“Bachelor Life With Freedom Looks Easier” – MGTOW in 1931

FULL TEXT: According to the census report, there has been a very decided slump in marriage, and this is blamed on men by  those who have investigated the subject. They say that women are as eager as ever to enter the holy estate, but that men fight shy of it. Doubtless that this is true. Probably women have always been more anxious to marry than men because they have always looked upon matrimony as a career and getting a husband their chief business in life. The favorite game of every girl-child is playing bride, and by the time she gets in her teens she has her wedding all planned out, even to the last detail about the flower girls and the ring-bearers.

~ Boys Think Of Other Things. ~

But no little boy looks forward as joyously to being a bridegroom as he does to being a quarter-back on a football team. Marriage is never the climax of his ambitions as it is of » girl's. He knows that, like death, marriage will get him sooner or later, but, at least until he falls in love, he cherishes a vague, secret hope that somehow he may escape it.

That men are becoming more bridal-shy and harder to catch every year women will all testify from their personal experience. More and more de women have to do the chasing of husbands if they want one. More arid more alluring baits do they have to use to toll men into the matrimonial fold, and this despite the fact that never were women more desirable, never better-looking, never better fitted to be real helpmates.

~ Cost Too Great ~

The reluctance of the modern man to marry can be explained in many ways. First, perhaps, by the high cost of living. Marriage appeals more to the young and reckless, who have not learned how to figure out the cost of things, than it does to the mature and cautious, who look at the price tag first and then at the article. But boys cannot marry because it costs too much to support a family, and by the time a man can afford a wedding-ring only too often he has lost his taste for it.

Then men don't marry because they are too selfish. They love themselves better than they do any woman and they consider that swapping off their freedom and latchkeys for the privilege of listening to curtain lectures when they come home at 3 A. M. is a poor trade. They prefer sports cars to perambulators and playing golf to doing chores around the house on Saturday half-holidays, and so they stick to single blessedness instead of taking a chance on double wretchedness.

~ Afraid of Alimony ~

Still another reason why men do not marry is because of their fear of alimony. Certainly the gold-digging ladles, who make a man pay and pay and pay as long as he lives for the mistake he made in marrying one of them, are doing a lot to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. For they have made marriage a hazardous adventure that causes men to get cold feet even to think about and that causes the prudent to avoid the altar.

For under the present laws it makes no difference whether the man was the one to blame or not; If a marriage goes blooey he has to settle the bill for the wreck. The man may have done his part nobly. The woman may have reneged entirely on her part. She may have been a shrew, a lazy loafer woman impossible to live with, but the poor, unfortunate who has married her as to support her, anyway, and often to contribute to the support a second husband. When you think of the alimony laws the marvel is not that so many men are afraid to marry, but that any man is plunger enough to risk it.

~ Need Is Less ~

However, prudence does not always keep men from marriage. The lack of an incentive is likewise a deterrent and two of the principal motives which formerly caused men to marry are now lacking. One of these was the man's need of someone to take care of him and provide for his physical comfort. Men used to marry for a home and somebody to sew on their buttons and send out their laundry. There came a lime in the life of a young man when he was sick of boarding-house prunes and hash, and when in dressing in a hurry he couldn't find a clean collar or a pair of socks without holes in them, a home and a wife suddenly seemed the most desirable things on earth and he rushed out and proposed lo the first girl he met.

But now the land is strewn with clubs and bachelor apartments where single men are valeted and cosseted better than any wife could do it, an that makes marrying for a home a superfluity. Also, alas, women have throw away, when they went into business, the rabbit's-foot with which they conjured men into matrimony. For they are no more domestic, and many man refrains from popping the question to the girl he works at the next desk to because he is well aware that she is a better sales manager than she is a cook and that she would make a more satisfactory business partner than she would a life partner.

~ Girls’ Company Free. ~

But perhaps the chief reason that men don't marry is because they don't have to in order to get feminine companionship. In the olden days a man led a girl to the altar because that was the only way in which he could enjoy her society without mother and father listening in. Then love-making had to lead somewhere and he paid for his petting parties with a marriage certificate.

Now that is all gratis. The society of women is as free to him is that of men. He spends his days in offices with girls. He plays golf with them. He goes off with them on long automobile rides, with never a chaperon in sight. Girls smile upon him. They break their necks trying to please him and keep him amused and entertained, and he doesn't have to pay their bills or put up with their tempers or abridge his own freedom. He has a cinch. And he knows it. And he means to keep it, and so he doesn't marry.

-- DOROTHY DIX.

[Dorothy Dix, “High Cost of Keeping a Family and Fear of Alimony Keep Men from Altar – Bachelor Life looks Easier – Boys Too Poor, Men Too Wise To Take A Chance,” syndicated, Spokane Daily Chronicle (Wa.), Jul. 10, 1931, p. 5] 

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This advertisement appeared on page 3 of the same paper the Dix article was taken from (on page 5).

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For more on this subject, see: MGTOW: 20th Century Men Going Their Own Way

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[2289-4/2/21]

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MGTOW: 20th Century Men Going Their Own Way

MGTOW (standing for Men Going Their Own Way) developed out of a Men’s Rights forum called “XYZ” that appeared 2000-2003. The name and logo (based on the traffic sign indicating “off-ramp ahead”) were created in 2003 by two members of that forum.

MGTOW “has no leader, no official message board, no website (although many have websites and forums that support it's ideals), there is no ‘there, there’ to organize, attack, censor, eliminate or shame into submission.  It is everywhere and nowhere.”

