Apart from their mother’s milk it must be from the minds of older women passing to the younger and from the younger to each other that females generally get to be so fixated by the idea that the main route to legitimacy is through marriage.

Accepting that in the old unenlightened world this was true it seems to have escaped the notice of most that over the past thirty years or so it is no longer a requirement. But it seems that the power of suggestion and social norms passed down the generations is just too much to resist. The intellect is overcome and the availability of other options, infinitely more preferable surely, is ignored.

For marriage women will endure all kinds of injustices: they will tolerate violence emotional and physical, humiliation at the hands of a bad man, a life of low quality, unhappiness, disappointment and frustration; they will live with profound compromise and dissatisfaction, poor relationships, fights, continual acrimony and ultimately total spiritual collapse. These things many women will accept for the sake of holy matrimony.

Perhaps one day they will wake up. But like most other things it will take a while. It seems to take forever for generations to undo the perceived wisdoms of what has come before them. Whatever the diminished faculties may be that inhibit progress it’s going to be quite some time I think before women cease to go ga-ga over marriage.