with extreme caution. I’m not white-knightling the adulteress. In the absence of proper contrition and amendment of her ways, she can (will) go to Hell. I’m not saying we should turn a blind eye to ongoing infidelity. But if the dog is really sleeping, meaning the sin has ended, I say let it lie.
The transcendental view is better. Yours is lacking, and untrue. The family is broken up/attack long before a physical affair; an emotional affair has a tangible effect on each family member. Parents sticking together until the kids turn 18 does not make a healthy environment for kids.
Parents sticking together until the kids turn 18 does not make a healthy environment for kids.
As opposed to splitting up? That’s been definitively disproven, despite the feminist ranting that “if mamma isn’t happy, nobody’s happy”. The most important thing for children is familial stability.
Thanks, Vanessa. I think the research shows that, unless the parents are stalking each other round the kitchen table clutching carving knives, it’s best for the children if Mom and Dad are at home together. Sticking together for the children is noble. We should honor and pity the folks who do it.
The research is even more definitive than that, JMSmith. IIRC, a father has to be beating the mother *and* the children nightly for the level of abuse in the marriage to outweigh the benefits of being children raised in a marriage. The bar is incredibly high to top for those who would (nobody here, but those who’ve set up our insane incentive systems) argue that divorce and single motherhood are neutral or only a little bad for children compared to being raised by parents who stay in a bad marriage ‘for the children’. It’s basically forbidden and also lost/memoryholed knowledge at this point.
>But the whole problem is that the cuckoo is NOT his progeny.
Settle down. I agree – I just skipped a couple of steps in the reasoning. If I had discovered that a friend’s wife was unfaithful, and had proof that one of ‘his’ kids wasn’t, I would confront him with it. Why? Because I wish my friend well, and I would have very little indication that the rest of his children (if any) are actually his. So. In interests of him having progeny at all, possibly by a more faithful woman this time, I would tell him.
>meaning the sin has ended, I say let it lie
As above, it is not logical to conclude that the sin has, in fact, ended. It is ongoing with probable recurrence.
Sadly, the churches attitude towards everything including misbehaving woman has driven me away and I have become more pagan (Norse ) in my morality/ thinking. The modern church is literary a driving force of national, and cultural destruction
What I see when this topic is discussed is an utter lack of concern for truth and justice on the side of the anti paternity test crowd. The Almighty is the God of Truth and Justice as well as compassion. I get woman not wanting the truth to be known and justice be done. It is not in their nature. I can only assume men putting compassion ahead of truth and justice have lost their masculinity.
I would still love them. Any one of them or all of them. There’s attachments and feelings that are formed over time.
For most of history, paternity testing did not exist. During that time, female chastity was prized and jealously guarded, and with good reason. However, we do not live in that time. Female chastity is a rarity even among large segments of those considered by mainstream culture to be hyper-conservative religious freaks, and paternity testing exists. Enough men have been betrayed by their wives that it seems to me naïve to assign a universal duty of trust in those wives to them. So there’s my objection to that part of the argument against paternity testing.
Another argument raised is Bonald’s first claim, that the husband ought automatically to be treated as the children’s legal father. The problem I see with that is that, if combined with a ban on paternity testing, it seems to divorce biological fatherhood very nearly completely from the responsibilities and rights of the father, as if biological fatherhood had no meaning, which I doubt any of us believe.
Finally, the consequentialist argument that it would damage or destroy families. This is certainly true as far as it goes, though I think the claim that there is no family in the first place is worthy of consideration. However, it seems to me that a certain amount of painful correction may be necessary. I’m sceptical of this seeming attempt to eliminate the consequences of sin without eliminating sin itself. ‘Twould seem we are but creating bad incentives that way.
Thank you samstarrett. Finally someone nailed it down to the very core of the issue. If the house is built on lies, its bases are weak and doomed to fall in the first storm.
J.M., I’ve edited out some of your gratuitous insults. Please observe our commenting policy.
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I would have to give the matter much further thought before coming down firmly on one side or another but I can see an entirely different line of objection to this than has been raised. The sexual revolution that Western countries have undergone in the post-WWII era – including the abandoning of sexual morals in the sexual liberation movement and the revolution against traditional and natural sexual identity of which feminism is only a part – was made possible by the intrusion of modern science and technology into the realm of sex and modern science and technology have been there facilitating each further step in the revolution (the abortion debate, in vitro fertilization/stem cell debates would be non-existent apart from modern technology). For this reason, the conservative and especially the reactionary should be cautious at the very least about embracing something like paternity testing that was born out of the very same technological revolution.
I think that the manosphere is trying to fight fire with fire, or at least, use technology for their own aims (right-liberalism) rather than left-liberalism.
Paternity testing after the child’s birth is one way for them to do so. Abortion is used to hide deception, betrayal, indiscretions (e.g. having sex while abroad with foreigners, being promiscuous, etc.) and adultery, by blaming the unborn child from that specific instance and getting rid of him, rather than pin the blame as whole (e.g. the perpetrators themselves and the child together), and that’s another rationale for abortion in modern sexual morality:
Who pays for cuckoldry? The woman? No. What about the man? No, if he is equal to the woman. The unborn baby dies because of them then. So in a twisted way, her “virtue” is preserved and the man is off the hook. But it’s all a façade, eating them up inside.
Everything in the USA that concerns sex and technology is almost always a result of secularized New England Puritan mores (e.g. a certain form of class), plus Anglo Victorian types and other stuff. It’s secular Anglo Protestant Christianity.
It’s about preserving appearance, while inside is rotten and getting worse. No wonder the culture spawns monstrosities. Abortion used to be restricted for only exceptional and true reasons (e.g. certain deformities, certain mutations, etc.).
Now it’s all about keeping the little Princess on her high horse and her White Knights (the men who support abortion for such occasions) are glad for it.
