We are in a period of very unstable foundations. Everything is questioned, everything changes, everything evolves. Don’t get me wrong, I am in favor of change when it brings something positive. Unfortunately, things often don’t go exactly as they should. It is fascinating to notice how a positive ideal transforms into drama: we seek peace in the Middle East, yet we kill; technology improves, yet we become stupider; the world tries to become united, yet racism explodes.

The same thing happens in love: we seek equality, we get hatred. Only humanity is capable of taking something as beautiful as a happy couple in love and transforming it into something horrible, made of resentment, loss, disappointment, and a sense of bewilderment. How is it possible that love, in this historical period, is the worst thing that can happen in a person’s life?

It is time to understand where we started, what we had to face, and where we are now. Spoiler: we are in total panic. One step at a time.

Love as Power.

In the beginning, love did not exist. Or rather, it existed as a feeling, but it was not a useful detail for living. While we now live together or marry "for love," for millennia love played absolutely no role. The couple was created at a table. Two families, powerful or otherwise, used their children (male and female) to create political and military alliances, forcing the two innocent victims to live together for the rest of their (thankfully short) lives, also creating a new generation of human beings to be used for other alliances and to increase power. Everything was discussed and agreed upon over the heads of the future spouses and sealed with a written pact of mutual obligations and duties. The parents benefited from the fruits while the victims were both girls and boys, often teenagers or even younger, who paid a bitter and very high price. It could happen that the two, even if forced together, found each other and truly fell in love. A very rare event, but it could happen.

This happened in ancient kingdoms, in the Middle Ages, in the Renaissance, and until the beginning of the 19th century, the century in which the idea of the "couple in love" was born, thanks to Romanticism and the first impulses of feminist movements.

"Eh, but that's not true, because on Netflix you see couples from the past in love!" I am aware that Hollywood has created TV series, some very successful, where women and men felt free to choose their life partner, even breaking social conventions and secular traditions without anyone saying a word. In fact, in these series, mothers and fathers accept that rebellion with a smile and a proud look. But reality was much more oppressive than that. Stories like Romeo and Juliet or Tristan and Iseult are perfect examples to describe the couple in the past. I am equally aware of "Courtly Love" put forward by Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio during the 13th century. Great poets sang of love precisely because it was an entity separate from marital duty. It was a spiritual or aesthetic exercise, never a domestic one. Not to mention the fact that yes, they are all love sonnets, but they are all unrequited loves.

If love played no role in the creation of the couple, it certainly played one in maintaining mental sanity. Even if history doesn't talk about it too often—and here we are just speculating—I am convinced that the couple themselves accepted betrayal. He betrayed her and she betrayed him. If only the walls of the castles of France, England, or Germany could talk.

Love as a Reason.

Men and women were trapped in a perverse game. However, it must also be said that both women and men carried this game forward every single time. For millennia, fathers arranged daughters and sons for power. When then, especially the daughters, became mothers themselves, those same new mothers didn't lift a finger when the husband arranged the poor innocent into another marriage, and so on, generation after generation.

"Eh, but women could rebel!" Yes, if they had had a reason to rebel. At that time, marriage was seen as protection of the asset and an increase in power. It was fine for everyone. There were also female rulers and widows who calmly arranged marriages without saying a word regarding the correctness of such a gesture. Marriage for interest is enclosed in that past mentality where no one fought for gender, but for their own family or to obtain more power.

"But then, if everyone accepted this game of power, why did the image of the union of man and woman change? There was no reason for such a change." True, what happened was that humanity (well, let's say the men on the front lines) simply raised the problem of self-determination.

From the Enlightenment onwards, the idea of the individual as a worthy person instead of an asset was accentuated, questioning everything, including the relationship between men and women. The idea that love should be the reason and the basis of a union is a concept that only began to take hold with the light of reason.

However, the Ancien Régime still existed, so there was still the law according to which the entire estate went to the first-born male son so as not to fragment the property. The other sons and daughters had to be "settled" through strategic marriages or in a convent. As you see, everyone was affected, except for the first-born. The others, male and female, were screwed. They had always been.

