GuidoWorld

Incidental Man

September 2, 2007 on 12:12 pm | In General |

From the earliest times it was obvious that women were necessary and essential. Without women mankind would die out.  They gave birth and nursed the young. Even though early man realized that a woman housed the child for near a year before birth they came to realize that the child’s body was made out of the same cells as the mother.

Woman were revered and protected by the earliest human communities, for without them the community could not exist. Men, on the other hand, had no visible and provable reason to exist.

As time went on it became more obvious that children were created through sexual intercourse and therefore men became more essential. Yet, this again was a theory and not something for certain. In fact, 20th century anthropologists found existing cultures that still did not believe that men were essential in the birth process.  While acknowledging that sex was a common cause of pregnancy they still believed that a virgin could get pregnant through alternative means. These alternative methods included magic potions, amulets, sacred places, prayer, etc.

In most situations something proven carries more weight than something supposed to be true. While women were essential men were only abstractly or theoretically important. This reality probably had a tremendous impact on the emerging sense of self of developing man.

While women could prove their importance and worth through having and rearing a child, men had to try harder to validate their existence. Up until recently even modern man did not have even a semi-reliable method of proving paternity. When one looks at the behavior of men this lack of essential function has had a dramatic effect on his behavior and self-esteem.

How did men deal with their suspicions that they were not necessary? How did men validate their existence and find meaning in life?

According to the standard analysis of industrial society we say that men went into the world to work and provide for their family. In the classic nuclear family model the man labors and produces to earn a living.

Two questions immediately come to mind. First one must question for what percentage of humanity has this nuclear model been true? Secondly, how true has this model been for the bulk of human history?

Any historical search into family life usually shows that the nuclear family is a recent invention, and that it has been a reality for a small percentage of people for a relatively short period of time.  The idea that it takes a community to raise a child is not a modern invention, but rather the norm than the exception throughout the history of mankind.

In the earliest civilizations it was the woman who not only raised the children but also who tended the crops. The day to day tending of the crops was more often than not an activity dominated by females of a tribe. The men were not the bread-makers nor the breadwinner, but rather the protectors and adventurous of the tribe. While the woman held down the fort and took care of the daily needs of the community the men were out in the world striving to accomplish something vital and important.

Men strove to do the exceptional, to do the dangerous. They became hunters, warriors, adventurers, sages. Their interfacing with other tribes and foreigners inspired them to become traders, merchants, inventors, athletes, philosophers, artists and artisans.  They had to learn the languages and customs of neighboring peoples and flourished through winning competitions and dominating others.

I believe men were more ambitous and daring due to their feelings of being otherwise useless and inessential. While women were inherently important and necessary men had to prove themselves. While a woman earned a little immortality through her children, a man won immortality through accomplishing something of practical significance. Men became obsessed with being heroes, with being the best at something.

The quickest and simplest way for a man to prove himself to be a hero or legend was through being a warrior. As a successful warrior he protected the tribe and insured that the woman and children lived on, and if he was a poor warrior he gained significance by dying for his people. Even in modern societies dying for one’s country through battle is a highly admirable accomplishment.

While becoming a hunter or warrior was the most common vehicle for having men validate their existence, many men found other means of satisfying this quest for meaning.  These men strove to master skills or develop talents. This, more than any other reason, is why men, and not woman, became the inventors, philosophers, musicians, artists, adventurers, scientists, and historians. This is not to say that women couldn’t do these things, this is only to say that men’s lack of inherent worth is what inspired and motivated them to accomplish these things.

Woman not only had an inherent worth, but they were too important to human life to be allowed to put their life on the line. Men were more expendable and their risk taking and irresponsible behavior did not endanger the continuity of human history.

From a biological point of view the male sex drive insured that even a small percentage of surviving males could keep the population growing. While a woman could only have one or two children per year, men could impregnate countless woman each year. Most of the other primates have an alpha male who is in charge of siring the majority of the tribes children, it is, therefore, not improbable that dominant human males were quite sexually prolific and selfish in early human societies.

Coupled with the previous post this essay was written in an attempt to understand some of the sexual and historical factors which have most influenced the emotional and psychological development of men. In the next few posts I will continue my investigation into male emotional and psychological development and make some suggestions of how society could better address male sexuality to help insure the emotional and mental health of men.

Jim Guido