The Prioritized "P"s of the Perfect Patriarchal Partner

Sometimes I listen to talk radio, and the entertainment value found on the dial trumps the educational value by, I don’t know, maybe a million times. Left, right, sex, politics, whatever, it’s all just an effort to get ears - and thereby ad dollars - meaning the reasonable people with middle of the road views have no chance at success. 

So extremism rules!

What seems to get the most attention is when the host or a guest goes counter to stereotype. African-Americans with conservative views are instant ratings just
because people think it goes against type. So today, on a show I will not identify (conservative), a female guest was invited to talk about male/female relationships. 

She ended up being one of those "serve your husband’s needs first" types of nineteenth-century nabobs that make most modern women cringe. Let’s call her Eunice. I’ll not disclose my personal feelings about Eunice at this time.

Today Eunice was explaining that the lecturing she had been doing lately about the role of men and women in relationships needed a bit of a tweak. She expressed that the trilateral male hormonal calling remained the three Ps:
Procreate, Provide and Protect. That’s it. My role to my wife is those three simple words, and disgusting subjects like love and partnership were merely modern day assignations.  

But Eunice had just recently come to accept that her order was mistaken.  Procreate still comes first (you betcha!) but the Protect part is now second and the Provide is relegated to third. So she explained it this way:

When a man says "no" to his wife’s material request, it is usually a means of protecting her, not refusing to provide. The example given was beautiful. Eunice herself had recently asked her husband to install a pool at their home. His
immediate answer was ‘absolutely not’ and Eunice was hurt. Wasn’t the husband’s job to provide?  (Maybe good ole procreation practice was running behind schedule and that played a part, but the radio audience was not informed.) 

According to Eunice, with her husband’s eager help, she dissected the dispute and came up with the answer. He was only protecting Eunice by saying no. Not protecting her as if to say, “You don’t even know how to swim, you foolish spendthrift,” but more like, “Crap, this is making us broke, don’t you want to retire someday?” 

Generous, generous protection indeed.

Light bulbs, big 100 watt long-life eco-friendly light bulbs went off in my head.  My own foolish efforts to provide had in fact been potentially running counter to my new prioritized drive to protect! I could close my wife’s charge accounts for her own good. So long as they don’t mess with the procreate pinnacle, I’m cool with trying to protect my wife a bit more. She needs protecting. Have you seen her closet!