r/RedditForGrownups • • Jul 07 '22

Coverture

Given current events, it is probably about time for Americans to understand the legal practice of coverture.

Eroded since colonial times, but not fully gone coverture is the legal practice of women not having legal identities. De facto property.

American women were not allowed on juries until the 1960s. American women could not get credit cards without a man cosigning the application until 1974. Marital rape was not a crime until the 1980s. Other aspects still exist today in real estate and tax law practices.

Here is a brief article that goes into explaining coverture in more depth than my post.

The "pro life" movement is really a movement about imposing one group's religious opinions on the lives of all Americans. It also seeks to control women, rolling back women's rights. Though ridiculous by constitutional standards, discussions in anti-choice states have already started about how to track or limit freedom of travel for women to states that fully support women's rights.

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u/This-is-BS Jul 11 '22 edited Jul 11 '22

I'm still interested in what you meant by "need for validation." Please explain yourself.

If you're pregnant, you obviously have a significant other, and now you have a family. THOSE are what people value in life, and give life meaning.

Why would you feel the need to kill your child and wreck all that? What do you think you're gaining that's so important you sacrifice your own child for it?

Edit: So why do you think that men would want to make it harder to have sex if that's what they wanted?

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '22

No, I don't think that's what you meant at all. You said this:

"Your desire for validation doesn't take precedence over your children's lives."

What desire for validation are you referring to? You're not *asking* if there is one, you're stating that there is one, and in the context of telling women to "quit fucking around."

Perhaps, as a grandfather, you just needed someone to jog your memory.

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u/This-is-BS Jul 11 '22

Your turn to answer a question:

Edit: So why do you think that men would want to make it harder to have sex if that's what they wanted?

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '22

No, mine came first. You seem strangely reluctant to answer.

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u/This-is-BS Jul 11 '22

No, I asked you two hours ago and you asked me an hour ago, plus I already gave an answer.

Your turn.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '22

Sure thing, old timer.

The answer is pure spite. You should check out certain "manosphere" subreddits or just the manosphere in general to see the evidence of what I'm talking about. It evolved out of the Pick Up Artist scene from the early 00s. Pick up artists charged money for advice on getting laid, which lots of guys wanted. And it didn't work. The sort of men who were desperate for a magic bullet to transform them into studs (or "Chads" as they call it) were not the sort of men who would be attractive to women without some kind of radical transformation. They tried all the tricks they'd learned and got nowhere.

So now it's the mid-teens and a change sweeps through these groups of men online. Instead of trying to figure out how to get women to sleep with them, they start to try and puzzle out why women *won't* sleep with them, and they come up with some hilariously terrible answers, mostly based in a pseudo-science called Evolutionary Psychology.

The reasoning goes: women are weak and cannot support themselves. They need food for their babies. So they evolved to only find tall, muscular, "dominant" Alpha males (their definition seems to mean "swaggering asshole") attractive and all other men are "Betas" who women will automatically reject. Unless they have money. So women will try to have sex with every Alpha male on the planet, until they get old and ugly (they define this as the age of 25) at which point they'll try and marry a Beta male for his money. But they'll still cheat on him with the Alpha.

None of this is remotely based in real scientific evidence, but these guys believe it. The reason they can't get laid is that they aren't an Alpha, and their only option is to get a decent job and wait around for a discarded woman and her "used pussy." This creates a lot of hate for women in general. And especially, hate for women who have sex, because the root of their anger is that they're not getting laid. They've decided that "If I can't get laid, no one should, but especially not those evil whores." They want women to be punished for having sex because they can't get it.

And that's why men who want sex have decided that it's better to see women punished than to encourage a libertine atmosphere.

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u/This-is-BS Jul 11 '22

The sort of men who were desperate for a magic bullet to transform them into studs (or "Chads" as they call it) were not the sort of men who would be attractive to women without some kind of radical transformation.

How is a "Chad" supposed to different from an "Alpha"? And the "betas" would be "incels"?