For the fall of the old mating system, the 19th century was the true turning point. During Romanticism, it was understood that that law was pretty garbage, drastically evolving a part of civil law. New laws imposed the division of inheritance among all children. This made individuals (including women, in certain contexts and jurisdictions) owners of a share of wealth. If you already have your dowry or your inheritance guaranteed by law, marriage is no longer the only way to avoid starving to death.

Now, the fact that women are seen as the proponents of such change is not entirely true. There is this conception that women fought and won, freeing themselves and also men from chains, simply saying: "No, I am not marrying to make my family more powerful, but only for love!" Apparently, with a simple phrase, the woman destroyed the game. A power almost divine.

Self-determination also affected men in the same way in case of marriage. Let's say the change was dictated not by the woman, but by the male will to get out of the mess they themselves had created, given that they too were subject to arranged marriages and no longer had much desire to live with a person they did not love. Yes, we men have feelings too. Therefore, it was the men who, breaking the chains and understanding the mistakes made, consequently freed the women as well.

This potential economic independence is what gave the maiden the power to say "No" to the candidate chosen by her father, beginning to have the right of veto. They could say: "I don't like him, find me another one." "Liking" became the new currency of exchange. There were women in the 19th century who remained single for years, well beyond the age "pre-established" by society for marriage. The release from having to "settle all non-firstborn children" meant that we moved from mere economic marriages to marriages of convenience with "liking." In short, the arrangement was still a pain for all participants, but one could choose the lesser evil or, in the luckiest cases, the prince charming on a white horse.

Love as a Prison.

When the cages of arranged marriage were destroyed and their participants finally managed to "see the stars again," what appeared was only one thing: now what? What are the new rules of the game?

There was a need for a new order, but this time it had to be a fair pact between the parties that should have given both sexes the possibility to fall in love and share their lives with the person of their heart. There were to be no interests, politics, or prestige: only love and tenderness.

Spoiler: it went terribly! That contract was a drama all across the board, leading the sexes to a civil war never seen before in the third millennium.

Of course, as time went by, arranged marriages became a distant memory. Already by the beginning of the 20th century, marriages were made with the idea of sentiment as the basis of a lasting and stable relationship.

All very beautiful on paper, except for one small detail: the freedom of a woman was still very far away. What happened, and still happens today, is the following chain of events: she meets him, falls in love, gets married, and stays at home to "guard the domestic hearth and educate the children." In short, the man worked and the woman stayed at home, supported by her husband, cleaning the house and managing the children. As I said, a conception that still exists today.

Women and men moved from the contractual cage to an economic cage. Because both sexes started playing another unhealthy game. On one hand, the woman "accepted" the role of manager, while the man took the role of the one who brings home the bread. It almost feels like reading about the Neolithic. On one side we have social frustration, because women had returned to the times of Ancient Rome, with a few more freedoms, and on the other, we have enormous social pressure, because the man had to be able to provide for his family: no sickness, no weakness, only working and making money. Both suffered equally. Think how awful!

The thing that makes this game even more perverse is that another player was introduced: society. It played, and still plays, the role of guarantor of roles: as soon as a couple behaved differently (perhaps with reversed roles), everyone talked (gossiped), and the couple went back to respecting the rules of the game, restoring that constant and ordered flow.

What I wonder is: why? How is it that the couple voluntarily decided to move from one mental massacre to another?

Honestly, I don't know. I could say that in Europe, Nazism, Fascism, and Communism exalted the idea of the family with these dynamics and that society had to adapt to survive another day. But the argument doesn't hold up, because it all lasted until 1945. After the Second World War, dictatorships were swept away. I can understand that, with the trauma of the Second World War (made of destruction and precariousness) still in their eyes, Europe had a desperate hunger for stability. The "hearth and fixed salary" model offered a sense of security that the chaos of war had erased. However, the United States, complete with democracy, proves that even with internal stability and democracy, women had the same fate. It is incomprehensible to me to notice how regimes, people, and cultures change, but in the 20th century, women were at home in the kitchen and the man at work.

