This is why being an active member of a church, extended family, club, or similar organization can lead to higher agency, even though you are agreeing to follow their rules and contribute with time and/or money. You are essentially part of a team and that gives you the team as a sort of leverage.
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Being NostrOnly actually gives you similar "leverage", as being on Nostr is still a relatively rare trait that signals something about you, personally, to the other people here.
The most extreme form of this is trade-off is the submission expected of Christian wives. You gain massive amounts of leverage over the actions of one particular man, but you give up most of your direct agency and can only navigate "independently" within the bounds he sets.
That's why the most-powerful or influential women in Christian history tend to be never-married or divorced. Marriage basically takes her out of the running, and she can't "move up in rank" until and unless she is widowed, so she has to carefully consider if that's the best choice of vocation.
Well, I mean, I'm only here because my husband made me delete Whatsapp and Facebook because of Zuckerberg, but he sees Nostr as this indy/punk version of the same sort of thing, so he grudgingly tolerates it and even sometimes helps with our project. I'm only allowed to buy Bitcoin because of his Occupy Wallstreet mentality.
Without his influence, I'd be exchanging cat pics with my neighbor ladies and arranging our next wellness spa vacation and shopping trip. I'm totally out of that loop because Hubby is like, that's a stupid loop.
My compliments to your husband.
I feel this. 6 years ago I made the decision to be the at home parent since my wife had the better job. With a 6th kid on the way, the loss of agency can be crushing.
My initial thought was that it would free up a few hours a day to make something very much like nostr. But family has a way of expanding into every available minute.
Friends and family should be a backstop to how much agency you can lose, but my family is 600 miles away, my wife's parents are aging, and I haven't managed to make lasting friends here. Someone always moves away.
But meaning and happiness aren't measured in agency, it is in surrender and giving yourself to a cause.
I only have 2 teenagers, but it seems like they've been taking turns having viruses or accidents or meltdowns or school problems all winter and spring, my husband's workplace is a constant construction site, and his weekends are spent at our construction site, so I've slowly given up any pretense at being able to work toward any major goals. Life is too chaotic. Becoming impossible to even plan anything.
Not just Christian, but rooted in biology. If I have to die for you and the offspring, I'm going to tell you what risks you're going to take, if any, and set the bounds.
Yes, and any risks they enter into become your own increased risk.
I always laugh at those ghetto girlfriend starting fights for their men videos, or talking back to the police at traffic stops... completely unable to measure risk. Good fun.
Or that WW2 female spy, whose husband didn't want her to spy and didn't agree with her politically, but she did it, anyway. Then, he was arrested and refused to renounce her and got the death penalty. Can't remember her name.
Christian stuff tends to be grounded in natural law, so a lot of it is justified by things the Biblical speaker observes in nature or normal human interaction.
So, Ephesians 5:22, in the New Testament of the Bible works like this:
It claims that man and wife become one flesh (otherwise, they aren't "one entity" and there is de facto no marriage). And then it says men should love their wives as much as they love their own bodies (as that is now effectively the same thing). Then it explains what this husbandly loving means "for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it". And then it says, "and women should respect their husbands".
So, why would you risk your life for your wife's body's sake?
Because you would risk your life for your own body's sake. You would fight back, if attacked, and try to save yourself.
Why should a wife treat her husband respectfully?
Because she treats herself respectfully. If she loves herself, she will have "standards".
We are simply being asked to do the thing we would naturally be inclined to do for ourselves, for the other person. Since men generally have more physical and/or economic power, those are the things he can offer. Since women generally have more status and/or social power, those are the things she can offer.
So that each person is made whole in the joining of the flesh. Then both of them enjoy all things, as a team.
That's why the ole "But why should I pay for her dinner? What does she bring to the table?" question is so... underwhelming.
She brings to the table the social status required to be able to expect someone to value her company enough that he's willing to pay just to have her undivided attention for a couple of hours, at the same time that she possess the financial stability to not need the money he pays and the options to choose who gets the privilege to pay. That is something very concrete that can work to his advantage, later. And the more men would be willing to pay for that attention, and the more each man would be willing to pay, the more of an advantage she brings.
Men will pay, just to speak to her and watch her chew food. They will buy her an $80 steak, just to watch her eat it. She might even regularly turn down steak dinner offers. She might even be turning down gold-dusted steak dinners in private jets on the way to Malibu offers.
This is someone you want on your team.
chivalry is good imo. makes me blind to a lot of faults in someone if they put me first in some way. it buys a lot of loyalty and rent space... not sure if it's good to have loyalty, but loyalty to someone who puts you first seems like a no-brainer
Heh, now?
Why pay Ferrari prices for a skateboard?
Better off just controlling your passions & do something more worthwhile until / if things return to some kind of sanity in your lifetime.
In case nobody noticed, clown world offers little good iron & a whole lot of dross.
It's true. If you look around and see a bunch of skateboards, you probably don't have access to the Ferraris.