BATTLE OF THE SEXES

One of my favorite Seinfeld schticks was about picking up girls.

We all want women," he said, "we just don't know how to get them."

He went on to talk about these dudes who honk their horns at women, commenting, "Now here's a man who's out of ideas."

But I truly loved it when he said, "... but we don't know how to get them."

My response was a mix of laughter and resignation, the sort of resignation that is often characterized with the word, "amen."

Did you know that there is actually a verse in the Bible that, at least somewhat, refers to this problem, i.e., the problem of men getting women? It's in the book of Proverbs:

There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.

(Proverbs 30: 18,19)

If you look carefully at this verse you notice something that you may not see at first reading. The writer says that three things are too wonderful for him (the eagle, the serpent, the ship), but the fourth thing he does not comprehend (four which I know not), and that fourth thing just happens to be "the way of a man with a maid."

Apparently this stuff has been going on a long time.

There is another verse, also in the book of Proverbs, which, in a way, seems to be complementary:

Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.

(Proverbs 18:22)

Do you see the one-sidedness of it? It is good for a man to find a wife, but there is no comment whatsoever about whether this is a good thing for the wife.

The Old Testament does indeed seem to be male oriented, a criticism that the feminists have been quick to point out. The above verse, for example, is really just an echo of an earlier verse found in Genesis.

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

(Genesis 2:18)

Whoever wrote this clearly believed that women were literally made for men, and not the other way around, i.e., men are not made for women.

Whether we like it or not, there seems to be a rather persistent, and perfectly natural (as opposed to legal, ethical or moral) inequality between the sexes, an inequality that (despite all the efforts of the feminists) seems ineradicable. I don't see it going away for a long time. As a matter of fact, if it ever does go away, something else will disappear along with it. I am referring of course to human beings as we know them.

The natural inequality between the sexes seems to be a vital part of what it means to be human. For thousands of years women have had the power to sell their bodies to men, and not vice versa. This could have never happened if a perfect sexual equality had been in place.

But to avoid belaboring the point, let me simply appeal to thermodynamic law, which, in so many instances, seems to have the final word. In states of perfect equilibrium nothing happens. The entire universe will end when all its heat is equally distributed, a situation often referred to as its "heat" death. The only reason the universe is here now is because of a certain inequality which subsists in the realm of heat distribution. Something similar can be said about human beings. They're still around because of an unequal distribution of heat between the sexes.

Somehow, I don't think I want to change this. As the Beatles said, "Let it be."