Love and friendship across the sex divide

Grim posts at Grim's Hall on the Glenn Reynolds piece in USA Today on the subject of feminism in the West.

we who consider ourselves men in the West are in favor of women leading decent lives. We take them seriously even where our interests strongly diverge, out of love. But we also hold them to certain standards, also out of love, because to violate those standards would be to fall.

So I don't think that feminism works in the West because 'leadership by fathers' is dead. I think it works because the leadership in the West is exercised in love. What Glenn Reynolds is advocating for is men-against-women, rather than men-for-women. What I think I'd like to see more of is women-for-men rather than women-against-men, and that combined with men-for-women. Speaking as a husband and father, that dynamic of friendship and reinforcement has been of tremendous importance to me.

Of course, I don't want a paternalistic government -- no more, and perhaps less, than a patriarchal one. It might be well, though, if our civil society better embodied the idea of love and friendship across the sex divide. We ought to take care of each other, and lift each other up.

Read more here.

No more chains; she's free now!

Two old friends.

Romance, familial love, friendship, and spiritual love

Here is another website I have never before visited. Bruce Fronnen writes about romance and much more.

Romance fades—though it comes back stronger and more often than the movies tend to allow. One who constantly seeks the “high” of romantic love (they often say they are “in love with being in love”) is like any other addict, loyal only to his or her own needs. What is more, even if romantic love doesn’t fade, it simply isn’t enough to sustain a marriage. A man must love his wife as a woman (and vice versa), but also as a wife and as a friend. A couple is a couple, but also the basis of a family, needing more than romance in order to raise good children and face all the trials involved therein. And we must love one another as friends, who share triumphs and tribulations, partners in many things and supports in many others, if we are to build a life together. Finally, of course, we must share in the love of God if we are to fully bind ourselves to one another, love without condition as we must, and find our proper place in creation.

He also writes about familial love, friendship, and spiritual love.