Source: The History of MGTOW - Men Going Their Own Way - The Official Website

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►Proto-MGTOW - Historical Texts:

1919 – “Why Men Don’t Marry” – MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) in 1919

1927 – “Why Men Don’t Marry” - MGTOW in 1927 (article by Helen Rowland)

1928 – MEN ON STRIKE – Early Men’s Rights Organization: Tibet 1928

1929 – MGTOW in 1929 (article by Dorothy Dix)

1931 – MGTOW in 1931 (article by Dorothy Dix)

1952 – Alimony: An American Tragedy - 1952

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[1102-4/7/21]

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“Why Men Don’t Marry” - MGTOW in 1927 (article by Helen Rowland)

FULL TEXT: All that the modern girl asks of man is that he treat her with tenderness and chivalry – and the same time permit her to drive the car, run the house, swim the Channel and beat him at golf and tennis.

That he acknowledge her as his economic equal – and then marry her and pay all her bills for the rest of his life.

That he join her in petting parties and take her to night-club orgies – and, at the same time, respect her, love her truly, and regard her kisses as a romantic adventure or a “sacred” privilege.

That he look up to her as his guiding star and his “beautiful influence” and at the same time admire her backless evening gowns, her above-the-knee frocks and her ability to mix a wicked cocktail.

That he be anxious and eager to enter the till-death-do-us-part pact – and yet perfectly willing to pay her alimony and send her to Paris at her own expense, when domestic life begins to bore her.

That he work like a stoker in the office all day, to supply her with fur coats, limousines and square-cut diamonds – and yet have plenty of time and pep left to go around to theaters, card parties and dancing clubs with her.

That he look on calmly and serenely while she rouges her lips, darkens her lashes and powders her nose – and still think of her as Nature’s Masterpiece, God’s Perfect Work.

That he think of her as a creature of finer clay and more delicate sensibilities than himself – and still admit her to all his clubs, give her his turn in the barber’s chair and let her ride beside him in the smoking car.

That he give her equal say in making the laws and running the country – and yet, not expect her to obey the traffic regulations or punish her for a little thing like shooting up her husband.

That he admit her on equal footing in the professions and the ranks of business – and yet never fail to fall for her sex-appeal, or to give her a job on the strength of the twinkle of her eyes or the dimple in her knees.

That he permit her to go around almost as barely clothed as a savage and as gaudily decked out as a Hottentot – and at the same time reverently keep on his coat and take off his hat in her presence, as though she were a civilized woman.

That he allow her to make his social rules, choose his friends and censor his clothes – and at the same time think of her as a cute, lovable, little thing to be “taken care of” – God’s greatest Gift to Man!

That’s positively ALL! And yet, men are becoming so woman-shy, that it is getting harder to lure a man into marriage than it is to get a golfer into church!

[Helen Rowland, “Why Men Don’t Marry” (“Meditations of A Married Woman,” column), syndicated, Miami Daily News (Fl.), Jan. 25, 1927, p. 4]

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For more on this subject, see: MGTOW: 20th Century Men Going Their Own Way

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“Why Men Don’t Marry” – MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) in 1919

This is quite a special post. The present-day trend called MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) is completely expressed in the second article, a “letter to the editor” in response to an editorial discussing the phenomenon of male juries overwhelming tendency to sympathize with murderesses. What we see is the early glimmerings of MGTOW in 1919.

Following the editorial and the letter, in which the particular case under discussion is not named, are news reports on that case, involving Emma Simpson. The case is iconic for its encapsulation of so many of the issues of the men’s rights movement: chivalry, female sentencing discount, female privilege, a woman’s “right to kill,” the misuse of psychology in legal defense, predatory use of alimony law, the abuse of the courts for revenge purposes, attention whoring, and infantilizing of women (neglecting to hold them accountable because of their sex). On top of that the murderess in the case was defended by America’s most famous trial lawyer, Clarence Darrow, whose defense of Mrs. Simpson was a simplified form of that which he deployed in his cynical and perverted sophistry in the notorious trial of the cynical and perverted Leopold and Loeb  five years later in 1924.

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FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 5): The popular and inexpensive American sport, Killing Your Husband, seems to be as popular and probably will continue as inexpensive as ever. The latest case is not yet complete. The husband, at this writing, is still alive, nut whichever way it turns out we have no doubt the lady is quite justified in her smiling confidence. Her picture, snapped after the shooting, is a social document which ought to be preserved, but it should be carefully labeled and supported by affidavits or future civilized generations will take it for the portrait of a lady on her way to a wedding.

She waved and smiled at the Tribune staff photographer. “When I go to court for this I will defend myself. I will need no attorney; the new unwritten law, which does not permit a married man to love another woman, will be my defense. I will tell my whole story to the jury and they will free me.”

They probably will. What is the law, what is a human life, to the sloppy sentimentality of the juries which sit in these cases? A long succession of acquittals has given good basis for confidence that any woman can murder her husband if she is not too old or unsightly. Our juries have made killing a minor offense whenever a woman can tell a story of wrongs, whether the wrongs justify the wiping out of a human life or not.

The law establishes in calmness and justice what excuses or justifies the taking of life. But the sexual sentimentality of male juries has made mockery of law and of reasoned justice, so that any woman whose wrongs are real or fancied may try, convict, and execute according to her own notion of right or her own impulses of pride or jealousy.

This is to place woman not in a shrine, but on the plane of irresponsible childhood or idiocy. Juries which ignore their oath to apply the law, and by their inane verdicts encourage the inflamed egotism of women to destroy life, should be made to feel the condemnation of the courts and of their fellow citizens. Killing has got to be the safest of exercises in this community.