At least the single mothers among African American women who are on welfare are “keeping it real”. You can plainly see the rotting (e.g. Matriarchal grass hut imperatives, savagery), despite various protestations that ghetto women are a minority of AA (how so? With 70% of AA women being single moms?). Ironically, these AA women use abortion the most thanks to listening to liberal UMC and UC white women. They still end up as single mothers (just with 1-3 kids instead of 8-10).
70% of black babies are born out of wedlock. That is not the same as 70% of black women having babies out of wedlock. The 95%+ rates of the poor urban black population push the total up. A significant minority of black women never have children at all.
The problem with “fighting fire with fire” is that you are as likely to burn yourself as your opponent. I think that we need to be careful here, not to look at this matter only from the angle of male versus female. It would help, perhaps, to keep in mind that this way of seeing the relationship between the sexes primarily in terms of a power struggle is itself a product of the modern modes of thought we oppose.
With regards to paternity testing, we should consider the question of whether normalizing paternity testing and especially making it mandatory will lead us further in the direction of a “Brave New World” type scenario, in which traditional social groups are irelevant and sex is divorced from reproduction, with the former being solely a matter of “fun” and hence completely liberated, while the latter is strictly administered by an all-powerful state.
it seems to divorce biological fatherhood very nearly completely from the responsibilities and rights of the father, as if biological fatherhood had no meaning, which I doubt any of us believe.
Good grief. Are we seriously fretting about the paternity rights of the interloper? Why don’t we just leave him alone with the man he wronged carrying a baseball bat, like in the good ole days?
If he wants to raise children, then he should marry the mother first. Promoting that situation should be our first priority. Second priority: end child support. It’s a completely corrupt system and very untraditional.
Recommending mandatory paternity testing is to put a band-aid on a gushing wound. The whole setup we currently have doesn’t make any sense.
Recommending mandatory paternity testing is to put a band-aid on a gushing wound. The whole setup we currently have doesn’t make any sense.
Yes, but how will we change the system? It’s too late by now but a couple of things can be done. We have to work outside of the system first (e.g. doing illegal stuff? Who knows) and build there fortresses and alternatives, and do small/moderate but effective things into the corrupted system.
We don’t have to change the system. It is going bankrupt already because things that cannot go on forever must eventually stop.
And if you claim that this man is not the children’s father, then that means that all married men are not their children’s father unless scientifically proven to be so. That would be the final straw to break the back of marriage.
The problems in this case that call for reform are different ones:
1) They are divorced. He’s now probably separated from his children (including his biological one) and no longer has any major influence over their lives despite raising them from infancy. If you note from the article, he knew that she had cheated, but didn’t demand a paternity test until after the divorce — when he was expected to pay for services that were no longer being rendered.
2) She is receiving child support.
My concern was more for the responsibilities imposed on the husband despite his nonpaternity of the child than for the supposed “rights of the interloper.”
>Recommending mandatory paternity testing is to put a band-aid on a gushing wound.
When all you have is a band-aid…
I agree that the whole system needs reform. But the cat’s really out of the bag. The technology exists. There is a market for it (because of the rotten system). Same with abortion, contraceptives, etc. We have to figure out how to deal with those things, rather than bullheadedly trying to restore a former situation (what’s stopping the former situation from becoming the current situation again, again?).
Sorry if I sound so testy.
The question is hard because the way society is is so far from the way a reactionary thinks it should be. In a way, it’s hard to know what Proph is even asking. We could ask: “Given the goals our current society has for the thing it calls ‘marriage,’ would (universal, compulsory) paternity testing be a good or bad idea?” We could ask “Imagine we were living in a re-civilized America, would (universal, compulsory) paternity testing be a good or bad idea?” I don’t think he’s asking either of those things, though. Rather, he is asking something like “Given the society we have and given our goals for a future society, would paternity testing be a good or bad idea?”
That is a hard question. I don’t see how paternity testing is intrinsically evil, so we end up with the question being prudential. Does paternity testing raise or lower the probability of restoration? In the mean time, does it contribute to or detract from justice? I don’t know the answer to either question.
The question of paternity testing in a restored society seems easier to me. It would be a bad thing since it would tempt husbands to fail to fulfill their obligations and would not plausibly bring about a greater good.
When we embrace the obligation of wives to submit, we embrace it in a nearly unconditional way. “He’s a bad husband” does not get her out of it. “He’s a bad Christian” does not get her out of it. We answer these objections by saying “Ladies, you better pick a good husband” or “Convert him by your excellent witness of Christian obedience.”
Why is this different? Why does the husband’s obligation to support his wife and children disappear when it is revealed that she is a crappy wife? Why does the husband’s obligation to love his wife as Christ loves the Church disappear when it is revealed that his wife is a sinner?
“[W]e end up with the question being prudential.”
Yes. Not illegal. Not mandatory. A matter of conscience and morality.
Sometimes, it is better to not know (or forget) harsh realities. Sometimes, it is better to remove poisonous doubt. If I have a nagging suspicion that a lie has been perpetrated, then I should be allowed to investigate. I should also be allowed to let it alone.
Well put, Bill. Excellent summary.
I’m generally wary of paternity testing, as it’s been used to promote court-enforced child support for baby mamas, which is just encouraging women to sleep around and cheat, run the test, and then send the lucky winner a bill in the mail. I’ve seen this happen repeatedly in my real life and it’s a nasty business.
The problem we’re having is that the paternity-through-marriage (reactionary) position is conflicting with the paternity-through-test (modernist) position, and one will have to go. They don’t make any sense in combination, and combined with gay and plural marriage, it’s turning into a mad house out there.
I think paternity testing should not be state enforced and legal. Maybe something you can buy off from the black (e.g. illegal) market, from some corners, if you think that your children may not be yours.
If you are certain of your paternity, don’t even bother.
And paternity testing should replace unrestricted abortion when it comes to any deceptions or doubts of fidelity in marriage. Instead of hiding the consequence, open it up. Unrestricted abortion is being completely misused as a huge badge keeping social liberalism together. It has to go.
Abortion has to go because it is murder.
