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Notes -
Modern/civilized romantic life is quite a few steps removed from Vikings plundering women from Ireland and then sailing to an arctic island to start a country. That being said, the dynamic isn't that much different.
While the notable difference is that nobody is forcibly capturing women, that was only part of it. You still had to be able to conquer space to keep it going. Hunting, building a homestead, fighting off enemies and animals requires skill, toughness and drive.
A modern analogy would be professional contact sports. They have to be skilled and driven to get where they are (and get the woman), but also civilized enough to keep her happy. On a more normal person scale, you just need to have some kind of drive. Maybe you're an accountant, but if you go in there and do your job well and are assertive enough to rise, she will be happy. You just need to show that you have some sort of life force willing to overcome external resistance and take care of her.
It's easier to illustrate the wrong way to do it. Not caring about stuff, being lazy/apathetic, being a pushover both to her and to others, lacking ambition, not really being good at anything, that is how you lose. It's not about chasing virgins because they're sexy or whatever, it's a desire to master space.
A good friend's been a kept woman for years. We once had a short fling. Years later she opined we were too different as I yearnt to conquer the world, while she wanted to comfortably be, so it's easier for her to be with the malaised. It always seemed very aberrant to me in a modern way.
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