INTERVIEW: Masculinity and Marriage are Broken But They Can Be Fixed
In a conversation earlier this year, coach Elliot Hulse and rapper Zuby gave a 12-minute rundown on why marriage is still to be valued despite the downsides and its degradation in today’s world. One of the keys, they argue, is for men to reclaim their self control.
During the enlightening conversation, Zuby explained,
The institution of marriage has been subverted to a point where people who are even pro-marriage, and pro-family, have trepidation about it.
He pinned the concerns that marriage-hesitant men have on the legislative and legal system. “People are looking at those divorce statistics going, these are not great odds,” Zuby remarked.
Failures on Both Sides of the Gender Divide
Speaking of the contributions that men and women “bring to the table,” Zuby said,
Everything’s just kind of disintegrated to a degree where both — certainly from a male perspective, but I think even to a degree from a female perspective — the value of marriage is a lot less compared to what it used be even a few decades ago.
When Zuby asked Hulse whether marriage hesitancy and devaluation could be reversed, Hulse responded,
Part of the problem is fornication; promiscuity; the hook-up culture. Because when you put sex in front of the relationship, instead of putting relationship in front of sex, women have all the power.
Hulse added,
They like to say we live in a patriarchy but we don’t. We live in a matriarchal, gynocentric world that’s woman-led. So when we speak in terms of what to do, [we need to] look at the fact that the divorce laws and courts are stacked up against men.
A Legal System Biased Towards Women
To prove his point, Hulse explained how when a relationship doesn’t work out, it is men who regularly get the blame. He noted that the reasoning is often petty and “very effeminate from the woman’s side.” An example he gave what when women say, “he just didn’t give me the tingles anymore.”
Sometimes, he said, “It’s made-up stuff. They could decide at any point [to leave] for whatever they want. They could just pick up, leave — and not only that, take half your money, and take your kids.
People “always side with women,” he said.
Cautioning that he doesn’t deny that domestic violence is a problem, Hulse hinted at how domestic violence can come from both sides. He argued that abuse exists, “but the word abuse has been abused.” He provided an example:
I know people, a couple, I’ve seen for a long time. She comes out with, ‘Well it’s been an abusive relationship.’ I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? There’s no way this guy’s abusing you.’
When Hulse pressed the issue, he was told by this woman, “Well, it is emotional abuse. He’s not talking to me!” Of these claims, Hulse summarised: “It was a lie.”
The Restoration of Gender
Hulse then returned to his main premise, stating that marriage has become “useless; not meaning anything, because sex has been put before relationship.”
He argued that men see the legal side of things, and ditch marriage for hook-up culture on the grounds that, “I could just have sex, and not have to deal with this woman, who’s gonna flip out on me and take all my money.”
In commenting on whether marriage can be fixed, Hulse answered “No,” explaining that marriage cannot be fixed until gender roles are restored — where men are men, and women are women.
He targeted feminism as the primary cause of this “perversion” of marriage that invariably painted married women and mothers as victims.
The “whole narrative of suppression,” Hulse said, “created this situation where women not only want to leave men, but become men.”
Citing Hollywood’s mystical re-imaging of woman as transcendent, all-powerful beings, Hulse articulated how this false image “denies women their true power because telling women they need to be like men to be powerful takes away a woman’s real power.”
Men Must Take Back Their Self Control
For Hulse, a big part of the answer in restoring marriage is answering the perverted, blurred distinction between men and women. Men need to break free from society’s demand that men be weak and effeminate in order to be acceptable. Moreover,
Men need to stop tolerating promiscuity. Men need to stop being addicted to orgasm because we’re making ourselves weak. We’re making ourselves addicted. We’re making ourselves easily manipulated.
The first step, Hulse said, is for men to “take back their sexual power” through the dignity of self control. When it comes to self control, he believes that we have none:
That’s why everybody is obese, and addicted, spending 90 per cent of their time scrolling through things on their phone, because we’re all pleasure addicted.
Hulse encouraged men to “Start loving boundaries. To be a living sacrifice, because men will never be an authority unless they have an authority, and that authority comes from God.” He concluded: “I want a woman as a woman that requires me, you and men to be real men.”
Zuby and Hulse’s 12-minute hustle offers quite a bit to chew on. There’s a lot to agree with, yet some points are bound to upset haters or fence-sitters.
The takeaway point is that marriage cannot undergo restoration until men and women are restored, reconciled and reunited by the mutually beneficial roles, responsibilities and purpose for which they were created.
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