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I suppose im not being clear. What im getting at is that a lot of “trads” both male and female (and im talking about specifically family structures and so on as talked about by the movement) tend to be espoused by the people least disposed to impose those restrictions on themselves or hold themselves to that standard. The girl who wants to trad wife unless she comes from a home where this happened mostly has media fantasies of trad life not really connected to anything specific. And most of the vision seems to be on what the other party is expected to do, not what they’re expected to do. So the guy pines after a good tradwife who will cook him good home-cooked meals, stay home with the kids, and so on. He isn’t necessarily thinking about what he’s expected to do— make enough to support the family, be a leader, protect himself and his family, do whatever outdoor chores or repairs are needed. So he’s not really “traditional”. A traditional man would first and foremost be competent in male coded activities. He’s worthy of what he hopes to find, he’s the kind of person that will be attractive to the kind of wife he wants to attract.
I think of most relationships in a sort of reciprocal way. I owe you certain things because of the roles we have in the relationship we actually have. That, as far as I can tell is how most traditional societies tended to view things. Yes, I am supposed obey my superiors, but they are supposed to protect their inferiors, and I am supposed to protect those inferior to me. That goes for teacher/student relationships, boss/employee relationships, husband/wife relationship kids/parents. What the LARPy version does is it breaks that by making everyone focus on what they were supposed to get and ignoring the requirements for how they are to behave.
You can just say "moral hazard".
Yes, but what else do you expect from those people? The people traditionalism didn't need to force responsibility on to (or for whom that force would have had a negative/redistributive impact) are already happily married under the current system.
The market floor of "how much conscientiousness do you need to secure a marriage [in addition to the other things]" has, simply put, gone up. And the unpleasant reality is that enforcing traditionalism for the benefit of these people would be nothing more than a forcible redistribution of conscientiousness from those who have it to those who don't, because virtue is its own sort of capital.
That's not even saying it's wrong to do that, or that it is not necessary (because it very well may be), but any neo-traditionalist thought that fails to understand this is just selfish noise.
It was enforced socially. There were, in the late nineteenth century lots of social expectations placed on people. How to dress, how to behave in various situations and public venues, how to greet people and how to give dinner parties and teas and other social events. Emily Post’s books on etiquette from the turn of the twentieth century were pretty detailed. If you didn’t live up to expectations, you’d lose status.
Just because we stopped teaching people these things doesn’t mean they couldn’t exist in some updated form (do we really need calling cards? Do I have to pick livery colors?) in the future. I’m convinced that eventually people will sort of have to reinvent or rediscover these kinds of things.
I think honestly there is some benefits to requirements of formality, conscientiousness, and diligence in the modern world. I think such requirements tend to reduce complexity and create a bit more trust. It’s also a bit more pleasant to live in a country where people are more formal and diligent. Would you rather live with the stuffy members of the Grantham house, or in a house where there’s absolute chaos and the parents don’t even change out of pajamas to go to shoplift at Walmart?
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