Wow. So “reactionaries” are calling a unit composed of a man, a cheating whore and bastards a “family”, and are worried that paternity testing may “destroy the family” by allowing the wronged party not to spend his life in slavery by providing to children sired by another.
I can’t think of a better illustration of how far civilization has sunk. With reactionaries like these, we don’t need the liberals…
It’s not reactionaries. It’s mostly chivalry, white knighting and Anglo Puritan/Victorian/New England mores who support this.
The white liberal solution is to abort all children not from the husband, to hide the previous “virtue” of his whore wife and to be off the hook, while the inside keeps getting worse. And to abort Black and Hispanics babies because most of them don’t have the racial makeup, intelligence and features to handle full-blown social liberalism (unlike most white liberals). Did you know that most babies aborted are Black/Hispanic? You wouldn’t have known this if you listened to rich liberal white chicks always going on about their “rights and their body, their choice”.
I’m thinking alongside the lines of “bringing them to light” and making sure that the husband knows all about this. He can then divorce her if he wants after birth. Or she can end up a single mother and self-destruct on her own.
James B. Oakes: no kidding. What a mess. The “Ortho”sphere is sloshing around a lot more sloppily than I could have imagined. Now I need to recalibrate, baseline is 0. You can’t take ANYTHING for granted these days.
I don’t think we are talking about “cheating whores,” or at least not in all cases. Yes, some men have the misfortune to find themselves married to Gomer. All men have the somewhat smaller misfortune to find themselves married to to ordinary, fallen daughter’s of Eve. It sucks if her particular weakness is lust, but apart from the injury to her husband’s ego, lust is not intrinsically worse than avarice, wrath, sloth, gluttony, etc. A wife who spends all of your money on vain baubles, or who insists on eating out because she is too lazy to cook, also imposes costs because of her sin. I think the word “slavery” is hyperbolic, but the truth is that a marriage always entails paying at least part of the price of the sins of one’s spouse.
Whether or not that is true in the Account of Heaven (I happen to believe it is), it is certainly not true that all grave sins have equal temporal effects. Here lust, and specifically female lust, has consequences far more immediate and dramatic. Patriarchy, by which I mean civilization itself, developed almost entirely as an cuckoldry minimization algorithm. Any policy, which in itself is not evil, having the effect of reducing cuckoldry is therefore sane and reasonable.
I agree. The psychological pain of infidelity is very great, and this is why it is such a fertile generator of more sin–wrath, pride, and gluttony standing out. But the acute psychological pain occasioned by this sin makes us exaggerate its enormity, whereas something like sloth we find mildly funny. I joke with my wife about her lazy friends, some of whom are very lazy indeed, but we would never joke about a lusty friend. That would be a scandal.
Co-op,
I thoroughly reject the idea that you can divorce your spouse for any reason at all. Spouses aren’t disposable.
You are behaving as if you think all of life should have a “get out of suffering free” card. As if ever personal injury should result in rearranging society and trampling on everyone around you, regardless of the common good.
This entire thread is plagued by modernism, which is very disheartening.
J.B.O, alcestis, Continental Op@
As I understand it, a reactionary is a person who rejects the metaphysical ground of progressivism, namely the belief that men and women are essentially good, and only accidentally evil because of unfortunate circumstances. It’s defining trait is pessimism about human nature, and it therefore calls for social institutions that constrain the evil tendencies in men and women. These institutions always involve hierarchy and authority, and they include the government of the vicious by the virtuous, the government of children by adults, the government of women by men (in marriage), and the government of men by sacred and secular rulers. What I read here are men who like reaction up to the level of patriarchy, but who are not themselves under any authority. What is there to check your evil tendencies?
There are plenty of women out there caring for their husband’s illegitimate progeny, including some that I know personally, so sometimes life throws you lemons and you have to put on your big kid undies.
Liberals, for the record, are all for paternity testing because they know that it will help them completely destroy civilization. If anything, the .gov will soon start DNA testing kids in maternal wards, as they’re so eager for it. All your DNA are belong to us.
They don’t seem to be playing to script in France.
Well, the old guard hasn’t yet given up even when their arguments make them sound demented. Most modern feminism is egalitarian, and they’re all about proving biological links and sharing custody and whatnot. Most liberals (actually, socialists, but Americans call them “liberals”) just want to collect DNA for human-improvement efforts and general spying activities. If they can use this excuse to map the entire population, they’ll jump at the chance. Right now they have to wait for the men to be arrested.
Now, the really hard-core feminists are against child support altogether, as they say it encourages women to be homemakers after divorce. They’ve been attacking alimony and child support in Germany, for that reason.
Why do you hate eugenics?
>There are plenty of women out there caring for their husband’s illegitimate progeny (…)
And were they under the mistaken impression that these children were, in fact, theirs?
No, the point is that life is hard. Lots of us have to deal with horrors and tragedies and illness and death. They aren’t excuses to break our sacred vows. That is precisely the attitude that gets us into this situation to begin with.
We don’t fight sin with sin. Paternity testing isn’t sinful, but divorce is, and other than divorce, what is the point of paternity testing?
The point is to bring truth to the light. The truth about adulterous behavior.
“Paternity testing isn’t sinful, but divorce is, and other than divorce, what is the point of paternity testing?”
Well maybe something like THE TRUTH?
I just realized that Mr. James is accusing reactionaries of not being modern and liberal enough. LOL
Exactly. There are multiple definitions of reactionary aboot on the intertubes. They can be indexed by what year the putative reactionaries think things were “about right.” I think the two most popular years are 1950 and 1850. I incline towards 1350.
1350… like I said, “The good ole days.” LOL We’ve been mostly regressing since then.
The good question is when did this whole alimony and default mother custody unravel? In 19th century Britain?
Doesn’t this kind of turn around the sex dynamics? Instead of a man and a woman being a collaborative unit, with the woman serving the man, the man listening to the woman, and both serving the triune God, instead the man serves the woman?
I don’t remember early ancient Rome (late Rome sure but it was decaying), early ancient Greece, the early Church, or other healthy cultures/people, preaching or practicing these things.
