by Chinweizu
They probably say to themselves: "Another sod bites the dust, but I'm still free!"
And thus it is that a wedding is a grand and heartless conspiracy against the bridegroom. Poor fellow! As he leads his bride home and shows her off, you can guess why that radiant smile shines from her face. You can imagine the woman in her (what Virginia Woolf called the "Angel in the House") popping up in her head and singing the victory song of bridepower:
Now the hunt is over;
The prey is in your net.
Show his head to the cheering crowd
And flash your victory smile.
You can almost read the thoughts in her mind as she hugs and kisses him in front of the wedding guests: "Poor fool, I caught you at last! You may think you are stronger; you may think you are cleverer; you may think whatever nonsense makes you feel good, but you are now my official nest-slave! And if ever you try to escape, all of society, all these people who have witnessed this day, will restrain you." {63} Which is why a woman who won't enter into marriage without a wedding knows precisely what she is after. She knows what insurance she is insisting on obtaining against possible desertion by her soon-to-be-over-exploited nest-slave. {64}
Part IV
Wifepower: In the Nest of His Own Matriarch
8. The Husband Managers
It is only stupid women who cannot command men.50
- Marie Corelli
The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness and kindness, can be trained to do most things.51
- Jilly Cooper
I have a manager: officially, they call her my wife.
- A London man at a Brixton Fair, 1989.
Now she has married him, moved into his house, and settled down to manage her "hard worker". Husband management, the grand preoccupation of wife power, has as its prime objectives:
a) to keep the husband productive of enough wealth, status, power, fame, etc. as will satisfy the wife's own ambitions; and
b) to keep him from running away, however harrowingly she exploits him.
To achieve these aims, a wife brings all her skills in manipulation. In the art of managing men, rare is the male Caesar who can match the average girl of seventeen. Girls learn it by observation, or through conversation with their mothers or aunts, or during initiation rites in those societies which still practice them. The result is that, by puberty, if not before, the average girl can manipulate a situation so as to receive as gifts whatever she desires, even without explicitly asking for them. This skill, which she is ready to use on her male slave, demonstrates a much higher order of managerial craft than order-barking prefects, captains, generals, presidents, tycoons and other male-style {66} commanders ever attain. After marriage, she keeps her skills sharpened through refresher courses, alias kaffee klatches or gossip sessions, where women talk what, for them, is serious shop.
To the management of her husband, a wife brings the highest possible professionalism. If the essence of professionalism (in contrast to amateurism) is in doing what one is doing for monetary or other economic reward and not for fun; at as high a level of skill as is possible; and with a singleness of purpose that is intolerant of distraction or frivolity - then it is in husband management that women show the highest professionalism. Indeed, compared to a career wife, the so called career woman of today (who wears a suit, carries a briefcase, commutes to an office daily, does her nine-to-five stint, and hurries home in the evening rush hour) is not a professional at all, but a high dabbler on the turf of professional men; for when the going gets tough, any but the hardiest of these tomboys is liable to quit and concentrate on her marriage.
Once the nest slave has been brought home, the poor fellow is managed ruthlessly. He is given his assignments and made to perform them. He is routinely henpecked and spied on. If he is particularly recalcitrant, he is threatened with starvation, with loss of peace of mind, or with loss of sexual privileges. He is subjected to the full force of what some Nigerian husbands call bedroom terrorism. The weapons of the bedroom terrorist range from those of agitators to those of assured rulers. The repertory includes praise, blame, flattery, guilt tripping, nagging, putting in the wrong, sex strikes, the big and the little lie, the silent withdrawal of approval, the ruthless manipulation of male insecurities and fears, the shattering of fragile egos, incitement to rivalry, misinformation, disinformation, deliberate confusion and disorientation.
In using these weapons to get whatever she wants out of her husband, a wife has the support of her professional colleagues - her circle of female friends and relatives. They act as her spy network, informing her of her husband's activities when he is out of her sight. And in their kaffee klatches, where they gather to natter about how to run their husbands, they teach one another how to make any intractable husband's life so hot a hell that he would prefer to toe the line laid down by his wife. The wives of elite men are, of course, the best husband managers. These are the gran des dames or grand matriarchs who expertly manage the foremost male managers of vast organizations. They are the type {67} referred to when, at testimonial dinners, it is said that behind every successful man there is a woman. But what, it may be asked, does such a woman do to her man from behind?
As we all know, behind every successful boxer, athlete or pop star is a trainer/manager. Likewise, the wife behind a successful man is his trainer/manager. She drives him on like a charioteer drives a horse that is pulling him along. In her hands she holds the reins of criticism and admiration, of sexual rewards and punishment; with these she controls his ego and guides his efforts. She also has at her disposal the entire set of social arrangements, cultural values and psychological forces which, for millennia, have been organized for the exercise of wife power. These include the facade of patriarchy, the double standard, man's fear of woman, man's silly soul which is full of sentimental illusions, their almighty baby, and man's fear of divorce. In using these tools and resources of husband management, an elite wife is a pastmaster (pastmistress?) among women.