[“Killing Husbands” (editorial), Chicago Tribune (Il.), Apr. 28, 1919, p. 8]

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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 5):

“Voice of the People” (letters to the editor section)

WHY MEN DON’T MARRY

Evansville, Wis., May 26. [Editor of The Tribune]—The Tribune hit the nail squarely on the head in the masterly editorial “Killing Husbands.” Let us hope that the good work may continue until this mighty evil, sex discrimination in the courts, is abated or eliminated. The court has never measured up to its responsibility in the matter of domestic relations. For centuries mothers were robbed of their children with as little compunction as when the mother cat is deprived of its kittens [This is inaccurate. Divorces were very rare “for centuries” until the mid 1800s].Then came a revulsion of feeling and the courts swung around to other extreme and singled the father out as the goat. The man who remains single until he is thirty seldom marries, because by that time he has ceased to be foolhardy and knows from his daily observations that the man who marries and undertakes to maintain a home and rear a family frequently has insurmountable obstacles to overcome. The hostile attitude of the courts, the busy divorce lawyer, and the meddlesome mother-in-law loom upon the horizon of the man of thirty when he for a moment contemplates matrimony, and he regards approvingly the motto on the wall of the den, “SAFETY FIRST.”

– A. V. Lyle.

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FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 5): Hate is a delicate institution. Like an old music box, it may be dormant for several years, and then suddenly jarred, burst into sound –

Mrs. Emma D. Simpson, niece of John M. Roach, traction magnate, will be the next woman Cook county will try for attempted murder – possibly murder. For over three years a jealous hate lay closely guarded in Mrs. Simpson’s heart. The jar came yesterday afternoon – and Mrs. Simpson shot to kill.

Sitting, apparently calm, in the crowded courtroom of Judge David M. Brothers, Mrs. Simpson drew a revolver from the folds of her dress, pointed it at her husband, Elmer E. Simpson, and pulled the trigger six times. When she fired she was in a chair directly across the table from her husband.

It transpired that two of the gun’s chambers were empty. The remaining four were loaded. Two bullets struck Mr. Simpson in the face, one in the shoulder, while the fourth went wild, narrowly missing Gus Wedemeier, clerk of the court.

Mrs. Simpson tossed the revolver on the table and rose. Bailiff August Villwock, rushing from the judge’s chambers, immediately pinned her arms to her side.

~ Hopes He Is Dead. ~

“Now I am vindicated!” cried Mrs. Simpson.

“You’ve killed him!” screamed Miss Bertha Fisher, a court reporter.

“I hope so,” replied Mrs. Simpson quietly as she saw the body of her husband clump and fall to the floor. “He tortured me every minute of the last four years and he deserved it.”

Mrs. Simpson submitted calmly to deputy and was taken to the office of Sheriff Peters. There she refused – on advice of her attorney – to talk.

Shortly afterwards, accompanied by two deputy sheriffs, she started for the county jail. On the way thither – and still entirely composed – she talked freely to a Tribune reporter of her husband.

~ Wife Tells Her Story. ~

“That man has lived by my permission since July 12, 1915,” she said. “On that date I found him in a hotel with Mrs. Jean Webster. Her husband was with me and we had them arrested.

“Since that time he has repeatedly called on this woman.

“Of course I took the gun to court with me, but I didn’t expect to shoot. He said something to me – something nasty, indicative of his whole nature. It made me boil – I couldn’t stand it any longer.”

She waved and smiled at a Tribune staff photographer who snapped her picture as she walked.

“When I go to court for this I will defend myself,” Mrs. Simpson continued. “I will need no attorney – the new unwritten law, which does not permit a married man to love another woman, will be my defense. It will save me.”

“I will tell my whole story to the jury and they will free me. I am perfectly confident of that.”

Mrs. Simpson refused to talk after she entered the jail. But she went to her cell with the matron apparently happy. Mrs. Simpson is 37 years old. Her home is at 1712 North La Salle street. Since their separation her husband has been living with his mother at 136 East Garfield boulevard.

Late last night Dr. J. Whitney Hall worked at the bedside of Simpson to save the man’s life.

“I believe he will die,” said the doctor, who was in the courtroom at the time of shooting and who took Simpson to St. Luke’s hospital.

The events leading up to the attempted murder are taken upon the records of the Cirvuit court.

Mr. And Mrs. Simpson were married July 4, 1902, and lived together until May 18, 1912, at which time Mrs. Simpson left her husband, a telegraph operator, because “he was associating with other women.” Two years ago a divorce suit was filed in the court by Mrs. Simpson, charging her husband with infidelity and naming Mrs. Jeanne Webster, 5624 Indiana avenue, as correspondent.

~ Did Not Want Divorce. ~

The bill was heard five minutes ago by Judge Brothers. The testimony brought out the fact that Mrs. Simpson and Mrs. Webster’s husband had found Simpson and Mrs. Webster in a hotel together.

Judge Brothers indicated he would grant a divorce – but Mrs. Simpson refused.

“I don’t want my husband free to marry her,” she said, and the case was dismissed.

Last February Mrs. Simpson filed a bill asking separate maintenance and charging her husband with infidelity, naming the same woman. Shortly after the filing of the bill Judge Brothers granted Mrs. Simpson $7.50 a week alimony until the case could be heard.

 
Yesterday with her attorney she went to court and asked that the alimony be increased.

“Why – this woman makes $200 a month as secretary for J. M. Roach,” said Simpson top the court. “She has ample means of support.”

Mrs. Simpson and her attorney objected. Mrs. Simpson’s objections were loud.

“Madame, you will have to be quiet,” ordered Judge Brothers.

Attorneys continued their arguments and finally Judge Brothers entered an order providing for $9 a week alimony. Then the judge stepped down from the bench into his chambers.

~ Husband Asks Reconciliation. ~

“Emma – let’s go back and be happy again,” said her husband.

“I will not – and when you get anything on me you can get a divorce.

“Why – right now you are – “

The sentence was never finished. Mrs. Simpson pulled her revolver and started shooting.

Several women screamed, one fainted, and Bailiff Villwock, 2824 Southport avenue, rushed from the jurist’s chambers to grab the revolver.

Immediately after quiet was restored Judge Brothers ascended the bench and held Mrs. Simpson to the grand jury without bond for attempted murder. Judge Brothers has just returned from a vacation forced by heart trouble. The excitement caused a slight relapse and he was ordered home by his physician.