Feminism is nothing new. It always shows up when a society is decaying and shouts “progress!”. Yes, we are progressing off a cliff. I’m estimating that 1-10% of the population is capable of handling and succeeding in social liberalism. The rest go to hell little by little.
In Britain, divorce was non-existent except for a few aristocrats before 1857. It was exceedingly difficult and there was great social pressure against it from then until WWII, though with gradual easing. Then, in the 60s, divorce became easy. This basic pattern was pretty general in the Anglosphere.
“Default mother custody” is irrelevant if nobody’s getting divorced. The history of divorce as a significant social phenomenon starts in the 60s.
Divorce as a significant social phenomenon didn’t start in the 60s. It just went to hell in the 60s. I’m thinking the seeds were sown much sooner (late 19th century?). It’s always this way when it comes to decay, chaos and immorality. The effects aren’t immediate and visible because there’s significant social capital stopping or mitigating the damage had there been no safety net (social net?). I’m thinking the industrial revolution (which pushed fathers outside of the home and divorced labour from household), plus the twisted/co-existent modern/post-modern Enlightened Barbarian ideology, are big things still guiding the world of the modern Western world in the present era.
*ahem* Modern “progressives” are still entertaining something out of the 17th century mixed in with Matriarchal grass hut imperatives. So there goes the whole “I hate and disregard the past, and tradition…”
But it’s their tradition so how on earth is it not progressive?
Before we had small mom and pop businesses (labour and household united), home births, home/local schooling, tight-knitted community and supporting society as a whole. Both the macro and the micro were important. Now it’s either/or.
Here is a link to historical divorce statistics for England and Wales. They go back to 1930 and are consistent with what I said. By digging around at that site, you can find numbers of marriages and divorces back to 1862. In the 1860s, there were about 180K marriages per year and 100 divorces per year—that’s a ratio of 0.05%. In the 1920s, there were about 2500 divorces per year and 300K marriages—a rate of around 0.1%. In recent years, it has been around 45%. Divorce was not an important phenomenon before the 60s.
The US was more liberal: surprise. Here is a link to divorce statistics for the US 1867-1967. The most recent years’ data are here. The ratio of marriages to divorces in the late 19th C in the US was about 1/30 (3%). It rose to 25% by 1960 and is at 45% today, peaking above 50%, as I recall, in the 80s.
In the US, we always have to break things down by race. Until recently, only whites and blacks were present in large enough numbers to be significant, so I expect that in the figures for 1960, the divorce rate would be higher among blacks than whites, as blacks normally suffer from higher levels of social dysfunction than whites.
For thousands of years, the law presumed that a married woman’s children were the husband’s, for the simple reasons that
(a) it was USUALLY true, and
(b) if it wasn’t, there was rarely a way to prove it.
Hence it made good sense, under law, to maintain this assumption, although everyone knew it wasn’t quite always correct.
And so, down through the ages, HORRIBLE injustices were visited upon men, undetectably and without recourse. However, today, we have new technology that can remedy this ancient injustice. Why on earth should we NOT use it?
DNA testing can solve murders and rapes that would have gone unsolved in the past — and to exonerate the wrongly accused. Nobody seems to have a problem using the advanced technology in the pursuit of more accurate justice in these contexts. Why this sudden moral blindness when it comes to cuckoldry? Applying Occam’s razor, I can easily determine the most probable reason for a woman opposing this. And it’s deeply disturbing that so many otherwise moral seeming women are on the wrong side..
As I see it, if a man has no right to use DNA to determine if the children he is supporting, are actually his, then a woman has no right to use DNA to catch the man who raped her. I consider these 2 situations to be morally equivalent. If men can’t use technology to pursue justice, then women don’t have the right to, either. Fair is fair.
I recommend to all single guys, that if you are dating a woman, find out her views on this. And if she’s on the wrong side, immediately and irreversibly dump her.
Then you’d end up with a bunch of moral relativists who are just out for themselves. Excellent advice. Like attracts like, as always.
I consider these 2 situations to be morally equivalent.
Unfortunately, you are competing with the Church for moral authority and losing.
Did someone post this on Heartiste to draw in all of the masculinist riff-raff? It’s just one whining man after another declaring that Life isn’t fair!
LOL They sound like a bunch of feminists, wanting to right the wrongs that have been done to their sisters through the ages. Everyone who wants to complain about their pet social injustice should take a number and form a line here.
LOL They sound like a bunch of feminists, wanting to right the wrongs that have been done to their sisters through the ages
No, that’s the silliness of identity politics — beating the dead horse of past oppressions for present day political gain.
But I’m talking about an ancient injustice that is still happening NOW. The fact that it’s ongoing, totally changes things.
My point of referencing the past, was to say that — other crimes, which also have been with us down “through the ages”, can now be solved more efficiently and accurately with advanced technology… and NOBODY objects to this. So why should the CRIME of cuckoldry be treated differently?
But I’m talking about an ancient injustice that is still happening NOW.
They are all still happening now. Cuckolded husbands, beaten wives, molested children, rape, slavery, crooked ministers, usury… nothing ever changes. Sin is everywhere and constant, until the Second Coming. There is no societal progression.
Also, your crime analogy is not apt. Marriage isn’t a prison that you are forced into and can be released from.
Actually, raising another man’s child became a “horrible” injustice only very recently. Throughout almost all of human history, children were an asset, not a liability. A extra son was an extra farmhand, an extra daughter was an extra kitchen maid. You still had the problem of the wife’s infidelity, but there was no question of asset stripping. The injustice became a horrible injustice when the modern economy made children a very great economic liability. They are only emotional assets, and the emotional value of a cuckoo egg might be very low (or negative).
Actually, if people would jump on board the distributist possibilities the postmodern economy offers, children would be right back to being an asset again. One can hope.
@jsMITH “Actually, raising another man’s child became a “horrible” injustice only very recently.”
