market of bestsellers had to be created—fast literature to bernconsumed along with fast food. Even hunting and fishing havernbeen almost completelv commercialized. The sign you see inrntackle shops says it all: “He who dies with the most toys wins.”rnWell, even I am not immune to the thrill of a well-made rodrnor the allure of a new rifle. The eariiest men worked hard onrntheir spears, and the division of labor and specialized craftsmanshiprnarc onl additional examples of cultural hpertrophy,rnbut capitalism was not content with commercializing ourrnrecreations. A great sphere of human life lies outside the market:rnthe household, within which relationships are defined byrnlove and friendship rather than by price or cost. Capitalism’srngreatest triumph was learning how to buy and sell love.rnOn the surface, the idea seems preposterous. A family is notrna random set of individuals brought together for some commonrnpurpose. The persons in a family are members, limbs ofrnan organism; they are bone of each other’s bone, flesh of eachrnother’s flesh. Modern Christians stick at the mystery of thernTrinitv, but the relationship of parents and children is preciselyrnthat of different persons with one substance. The law of thernmarketplace is competition, but the famih’s law is loc, andrneven if my wife be neither beautiful nor pleasant, she is myrnwife, and my children, though thev be stupid and lazy, remainrnmine forever. One cannot properlv buv and sell within thernfamilv, an’ more than one can engage in commercial transactionsrnwith one’s self.rnAs a consequence, the familv and the household are impregnablernbastions of precapitalist society against a capitalist wodd.rnSuch is or was the ideal down to the Victorian era; in practice,rnthe family has been capitalized and commercialized. To get itsrnfingers into the organic unity of the household, democraticrncapitalism had to find the seams and cracks; it used the principlernof equality as a crowbar to pry wives away from husbands,rnchildren from parents—it was called liberating individualsrnfrom the tyranny of patriarchy; and it learned how to dividernand subdi’idc the familv into economic functions of productionrnand consumption, which were increasingly brokered out tornexternal providers. Food, which was once grown, preserved,rnand cooked within the familv, is now at best reheated; childrenrnarc turned over to daycare, kindergartens, schools, and counselors;rnentertainment now means the consumption of commercialK’rnprepared experiences and even the ordinary pleasuresrnof games and conversation is turned over to the Little League,rnthe YMCA, and “after-school activities.”rnBut capitalism’s greatest triumpli has been its successful attemptrnto replace the Christian concept of marriage as a mysticalrnunion of male and female into one flesh with a modelrnbased on the limited partnership. Marriage, we are told, fulfillsrncertain needs and functions—sex, companionship, childrearingrn—and the durability of a marriage depends on the degreernof success it has in carrving out the functions. Another speciesrnmight construct a workable arrangement on this utilitarianrnbasis, but mankind was not so created. Within a marriage wcrncannot split off erotic desire from companionship or parenthoodrnwithout doing violence to all three marital qualities.rnIndeed, it is something of a strain for young men to formrninnocent friendships with women, because there is always,rnlurking in the background, another possibility. This is whatrnharmless flirting was all about in the old days, a formalizedrnmethod of mock-courting designed to pre’ent things fromrngetting out of hand.rnIn diiding sex from marriage, capitalism has created a commodityrnthat can be bought and sold. Of course most developedrnsocieties sell women’s favors, but the very existence ofrnprostitution serses to define what marriage is and is not. Burkernobserved, during the American Revolution, that slaveownersrnhave the keenest sense of liberty; similarly, the matron is ver}-rnmuch aware that her social status is the very opposite of thernprostitute.rnIn singling out sex as an attribute of marriage (and of malefemalernrelations generally) capitalism blurs the distinction betweenrnmarried love and sex-for-sale. Tomorrow, for example, isrnValentine’s Da’, once upon a time a quasi-Christian holidayrnhonoring tender and honorable affection, but now a celebrationrnof lust. NBC will parade the Sports Illustrated swimsuitrnmodels; husbands are told to buy their wives red teddies fromrnFrederick’s of Hollywood; and the local newspapers are runningrnfeatures on romantic getaways for couples—coz^ lodges withrnJacuzzis, vibrating beds, and mirrored ceilings. Vk’ith any luck,rnValentine’s Day will turn into an erotic Christmas, marketingrneverything from a kiss on the cheek to bestialist peep shows,rnbecause whatever can be turned into money is the equivalentrnof everything else that can be turned into money, and thernmoral result is the perverse banality that “finds a wealth in division,rn/ Some kinds of love are mistaken for vision. La te ta tarnta.”rnIn late-capitalist America, women are marketed like meat—rngraded on scales of one to ten, advertised with glossy photographs,rnvideos, and computerized sex bulletin boards, wherernit is possible for the geekiest Kuwaiti undergraduate to claimrnhis First Amendment right to simulate the rape and murder ofrna fellow student. Even decent girls are aware that most men,rnbv the time thev reach twenty, have poisoned their imaginationsrnon hundreds of hours of explicit pornographv, and in nicernsuburban schools, girls are groped and fondled as they walkrnthrough the halls. They are taught, before they reach puberty,rnthat when the’ go out on a date, they are expected to showrntheir appreciation. Not so long ago fast gids kissed on the firstrndate; today, they arc expected to display a detailed and practicalrnknowledge of the Kama Sutra (more multicultural richness).rnIt has been some time since young men came to the doorrnand spoke politely to the parents. Today a complete stranger tornthe familv drives up, the stereo booming, and honks the horn,rnand somebody’s daughter disappears into the darkness. Evenrnin better times girls go astrav, no matter how strict their fathers.rnToda, e’en if gids have a father in the home, he will trvrnhard not to be judgmental. He remembers what he did whenrnhe was young, and while an earlier generation of rakes, knowingrnthemselves, used to send their daughters to conventrnschools, few men are willing to accept the responsibilities of fatherhood.rnIt took only two generations and two world wars forrnthe degeneracy of the Edwardian upper class to devour thernbourgeois proprieties of Edward’s mother and to reduce thernstatus of all women to the level of prostitutes and prey. To winrnelections, we gave them the right to ote; to enhance profitsrnand lower wages, we sent them out to work; to ensure a steadyrnflow of sex without commitment, we staged the sexual revolution;rnwe abandoned all the responsibilities of manhood andrntook to reading fashion magazines and talking about our feelings;rnand then we wonder why some women have learned tornprefer other women, and we have the nerve to ask what womenrnwant. What in the name of I lell do men want?rnMAY 1995/15rnrnrn