Attorney T. J. Symmes, legal representative for Mrs. Roach, went to the county building and asked of First Deputy H. C. W. Laubenheimer permission to visit Mrs. Simpson in the county jail.

“It is possible that I may represent her at the trial,” the attorney said.

Efforts to talk with Mrs. Webster last night proved futile. She is sister-in-law of Simpson’s brother, Arthur.

“My sister-in-law had nothing to do with breaking up the home,” said Arthur Simpson last night.

Neighbors of Mrs. Simpson described her as a hard working, faithful wife. They asserted she had nursed her husband back to health from tuberculosis.

Miss Bertha Fisher, 18 years old, 2629 Evergreen avenue, a court reporter, stood immediately behind Mrs. Simpson just before the shooting occurred. She said:

“I heard him say that he wanted her to come back and live with him. She replied that is was impossible, and then he started to insult her. He did not finish the sentence. After she had fired the shots she rose coolly and asserted that she was ‘vindicated.’”

Miss Lucille Ver Hoeven, a court reporter told a Tribune reporter last night that Mrs. Simpson had threatened her husband’s life months ago.

[“Taunted Wife Shoots Husband In Courtroom – ‘Hope He’s Dead,’ Says Niece of J. M. Roach.” Chicago Tribune (Il.),  Apr. 26, 1919, p. 1]

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NOTE: Elmer Simpson, shot by his wife on April 11, 1919, died May 18.

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FULL TEXT (Article 4 of 5): The court room was filled with chatting groups. The audience back of the railing, where the judge, jury and prisoner sit, held their seats impatiently. For the jury was out, deliberating upon the sentence to be passed on a woman who had killed her husband – Mrs. Emma Simpson.

The jury had been out for half an hour, the prosecuting attorney had retired to his chambers, and Attorney Clarence Darrow for the defense gathered up his papers, for it was expected the jury would spend some hours deciding on the verdict.

Just as Mr. Darrow reached the door, however, a knock was heard at the jury room door.

~ “Insanity” Is Verdict. ~

The jury filed in, and the prisoner, who had changed her spotless white costume of the morning for a black velvet dress, was brought back. She stood between two guards to hear her sentence – facing the entire assemblage.

“You have the verdict, gentlemen?” inquired Judge George Kersten. “Let it be read.”

The quiet of the room was oppressive. The prisoner shifted her feet nervously. The verdict was read:

“We, the jury, find the defendant, Emma Simpson, committed the act charged in the indictment, but at the time of the commission of the said act she was a lunatic or insane person, and that she was not permanently recovered from such lunacy or insanity.”

Mrs. Simpson turned to disappear into the jail with her guards.

~ Two Ballots Taken. ~

“It is hard to realize she isn’t coming home,” said her aunt. Mrs. Sweet, “but ----“

A sigh was the finish of her sentence.

Max Leviton, a member of the jury, said a little later: “We had been undecided until this morning as to whether she was insane – but when Mrs. Simpson interrupted the prosecuting attorney twice, we figured a sane person would have acted differently.”

Two ballots were taken, and at one time the jury stood six to six on the question of sanity.

~ Now Faces Asylum. ~

After the trial was over and Mrs. Simpson was back in her cell, from where she probably will be taken to Elgin for treatment, she was asked whether she was satisfied with the verdict. She burst into tears.

“Yes, but that won’t bring my husband back ----“

Her tears ceased abruptly.

“Do you know that before last Monday I had not realized the terrible thing I had done. Relatives and friends told me repeatedly I was going insane – and lately I have known something was wrong.

“I know I would make a bad impression on the jury if I broke down, but I just couldn’t help it when they started to say things about Elmer, because Elmer and I were happy together for a long, long time and I couldn’t hear ill spoken of him.”

And she began to weep. Outside the cell Miss Margaret Leithamin, 17, awaiting trial for murder, was industriously mopping the jail floor.

Mr. Darrow expressed himself as pleased with the verdict even though his client was sent to an asylum. The verdict is taken to mean Mrs. Simpson will be placed in an asylum until such time as she is declared to have recovered. Then application can be made for her release.

~ Pleads Woman’s Cause. ~

In his final plea to the jury Attorney Darrow begged that more consideration should be shown for a woman than a man, and cited the domestic troubles Mrs. Simpson had had for seven years.

“I’m not arguing there was a justification for murder,” said he. “The act in itself was a crazy act. This woman was insane at the time and is insane now.”

And then, to show that a man and a woman must be judged differently: “Women will take a bunch of old love letters, tied with faded ribbon, and relive an early romance; to men an old romance would be dust and ashes, if not forgotten.

“You’ve been asked to treat a man and a woman the same – but you can’t.

~ Asks for a Conviction. ~

Prosecutor Murphy in his closing plea thundered:

“The state of Illinois asks you, gentlemen, to put an end to killings by these women wild with jealousy. We have shown there is no insanity in this case.”

 “This paragon of virtue in her own mind was always right and her husband Elmer all wrong ---- “

Mrs. Simpson electrified the court by standing and interrupting dramatically: “Mr. Murphy, he was not all wrong – he was all right until that woman Jean Weber got hold of him!”

Bailiffs pulled her back into her seat. Later, when Mr. Murphy was telling that she, the prisoner claimed to be insane, had been earning her own living she cried out: “I did not.”

Mr. Murphy demanded that she be sent to the penitentiary.

[Maude Martin Evers, “Mrs. Simpson Found Insane; Faces-Asylum – Jury Verdict Stirs Husband Slayer to Tears and Smiles.” Chicago Tribune (Il.), Sep. 26, 1919, p. 1]

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FULL TEXT (Article 5 of 5): Mrs. Emma D. Simpson, who shot her husband in court last April, was adjudged insane by a jury, September 26, and was thereafter sent to the Elgin State Hospital for the Insane. On Friday she was adjudged sane by a jury of experts and released. “The Elgin city court was packed with a sympathetic crowd,” says the report.