Obviously you know as much of human history and sexual dynamics in civilized societies as I know from astrophysics (nothing, nada, nichts, zero) if you really think so. If that were the case, the importance of virginity WOULDN’T have been stressed the way it was, whether in European, Middleeastern and Asian cultures. And that extra-hands normally were welcomed only if they were from the same KIN AND BLOOD (unless you talk about about brothers or sisters in law, adoption or similar arrangements). Normally bastards were outcasts from society, even though they were blameless for their situation (no one chooses one’s parents) they were punished and set as an example to prevent more women from doing that to their progeny (even though such punishment was an injustice it was thought a lesser injustice in order ensure a greater good; namely the guarantee most husbands were the fathers of their children). There is a reason why bastard is almost a universal insult in civilized societies.
@Vanessa. I thought you would be here in good faith, but that´s not the case. Don’t compare men’s grievances and historical injustices, real injustices against the whinings of women. Battered women? A rarity in the Christian world. Cuckolded men? Unfortunately relatively high. Nothing built on lies has the approval and good will of the Lord. You, a supposed christian should know better, but it proves that you calling yourself a christian is a mockery to the very word.
J.M.@
I did not say that men in the past would not mind if they were cuckolds, or whether their brides were virgins. Obviously they did, since cuckolds were objects of ridicule and virgins were highly valued. I said it would not have been a horrible injustice, insofar as he was not being deceptively deprived of his assets. The commenter to whom I was responding objected to the cost of raising another man’s child unawares. I don’t think cost is a negligible point in the modern world, where children are a financial liability. My comment simply points out–correctly–that children have historically been a financial asset. The agrarian cuckold was still the victim of injustice, but the injustice was obviously less than that suffered by the modern cuckold, who must pay for braces and college.
Historically the shame of a cuckold was not primarily based on the fact that he had been duped into raising another man’s son. It was based on the fact that he had, presumably, failed to sexually satisfy his wife, and so caused her to take a lover. It would have been supposed that he was impotent, homosexual, undersexed, or sexually inept, and this was the primary reason he was a ridiculous figure. Among the the gentry, who were concerned with families that extended over generations (that’s why they were called gentry), there was some concern with pure bloodlines and legitimate descent, but most people didn’t even have last names until the late middle ages.
If you were to look at the composition of peasant households in medieval and early modern Europe, you would find that the simple nuclear family was pretty much limited to the British Isles, and even there most households would include non-natural children. Admittedly, the non-naturalness of these children was known to the father, and that is not unimportant, but in an age of high adult mortality there were a lot of orphans to look after. Very few men were responsible for feeding only their own natural children.
You see, I do actually know something about social history and demography. I’m perfectly happy to read your opinions on this question, but do not think that pompous, blustering insults are worthy of a Christian man. This includes your entirely unwarranted libel against Vanessa’s faith. Check the log in your own eye J.M.
@JSmith
Sorry if I came as pompous and arrogant, but I just came in after reading a lot of comments seemingly in favor of keeping everything quiet and letting the sucker (aka husbands) pay the bills and be fooled by an adulterous wife. The arguments in favor of continuing a lie were so infuriating (at least to me). Specially coming from men who should know better (women normally “forget” their moral compass when there comes an issue that affects them, so sympathy for this issue or understanding is not to be found in most of them, unless they have sons in similar situations).
However I disagree with your stance, in the fact that it was not so terrible. You just stated the reasons why it was in certain aspects it was even worse than now (universal ridicule, loss of good standing amongst his peers, the shadow of ilegitimacy for the rest of his progeny, not only in his eyes but in the eyes of the rest of the community…).
I am not informed about the situation of the Brittish Isles, mostly of the history of Continental Europe and Latin America. However I had already stated how most of the children that were raised in families, where they had no biological bonds to the father, was because they were adopted, or were part of his community (god-father) or simply sons and daughters of relatives who had died in wars from famine or plague.
Lastly Vanessa strikes as an apostate, most likely a Protestant or phony Catholic hence my response to her. She and most of the commenters share the Protestant fixation with keeping the rot under wraps, no matter how disgusting and horrible it is. By the way, I would encourage you to visit wwwdotmostholyfamilymonasterydotcom with an open mind. The Truth Shall set you free”.
P.S. I know that should I die in this moment I would head to hell, but that doesn´t thwart me from seeing right from wrong.
That’s O.K. If I knew a man who had been badly misused by an adulterous wife, I would also be angered by hypothetical opinions that seemed to excuse her.
Battered women? A rarity in the Christian world. Cuckolded men? Unfortunately relatively high.
Cuckolded men are more like 2% than “relatively high.” I don’t know what percentage of women are battered, but it can’t be much lower than this, since there are only two percentage points on your way to zero from 2.
I see that I have been called an apostate. This thread has become curiouser and curiouser, and people are starting to run out of of sensible arguments.
A righteous wife would proactively VOLUNTEER for paternity testing of her children.
She’d GLADLY prove her love and fidelity by giving the gift of certainty to her husband.
Men never really lose the habit of saying “if you loved me, you would do it”, do they? Gosh, how many times have I heard it, and how unloving was the man for uttering it?
Men never really lose the habit of saying “if you loved me, you would do it”,
That’s a seduction line used by would-be fornicators. I never uttered it, not even once, in that or any other context. No habit to “lose”.
And in case you missed it, that post said, “A righteous wife would proactively VOLUNTEER….”
I wouldn’t volunteer and I’d be absolutely horrified if my husband ever demanded it. I also don’t read his emails and follow him around town in a dark car.
Then again, I also refused lots of other “mandatory/standard” testing when I was pregnant. I’m against that sort of thing, in general. Sometimes it’s better to simply not know.
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And the whole idea that we are supposedly the worldview of “cavemen” is projection. I’m not joking. Here’s something I found -> http://traditionalchristianity.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/liberalism-is-barbaric/
That’s why they always shout Neanderthal, bushmen or cavemen. It’s what they know and are, so they project this towards us, when we are more of the agricultural types.
