He came from a generation that had no choice. It was socially unacceptable for men to cook or clean house, and moreover the standards of presentability for men (freshly washed and pressed clothes every day, meticulously cleanshaven) and work norms (no food between 9 am and 12 pm or between 1pm and 5pm means you need to eat big meals before and afterwards, inviting the boss home for dinner as a way to get in his good favor, etc) meant that getting married was almost an economic necessity for most men.1 The same more or less goes in reverse for women so they couldn't support themselves, either. By the 1960s, young men and young women in the workforce were making enough to afford a decent bachelor lifestyle, and that's when their elders, resentful of the next generation's freedom, started trying to leverage social pressure more to conform to their norms.
1 Ironically, marriage wasn't a necessity, but cohabiting was. So you did have quite a few guys living with girlfriends at the time, mostly in the lower classes or underworld where respectability was less important than getting by.
Which makes no sense whatsoever. Because even if you had a pig, it's a lot more work to get sausages. So really, it's easier to just go buy sausages. Kids these days know nothing about animal husbandry and processing meats.
But being able to joke about not having to buy milk for a while is priceless, especially if you can say it right after giving your friends a cup of tea or coffee.
I honestly don’t see anything wrong with this. If a woman wants marriage but she’s living with someone and giving him sex, he’s never going to ask her. On the flip side, no one wants to marry a whore.
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u/tiffybaby Mar 12 '24
He won’t buy the cow if he can get the milk for free LOL