She was fifty-one days at the institution. Her remark on regaining her liberty is significant. “I did not do the right thing—absolutely not,” she said. “I could not have done such a thing had I been in my right mind. But until the last hour of my life I’ll believe my husband wanted to kill me and marry a bad woman.”

After the shooting she buoyantly said to the Tribune staff photographer, “When I go to court for this, I will defend myself. I will need no attorney; the new unwritten law, which does not permit a married man to love another woman, will be my defense. I will tell my whole story to the jury and they will free me.”

The Tribune, in comment on this breezy announcement, said, “They probably will. What is law, what is a human life to the sloppy sentimentality of the juries which sit in these cases?”

Mrs. Simpson’s optimism and our prediction have been essentially justified. She did not try her own case. The unwritten law she relied on was not formally pleaded. But the conventional plea of temporary insanity was, and there were learned experts to support it. The jury did not set her free. It compromised by setting her on the road to freedom. She was solemnly adjudged insane and sent for treatment.

Foreseeing the outcome, the Tribune at the time of the trial said:

“Pity is at work for Mrs. Simpson, but we hear of little for the husband she slew in a public courtroom. She is said to be nervous. Nervous women should not carry firearms. Mrs. Simpson may be demented; if so, she should be placed in an asylum for life; not only until she makes a surprising recovery.”

The recovery is made, but it is not surprising. This tragicomedy, beginning with the slaying of a human being by an infuriated woman, proceeding through the elaborate drama of the American criminal trial, and ending with the solemn farce at Elgin, develops as inevitably as an Ibsen play.

Sentimentality is lawless. The disease in America is endemic. We need some drastic moral therapy.

[“Fifty-One Days For Killing,” Chicago Tribune (Il.), Nov. 24, 1919, p. 8]

 

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Other cases in which a wife shot a husband in the court house:

1914 – Clara Schweiger – Kansas City, Missouri

1930 – Clara Palscak – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

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For more on this topic, see Chivalry Justice Checklist & Links

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For more on this subject, see: MGTOW: 20th Century Men Going Their Own Way

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[3384-1/23/21]

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MEN ON STRIKE – Early Men’s Rights Organization: Tibet 1928

You will be surprised to learn that, despite the best efforts of the gender censors, that now, for the first time in nearly a century, it is revealed that Gender Utopia has been achieved in reality. Read on, study the story of “gender” in remote Tibet, and learn how western society will look in 10-20 years.

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“Men on Strike” is the title of the 2013 book by Dr. Helen Smith (“Dr. Helen”) that explains why men are, in ever-increasing numbers, refusing to submit to the out-of-control “gender” system that continues to strip the male of fundamental rights and which reduces so many men to a lifetime of slavery.

Dr. Helen uses the phase “men on strike” as a metaphor for what is going on now, yet there have been instances in history where men have literally gone on strike, and called it a “strike,” and did it for the very same reasons that motivate today’s strikers. Here is one such instance, which took place in 1928 in Tibet.

It is recommended that another post be read in conjunction with this one. “‘A Dictatorship of the Eternal Woman Has Been Declared’: The Soviet Alimony Racket – 1927,”  describes a situation, similar in some respects, as regards to de facto system of polyandry, but arrived to on a different path, namely Communism.

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FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 4): That persistent underground rumbling you’ve been hearing lately is undoubtedly caused by the turning of millions of worms down on the underside of the world, the worms in this case being the patient long suffering husbands of the haughty ladies of Tibet.

According to news that has seeped out through the tall ring of Tibetan mountains, the gentlemen of the yak country have organized a men’s rights campaign that recently culminated in a parade of striking husbands. Accompanied by charm boxes, prayer wheels and fluttering pennants that read “Down With Tyrannical Women!” numbers of married men paraded the streets of Lhasa, demanding more respect for their sex and a kind word now and then from the head of the house.

At the risk of becoming what Tibet considers unmasculine, some of the brave ones have even gone so far as to draw up a set of demands. They ask, among other things, for financial independence, a single standard of morality, only one husband to a wife, the right of widowers to remarry and equal; privileges of divorce.

“Too long have we suffered in silence, my fellow Tibetans!” cries out, in effect this mold manifestant “We, able bodied men seven feet tall, natural protectors of the so-called gentler sex, are made their slaves. We have to earn our own keep as well as supply our wives with luxuries, and they don’t even provide enough children to go around. It has got so than an ambitious woman expects a flock of husbands, just like so many sheep or yaks. Must such things go on forever? Or shall we not rather assert our manhood, even at the risk of appearing unmanlike, and protest against this irksome feminine control?”

Apparently being seven feet tall is not much of a help to the harried husbands of Tibet. For countless centuries the little women of Lhasa and the way stations have kept the masculine world firmly fixed under their yellow thumbs. The trouble is that husbands so often come in wholesale lots, few indeed being the women who haven’t more than one husband. Four is said to be a highly popular number, which is fortunate if the wife happens to be find of the Tibetan equivalent of “Sweet Adeline,” sung as a quartet.

The institution of plural husbands and the feminism seem to be due in a considerable manner to a considerable shortage of women. Percival Landon, who accompanied Younghusband’s expedition, reports that practically all commerce of the country is in the hands of the women, the men serving chiefly as errand runners, bundle carriers and bits of local color. No man is allowed to sell any of the family possessions without his wife’s permission, though, of course, no such restrictions apply to her.

Nor do the women confine their ruling to the little troop of Boy Scouts given to them by holy matrimony. Nu Kuo, a state of eastern Tibet, has always had a woman ruler, and in many of the other provinces the wife of the prince in charge is the real mainspring of the works.