It’s the same thing with their obsession with individual autonomy, independence, mobile professional workaholics and power. They think like this, so they assume that the Patriarchy is about this as well. They tend to think the same thing about rape. That rape is about power and a tool of the Patriarchy. That is a lie.
In reality (aka coming back to planet earth), rape is about sex. Yes, sex. A perverted or weird form of sex mixed in with violence (e.g. sexual violence).
What could possibly go wrong with giving the liberal administrative state tissue samples of every living human?
For once, we agree. LOL It’s like something out of creepy science fiction.
Maybe they could use DNA matching to automatically make Facebook friends out of people who are closely related.
http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-cos,19753/
LOL!
Wow, great input. The anti-testing side’s got me convinced. Well done.
Paternity testing is for those living apart from Christian marriage. Let the dead bury their own dead. A presumption of paternity – whether legal or cultural (preferably both) – is necessary for the protection of the family and especially the children. Even if it turns out to be a “necessary fiction”. The honor of the husband is entirely subordinate to the ontological reality of his marriage. Furthermore the biological father of children conceived in the wife’s adultery must under no circumstances be granted any rights to those children. Paternity testing opens the door to requiring child support, which opens the door to paternal rights. This door must be welded shut.
Also important: the presumption of paternity eliminates another incentive for the wife to leave her husband, possibly even abandoning other children. Her lover cannot claim the child and further divide her loyalties. All of her children belong to her husband alone. If she wants her children, she must restore her marriage.
Paternity testing opens the door to requiring child support, which opens the door to paternal rights. This door must be welded shut.
I assume, Blogmaster (??), that you mean maternal rights as a door which must be shut. If so, I largely agree that paternal rights must be paramount. But I don’t see how picking up some random support payments from the odd eat-pray-lover is going to make up for the loss of steady support from cuckolded husbands. It’s mostly lose for feminists and that’s why they oppose paternity testing.
Bohemund, I see my terms have created some confusion. By “paternal rights” in the above context I meant the potential rights of the *biological* father. That’s the door that needs to be welded shut. The paternal rights of the husband with respect to any children borne by his wife are indeed paramount.
I’m really not interested in what the feminists do or don’t oppose. Requiring support payments from the wife’s lover is a stepping stone to giving him legal rights with respect to the child. Worse yet, his mere presence in the life of the family is an intolerable obstacle to repairing the marriage. Finally, every effort should be made to spare all concerned any knowledge of the child’s illicit conception in adultery, and legal support payments create a public record.
@Blogmaster
It´s incredible how nice looking people (nice as in kind and religious) line up to punish kthe innocent (the cuckold) and support something based on lies while acquitting the guilty. Didn’t our Lord JesusChrist said that a house built on sand is ill from the beginning and doomed to fall and be dragged away into the see when the wave hits.
Just the results of apostasy I think.
@J.M.
Who’s punishing anyone? This is all very basic reactionary stuff. Christian marriage is indissoluble. It’s primary end is child rearing. The husband is the head of his family. Everything else flows from these things. You don’t like it that a husband’s pride and honor suffers in this situation, and neither do I, but read the book of Hosea sometime: “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress.” That’s how Christ loves YOU, Christian man, and that’s how you are to love your wife. If you are a “reactionary” without God, of course, I suppose there is no forgiveness or reconciliation possible: the marriage ends, the wife and her lover are harshly punished (perhaps executed), the adulteress’ existing children lose their mother, the child conceived in adultery is despised and rejected by all, and justice is served. Sorry, I’m a Catholic for a reason, not a Mohammedan.
@J.M. and others
Here’s my point. In a healthy society law, custom, and culture will all conspire towards incentivizing the restoration of the marriage and the protection of those children born within a marriage – even if adultery can be legally prosecuted and punished. That’s the first thing to get right, and the normalization of paternity testing works against it. Does a wronged husband have a “right” to know the truth about a child’s paternity with scientific certainty? NO. The wife may have a duty to tell him under normal circumstances, but not in every case. That’s a bitter pill to swallow, but there are larger things at stake.
@Blogmaster
First off thank you for your thorough response. However I still disagree with your opinion. Your opinion reflects a departure not only from the teachings of the Early fathers of the church and the very Bible but from the tradition of the Church through its history. Even going back to the Scripture of Hosea, the life of Hosea is a representation of the relationship between Judah and the Lord. Not something to be taken as an exemplary behaviour. The very statements of our Lord in regards to the conditions for a valid divorce disprove your statement.
Whether you like it or not, an adulterous woman must pay for her deeds, just as a male adulterer. I am not talking about execution but ridicule and shame, maybe fraud, payment. If our ancestors had practiced your suggestion, our society would have crumbled long before the infamous French Revolution. How can a family be sustained by a lie (s). The answer is that such entity is not a real family, just a facade.
The decision to either remain with the cheater or divorce should be up to the husband, but in order to take such a decision in good faith, he must be informed.
@J.M.
I’m afraid you not only misunderstand the Scriptures, but also the discipline of the early Christians and the culture of the Middle Ages badly. Don’t get me wrong: adultery should be illegal and penalties should be available for a remedy. We don’t disagree on that. My argument is simply that – in the matter of cuckoldry – it is far **better** for the families, the community, and society when the spouses reconcile and raise the child illicitly conceived. So what’s wrong with paternity testing? It has the same deleterious effect on the culture as pre-nuptial agreements. Marriages where paternity testing is viewed as a legitimate option – or worse still, a “right” – are poisoned at the outset and the children of their unions are threatened. That’s why the norm for Christian societies is and ought to be a legal presumption of paternity, and with that the obligation of a married man toward any and all children born to his wife.
@Blogmaster
Bastards used to (are) universally despised, in all civilized societies, even though it was no fault of their own. That was a trait, not only of backward and heathen cultures, but it was a main characteristic in ancient Israel as well as in the Christian world for centuries. I am not misunderstanding the Medieval culture. I am pretty sure most Medieval men would have disagreed vehemently with your position of Feelings over the Truth and Justice.
