Women and men in a new world “Tolerate each other with love!”

The experience of our fragility and vulnerability provides the perfect opportunity for us, women and men, to once again turn towards each other. To affirm once again what always was in times of great trouble: the true, final refuge that is capable of providing actual and effective protection is the smaller and larger family. The more extensive the family network is, the more it is able to offer protection, but only when its adamantine core (more often than not a man and woman living in a binding relationship) is able to link together all its constituent parts in a loving relationship.

How many counter-interests are used in an attempt to cover up or refute the fact that a family arising out of a committed partnership of a man and a woman is the stem cell of society, and there is no alternative!

An entire political industry is at work to break down the family, claiming that marriage is a fake relationship that oppresses women and that the family hearth is in truth a powder keg where children only receive lovelessness. They flat out claim that a large part of worldly violence occurs in family homes. We know, however, that the greatest part of all-human love is manifested in families, and globally the family is the principal zone of safety – and still we have a tendency to accept statements such as these, or at least let them pass without comment.

But why do we fall for this? Perhaps because there is no perfect partnership, the man-woman duality in truth frequently wobbles and because of this we have a bad conscience. Occasionally a relationship does in fact degenerate, the solution to which, in the better case, is divorce, and in a poorer case actually becomes a source of fire in the partnership, which is virtually irreconcilable. However, relationships that are just wobbling can be fixed with inner will and external help.

But how can a man and a woman have the will to take action for their own spiritual well-being, to work constantly to improve their relationship?

After all, in patriarchal societies marriage was such a normative part of communal life from which it was forbidden to quit (at least officially and primarily for women), so it gave no encouragement to improve the relationship of couples, at best just to endure. In social structures building on individual freedom, which frees up the termination of all forms of coexistence, there is similarly not sufficient incentive to achieve a quality relationship because in a throw-away culture of consumption it is easier to swap a partner than understand him/her. One has to add to this the fact that today, a large part of adult generations grew up in fragmented families, the absentee father is a particularly painful wound for them, and on top of this their parents could spend barely any time with them due to the demand to make a living. Thus they only know of ‘love until the grave’, the myths of unconditional trust, from romantic films. Many have no positive relationship role models, thus they also don’t know that they should deal not only with the wishes of the body but the soul, too. With the passing of the first passion and heightened emotions, they experience the inner needs of their partner as claims or selfishness, and they are unable to resolve their conflicts.

Even though today we stand a far better chance of finding a solution than at any time in preceding centuries.

Every human community has good and bad partnership experiences of generations and using the insights given by modern psychology it is possible to process these and make them useful. If, moreover, we can list alongside this examples of couples who have managed to establish well-functioning patterns of coexistence across decades, then it becomes evident to every young person starting off from a disadvantaged situation that relationship happiness and satisfaction exist not only in romantic films but in reality as well. Good relationships begin with will and are realized through constant attention and acts.

Another way of putting it is that even if we didn’t inherit good examples, a good relationship can still be learnt!

Just as today we have on average more scientific knowledge than our predecessors did, so we also have more knowledge about human relationships. Just as the state of our teeth demands that we keep a constant check on them, so we can prevent decay right at the beginning of the problem, so our spiritual life, our relationships, also require monitoring from time to time, with the help of experts (and, of course, friends and experienced acquaintances). Starting from primary school and going all the way to university, everybody – in accordance with age – should develop those human skills which help their disposition turn in a positive direction, help build their relationships and help assertive social validation. This would certainly result in an increase in the number of stronger, more acceptable and more loving relationships, which would then give a greater sense of security to growing children and cause fewer psychological defects.

In my view, the loss of trust, the shaking of man-woman relations that can be experienced today is no greater than what existed in more covert forms in earlier times. It is just that the social ‘exclusion’ constantly covered as a topic by the media is more powerful and dramatic, thus the role-seeking and adjustment to the necessarily changed social challenges of both genders occurs in greater desperation.

The women’s rights movement, that is, feminism, was not the cause but just a necessary consequence of changes in external circumstances. In the past 150 years, we have approached that ideal equality of rights of the members of the two genders that is symbolized in the following line from the Bible’s story of creation: ‘And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.’ Of course, even seen from afar the route that led here was not always perfect and worthy of humankind, but the situation of the two genders is more just now than it was one hundred years ago. Given the warped, unjust gender relations of previous ages, today some men – particularly those who do not live in protective loving relationships – perceive increased equality as an alienating loss of prestige, while at the same time some women – of course, particularly those who do not live in protective loving relationships – still look on men as the enemy, or consider their new situation to be a depressing set of expectations. And this balance of power is tipping, even to the extremes, which makes it difficult to re-establish a healthy equilibrium.

The branch of feminism that is family-centric and not extremist (looking on men as not being the guilty party and something that has to be overcome) still has work to do: until the woman bringing up her children at home, or caring for elderly parents at home, does not receive equal moral and financial respect from society as a working father, we cannot be satisfied. While these family and social jobs are not shared between women and men, then many are never going to understand how valuable and important they are. While certain careers offer woman fewer opportunities and lower pay, we still have things to do.

At the same time, the feeling of disorientation of men is completely understandable because they are increasingly unable to live their inherited roles and they constantly have to adjust to new circumstances.

This leads to uncertainty and tension, which frequently contributes to the deterioration of relationships. To make matters worse, today there are already policies that favour women due to their disadvantages. For example, during a divorce the current legal practice is to assert an exaggerated advantage to women in the area of bringing up children. Then again, measures and treaties designed to reduce violence in relationships take virtually no notice of violence committed against men. Early retirement for women after 40 years of work is so discriminative that women themselves are sometimes ashamed. And it is inexplicable why we don’t deal with the serious situation signalled by the school dropout rate of men, their poorer state of health and earlier mortality than women. Men often look to women for a remedy to the situation while women also are constantly struggling with challenges. This is why well-intentioned men’s movements are to be welcomed.

Apparently, we men and women are not in an easy situation. In truth, however, we are the possessors of massive opportunities!

We stand on the threshold of an age when finally we can establish, as equal parties, with equality of opportunity, free choice and more psychological knowledge than ever before, responsible, lasting, joyous relationships, we can work together in workplaces, and we can participate in public life. Let’s not allow ourselves to become alienated towards each other due to frustrations deriving from the search for roles and occasional failures. There is no other way than patient understanding and providing mutual support to one another.