(I didn’t downvote, but my experience is different)
In my bubble, people in committed relationships get married and make marital vows and those vows include words to the effect of “I got you”, in sickness and in health, and much else besides. And then they stick to those marital vows as hard as they can. (cf Parfit’s Hitchhiker, but my bubble isn’t familiar with that). In my bubble, myth-stories of successful couples include Adam and Eve, where Eve was literally created to support Adam. In my bubble we hear the statistics about married men living longer and happier than unmarried men and presume that this is large part due to having the support of a wife.
In my bubble, wives sometimes complain about their husband slacking off and not pulling his weight, and sometimes are unhappy about that, but it’s not because their husband is failing to fulfill gender stereotypes by needing support but because of the immediate problem that now they have to do more. (cf when your partner plays Defect in the Cooperate/Defect game, but my bubble doesn’t put it in those terms). In my bubble there is a feminist suspicion that husbands are more likely to try to slack off. (cf evolutionary psychology, which my bubble thinks is nonsense). But even when husbands are slacking off there is still a ton of support going in both directions.
In my bubble, single people, and people in non-committed relationships, stand on their own feet, without needing the support of their partner, and thus signal that they can stand on their own feet, and thus signal that they are less likely to be a liability or an unequal partner in the future. It also signals that, once a relationship becomes committed, if their partner becomes sick they will be able to keep everything going until s/he is better. A lot of this discussion makes more sense if I read it as a discussion of people who aren’t in a committed relationship, or of a broken culture that cannot make relationship vows.
(I didn’t downvote, but my experience is different)
In my bubble, people in committed relationships get married and make marital vows and those vows include words to the effect of “I got you”, in sickness and in health, and much else besides. And then they stick to those marital vows as hard as they can. (cf Parfit’s Hitchhiker, but my bubble isn’t familiar with that). In my bubble, myth-stories of successful couples include Adam and Eve, where Eve was literally created to support Adam. In my bubble we hear the statistics about married men living longer and happier than unmarried men and presume that this is large part due to having the support of a wife.
In my bubble, wives sometimes complain about their husband slacking off and not pulling his weight, and sometimes are unhappy about that, but it’s not because their husband is failing to fulfill gender stereotypes by needing support but because of the immediate problem that now they have to do more. (cf when your partner plays Defect in the Cooperate/Defect game, but my bubble doesn’t put it in those terms). In my bubble there is a feminist suspicion that husbands are more likely to try to slack off. (cf evolutionary psychology, which my bubble thinks is nonsense). But even when husbands are slacking off there is still a ton of support going in both directions.
In my bubble, single people, and people in non-committed relationships, stand on their own feet, without needing the support of their partner, and thus signal that they can stand on their own feet, and thus signal that they are less likely to be a liability or an unequal partner in the future. It also signals that, once a relationship becomes committed, if their partner becomes sick they will be able to keep everything going until s/he is better. A lot of this discussion makes more sense if I read it as a discussion of people who aren’t in a committed relationship, or of a broken culture that cannot make relationship vows.