One of the most powerful of the Tibetan divinities is a dark blue with three eyes who rides a mule, has live snakes for veins and drinks her cocktails out of a skull. Some 30 years ago the functionaries of Tibet announced that the current incarnation of the dreadful lady was none other than Queen Victoria. After her death they prophesied that the revered ruler would have the happiness of being reborn a Tibetan. If so, the change in home life must be rather starling to the dear English queen.

Of course, no high spirited Tibetan girl would marry a whole group if she disapproved of any of the members. If one of the younger brothers happens to lack charm, he is black balled out of the wedding party. This, in a young man, is as severe a calamity as the blizzard of 1888, and his usual reaction is is to save himself from social ostracism by becoming a monk.

There is a chance, in southern Tibet, at least, that he can make a career of  a sort by signing on as a magpa. In this section of the country ladies bored with their current group of husbands sometimes add to the ménage an unhappy younger brother who has been vetoed by someone else.

The magpa’s importance is close to the absolute zero of physics. He can leave his wife only in case she possibly mistreats him, but she, on the other hand, can give him the cutting mountain air whenever such a procedure strikes her fancy.

Polyandry is not universal in Tibet. Up near the high brim of China it is comparatively rare, and even in the midst of the many husband belt there are occasional only sons whose interest in their wives is of the shareholders type.
 

Yet the life of these monopolists is hardly cheery enough to justify green looks of envy among the married men of America. It is the duty of the Tibetan husband, whether singular or plural, to make all the clothes for the family, including the wife. Any man who has ever imagined being a Louise-Boulanger [a famous fashion designer] in his own house can picture the anguish of the fitting hour and the horrid strain of the day when the little woman goes out to compare her costume with those made by the husbands across the valley.

But, as the entomologists say, it’s a long worm that has no turning. Under the leadership of one Amouki, who seems to be the Susan B. Anthony of the movement, the husbands of Tibet have risen to demand an improvement in their status.

[“Husbands of Thibet Demand Equal Rights – In Mysterious Land Where Every Wife Has a Harem, Downtrodden Male Sex Organizes an Anti-feminine Movement,” The Sunday Magazine of the Milwaukee Journal (Wi.), May 20, 1928, p. 5]

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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 4):

“Fathers and brothers:

“For many years we have been subjected to feminine domination. They look upon us as cattle and horses. Their impositions are so many that it is impossible to mention them all, but here are some:

“1. A wife is provided with many husbands. If they do not please her she abandons them. Husbands dare not resist.

~ CALL THEMSELVES SLAVES. ~

“2. under feminine control we work day and night in a different section of the country. We gain money by the sweat of our brow, of which we may keep nothing, being compelled to turn over all to the woman who rules us.

If we have not lucrative employment we are evicted and abandoned. What slaves we are!

“3. women are free to remarry when any of their husbands die, but we are obliged to remain widowers if our wife dies. Even if his fiancée dies before marriage

~ RESOLUTIONS IN TIBET. ~

No, this is not taken from some crazy quilt, futuristic farce, nor does it describe a man-hating woman’s dream of heaven. It is surely part of the resolutions offered secretly by striking husbands of Tibet, to be exact, of the province of Ezetchouan.

This is only one of  the many communities in Asia where polyandry is the existing system, where every woman has at least three husbands plus one bronze image of a Buddist priest.

All husbands except of the favorite work for the wife, who is absolute despot over the seven-foot males. They are her playthings. If she likes them, she keeps them; if not she casts them aside. And a husband so discarded is an outcast from society.

~ DECIDED TO REBEL. ~

Well, the downtrodden husbands of that one particular province decided to rebel, formed a union and marched five hundred strong on the holy city of Lhassa, appealing for “Men’s Rights.” Banners calling for “Financial Independence for Men” and demanding that “One Husband Should Suffice For Any One Woman” were in evidence.

Doesn’t it remind you of the not-so remote effects of our own downtrodden women? Yet today it is said that the only country in the world where women enjoy greater privileges than in America is in polygamous Tibet!

[Jean Newton, “What Slaves We Are, Cry Husbands – Men Of Ezetchouan, Tibet, Where Polyandry Exists, Rebel and Adopt Resolutions. – Situation Is Like Reversal Of Recent Conditions In America, Suggests Writer.” The Sunday Sun (Baltimore, Md.), May 13, 1928, Sec. 2, p. 13]

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NOTE: Here’s a little background information on the Tibetan system of polyandry which precipitated the revolt of the males in 1928.

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FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 4): A little northeast of Lhassa, among the mountains that cover that part of the great plateau of Tibet, the explorer Bonvalot found a large population. It is in these valleys that some of the rivers of India have their headquarters. This region, says the New York Sun, is peculiar as the part of Tibet where polyandry is the custom, and this feature of social life has given Tibet some notoriety, because there are very few parts of the world in which polyandry is practised. Bonvalot thus describes the custom as it exists in Tibet.

A family has a daughter. A young man wishes to enter the family, to live under its roof, and become the husband of the daughter. He consults with the parents, and if they arrive at an agreement in regard to the amount of property he is to turn over to them, he takes up his abode in the hut and becomes the husband of the daughter. It may be that there are other young men desirous of partaking of the same good fortune. They are not at all deterred by the fact that the girl is already provided with a husband. They present themselves at the hut, make offers of certain property, and, unless the first husband has paid what is regarded in Tibet as a very large sum in order to secure the young woman as his exclusive possession, she becomes likewise the wife of these other claimants for her hand, and the whole family live together in the same hut and in the utmost harmony.

