It used to be some things made you feel, at least, slightly ashamed. Living at home past your expiration date, not having at least two kids by the age of 25, being unable to drive a straight shift and being in a marriage where the woman made more money.

Living at home appears to no longer carry any stigma at all (maybe it's the economy and lack of high paying jobs?), deciding to have kids later, or not at all, doesn't raise many eyebrows and do they even make straight shifts outside of high strung hot rods anymore?

And now, according to a story I read on the Internet (so you know it's true), a wife out earning her husband is something to not even be noticed.

This story came from The Daily Mail, which is a British newspaper, so if you're a "America, #&*#yeah!" type person, you can discount what it says, but apparently men in marriages where the woman makes more are called "purse-whipped." If you thought I was going to say something else, go sit in the corner.

And it's not only money. This came about, to my understanding, because a study showed more women than men were graduating from college in both greater numbers and with higher IQ's. Men quickly formed a group dedicated to the fact we can still beat (most) of them in a fair fight, but it disbanded when women we really wanted to impress called it stupid.

The story I read took the study intensely serious and wondered if it meant the beginning of the end for men. Would the American cowboy fade away? Would militaries worldwide start looking for solutions where no one got hurt?

I could see, over many years, something like this changing culture. Children have always grown up seeing the father/male figure as the dominant one in the household, so they carry that pattern into their own lives. Men are the providers and women are the nurturers.

How would the world look in about 150 years, just enough time for male dominance to be forgotten? Would it be a gentler place? Would sports be gone? Would trying to impress other people be wiped from our DNA? Let's be honest, trying to impress other people is almost all male.

Or would women, finally having the power, simply become prettier versions of men? Would they try to rule the world, make as much money as possible and drive 50 miles out of the way because talking to a stranger is a fate worse than death?

Social change like this can take a while, and I'm sure if it did look like women were becoming the dominant gender, there would be plenty of people, including women, fight against it. I've known women whose only goal in life was to get a rich husband so they would have freedom to do whatever they wanted.

As for myself, the thought of women making more money never has bothered me. I've told anybody who'll listen that if the wife were to start making enough money to support us both, I'd retire so fast your head would spin.

This could be due to the fact I grew up in a mother only household and women being in control of the money has never been a foreign concept to me. Or it could be due to my natural laziness.

Either way, things change as time goes on. We tend to believe things have always been the way they are while we're alive. Never mind that our time, even in a long life, is short. What we know as the way it is matches what was here before we came along, and it will be that way long after we're gone. Don't try to tell us different.

The truth is the lives we now lead would have been inconceivable just 100 years ago. To think everything will now stay the same just because we're used to it is probably a silly, and dangerous, way to live.

michael.thomason@advocateanddemocrat.com | 442-4575