Such a stance is a recent one, a direct product of a feminized society where truth and words hold no meaning, only feelings, where facts are unimportant and where objective facts and knowledge is scorned while the subjective realm (opinions, feelings) and white lies are to be upheld. Such a stance is hardly reactionary. There is a reason why such tests are banned in godless France and believe it was not thinking in preserving any simulacra of family.
My stance is that every man should have the opportunity to test for paternity if he so decides and that there should be no time limit for this. There is no need for it to be mandatory. Moreover unless things change remarkably, making the assumption of husbands = biological fathers is a mockery to every honest man. If this issue were about medical negligence and women being deceived into taking other women´s children instead of their own at the moment of birth in the hospitals, there would be no controversy in the need to ensure the mother receives her children by whatever means necessary. Then why so much resistance and ill-conceived arguments to deny men the right of real paternity?
Traditionalists like you are playing into the hands of those that always sought to destroy the family in order to place the almighty State as the core of society, destroying the very guarantee of paternity first, thus destroying the credibility the institution still has. There was a reason why female virginity was valued and unchaste women hardly got married. No sane man in that time would have married someone unable to guarantee the children born of that union were really his genetic progeny, when paternity tests were not available. At least virginity increased the odds for such occurence (his putitative children being his children).
J.M.
“The very statements of our Lord in regards to the conditions for a valid divorce disprove your statement.”
I think Catholics say that the Matthean exception refers to annulment where there was never a valid sacrament in the first place. The Gospel of Matthew was written to Jews. The scenario Jesus presents refers to the wife’s fornication in the betrothal period (the betrothal period was important to Jews) which, if unknown to the husband, suggests a lack of valid intent to participate in the sacrament on the part of the wife.
Bottom line is that marriage is supposed to be “til death do you part.”
I read this somewhere recently.
Such a stance is a recent one, a direct product of a feminized society where truth and words hold no meaning, only feelings, where facts are unimportant and where objective facts and knowledge is scorned while the subjective realm (opinions, feelings) and white lies are to be upheld.
It’s interesting that you say this, since these words seem to apply to your position more than ours. It is we who do not bow before the husband’s feelings. It is we who refuse to do that out of our concern for objective facts like patriarchy and sacramental marriage.
@Bill
Thank you for your response. My position is not rooted in the feelings of the wronged husband (even though they should count) but on the hard facts and the truth. Nothing built on lies is blessed by the Lord. Why is it so hard to grasp?. That was one of the reasons why the world of yore fell. Many traditionalists of yore, “felt” it was necessary to keep appearances at all cost, without concern for the truth or the hard facts, or even the love of our Lord. This was specially true for Protestants but to a certain degree it happened to catholics too.
The facts are:
1. Since women were given the vote and an array of unearned rights and priviliges, there is no such thing as Patriarchy in the West. Patriarchy can only exist where men can exercise his right as head of the houshold WITHOUT interference of the State, unless the life or integrity of a family member can be proven to be at risk. Patriarchy can only exist when by default there is inequality and the hypergamic impulses of women can be satiated by most men, therefore most marriages are stable (it’s proven whenever there’s an imbalance (economic, social) in favour of the wife, the marriage is prone to instability and in most instances is shortlived.).
2. If marriage is a Sacrament as sacred as the Eucharist or the Priesthood, Would be moral to suffer a fake Eucharist bread, or for that matter a fake priest on the basis that the congregation loves him, so it doesn´t matter if he offers a fake sacraments and is a fake priest himself with heretic beliefs? According to your logic yes; all in the name of Priesthood and the Church” (being ironic)
3.Since none of the “anti-testers” has answered logically taking into consideration the present backdrop, the hostility to the real fatherhood and hence real patriarchy, not the paper patriarchy many here seem to advocate, in my opinion stems from three sources: (1) Feminist and modernist infection of thought in men and women alike due to indoctrination of western societies (ie. women purity must be maintained, poor wife honour must be defended at all costs no matter what, save women and let children and men die a-la Titanic, family must be defended, SOMEONE has to raise those kids, no matter if they are his or if he knows it und so weiter); (2) Historical disdain and lack of empathy for cuckolded husbands (he must be effeminate if his wife betrayed him, the lover must have been hotter and manlier than him, laughing stock is all he is…) and (3) In case of women a deeply ingrained lack of empathy for men, subconcious disdain for honest men that happened to be in that situation and defense of “Team women” (Should I find myself in her place I definitely want it to remain hidden…) Please be advised all the processes I described for reason 3 are subconscious
And that’s it folks
@J.M.
It seems to me that Bill is correct, that your entire argument is derived from the feelings of the wronged husband (which I agree are important and have policy implications). Either that or you are confused about the facts.
You say, for instance, that our position is based on lies. That is false. It is based on the reality that not every truth should be broadcast from the rooftops, nor does anyone have a right to absolute certainty about it. If you are a true reactionary, you understand that “transparency” as an organizational principle is liberal nonsense, and that secrets are essential for the functioning of society. If everyone knew everything about their neighbors, or even their own relatives, civilization in this fallen world would not be possible. Adultery in particular is explosive and dangerous enough to topple entire nations. That is why the law must be severe against it, on the one hand, but also why all of society must be organized to mitigate its damage on the other hand. The perennial wisdom of Christendom.
You say that patriarchy doesn’t exist in the West. That is also false. The human race is inescapably patriarchal, it’s only a matter of what kind of patriarchy we prefer. Feminism survives and thrives only insofar as it works for the small, wealthy, licentious, barbarian patriarchy it serves.
You say that the adulteress must pay for her sin. But that’s God’s business, isn’t it? A deeply repentant adulterer will suffer plenty with or without public shame and ridicule. The biggest problem with the kind of punishment and disgrace you are seeking is that it will also extend to her innocent husband and children and be an obstacle to their reconciliation. It may be necessary at some point, if the woman is irreformable, but it should be avoided if at all possible.
Besides, where is your own fear of God? “The measure you use, etc.”
