We still fail to appreciate just how revolutionary an invention the Enlightenment ideal of equality was, and how profoundly it transformed every sphere of life. Those changes concerned far more than property or political rights. They unfolded gradually over more than a century.
We need not imagine that this happened because the people rose up. A more sober assessment is that the elites who replaced the old aristocracy at the beginning of the 19th century found the ideal of equality more advantageous. One way or another, the consequences affected entire nations, and among them were changes in romantic and sexual life. Marriage ceased to be a privilege of the wealthy and became accessible to more and more people. In the Czech lands, the golden age of marriage began with the advent of Communist rule, though this was not solely to the regime’s credit. The same development was taking place at the same time in countries to our west.
In our own time, as the West returns to premodern patterns of behavior and thought, another trend is gaining strength: a very different style of romantic life, one supported by biological inclinations but restrained by modern culture. That restraint is disappearing. A large share of women now compete for a small percentage of men who stand out either for their wealth, prestige, or attractiveness. The latter need not be purely physical: a man may, for instance, be exceptionally funny or a sensitive listener. Ideally, of course, he combines all these qualities. Alongside this group is the rest of society, which includes most men and those women who are capable of choosing among average and below-average men as well.
I would add today that this also produces two kinds of sexual morality. The basic pattern is that the more women and the fewer men there are in a given population, the more permissive the morality becomes—female sexuality is cheaper—and vice versa. This is borne out by the changes that follow wars in which large numbers of men are killed. On that basis, we might expect morals to be more casual in the part of society where highly attractive men are surrounded by many interested women. Conversely, among average men, where fewer women remain, conditions should tend in a more puritanical direction. And that does indeed appear to be the case. The only qualification is that those at the bottom generally have little ability to influence society’s prevailing norms, leaving them with little more than frustrated denunciations of moral decay. This also fits logically with the internal contradiction of radical feminism, which speaks of sexual liberation while simultaneously seeking to eradicate any erotic spark between men and women.
Could this be mitigated? It could, if men in the residual group worked to increase their own attractiveness. By this I do not mean complying with women’s constantly changing demands, but pursuing personal growth. Becoming physically fitter, more socially adept, better educated, and more cultivated—how about the Jungmann National Academy?—and becoming more skilled in the various romantic phrases and techniques: all of this can readily be learned. Such men will not be able to compete with those at the very top, but they may attract some of the women who have, for the time being, given up on finding a partner.
And there is one more piece of good news. It appears that the men and women who deliberately seek parenthood and lifelong partnership are only minimally affected by all of this.