I understand that the industrial economy of the 20th century was really tough and the factory/office needed a worker concentrated 100%, and I can also understand that this was possible only if someone at home managed everything else.

But the question remains open: with everything that women have achieved, why go back and be at the mercy of the man? What if all this "freedom" was just an illusion? And what if, even worse, women were fine with it?

Love as Opportunism.

The first half of the 20th century could be summarized like this: acceptance of well-being. Once married, women stayed at home and the man worked. Yet from the post-war period onwards, women could work. However, with a ring on their finger, they didn't blink an eye and accepted cleaning, cooking, and looking after the children. It seems like madness, yet it is completely logical.

One must look at the two previous generations. When the first industrial revolution broke out, "proletarian women" were born, women who worked in factories. In addition to these women, there were those who worked in the fields and in the supply chains. They were all underpaid jobs, with zero rights and grueling shifts. Those young women were the grandmothers or great-grandmothers of the women of the 20th century, at least of the first half, a period that permeated the entire 1900s and also the third millennium.

With the explosion of the economic boom throughout the world, for the first time a couple could afford a house, a car, and appliances with only one salary. With this, for the woman, "staying at home" was not a drama, but a social achievement. After generations of working women, she could finally be free. Compared to grandmothers who broke their backs in the fields or in the spinning mills, being in a modern kitchen with a washing machine was perceived as "emancipation from fatigue," not yet as "segregation." Incredibly, for a woman, marriage was the end of "segregation" (going to work) and the beginning of freedom (life without work).

This goal, however, was not without a price to pay, even a very high one.

Yes, a woman felt free, but also in a cage. The great enemy of women, created by women and men, is the moral void. A damnably topical theme.

Let's start from the beginning. A woman in the 20th century could study and graduate. After her studies, as a single person, she was "forced" to work to earn money. When marriage loomed, even if she had a great job, she dropped everything. In truth, education was not a real means to a career, but only a tool to become "educated good mothers" (what Americans called a Mrs. Degree).

There were three reasons why a woman dropped everything: two good ones, one horrible one. Let's start with the good part. The first reason is that a woman was finally free from capitalist chains. Second, staying at home was a synonym for well-being and pride.

The third reason, the horrible one, is that until the middle of the century, in many countries, there were laws (or company practices) that forced women to resign as soon as they got married. The reason? A woman who worked after marriage was often seen with pity ("Poor thing, her husband doesn't earn enough") or suspicion ("She is a bad mother"). The social pressure for the couple, not just for one part, was an invisible but steel wall.

Paradoxically, women had accepted well-being with a smile, thinking it was the beginning of something great, convinced that fulfillment passed only through the shine of the floor and the success of the husband, unfortunately leading them to live a state of anguish. That house had become the only possible and accepted place where a woman could be. Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963) describes it perfectly. Incredibly, the cage was back and it was also visible, as in good old Athens.

Love as a Ballast.

When the cup was full, women fought. The second half of the 20th century is made of great achievements.

The division of roles was officially always the same. But something changed. That feeling of well-being of the 50s and 60s was replaced by frustration. Women, with all the rights they had, could not have a career while married. It was paradoxical that they could vote, divorce, have an abortion, decide about their own body, be self-determined, but not have a career. In the 90s, women, though free, were in the world of work only as secretaries, janitors in schools, cooks in canteens, and "wallpaper women" on television. All the key roles were in the hands of men.

Only in the 2000s did women enter the world of work heavily. The reason is very subtle. If a woman has children, she stays at home. But if she doesn't have any? she keeps working. This is what happened. Many women, compared to the previous century, began to have that awareness that the role of mothers and wives was too tight. It wasn't a matter of women not wanting to get married or be mothers. That wasn't the point. The center of the discourse was that "the world must see us for who we are, not for what we can be." The concept of woman, as the other face of the social coin, became increasingly predominant in female logic. The consequence was that young women, until their mid-30s, perhaps got married, but did not have children, leading, year after year, more and more women to participate in the world of work, even making brilliant careers.

We are in 2026 and men and women work as equals. We have reached equality, a beautiful concept, but it is causing truly heavy damage.

The fact that a woman works in the couple, as an equal to a man, has short-circuited the system, blaming the man for such damage. The rhetoric is the following: the patriarchy reduced the woman's role to wife and housewife. Responsibility for the breakdown of balance falls not on the "bad male" but on the changed female will.

The woman willingly accepted staying at home. She saw it as social progress. The man, for his part, accepted this and based his life on this conception, given that it was the woman herself who locked herself in that role, seeing it as fantastic. The woman literally gave the man carte blanche to control the world of work. Then when she, out of nowhere, changed the cards on the table, seeing the well-being that the man had, she broke a balance that she created with her own choice—NOT FORCED.

Now women want the concept of the couple to be changed because she is tired of having the label of wife and mother. She wants to be inside the couple, first as a woman, then perhaps as a mother and wife. In this way she can make money... the same money she had refused for decades. But it was she who accepted that role! No one imposed it on her! In the most extreme fringes, there are even MARRIED women who have activated "rage mode," screaming to the world "I am an independent woman," "I am a free woman," and "my man has no power over me." And when did he ever have it in the couple? Perhaps in ancient Rome and Greece.

The man, at this point, finds himself asking: "how am I at fault if you no longer like something that you yourselves accepted?" It is enough to speak like civilized people and a situation can be found. No, now the mantra is only one: blame the man for crimes he did not commit and strip him of the power that women themselves granted him.

The reaction of the male gender is eloquent: "what the heck is my role?", "If in the couple she provides for herself, what am I here for?", "What use do I have in the couple? Just the target of her hatred and her frustration?" Don't worry, the role is still the same, the rules have changed.

Modern women must be single in the couple, thus deciding as an individual and not together with the man as a team. They see the relationship as a burden, convinced that the probable husband will boycott her and the child would be the end of her identity as a woman. Furthermore, she is tired of having the role of the one who takes care of the man. In the period of vaginal supremacism, the ideal relationship must be that he must take care of everything and she must be honored just because she is a woman and free to do anything, just because! Let's remember that she was the one who wanted to be the little wife, finding it wonderful.

They have evolved the "couple" into an incredible concept: "I work and make money, you work and make money, you provide for everything, my money is mine, your money is mine." The reason? Because a woman is apparently a deity... an infallible princess to be adored always. As soon as he says something, or questions female reasoning, or tries to balance the status quo, the divorce kicks in (a right given by men) and he hands over 50% of everything he has, loses the house, custody of the children, and will always be in debt.

And then we wonder why people divorce, women are desperate because they can't find a partner (who would want tyrants in the house?) and men are happy alone.

Conclusion.

We started from a world where love counted for nothing and we arrived in an era where love is the greatest sin. We have torn down the castle walls, we have shredded the patriarchal contracts, and we have given every individual the power to say "No." We have obtained equality on paper, but we have generated resentment in practice.

The real drama of the modern couple is that we seek to inhabit a structure that no longer has foundations. The man has been stripped of his role as protector and provider—a role given to him by the woman, who was happy with what was happening. The woman, for her part, has claimed the right to be an individual before being a mother or wife, but often finds herself demanding the privileges of the old world (economic protection) together with the freedoms of the new (total autonomy), disavowing the choice made. The result is an emotional short circuit.

Women scream their independence while dreaming of the prince charming who pays the bill; men withdraw into a resentful silence, feeling superfluous and, at the same time, constantly under accusation. The couple is no longer an alliance for survival, but a battlefield where a power that neither of them knows how to manage anymore is negotiated every day.

Perhaps the truth is that humanity was not ready for so much freedom. We have discovered that it is much easier to fight against an unjust law than to learn to look each other in the eye when you no longer have a predefined role to cling to. In this "absolute confusion," the happy couple has become a miraculous exception or an archaeological artifact.

"How is it possible that love has become the worst thing that can happen to you?" Perhaps because love alone cannot bear the weight of a world that has forgotten the meaning of the word "sacrifice" in favor of the cult of the "Self." The cage is open, but outside there is no paradise: there is only a mirror that reflects the image of our own, insatiable, loneliness.

M.