@Bill
Thank you for your response. Just to be quick: Patriarchy in modern Western culture is non-existent, just a paper tiger as long as women can vote and their “political rights” are not rescinded. This is an inescapable fact, not a feeling, in the society at large, not just the few traditional enclaves and the main driver behind the approval of heinous laws that go against the nature (women unwittingly aid evil in most occassions through their rejection of Christ in favour of “feelings”, falling in the hands of those who want to destroy everything that was good in yesteryear’s society)
Second I never advocated complete transparency, and I understand that politeness, to a certain degree is necessary for a social life. However advocating for the upholding of outright lies (no “white” lies or anything of the sort) goes against everything the tradition or scripture teaches. Unfortunately I have to agree with Ton (see above comments). We as men should know better than to kow tow to female unruly desires that have nothing to do with welfare of the family and everything to do with self-convenience. By the way, What kind of patriarchy is that, where the “Patriarch” doesn´t have the right and cannot know and ensure his genetic legacy? I am pretty sure most Saint Doctors of the Church of yore would have disagreed with your position.
I think it worthy of consideration that God saw fit to give us a son of David as our Saviour, who wasn’t really descended from David.
Not quite sure what yer getting at there John, but Luke traces Christ’s ancestry through Mary which did in fact go through David.
Hmm…well, making my way through the rest of the 100+ comments, it seems my point has been gone over (implicitly) already. Oh well.
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Uh, of course you should paternity test your children. Anything else would be stupid. And adultery should result in the death of the mother.
If the man is to have headship of the household, he should positively confirm the origin of all living in the house if that is what he requires to be a member of his household.
If one or some of those living in the house are not of his origin, it is his duty to know and decide what should be done accordingly.
Anti-testers: You can opt to not have the infant your wife births tested, but don’t you dare get in the way of others who want to verify the origin of that infant.
Even Christ as the head of the Church knows where His children have come from.
Here, for your amusement and edification, I reproduce without comment a half dozen items relating to cuckoldry, randomly extracted from historical documents. The first is from The Palace of Pleasure, by William Painter, published in 1567.
“The furious rage of a husband offended for the chastity violated in his wife surpasses all other, and engendereth malice against the doer, whatsoever he be . . . Man and wife being as it were one body and one will, wherein men of good judgment cannot well like the opinion of those good fellows which say that the honor of one that is lusty and courageous dependeth not on the fault of a foolish woman. For if that were true . . . I would demand wherefor they be so animated and angry against them which adorn their heads with branched horns, the ensign of a cuckold . . . . Whores and harlots having honest husbands . . . by abandoning their bodies do consume their good renown. If they escape the magistrate, or avoid the wrath of their offended husbands for the wrong done unto them, yet they leave an immortal slander of their wicked lives . . . . Now of this contempt which the wife beareth to her husband, doe rise very many times notorious slanders, and such as are accompanied with passing cruelties: wherein the husband ought to moderate his heat and calm his choler, and soberly to chastise the fault, for so much as excessive wrath and anger do eclipse in man the light of reason, and such rages do make them to be semblable unto brute and reasonless beasts. Méete it is to be angry for things done contrary to right and equity, but temperance and modesty is necessary in all occurrences, be they with us, or against us.”
The next three items come from “The Tale of three Cuckolds,” which was published in News out of Purgatory by Richard Tarlton in 1588. This story describes three types of cuckold: the knowing, the unknowing, and the fanciful. The first, “knew very well, that his wife loved another as well as himself. Yet he loved her so, that he would not discontent her, but suffered her to have her longing and to feed her own fancy, and like a wittol* winked at it, and [was] therefore worthy to wear the horn.” (*A wittol was a man who was aware of, and complacent about, his wife’s infidelity).
The second, a man of “an honest and virtuous disposition,” married a wife that was “as secret as she was false; and though she could not live Chaste, yet she lived Caute [discreetly]. He never suspected her; but as he was honestly minded towards her, and kept himself to the wife of his bosom, so [he] measured her foot after his own last, and thought none in the world to have a more chaste wife, although indeed none had a more lascivious wanton.”
The third married a wife “more fair then the common sort, and therefor more gazed on,” but also perfectly virtuous, faithful, and chaste. Yet “suspicion so inflames his heart” that he “doth . . . lead a hellish life in the labyrinth of jealousy.” Therefore, instead of the horns of a cuckold, this man wears the long ears of an ass. “Because he hath a fair wife, [he] thinks that per consequens he must be a Cuckold, when indeed he is none, and so [he] supposeth his ears to be horns.
The last two items are taken from actual court proceedings, as reproduced in The Cuckold’s Chronicle: Being Selected Trials for Adultery, Incest, Imbecility, and Ravishment , a salacious work published in 1798.
In Lecester, England, on April 7, 1787, a laborer named Baggerly, from the village of Grooby, was brought before the assizes on the charge that “to escape Cuckoldom” he had “put a certain needle and thread into and through the skin and private parts of said Dorothy [his wife].” For this crime he was sentenced to two years in prison, and “as he was carrying from his Trial to the jail, the women fell upon him, and scratching him terribly, calling him all the ill names they could think of” (pp. 24-25).
In Westminster, England, on February 26, 1793, a Major Hook was brought to trial for an adulterous liaison with his niece, one Miss Herriot Campbell, wife of one Captain Campbell. In the course of the trial the plaintiff’s attorney made this statement. “Cuckoldom, in its best point of view, is a crime of no common magnitude; it is a species of robbery that would disgrace a highwayman, for he boldly ventures his life. The seducer, who ventures nothing but his money, will send your wife panting with pollution into your arms, when you take her joyfully to your bosom; but, if she does not despise, she must certainly laugh at your raptures” (p. 52).
Okay, Proph, if the nays have convinced you, what do you think of Dalrock’s alternative formulation?
For every female “Why don’t you believe me?” there must be an equal and opposite male “What are you trying to hide?”. I still maintain that any policy that makes paternity more certain is, ceteris paribus, a good prescription.
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