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Notes -
Thesis (not a terribly original one, but here it goes) as food for thought / discussion fodder:
The online proliferation of the man vs bear in the woods meme, plus similar earlier social media phenomena with a feminist message are, in reality, generalized and simplified expressions of women's overall frustration and latent anger directed at the loss of manhood initiation rituals that characterizes modern post-patriarchal atomized societies; namely, the current social reality is that adolescent boys and young single men are no longer vetted by fathers, elders, brothers, uncles and other pre-vetted eligible men before they are, in effect, released into their wider social circle from the family environment, which makes it rather difficult and risky for single women to separate eligible men from ineligible men.
From the context of 'manhood initiation rituals', I would assume that you primarily mean vetting by the family of the male, not the female? I think that in many patriarchal cultures, not being especially rapey was not part of the vetting process on the side of the man. I mean, if you are a medieval woman encountering an adolescent male Scandinavian in the woods, and notice that he bears the signs of a fully initiated viking warrior, that should probably be cause for more concern, not less.
The causal chain might go like this:
The patriarchal vetting process / manhood initiation clearly varied from society from society, Apache, Jane-Austin-England, ancient Rome, fucking Sparta and Aztec all did their own thing. If there was a common denominator, it was perhaps to certify that the male was able to fulfill their expected role in society and support one or more wives and their children. (Of course, such vetting processes are also heavier on the upper end of societies. I am not sure how it was on the lower end: "This helot man has managed to survive for two decades without starving or being slaughtered or maimed by the Spartans, that makes him husband material?")
I am also skeptical of claims that the female's male relatives filtered especially for a kind man. In societies where marital violence and rape were considered normal, why would they? They men were probably more concerned with political implications or making sure that the husband was not some wimp who would get himself killed in the first battle, leaving the woman a penniless widow.
If I were a woman, I would take tinder et al any day over a random pre-1900 mating system.
In short: no. In a patriarchy, the family of the male fulfills the role of raising him up to be a prospective husband, because that’s in their interest. They put incentives in place to ensure he doesn’t turn into a lout, a gambler, a hobo etc. The family of the female basically does the mirror image of this, plus they restrict the girl’s social life in the sense that she only moves around in the wider social circle of the family where everyone is assumed to be vetted. To put it in cynical terms: she’s basically provided a pool of, say, 5-10 potential husbands, and she’s free to choose from them, under the supervision of her family and the families of those 5-10 guys. (Maybe it’s just 3-5 guys or whatever, but that’s not important.) That is the extent of the mating choice she has. It is in this sense that her family is vetting her future husband. This is feasible because the social circles of the future spouses either overlap or have direct connections. There are strong social bonds, a sense of community, social capital etc. Of course, people aren’t only getting vetted on an individual basis, their families are also getting vetted.
Again, I’m no sociologist, but I assume this is how this all went down normally. These societies no longer exist, so it’s all bygone history anyway.
You’re absolutely correct. In the current sense of the word, it wasn’t part of it because it wasn’t seen as relevant. In a different sense of the word, though, not being rapey towards virtuous women in your social circle was 100% part of it. Of course, feminists will happily explain to you that the patriarchy is a horrible shitshow with a wholly backward concept of rape. Which is basically true, in the sense that yes, it’s a system which, in certain circumstances, gives you covert license to rape a woman whom you encounter in the woods. If, for example, she’s a loud alcoholic whore who had abortions, belonging to a family that your family has a feud with. Or if you’re a soldier of a victorious army on enemy soil etc. And again, these societies had a vastly different concept of the word ‘rape’, but I don’t think it’s necessary to go into detail here.
Yes and yes.
And you’re absolutely right to be skeptical. A patriarchy has no concept of ‘marital rape’, for example.
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