Change in the times

I am forty nine and while I do not find that old I realize I am middle aged and have witnessed and experienced quite a lot. It surprises me when I stop and think about it just how much the world has changed in my short life time. When my parents had me in 1957 Elvis Presley was the man, the top movie of the year was “The Ten Commandments” and Gunsmoke was the popular TV show.

In 1957, 57% of all women were homemaker’s full time. Woman followed a pattern, one set by their Mothers and their Mothers before them. The reason women married young was because it was expected of them. They were not waiting for their soul mate, and did not explore relationships or their sexuality before marriage. Rather they met a boy and thought, “yes I like him well enough” and this led to marriage. Most marriages were based on a vapid warm affection at best. Women stayed married even when the realization of their ill conceived choice became apparent. They had to, most did not work and were not educated. This was changing, but still rather slowly.

Which brings us to today. Do we need each other, in the old fashioned sense of the word? Women are not defined by their relationship anymore. Our expectations have changed. We no longer rely on men for support for the most part. We are politically involved and so our intellect prepares for the inevitable lack of respect for a male oriented world. We cannot be shielded by the obvious evil of the world, and while we realize it is not solely pertaining to men we know it is for the most part so. How does one date in this world? How does one adapt, when the world they once knew where the expectation was only to feel a moderate appeal and the result was to dive into the deep end, over and over again, had turned into this complex paradigm where there are no longer standard needs and desires? Where marriage is nothing more then a travesty, where the family system, one created by the church is failing time and time again.

One must question the oldest primal needs of all humans, while feeling the chemistry mistaken as love, and while having a bond and attachment to others based on our earthly need for acceptance, perhaps indeed we are nothing more than animals and that being monogamous in not in our nature. Yet we live in a world where rage against women is increasing in an alarming number which tells me one thing. While women are evolving and growing, changing with the times so to speak, and man is trapped in his “cro-magnum “way of thinking where women are property and a possession. Man is not evolving. And woman has surpassed him. No wonder they are angry.