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A couple of months ago @Goodguy left the following comment here:
I tried to initiate a discussion about this without success, with my argument being that single men „policing/controlling” the sexual decisions of single women (I'm including „slut-shaming” in this category) has actually only been a social reality in the minds of feminist culture warriors. It was never implemented as a tool of women's „oppression” anywhere. To the extent that such „policing” existed (if we want to call it that), it was mainly done by other women, mainly due to the simple and understood fact that it's such policing that serves the long-term sexual interests of women as a whole. And the men that did engage in this were mostly fathers with daughters, not single men in the current sense of the word. (One can argue that in traditional patriarchal communities it was normal for single men to band together and remove outsider single men through threats or force; I guess this may count as indirect policing, which isn't saying much.)
I'm open to reading any counterarguments but anyway, this is not the subject I want to address here. I think Goodguy touched on something rather important which didn't occur to me at first, namely that society used to have a different attitude regarding this issue before it became modern. There actually used to be a group of men who were basically deputized by society to morally shame women in certain contexts despite being technically single (as I alluded to this above): priests and monks. (And this doesn't just apply to Christendom.) They were also voluntarily celibate, which is another category that disappeared with the rise of modernity. (The cultural memory of this lingers on though, otherwise the people who came up with the „incel” label would simply have called themselves celibate.)
As I was pondering this issue, it also occurred to me that secularization meant that Western societies did lose something significant not just in this respect but others as well. It appears to me that secular society and the churches/denominations used to exist in a symbiosis with the terms never being openly stated. It's well-known that Christianity used to be in a culturally hegemonic/privileged position. But it's also true that the churches basically volunteered to take care of those social groups that nobody else wanted to look after because they're socially a pain in the neck:
singles who can't or won't get married (see: priests, monks, nuns)
generally adults lacking social skills to such an extent that they become shut-ins without outside assistance
sick/diseased people unable to pay for treatment
children sired by men who can't or won't become husbands and providers
poor people that are so helpless and lacking in agency that they die from poverty without the charity of others
children of married couples too poor to pay for any schooling
I think atheists and people hostile to religion in general emotionally get hung up on the former and lose sight of the latter. Some of them who did not lose sight of it came up with the doctrine of eugenics as a solution, but we know what reputation that has today. Instead we expect the state to pick up the slack and look after all these unfortunate groups, which only results in a multitude of horror stories about police departments, child protective services etc. being a useless bunch of uncaring buffoons.
I wonder what the rationalist point of view on all of this is.
As a matter of fact, single men were always a clear danger to traditional patriarchal conventions for the precise reason that their singlehood made them more willing and eager to break oppressive etiquette around courtship and partnering (both fathers approving, several months of courtship in the presence of chaperones, no sex before the marriage was contractually finalised and the wedding held, etc.) in order to gain immediate sexual access to a woman.
We have largely forgotten this today, but young men as a whole were systematically more socially liberal than young women well into the late 20th century! It's kind of obvious as to why : the father of a young woman at least theoretically cares about her wellbeing as his own kin, whereas the young man cares about getting in her pants and seeing how he feels the next morning.
Western literature is so chock-full of this that "single man transgresses patriarchal rule in order to bed woman" is basically a central, foundational trope of the Western canon :
Those are just off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure the Decamerone and the Divine Comedy also have instances of this.
That is not how I remember that one.
Yeah that one might be a reach, but I'm sure we can find a more fitting example elsewhere in the Arthurian Romance
Guinevere and Lancelot seems like the obvious choice.
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