Given such mastery, it is no wonder that elite wives are wont to maintain that men are babies - naive, ignorant, bragging, hard-working, oversize babies; and that any woman worth her tears can manage any man. In this, elite wives differ from most feminists; the latter tend to be bewildered and inexpert at man-management, either because they escaped a thorough grounding in traditional female arts of man-management, or because they are contemptuous of such arts. To the discerning observer, the assurance with which elite wives manage their husbands is no different from that displayed by ruling class grandees toward those they habitually rule. These behind-the- scenes trainer/managers of the lords of public affairs, these Livia's52 and Lady Macbeths of the world of power, are indeed the ultimate rulers of the world. Each community, however small, has its local crop of them. {68}
9. The Facade of Patriarchy
My husband may be the head of the house; I am the neck that turns the head.
- An American housewife.
Many mammal societies once thought to be run by a dominant male are now known to be matriarchies. Elephants are a good example. Because the big bull - the Alpha male - is always the most noticeable and the most threatening, he was always mistakenly thought to be the leader. But the true herd ruler is the Alpha female, who has swiftly and quietly led the group away to safety. She is the one who takes all the decisions.53
- Anne Rasa, naturalist and ethnologist.
Contrary to feminist propaganda, which alleges that most human societies are, and have been, patriarchies, human societies are no exception to the rule of matriarchies operating covertly behind a façade of patriarchy. Indeed, patriarchy is a facade, most soothing to the male ego, for wife rule. That this is so is confirmed by women from some of the most dissimilar cultures in the world. Take what an American housewife told me during a wedding reception on a boat in Boston Harbour, quoted above, about the neck that turns the head. And take what a Saudi Arabian woman professor said on the
BBC World Service: "The traditional Saudi wife runs her family and runs her husband."54
It may be tempting to say that even if patriarchy is a facade for matriarchy in the home, it couldn't be so in public life, which is almost exclusively a male turf. But alas, whether in the home or the public arena, matriarchy is the law of life. This proposition may be demonstrated by first looking at some societies where matriarchy is not entirely covert, but operates, in part, through formal, public institutions. {69}
In many traditional African societies, men and women have long had parallel organizations and complementary institutional powers. It usual for the king, the queen (who, by the way, is not the wife of the king but the head of the women's parallel branch of public organization), the war marshal and the queen mother, with their respective councils an officials, to exercise separate and countervailing powers. Viewed from that world, much of Western political practices can be quite puzzling.
Zulu Sofola, a Nigerian playwright and researcher into African traditions, once retold the following conversation which had taken place between herself and her mother. It occurred at a time when Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of Britain, was embroiled in one of her political battles. Zulu Sofola's mother, who lives in the traditional Igbo milieu, asked her:
'Everybody is talking ill of Margaret Thatcher. Why doesn't she her powers to stop them?'
'She has no powers other than those of men,' Zulu replied.
'But where is their Otu-Omu (the council of women)? The Omu should take the matter up and set these men right. Who do they think they are?' demanded Zulu's mother.
'White people don't have Omu,' Zulu explained.
'Ah! Who speaks for the women?' her mother wondered.
'In the white man's world, nobody speaks for women,' Zulu told her.
As part of the intricate system of checks and balances in so traditional African societies, women exercise the most effective sanction against misrule. When a king becomes intolerable to his subjects, a procession of grandmothers will march naked to his palace. No ruler survives this final and dramatic repudiation by the mothers of his subjects. Usually, the threat of this march is enough to bring erring and dictatorial rulers to heel.
In the West, where parallel male and female public institutions are not the norm, women nevertheless operate a covert matriarchy. At society matrons, Western elite women control political parties from behind the scenes, from places where they are safe from political shrapnel. Those very few (like Margaret Thatcher or Golda Meir) {70} who insist on savouring the risks of political combat, have run the men around them like nannies run their packs of little boys. For example, here is how Margaret Thatcher, by manipulating men's fear of women, manages the male politicians and civil servants around her. According to Anthony King, Professor of Government at Essex University:
Mrs Thatcher is, in her personal dealings, a considerate person. She has no trouble in winning the affection and loyalty of those in her immediate circle, principally at No. 10 Downing Street. Nevertheless, in her relations with her fellow ministers, civil servants and Conservative MPs, her distinctive weapon - far more than in the cases of men like Churchill, Macmillan or Wilson - is fear... In Mrs Thatcher's case, the use of fear as a political weapon does not imply the use of the chopping block or of the garrotte. On the contrary, those who Mrs Thatcher politically executes can look forward to a knighthood if they are lucky, to a life peerage if they are luckier. Rather, Mrs. Thatcher uses fear in two less malign ways that are nevertheless equally effective.
The first is by means of face-to-face fear: 'fear at first hand'. Mrs Thatcher has a formidable personality, and she is capable of hectoring, cajoling, threatening, wrong-footing, bullying, embarrassing and even humiliating her Ministers and officials... She puts the fear of God into people, and they usually respond well. Of course, there is no need to use this particular weapon very often: fear of being on the receiving end of a Prime Ministerial tongue-lashing - or even merely of Prime Ministerial froideur - is usually adequate to the purpose.
