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Comment by lokar | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps as women have gained more financial independence they no longer need to adopt a submissive attitude towards men to survive?

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Equating a marriage with "submission" is the first thing that needs to die if we're going to create more two-parent households.

It is simply no longer the case.

A marriage does not equate to submission, but patriarchal issues in current marriages are still very much present.

Yes many, probably most marriages are based on an equal relationship. But many are not. And in the past most were not.

i would say most marriages (in western cultures at least) are based on the expectation of an equal relationship. however many still have not learned what actually is an equal relationship. (it's not splitting home chores 50/50).

for me an equal relation ship means that each of our wishes, goals and needs are of equal importance. it can mean that both partners work and split housework equally, but it also can mean something different.

Go read and listen to the ideology from many conservative evangelical groups in the US. They are pretty direct on this point. Wives must submit to husbands. It’s not a secret.

It's different to say "some believe, but it's not necessarily true". I'm fully aware of conservative takes, and I'm watching my mom navigate her new independence after her husband died recently. They were both staunch conservatives and evangelicals.

well, ideally both partners submit to each other. that is, it is my responsibility to help realize the wishes or goals of my wife, but it is just as much my wifes responsibility to help realize my wishes or goals.

why is that better than everyone just realizing their own wishes and goals? because this way a space for cooperation is created because we'll both end up working on and supporting each others goals or wishes, and also each of us are able to notice if there is a conflict between each of our goals and wishes, and then we can work them out.

But women not being submissive has led to devastating effects on the children. Maybe that’s something we need to work on reimplementing.

Affordable high quality child care

That’s a red herring. A person overlooking 5-15 kids is never going to be able to offer the care a one on one relationship with a mother can. Maybe a nanny might be an analogous alternative but the state will never be able to pay for that.

> A person overlooking 5-15 kids is never going to be able to offer the care a one on one relationship with a mother can.

Some mothers have 5-15 kids!

Most, and I mean 93%+ of Americans don’t and that’s just for the lower bound of 5 kids. It’s 0.002% at 15.

I am well aware that it is uncommon, coming as I do from a family of eleven children; but the world is much more than America, and birth control is a recent invention. I don't see how you can reasonably claim that one person cannot care for such a number of children when mothers of large families have been doing it for millenia.

It’s never at the same time and older siblings help with the younger ones which is still an infinitely better situation than some low paid employee watching 15 kids at the same time.

Also that time has passed. All of Asia including south and south east are basically at replacement rate. Africa averages higher but not by a whole lot more and that number is dropping quickly.

There’s a reason women from wealthy families never work and dedicate all their time to raising kids.

the mistake you are making is to expect that it is only going to be the mothers who stay at home instead of any parent. it definitely should be possible for one parent to stay at home. but it should not matter if it is the mother or the father.

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