It rarely happens that a young man thinks so much of the girl he weds in this peculiar fashion as to be jealous of others who also desire to be her husband. Now and then, however, such a case arises, and then there is likely to be bloodshed. He is a happy young man who is wealthy enough to become the sole lord and master of his wife. It is a question entirely of money. If the young Tibetan is rich enough he buys a wife and remains the only master of the household. Sometimes, also, the husband acquires sufficient property to buy out the interest? of the other husbands and then they retire from the field. They are generally content if they receive back a little more money than they paid for their interest in the young woman. The children are always regarded as belonging to the woman, and the fathers lay no claims upon them. Polyandry is not established by law, but it is a custom which probably arose at some time when the female population was less numerous than the male, and it has been continued largely on account of the poverty of the people. Polygamy is practiced as well as polyandry.

While the poorest men have only a fractional interest in one wife, the rich men of the community have several wives. The chiefs have as many as they can buy. Financial considerations, therefore, have all to do with questions of matrimony.

[“Polyandry In Tibet. - A Country "Where Women Have Several Husbands Apiece. -  Financial Considerations Rule All Matrimonial Questions in the Land of the Lama, But Jealousy It Not Popular.” Syndicated, The Piqua Daily Call (Oh.), Apr. 6, 1892, p. 4] 

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FULL TEXT (Article 4 of 4): Polyandry still flourishes in Central Asia where the inconveniences of a matriarchy are solved by never having more than one husband home at a time. After spending five years in the desert and mountain wildernesses of Northern Tibet and Chinese Turkestan, Professor Nicholas Roerich, head of the Roerich American expedition, declared today that the women of Central Asia were the greatest spiritual force of that remote, wild section of the globe.

Three or four husbands are the rule in Northern Tibet. Polyandry is most common among the lower classes. The high cast Tibetans, guided by their lamas, or priests, are more inclined towards monogamy.

Among the strange lore which Protestor Roerich brought back with him from his travels is an account of a religion called Shambhala. This it strangely parallel with some of our own scientific discoveries of recent date. The Shambhala is an evolutionary theory which promises to show humanity how to master psychic energy, cosmic energy end through the these – the mystery of fire energy.

“The high culture of these people is remarkable. The lamas are really teachers, not monks. They try to keep this Sbambhala religion to themselves. It was manifested about 2,000 years ago and only few know of it or are able to understand it.

“The women look like the Red Indian. They are taught that it is immodest to attract the attention of a man. For this reason they paint their cheeks with a black powder mixed with blood. This makes them ugly – and seems to suit their purpose admirably. They pick their own husbands, thus the matter of  selectivity is no problem with them.”

Professor Roerich, accompanied by his wife and son, George Roerich, one of the foremost Orientalists, set out frost Sikhim in India, crossed over to the Soja La Pass to Little Tibet, thence to the great Karkorum Passes into Chinese Turkestan. From there they journeyed over the Altis Mountains to Mongolia, the Gobi Desert, into Tibet. They suffered innumerable hardships.

En route, Professor Roerich paused to paint pictures of the impenetrable regions around Altis and the Himilaya Mountains. He is a famous artist, philosopher and scientist for whom the Roerich Museum was founded here in 1923.

 
[“Polyandry Still Practised in Asia by Tibetans of tower and Middle Classes - Women Make Themselves Ugly, at It Is a Sin to Attract Men,” syndicated, The Dubois Courier (Pa.), Jun. 26, 1929, p. 8]

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From Wikipedia article “Polyandry in Tibet”: Studies have attempted to explain the existence of polyandry in Tibet. One reason put forward in traditional literature is that: By not allowing land to be split between brothers, Tibetan families retained farms sufficiently large to continue supporting their family. A compelling socio-biological justification for polyandry is that it makes good genetic sense for brothers to raise one another's children since a brother possesses the next closest gene pool to their own. Another reason for polyandry is that the mountainous terrain makes some of the farm land difficult to farm, requiring more physical strength. Women take multiple husbands because they are strong and able to help tend the land.

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►• ►The “Early Men’s Rights Activism” post gives links to other articles on 1910s-1930s men’s rights activism in several countries. ◄•◄

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For more on this subject, see: MGTOW: 20th Century Men Going Their Own Way

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[2573-5/7/21]

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MGTOW in 1929

MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) is a term coined in the 2000s to describe the deliberate retrenchment of men who recognize that cultural misandry has rendered the romantic landscape a legal and financial minefield. Yet the abuses of out-of-control female privilege as exploited by the all-too-common predators, narcissists and sociopaths of the fair sex has long been recognized as is evidenced from the 1929 article presented below.

NOTE: Author Dorothy Dix was the Oprah of the 1920s-1930s. She was the most widely read advice columnist of her day, with her writings syndicated in newspapers across the globe.

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FULL TEXT: I often wonder that the modern woman does not perceive that she is killing the goose that lays the golden egg by her attitude toward men. By which I mean to say that it is women themselves who are destroying the things that they value most in life. It is women’s hands that are tearing to tatters the chiffons of romance and sentiment and idealism in which men have always clothed them. It is women who are stifling tenderness and slaying chivalry in the hearts of men. It is women who are doing away with all the graces and sweetnesses that made charm in the relationship between men and women and that incidentally lured men into matrimony.

For women are making men afraid of them and what they will do to them and that makes men cold and cautious in dealing with the fair sex. Even Romeo watches his step and counts the calories in his sweet talk when he keeps a date with Juliet nowadays.

Women don’t like this. They complain bitterly that there are no impassioned lovers. They say that young men are so afraid they may compromise themselves by their attentions to a girl that ten minutes alter meeting her they serve notice on her that they have no intention of marrying and that even one’s fiance’s letters read like a communication about the state of the stock market instead of being an outpouring of burning affection.

And women don’t seem to see that they are to blind for this state of affairs und that the reason for it is because they have taken love and lovemaking and even marriage out of the realm of sentiment and pinned a price tag on them and commercialized them. They have made men pay through the nose for romantic dalliance and idle words said on a moonlight night, and that is why Dan Cupid, who is no bill collector, has packed up his arrows and fled the scene.

