emmanuel reynaud holy virility the social construction of masculinity

over the years, the legal basis for (potential) financial
independence; not necessarily as a result of any benevolent
feelings on the part of the man class, but simply because it is in
the logic of the economy itself. Moreover, this antagonism
between patriarchal and capitalist interests does not look as if it
is likely to be reduced:
[96 / Holy virility]
«The appearance of products manufactured with a higher
efficiency in the commodity economy, which are
increasingly replacing domestic products, will draw a
growing proportion of women into wage-earning activities.
This trend does not seem easily reversable.» [5]
The number of married women working for a wage outside the
home has increased in most western countries. This situation
implies not only limitation on the husband's power to blackmail,
but it also presents an explosive contradiction: the wife's
simultaneous position as wage-earner outside the home where
she sells her labout power, and husband's property in the home
where she is used endlessly. This opposition which has been
clearly highlighted by Colette Guillaumin [6], can only
exacerbate the man-woman conflict within the conjugal unit,
and the husband's authority is likely to continue to ebb.
In addition to the various legal alterations to the marriage
contract over the last hundred years, in most countries in the
West new laws have been passed which have fundamentally
changed relations between the sex classes. These are the laws
authorising women to use a means of contraception, followed
by the legalisation of abortion (1969 in the UK, 1975 in France)
as a result of campaigns by the feminist movement. Thus, in the
space of a few years, the man class has well and truly lost a
major part of its power over women ―the unrestricted
appropriation of their wombs.
It is certain that such a historical landmark is an important
contribution towards the struggle for the destruction of
patriarchy. Although often imperceptible on a macro-social
level, it is nevertheless the case that feminist ideas are seeping
into every household, disturbihg the relations between the
sexes. This, together with the various contradictions already
mentioned, make it highly probable that man will find it
increasingly difficult, inside as well as outside marriage, to
defend and realise his ownership rights over women.
[Marriage / 97]
To package the measures that aim to guarantee him the
exclusive appropriation of a woman, man traditionally presents
marriage as his sacrifice; the renunciation of his life as a
bachelor, and the end of his freedom, which he offers as a token
of 'love' to the woman he marries. In so doing, he joins the ranks
of all the masters in history who invariably guaranteed the real
sacrifice of their slaves through what appeared to be their own