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Notes -
And on that point I simply disagree.
If you are ever called upon to actually kill (or die) to save your wife or children, that sole act in itself functionally justifies the entirety of her gratitude for you, because the severity of the act is literally that large in terms of impact on your life and hers.
Even if I grant that we've rendered the present risk of having to do so to functionally nil (unless you go looking for trouble), if you have genuinely taken the time to mentally and physically prepare yourself for an act of ultimate violence or sacrifice, that risk is NOT guaranteed to remain low into the future and having an 'insurance policy' in place for such an event is is the wise thing to do.
Simply put, if you keep a fire extinguisher around the house for years on end, do you think "man why do I bother having this thing, housefires are a rare occurrence!" or, is it more like "I sure am glad to have this here because if my house catches fire I might be able to stop it burning down."
Have some gratitude for the fire extinguisher sitting on top of your fridge (well, that's where mine is) even if you never intend to use it.
Or, if you like, think of it as the equivalent of paying your life insurance premium every month. Hope to never to use it, still paying (in money, if not 'gratitude') for the peace of mind it brings.
The world is not, on the whole, a very civilized and safe place. And the only insurance policy one can have against the failure of civilization is someone willing to step up to fight the dangers. We forget and dismiss this at our own peril.
The gratitude is proportional to the possibility that the insurance provider might renege on the deal. A fire extinguisher basically can't, unless I failed to maintain it in working condition. An insurance company is... let's say "unlikely", although that varies per company and insurance types. Luigi certainly didn't believe, in the end, that it was unlikely.
But simply "being prepared" is not a visible thing. For good or ill there must be opportunities for the man to prove his willingness to fight for his family's safety in action, possibly in less severe cases than "kill or die", in order for the willingness to carry any water.
On the flipside, a woman might claim that she is fully prepared to stay by your side, in health and in sickness, for all life, but the divorce rate and indeed the possibility of no fault divorce speaks against her.
Correct, although there are visible signals a man can send, and a few of those are actually hard to fake!
More importantly, these are things a woman can sniff out in advance of committing to a guy if she wants to! Or she could ask her dad, who probably has the better insight into male worthiness.
Think, for just a second, what the approximate equivalent of 'failing to maintain' the relationship with a male partner might look like, though.
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