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Introduction: George Gilder's Men and Marriage
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12299 |
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BOOK WORLD
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1 / 1987 |
442 Words |
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George Gilder, whose stunningly successful book, Wealth and Poverty, became a pillar of the Reagan administration's economic policy when it appeared in 1980, first gained national attention through an earlier book, Sexual Suicide. That 1973 work argued that men need marriage and the family to give direction to their lives and to channel their inherent aggressiveness into providing for their families. Harper's magazine published an excerpt of the book in which Gilder declared that the drive to deny the differences between the sexes "in the name of women's liberation, marital openness, sexual equality, erotic consumption, or homosexual romanticism must be one of the most quixotic crusades in the history of the species." The response thundered in with hundreds of angry letters and dozens of scathing reviews. Feminists and their allies took umbrage at the charge that their egalitarian mission was ill conceived and ill fated. Although controversy often helps a book sell, many librarians and booksellers chose to ignore Sexual Suicide, prompting some commentators to charge that it had been virtually blackballed.
After the success of Wealth and Poverty brought publishers scurrying to Gilder's door, he offered to revise and update Sexual Suicide, the book in which his social theorizing had begun. Were they interested? Several prominent publishers wanted the book, but in every case, Gilder says, they called him back to tell him - or imply strongly - that they had balked at protests from feminist editors. Finally, Milburn Calhoun of Pelican Publishing Company of New Orleans asked to publish the book New York publishers found too hot to handle. Pelican released the updated book in September under the title Men and Marriage.
THE WORLD & I features the opening chapter of Men and Marriage, which introduces the fundamental claims of the book. In "The Necessities of Love," Gilder allows that sex roles reflect immutable differences between men and women, but here he adds an unusual twist; women are naturally superior to men indecisive respects. The woman's productive sexual role of childbearing and nurture is according to nature, but the man's long-term role as father and provider depends upon his willing submission to a social convention - marriage. Put another way, the man's natural role in procreation, childbirth, and nurturing is very small; the woman's role is actually paramount. Men are thus sexually insecure. Men are made equal to women with respect to the family through marriage.
Following the excerpt, journalist Connaught Marshner profiles Gilder
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