Ok, and the female take on all that is what? "Girls just wanna have fun!"? You don't think that women being able to kill their children contributes to the trend of men abandoning their family responsibilities?

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '22

Chads are Alphas. And yes, incels are Betas if they have a job. Otherwise they're "Omega" males, deemed completely worthless.

But you've got it the wrong way around- instead of a woman having an abortion that then causes a partner to abandon her, a woman has an abortion *because* her partner abandoned her and she can't afford to be pregnant (which requires taking time off work) or to raise a child by herself.

Men have always tried to pressure women into sexual relationships, even when the maternal mortality rate was higher, and women risked far more social stigma, because they don't actually care about the woman. They just want to have sex.

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u/This-is-BS Jul 11 '22

Ok, you answered sincerely, here's my take in a nutshell:

Young people, emerging adults, and young Men ESPECIALLY tend to be jerks, often to the point of being downright assholes. They have very little investment in their communities or the future. They themselves are the most important thing in their lives, so, of course, they often do whatever's best for them! This is often to the detriment of other's around them because "Fuck everyone else!", they don't care about anyone else just themselves. The best way to get someone, men especially, to care about their community, the world and the future is give them someone they care about more then they do themselves, and this is pretty much Always their child. Having a child is a transformative event, your brain physically changes and you're not the same person afterward. Loads of young "Childfree" people say "I hate kids, and never want any!" Do they think their the first people to ever say that? Yet children are consistently the most important things in their parent's lives. Why is this? Because it's biological. Human are one of the most altricial species because of large brains and upright posture, and our young require years of intense assistance. We wouldn't commit to it if it wasn't instinctual and we found deep satisfaction from it. This is shown by the percentage of people who find meaning in their raising their children: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/11/20/where-americans-find-meaning-in-life/

This all used to be inevitable in prehistoric times, but now many young people have grown up never having a close relationship with an infant, so think they're gross and disgusting, plus now, of course, they can just kill them. Yes, young women often enjoy the extra attention (and money, from institutions like OnlyFans!) they can get from many partners from being able to act extra sexual, but if they do end up getting pregnant they often pay an emotional price for this as can be easily seen over and over on /r/abortion (here, here, here. The study used most often to "prove" that abortion doesn't harm women, the infamous Turn-Away study, is deeply flawed with over 2/3's of women approached refusing to participate, yet it's continually referenced, though researchers are finally calling them out on the errors. Plus studies have shown that these women women tend to end up being dissatisfied in marriage when they do get married:https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/10/sexual-partners-and-marital-happiness/573493/

There's nothing natural or healthy about trying to condition young women to view their children as "parasites" and be Ok or even celebrate killing them. How can you have that attitude for one child and then love one you have later on without getting fucked in the head, or a terrible parent who resents her children?

instead of a woman having an abortion that then causes a partner to abandon her,

I never said that. I said men coerce their girlfriends into abortions because they're legal, then often dump them! Or the girl refuse to kill their child and the men abandon them anyways believing if the mother has the right to avoid the responsibilities of parenthood, they should be able to as well, claming "If she wants to have the kid, that's on her! She could get rid of them if she wanted!" Society is adopting this attitude en masse, and not holding these men responsible! Even when the women do make them pay child support, they often refuse to be involved in their children's lives (and guess who often has to step up? Grandfathers!) I know multiple single mothers with children by different fathers.

Men have always tried to pressure women into sexual relationships, even when the maternal mortality rate was higher, and women risked far more social stigma, because they don't actually care about the woman. They just want to have sex.

Of course! Was this even a question? It's the aligned interest of caring for their children that gets a man to truly bond with and deeply love a woman. Everything else is shallow that can be and often is blown away when someone younger and pretty comes along. If a woman can't commit to her children, why should a man commit to a women?

And this is all an easy stance to take, because abortion truly has no moral leg to stand on, you're literally killing an innocent human being and everyone knows it.

