The Happiness Women Knew BEFORE Romance Was Invented

Deep within the recesses of our collective consciousness lie long-forgotten memories of how life was when women ran the world. In ancient, prehistoric times, long before weapon-wielding men began recording his-story of conquest and domination, matriarchy was the natural order. And life was very different with women running the show.

Romantic Love, as we experience it today, was unknown. Which is not to say that these ancient peoples did not enjoy love, communion and sensuous delights. They most assuredly did. They celebrated their sexuality as a gift from the Great Goddess. They viewed the expression of love and affection as simply following in the Goddess’ footsteps, passing on to others the great Love She had given them. But “romance” did not exist.

No young girl was ever taught to spend her days dreaming of finding a one-and-only “true love.” Such an idea would have been silly indeed, for she already knew True Love. She was the beloved daughter of the Goddess. She could feel the Goddess’ Love coursing through her, energizing her, giving her the blessed joy of experiencing life in a physical body. All she need do to increase her joy was to share it with those who pleased her.

Women back then needed joy and fulfillment in their lives, just as women now do. But women then were taught that they would find it within themselves—in the activities, pursuits and pleasures that they enjoyed. Their modern sisters, raised in patriarchal cultures, have been taught to look to a man for fulfillment instead of to themselves. They’re taught to not notice what they desire and long for, to disregard what is important to them. Self-sacrifice in the service of others is applauded.

But women in early matriarchal societies created their own joy and fulfillment by filling their lives full of the things and activities they loved. They didn’t look for a man to fulfill them; they knew there’d be men aplenty who’d see their Joy and come running to share it.

In ancient times, women understood that Man needs Woman far more tha
Woman needs Man. No life form can maintain its physical body without a continual supply of Life Force Energy. And it takes a massive and uninterrupted flow of this Energy to congeal and sustain the myriad atoms required to materialize a new baby’s body. This life-sustaining Energy is always flowing direct from Spirit through women’s bodies because women’s bodies create and nourish new life. Men, lacking women’s reproductive powers, possess no Life Force Energy of their own. Yet they, like all other physical life forms, cannot live without it. Men can obtain this crucial Energy in only two ways: by turning Within to reconnect directly with Spirit—as all are able, but few make the effort to do—or, by getting it from women during sex.

Back then, women understood their power over men. However much a woman might enjoy sex, she will never need it as men do because Spirit’s life-sustaining flow is always coursing through her body. Women then understood the magnitude of the gift—the vital Life Force Energy that maintains a body’s health—that they give to men with their sexual favors. Women then recognized their power and used it to command due respect and appreciation.

And Woman was respected. Her lovers knew that they must earn her blessings. Her intellect was valued and her advice, sought after. Her talents and capabilities were admired, and her contributions to the community, appreciated. She knew her purpose for coming to life and was encouraged to accomplish her mission. She lived her life in her mother’s clan and inherited her mother’s wealth. She needed no man’s support because she profited from her own businesses and retained control of those profits in her name. No laws were decreed to make her economically dependent upon men for her food and shelter. She wasn’t forced to stay hidden in her home, nor did she need a man’s protection to leave it, for rape was unknown. She didn’t worry about her looks. She didn’t fear being abandoned and left penniless if a man felt a whim for something younger. Those anxieties wouldn’t arise until later times when invading patriarchs prohibited women from possessing the wealth and means to be independent of them. In ancient times, Woman was proud of her Femininity and her power. She enjoyed being a Woman.

Romantic love did not exist in these early matriarchal societies, for romantic love is a myth born of Dependency and Need. Women then weren’t dependent because their societies did not restrict their wealth-producing activities or confiscate their rightful inheritance. They didn’t need a man’s approval because they had the Goddess’ approval. They didn’t need a man’s love because they loved themselves as the Goddess loved them—listening to their feelings, cherishing their presence, honoring their desires and fulfilling their needs.

No, romance is a fantasy designed to make women obey Man’s wishes in hopes of gaining his approval. And, she is taught to hope, if she pleases him well enough, then he will “love” her enough to feed and support her, and protect her from the ravages of other men. All in return for conjugal “rights,” of course.

But, in truth, Woman only needs Man to support her if his laws have made it difficult to support herself. She only needs his protection if he and his brethren tell themselves that a woman “wants it” if she ventures out on a street alone. She only needs him to love her if she has been taught she’s not worthy of giving love to herself. She only needs him to “take care of her” if the laws of her society have decreed her to be the “property” of man, and thus not entitled to her own earnings and rightful inheritance with which she could easily take care of herself.

Romance is a delusion invented by men to gain the compliance of those they want to serve them. Romance may provide an intoxicating respite from a bleak life of servitude, anxiety and denigration, but it is not Real. And it is not Love.

But why do machismo enthusiasts, even today, want women to be so financially subservient, so economically dependent? It is, after all, a burden to be someone’s sole support. Why have patriarchal societies in every era placed the highest priority on limiting a woman’s ability to control her own money? Why? Because if she has money, she has the means to leave. And no man wants to lose his “possessions,” much less his cook, maid and ready supply of sex. Men need sex. And they discovered long ago that the most reliable way of assuring themselves of a steady supply was to take women from their clans and make them dependent upon men for food and survival. How then, could she leave?

It has been said that in patriarchal cultures, every woman is a prostitute, forced to trade her body for food and shelter. Until relatively recent times, her only choice was to make her trade with one man and be called a wife, or to trade with several and be called a whore. But even those who were made “honorable” women by being granted the title of Wife still needed something to distract themselves from their pain. Romance offered that distraction—and still does.

Romance offers hope. It is a hope needed by those who have been taught that they’re unlovable. It is a hope needed by those who learn in the cradle that they are a disappointment, unwanted and not as “good” as or as important as a boy. It is a hope needed by those who are empty inside, who need someone else to give them the love that they’ve been told they’re not worthy of giving themselves. And so they hope that if they try very hard to be what others say they “should,” then someday, somehow, someone will finally deem them worthy of being loved.

But romance is not Love. It is Need. It is not joy, but only a brief distraction from depression and pain. Real Love isn’t possible in the presence of dependence, subordination or fear. Real Love is known by the acceptance and comfort one feels in its presence, for what is Love but the total acceptance of who and what we are? Romance can be known by its excitement. And excitement always contains an element of fear: the gut-level awareness that one is in danger of losing something here. When anxiety of any kind is felt, you can be certain that you are not in the presence of one who truly loves you.

No, romance isn’t Love, but it does encourage submission and obedience in women who’ve been taught to seek men’s approval. And for that, men keep the charade going.