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• Friday, December 5, 2008 09:05 AM

  @Aka Smith -- That's a good observation

  "Certain facts are worth looking at. If a woman always makes less money than a man she dates/marries, is she always at risk of being viewed as having ulterior motives for the relationship?" -- Aka Smith

  And you are right, I think, in that not all relationships can be judged from the yardstick of pure money (or abstracted power, as I discussed in on my recent posts). There are other factors that can (and likely often do) come into play. Its always challenging when having these sorts of discussions to keep in mind that the conversation tends to gravitate to the extremes while most ordinary people live in the middles. And thus the issues we discuss are distorted towards the extremes.

  I know that I did not fall in love with my wife for monetary reasons, nor did she fall in love with me for my ability to bag woolly mammoths with my bare hands. There were definitely other considerations such as things we had in-common, the enjoyment we each receive from each other's company, and the like. In fact, my wife and I are about equally matched when it comes to personal "power", and each of us shoulders the load about equally, though the distribution sometimes varies. And now we have kids together which gives us a new (and very enjoyable) aspect of shared responsibility.

  I have had other, previous relationships however which were far more based on the traditional equations, my "power" for her "beauty" (which I think is a social euphemism for sexual desirability and access).

  And I have had other previous relationships which were far more "normal" in the general sense-- two people get together, like each other, and discover the other stuff about them as "gravy" (wavy or otherwise... :)

  So you're very definitely right that there is certainly more to consider. And while its easy to point to the edges and say this and that, one (including myself) has to remember that most living is in the middle.

  —Mr E Read Mr E's other letters
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