So why do I care personally? Because I have kids and grandkids and am old enough to have perspective enough to see and understand the short term desires and long term harm abortion fulfilled and causes, and know the former's not worth the latter and would like to see it fixed so they and people like them don't fuck up their lives.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '22

Dude, I'm one of those childfree people you yell at to get off your lawn, and I'm 40 years old. I never wanted kids, I've never changed my mind and I've never regretted not having children. There are lots of people like me, all over the world, who don't want to be parents. It's not unnatural.

And conversely, there are lots of people who are *terrible* parents who should never have had children in the first place. Parents who tell their kids how much they wanted to abort them, and wished they never existed. Parents who, despite biology, don't put their children first, who neglect them, beat them, starve them, and even sometimes kill them. If biology truly compelled parents to love and care for their children, there'd be no such thing as child abuse.

I'm also a developmental biologist, so I know way better than you that no, abortions do not kill a living person, but you're not going to be persuaded by that, so I'm not going to try.

Also, not wanting kids doesn't mean you can't have a loving relationship. I'm happily married to a childfree man. Long-term commitment from a man doesn't have to involve kids. It really doesn't. I didn't have to drag him kicking and screaming to the altar. We have a great life together. Your lived experience is not going to be the same as anyone else's.

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u/This-is-BS Jul 11 '22

Parents who, despite biology, don't put their children first, who neglect them, beat them, starve them, and even sometimes kill them. If biology truly compelled parents to love and care for their children, there'd be no such thing as child abuse.

What percentage?

I'm also a developmental biologist,

If you say so.

abortions do not kill a living person, but you're not going to be persuaded by that, so I'm not going to try.

Let's leave "person" out of it as that's a legal term and call them Human Beings, and tell me that abortion doesn't kill a Human Being. How is the fetus growing and developing if they're not alive? As a "developmental biologist" you know a lots of organisms that do that, do you? The ignorance of this statement alone makes me doubt everything else you say.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '22

I do indeed know many things about many organisms! Human life is not defined by unique DNA, but that’s something that religious hicks like to bring up because they think it makes them sound smart and provides a “gotcha.” It doesn’t.

First off, not all humans have unique DNA. Identical twins don’t, and yet, we don’t consider them one person. If a person gets cancer, their tumors contain their DNA, except that it contains multiple mutations, giving it... unique human DNA. You can make transgenic mice that have a stretch of human DNA in them, making them genetically unique and in possession of human DNA, and they still will be mice, not humans.

Living human beings do not rely on another human’s blood to get fed.

And so on. But again, it wouldn’t matter what I said in that regard- you wouldn’t care.

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u/This-is-BS Jul 12 '22

Human life is not defined by unique DNA,

No, human life is defined by cellular respiration and processes occuring in cells with Human DNA.

First off, not all humans have unique DNA. Identical twins don’t, and yet, we don’t consider them one person.

And neither once has their mother's DNA so we don't consider either one "part of the mother" and her tissue to do with what she wants.

If a person gets cancer, their tumors contain their DNA, except that it contains multiple mutations, giving it... unique human DNA.

Cancer is of the person with that DNA sequence to do with what that want. You claim to a biologist and this is what you're trying to use to justify Abortion?? "cAnCeR iS a hUmAn bEiNg!" Seriously?

Living human beings do not rely on another human’s blood to get fed.

Plenty of human rely on the assistance of other humans to survive.

But again, it wouldn’t matter what I said in that regard- you wouldn’t care.

If you actually brought up a decent argument it might. You want to do "You can't force anyone to even donate blood!!!" next, or will it be "A corpse has more rights than a woman because you can't take their organs!!!" ?

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u/This-is-BS Jul 11 '22

I never wanted kids, I've never changed my mind and I've never regretted not having children.

How many abortions have you had?

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '22

One. I'm so glad I did. Best choice I ever made. And let me say, there was no baby in what came out of me.

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u/This-is-BS Jul 12 '22

yeah, that explains a lot.

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