convention |kənˈvenCHən|

noun

1 a way in which something is usually done, esp. within a particular area or activity:

• behavior that is considered acceptable or polite to most members of a society:

Thus quoth my handy Mac dictionary app. Doesn’t sound too important, does it? Doesn’t sound like something that would cause the downfall of the entire social structure if it were violated. We treat convention casually at best; at worst, we engage in the juvenile practice of breaking conventions, just for the adolescent thrill of it; we cheer others when they behave in an anti-conventional manner, and boast of it when we do it ourselves.

But I recall an old black and white movie in which Ethel Barrymore (I think it was) said to a young Barbara Stanwyck, “You see, my dear, there’s a reason for conventions; a convention may be the result of a thousand years of experience.” While that may not be true of all conventions, there are occasions when it is best to obey first and understand later, and that’s usually true of conventions. Here’s an example:

I have two friends who are in the middle of a bitter divorce. The worst part of it is that their four beautiful children are the battleground–but that’s always the way it is, isn’t it? While divorcing parents are both screaming about their victimization, the real victims are always the children. She is a member of a profession that typically earns a six-figure income; he is a liberal arts type, who may be lucky to find a low-paying teaching position. So, in the beginning, before there were children, they agreed: She’d bring home the paycheck; he’d be a stay-at-home dad and homeschool the children. They would ignore convention and reverse parenting roles. And so it was. Four children and many years later, now approaching middle-age (and all that entails), they’re in a bitter divorce battle.

She claims she is de-feminized, stripped of her sexuality, denied her conjugal rights, and emotionally abused by her husband’s neglect of her. She leaves him and the children and sues for divorce. He doesn’t deny her complaint against him but claims, exactly like a stay-at-home wife who’s been abandoned by a philandering husband, that she should pay alimony and support him and the children in the lifestyle to which they’re accustomed until all the children reach majority (about 10 years or more). It’s painful but perhaps necessary to include: She has become increasingly unattractive, physically and temperamentally. He has become so self-righteous one suspects the saints themselves would not pass his reflexively critical condemnation.

Defying convention didn’t work. You can either obey first and understand later, or you can disobey first, and refuse to understand later.

A woman may feel “feminine” when a man is attracted to her, but that is not the source or cause of her femininity. It’s only a consequence of it. The source is the as-yet unexpressed maternal instinct. Squelch that, and the attraction of men will vanish. And there is something in men that is inspired to protect and defend, that wants to stand between his beloved and the world. That’s the fatherhood that lies deep within and yearns to be expressed. Squelch that and manhood is lost. You can play around with it all you like, but sexuality is the expression of motherhood and fatherhood. Sing songs to it, write poems about it, and create all kinds of stuff and nonsense about it, but it is what it is. And it’s in acknowledging that reality that conventional roles came to be. Have whatever superior ideas (or tantrums) you want, it doesn’t change anything, and all you wind up doing is destroying the children.