Why Equality?

We can't have both. Either we go with working couples, or we go with the nuclear family. Promoting the one involves marginalising the other. The corporations and the media put working couples first. I put working couples last, and seek to promote breadwinner and homemaker couples. That is the object of this blog.

When the issue is presented in those terms, there is little room for discussion. The merits of the single income marriage are obvious. So the issue is never presented in those terms. The media will allow no mention of the breadwinner and homemaker arrange-ment. It is thought crime. Politically incorrect.* Instead the discussion revolves around women's equality. And I haven't a clue where to go from here. There are doors opening everywhere. Let's try this one.

What Does Equality Mean For Women?

The Anglo world has been fixated with 'equality' since the Black Death in the mid 1300's. The only defence against mass extermination was the nuclear family: a farmer and his wife working their private farm, living private lives, supporting their immediate family, keeping to themselves. They would often survive the plague, while villagers living and working the village lands together succumbed in droves.

Somehow the farmer and his wife were the righteous people, and villagers and nobles were tainted. The private farm took over from the manor as the basis of socio-economic life. People became individuals and not class tokens: They acquired surnames. And for six hundred years, the whole logic of social progress was towards that end. Middle class people were empowered ~their values prevailed~while the lower and upper classes were disadvantaged.

So equality for women means primarily being a farmer's wife: There is an inherent equality between bread-winner and homemaker that just needs a little tweaking. They mutually support each other and depend on each other, performing complementary tasks: forming a reciprocal relationship greater than the sum of the parts. They seek completion not in themselves but in a partnership. The concept is fair and square: It just needs a little fine tuning.

Most importantly I suspect, the homemaker role needs to be recognised as such. Which is the first function of an allowance: It says, Thank you! An allowance isn't just money. It's a token of appreciation. Given the option, huge numbers of women would prefer to be home-makers, revolutionising the domestic scene and the workplace.

The important thing is for men and women to pull together and not against each other. If women pull against the men as equals, we'll get nowhere. Somehow this teensy point gets overlooked.

The media only talk the symbols. Here on this blog, we talk reality.

*If you doubt me, YOU try broaching the issue.