Women & Romance.
Women don’t value Romance. Women require more than romance from a man, and perhaps even never. However, men value romance. Some men even over-value it. Western Men invented Romance to give them a chance against their Feudal Lords/Kings who were known to bogart all the fine women in their fiefdoms.
And it worked. The guy who has nothing, and has no future, now has skin in the game. If he can make himself more Romantic than the next guy (who’s got the actual resources to provide for a family), this little man too may have access to fine women.
And it worked well for young men in Europa and Euro-America, who basically had nothing, and who were not even matured enough to be with a woman. So long as the young man, or the man without resources, has something else (romance) to offer to a woman – no matter how intangible – we have a sexual market game.
You see, that crap does not work in Traditional Africa. Even with the importation of some of these western non-value systems. The families sit and vet the man as he needs to be vetted. And we also don’t have feudal Lords collecting all the fine women for themselves either! That stuff is primitive European attitudes often projected on African Kings.
But Romance has always been a bad deal for women else why the emphasis on it? If a powerful, resourceful, good-looking man was also Romantic, younger men and men without the resources to bogart a fine woman will have no chance. Why would they? Hence the belabored attitude to make men of good-standing often seem as though these men cannot be romantic as well! Take a cursory look into any western romantic novel, and it is always the resourceful, level-headed, intelligent, hardworking man who’s devoid of the ability to be romantic to a fine woman. The way of romantic drama is simply to pitch the man without great standing in society, but who can muster good-looks and something as intangible as Romance, against a great man in a contest. Else, there’s no drama to speak of or write about.
This is what I want my dearest niece to understand: Romance is a game men who have little skin in the game play. It is a trick-bag of making something as fleeting and as intangible as fairy-dust seem a whole lot more than it actually is: it is an absurd inflation of a man’s worth to look upon him as “romantic”.
So what you want to say is dipo is a trash like how I see it ? Thanks for this piece
There’s a little more to the over-inflation of romance in the eyes of men. Some men have come to accept that if I woman were to fall in love with them when they are broke, that perhaps in some way shape of form that the show of love (romance) indicates the woman’s true intent and true love for the man.
Meaning that these men believe that if a woman is romantically attracted to them when they are broke that it somehow justifies the expectation of loyalty the woman will show in the future. It is an over-inflation of realty and an over-simplification of the matters at hand. Would I rather gain the respect of my interest or woo her? I would rather take the respect and I would rather work harder to maintain that respect!
Yet many of our young men are transfixed on wooing women with romance, and they cry foul when another man sweeps in with a more romantic game. Romance is a chemical reaction in the brain, which mean, by all chemistry standards, that that reaction will tend inexorably to decline. And when that reaction is finished, the romance flies away with it. Respect is however not so — when maintained, it is a fascinating bond among couples.
Dade Afre Akufu Are you suggesting that women get with (marry) men they admire and respect, first and foremost, and who invariably respects them, before anything else?
Narmer Amenuti. It is not my suggestion. It is the only way!
I smiled after reading the last sentence. Beautifully written as always.
I heard that nearly 80%of black children are fathered by 20% of men in the Afro American society. Furthermore, 80% of marriages break up because a woman walks out. If this stats are true, then they will mean that black American women go for romantic characters multiple times and produce babies with them. They overlook or undermine descent respectable black man because he’s ugly and boring even though he appears more responsible and best choice for fatherhood.
Basweka Mawanda Thanks for the comment! I have received that stat before, and I am not sure how it was derived. Although the situation in the US, the way we hear it described by numerous experts in Sociology of the Family, cannot be significantly dissimilar from that narrative. Still, that issue is a wider western issue. I don’t think western women and men (especially Black women and men) are choosing wrong, per se. The women are choosing too young. They are too young culturally and emotionally to be dating and to be making babies at 19- 26. (Of course they are matured biologically to make babies). They need help – from parents and family! But I am afraid the result is a consequence of the neoliberal idea (which is diametrically opposed to the Traditional African Ideal) that a 20 year old woman is matured enough to pick her own date and even make a baby with such a date without any parental/family guidance. It cannot be a surprise when such stats appear in one generation.
Narmer Amenuti the pleasure is mine Uncle. blackdemograpics.COM is the source I reckon. It’s now emerging that black women have the lowest marrital rate: 1/4. Majority of them become baby mamas between late teen and mid twenties by a “unpleasant brother” or just simply hooking up. in the late 20s or mid thirties they find themselves seeking to score a lifetime husband who’s well established and earning six figures. Why? Because they “more experienced, matured” and often upgraded in professional educational and wages then they were in their early twenties. Now it’s becoming clearer to them that their biological clock is running out and that men just use toss them because the sexual market is over supplied and most men don’t wanna settle down with a baby mama.
Narmer Amenuti not sure if you heard of him but Kevin Samuels explains it better:
https://youtu.be/VI6XWGKvUrE