Is time running out for us?
So many women I talk to, no matter how young they are, have the sense of a ticking hourglass. They feel, deep inside, that if they don't find the right man soon to marry and settle down, the bloom of their youth will have passed and all the single men will have been taken.
It is such a deep rooted fear for all of us. In the most primal regions of our hearts, we believe that we will die if we don't find love.
It is only very recent in human history that men and women have been able to live alone. In indigenous societies, complementary male and female roles are vital for survival. Without a man to hunt, there is no food. Without a woman to tend to the home, there is no safe place to return to. A woman with no man has to rely on the goodwill of others to survive.
Even though we now eat take-out instead of deer, come home to houses instead of shelters, and wash our clothes with machines instead of river rocks, we are not that far removed from our ancestors. Thousands of years of human history cannot be overwritten in a few generations. We were meant to pair up. It is such a strong conviction that mere sexual need cannot explain it.
For most of us today, marriage is a choice. We make a living on our own without much difficulty. We don't need men. As a result, we can afford to be picky. We can afford to wait until the perfect partner comes along.
Yet we still feel that ticking clock. We feel the need to find love and partner with someone. Even though marriage is a choice, even though the divorce rates are sky-high, we STILL get married in overwhelming numbers. Most of us will marry at least once during our lifetime.
We need marriage. Though some believe that marriage is merely a way to rein in promiscuous behavior and control reproduction, it is too widespread as a human behavior (in nearly all societies across history) to be merely a method of social control.
Harville Hendrix, author of Getting the Love You Want, believes that marriage has a crucial part to play in modern society. Through marriage, he believes, we heal one another. No other relationship teaches us so much about ourselves and being better human beings. Commitment is not constriction or constraint: rather, it disciplines us to resolve our conflicts, express ourselves freely without fear of rejection, and increases intimacy beyond what is possible in a de facto relationship.
As much as we'd like to believe that we can live without men, we know we can't. Masculine energy balances us. Men need us to love them; we need them to love.
One of men's deep-seated fears is that women will decide they no longer need men. Men cannot survive without women. In fact, marriage is so healthy for men that they will live longer, stay healthier, and even earn more money as a husband than as a bachelor.
Men adore women who fully and warm-heartedly admit that they need men. Although "needy" has become a dirty word, too many of us are tempted to the other extreme. We try to be so independent that we don't leave the smallest space for a man in our lives. When we do date, we suppress our needs so that we appear as un-needy as possible. As a result, the men in our lives feel emasculated. They feel that they can do nothing for us that we can't do for ourselves. In many cases, they end up leaving us for a woman who is much more childlike and needy for his affections.
Can you admit to yourself that you need men without feeling ashamed or embarrassed? I am not asking you to admit that you need "a man" — just that you need men. It's not hard. Yet it's amazing how that admission brings such a feeling of shame to the modern woman.
I love men. I love them as friends and colleagues, as boys and old men, as strangers and lovers. I am glad that men share our world with us. Aren't you?