One specific aspect of her use of face-to-face fear is worth mentioning. Mrs Thatcher long ago observed that most well-brought-up Englishmen - especially, though not only, if they went to a public school - have no idea what to do with a strong, assertive woman. Not only are they brought up not to be rude to women: they find it very difficult in general to deal with women in the same matter-of-fact, direct way that they deal with men.
Women to them are mothers or nannies to be feared or sisters to be bullied (or, alternatively, adored). The average Englishman of the middle and upper classes simply quails in the presence of a formidable female personality, torn {71} between the desire to strike and the desire to sulk, not knowing what an appropriate response would be. Mrs Thatcher long ago noticed that such Englishmen found it hard to stand up to her - and conceived a considerable contempt for the whole tribe. As one of her former Ministers, Sir John Nott, said in a recent television interview, she thinks all men are 'wimps'.55
While the Maggie Thatchers are very few, it is more usual for ruling class matriarchs to run ruling class patriarchs who run the affairs of the world. Recall the case of Mary Cunningham of the USA. In the late 1970s, she had used what Nigerians would call "bottom power" to rocket to Vice-president for Strategy at Bendix Corporation, and to become its effective second-in-command. In speaking about her controversial relationship with William Agee, the Chairman of Bendix (whom she later married), she noted:
The indirect ways are more powerful… I'm building the chairman's faith in me so I can sit at his shoulder and influence for the good of society.56
Yes, of course! Only for the good of society!
Perhaps the best recent example of how grand matriarchs run the grand patriarchs is that of Winston Churchill, the great 20th century war leader of the British. A woman neighbour of mine in London once claimed that men were babies. In disbelief, I asked her if she thought that even leaders like Churchill were babies. "Churchill was the biggest baby of all," she replied. Not long after, I read Mary Soames' biography of her mother, Lady Clementine Churchill, and had to agree that Winston, if not quite a baby, was a standard patriarch - outwardly strong, dominating and masterly, but in fact a champion coached and managed by none other than his wife!
On the jacket blurb of the biography, I read: {72}
Clementine Churchill was the perfect wife for Winston. For 57 years she supported him through the triumphs, disasters and tensions which ruled his public and private life… Always Winston trusted her completely and she became a valuable counsellor and companion. He invariably wanted her opinion - but did not always take her advice. She believed in him passionately, and in his destiny – standing beside him in public seemingly serene, cool and detached.57
Now, that passage could easily describe any famous manager-athlete relationship, like the famous Angelo Dundee-Muhammed Ali combination. Of course, as Winston's coach-manager, Clementine, her coaching done, would sit by the ringside and look on, cool and detached, or even stay away from the bloody fight, while her ward battled it out in the political ring. For Clementine, coaching and managing Winston was a conscious and dedicated career. Here is how their daughter, Mary, puts it:
Winston was to be Clementine's lifework. Her concentration on him and his career consumed the cream of her thought and energy.58
One should therefore not be surprised at Clementine's summative remark the night after Winston's funeral. By Mary's own report, before she went to bed that night, Clementine turned to her and said: "You know, Mary, it wasn't a funeral - it was a Triumph."59 Well, whose Triumph? Clementine's of course! She had managed Winston for 57 years, and at his death the world came to pay tribute, ostensibly to him, but as far as she was concerned, to her success as wife-coach-manager of his successful career.
Now that we have an inkling into women's true role in the management of the world, it should be a sobering realization for men that our official bosses and leaders, even the gr
eatest among them, whom we all look up to as the masters of the world, are each under the guiding thumb of some woman or other, usually his wife. Whenever we gaze in awe at a head of state, or at a head of household, we should gaze in even greater awe at the little lady by his side who controls him like a puppeteer does a puppet. Appearances should not be allowed to mislead us as to where the balance of power lies between them.
We have seen how matriarchs rule men in public life - the Otu Omu, the naked grandmothers, Maggie Thatcher, Mary Cunningham, Clementine Churchill. But how do wives generally use the patriarchal facade to control and exploit their husbands at home? Just consider some of the tasks a wife is able to shift over to her husband by appealing to his ego as patriarch or official head of her household. {73}
"O husband mine!" she tacitly says: "You are the official head of this house; you are my leader, my lawgiver. You are the strong one. Won't you feed and protect me and our little child? Won't you-see to it that our child is well behaved?" In this way, she deftly assigns him the job of nest provisioner; the job of nest protector; and the job of ogre or disciplinarian of the nest. If he fails to provision the nest to her satisfaction, he suffers her contempt, as well as his own, for not living up to his macho expectations. If thieves attack her nest and he cannot fight them off, he suffers her contempt, as well as his own, for not carrying out his macho duties. If he dies defending her nest, she weeps for a day or a week, and sets about recruiting another nest guard. She can discipline the child in his name, or frighten it with his image as bogeyman (Wait till your daddy Comes home!), without herself earning the child's resentment. By directing its resentment towards its bogeyman father, she can retain the child's image of her as the "sweet mother". If he declines to act as the disciplinarian and ogre; if he prefers to earn the image of "sweet father", she resents it. As one wife, Natalie Rogers, complained:
