Equated

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I was just equated as a "great guy" with a guy who fornicates. I am appalled. Anyone who knows anything about me at all knows that I have kept the law of chastity and my marriage vows. I will not tell you that it is easy, but I know it can be done. Don't you dare say that men like that are great men and then lump me with that ilk. I have lived all of my life as close to what is good and brave and true as any ordinary man can, and I take offense at that.

Great men do great things. It has never been great to use a woman, to abuse a woman, or to put a woman beneath you. I love the following poem that sums up how I feel about women:

Woman was created from the rib of man

She was not made from his head to top him

Nor from his feet, to be trampled on.

She was made from his side, to be equal to him

From under his arm to be protected by him

From near his heart to be loved by him.

This is my philosophy, but it is also that of Cervantes and Shakespeare. Just because those men are dead and the average male has descended in behavior doesn't mean the standard for manhood and chivalry has changed or should. Why should expectations of behavior change? Their coarse behavior may not make them bad, but it most certainly does not make them great.

I hold myself to a relatively high standard. My best friend regularly tells me to relax because he fears I will burn out. I am a mortal, and as such I am subject to infirmities of mortality. However, I have to live with myself, and I set out each day to be at peace with myself when my head hits the pillow. I hold no other man to my standard. Let them do how and what they may, so long as it is legal and leaves me out of it. If you tell me your standard, I will hold you to your standard, but I do not expect other people to live like me. I of all people know full well how it taxes my willpower and strength.

I have been hurt by women. Every woman I have ever loved has taken what I gave her and rended me. That is no justification to denigrate other women and project onto the many the sins of the few or the one. I am honestly sorry for time and effort wasted on them, for the fact that I may have overestimated their maturity and virtue. I will however continue to treat women as the precious creatures they are, daughters of a God.

Gentlemanly behavior once checked the occurance of coarse behavior. You may count on me for the former as a defense against the latter.