Thus have many women been cut out of the pleasure and excitement of playing the love game, for no man dares take a hand in that now unless he is ready to pay up if the lady calls his bluff.

In our mother’s time it is doubtful if there was any woman so unattractive that some man at some time didn’t whisper soft nothing in her ear and tell her what beautiful eyes she had and how different she was from all other women and how the first time he ever saw her he felt that she was the only woman who ever really understood him and how sweet life would be if he could have such a woman as the by his side and who didn’t send her gooey songs and slushy poetry.

But now it is a common thing to have an attractive woman in her 30s or 40s tell you that she never had a beau in her life and that the nearest approach to sentiment she has ever heard from any man is when her boss said: “Miss Pothooks, you certainly are a peach of a stenographer and I don’t know how I would get along without you.”

The reason for this is, of course, that men are afraid to make love to a girl unless they are prepared to lead her to the altar. For over their heads dangles the sword of the breach-of-promise suit. They have seen Juliet cashing in too often on Romeo’s unguarded vows to take any chances themselves.

Now, of course, every woman yearns to be deeply and truly loved and to feel that some man is mad about her, but synthetic love is better than no love at all, and every woman would rather have been philandered with than to have been passed over entirely. The flirtations give her a tag end of romance at least to tuck away in her memory and to keep her from feeling that she was wholly lacking in attraction to men.

Also, man, women who have good jobs with fat pay envelopes and who are interested in their business or professions don’t want to marry, but they do enjoy the society of men, which they might have if the predatory women hadn’t made feminine companionship such a hazardous and expensive luxury for men to indulge themselves in.

And there is the matter of love letters. Men used to pour forth their souls to their souls to their lady loves in beautiful poetic letters that were like the beating of a heart in one’s hand. There are love letters that have come crown through the ages to us as gems of literature, and in the old days every woman had packets of love letters, tied with blue ribbon, hidden away among her treasures that she took out and read when she was old and that brought her girlhood flooding back upon her once more. Grandma wore grandpa’s love letters under her laces on her breast.

But the love letter has become as extinct as the Dodo. The modern youth when, away from his sweetie communicates, with her by radio or wireless or telegraph or he dictates it to a stenographer, and if the modern girl should put her steady’s letter above her Heart she would think she had an ice pack on and get a chill.

Why? Because women have made men afraid to write love letters. They have seen too many people snickering as they read some man’s impassioned maunderings in the newspapers and they know none but tae foolhardy put down in black and white on paper the sentiments that seem so sweet and noble when they are written and that sound such idiotic twaddle when they are read aloud in court or appear in print.

Worse still, women are keeping men from marrying by demanding so much alimony that it makes matrimony not only a gamble in happiness but the most risky financial speculation they can engage in.

Under the present laws a man can marry a girl who makes no effort in any way to be a good wife. She can refuse to keep house, refuse to bear children. She can be lazy, extravagant, high-tempered, nagging and make his life a torment to him, yet she can force him to support her as long as he lives. And, such being the case, it is not strange that prudent men are shying of more and more from the altar.

These are facts which I respectfully submit to my sister women. And I would also call their attention to what happened to the greedy woman who killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

DOROTHY DIX.

[Dorothy Dix, “Why Can’t The Modern Woman See That She Is Killing the Goose That Lays the Golden Eggs When She Places a Commercial Value on Every Endearment a Man Utters, Cries Dorothy Dix,” syndicated, The Bee (Danville, W. Va.), Dec. 6, 1929, p. 12; illustration is taken from an ad appearing on the same page]

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For more on the Heart Balm Racket, see:

Predatory Women & the 20th Century Extortion Scam Called the “Heart Balm Racket”

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For more on this subject, see: MGTOW: 20th Century Men Going Their Own Way

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[1421-4/7/21]

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Alimony: An American Tragedy - 1952

NOTE : The following text is a book review written by Mrs. Walter Ferguson on a 1952 book, Alimony: An American Tragedy, by Dr. Charles Wilner.

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FULL TEXT : We have a man who is so mad about alimony rackets, he’s written a book. “Alimony, The American Tragedy,” is the title and Dr. Charles Wilner of New York is the author.

Feminism gets a trouncing. It is charged with having produced the money-grubbing females of our age. Usual tributes are paid by the writer to the old-fashioned, home-loving wife who inspired man to his best efforts and found her greatest rewards in his respect and love. You know the line.

But certain other comments will be sure to make some feminine readers boiling mad. I still recommend them, for they are backed by solid good sense.

Dr. Wilner’s most startling charge is that alimony laws are creating an ever-growing group of American spinsters. The lawyers connive with wives to extract every last dollar from an ex-husbands purse, he contends. Thus, the divorced men can’t or won’t remarry, because they are disillusioned and hate the opposite sex.

“Millions of women pine away in unwed loneliness, merely because predatory alimony-wives devour their prey so publicly that many men are frightened away from matrimony into bachelorhood,” says Dr. Wilner.

“Today four definite factors reduce women’s chances of marriage:

“First the attitude of men who are afraid to marry.

“Second, the ease of which men can satisfy their instincts outside of wedlock.

“Third, the vast number of men who are forced to support economically self-sufficient wives by means of alimony, and are therefore unable to assume a double responsibility.

“Fourth, the large army of women who have reduced their own chances of marriage by competing with and directly replacing male labor.”

That’s the bad news, girls. Think it over.

[Mrs. Walter Ferguson, Column:  “A Woman’s View”; “The Alimony Tragedy, “The Pittsburgh Press (Pa.), Oct. 7, 1952, p. 22]

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For more revelations of this suppressed history, see The Alimony Racket: Checklist of Posts

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For more on this subject, see: MGTOW: 20th Century Men Going Their Own Way

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[1108-10/30/21]

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