El Payaso said:
How come a lot men these days are naturally beta? Most remain this way to the grave and only a few in their later years become enlightened about female behavior. What caused this shift?
Um no they werent more alpha back then. People always assume this is so when it wasnt reality. Like Tic Tac said...men and women just needed each other. Society had a firm structure...and most people were regular average folks. There werent many "alphas" in my opinion.
What was reality is that back in the day, women lacked independence or money making power, and thus any man could find a spouse. Plus back then, it was uncommon not to get married young in your 20s. Society was rigid...and back then (1950s and prior) there was no hooking up like there is today. Men basically finished high school, some went to college, many got jobs right away, and were married 25 at the latest it seemed. Think about it, in those days women were simply looking for the best provider.
If you talk to enough old couples, while there are great marriages between folks who grew old together...I personally know older folks who stayed married because it was expected of them. The marriages had no passion, they were never truly in love, and they stayed together for the kids. Sleeping in separate beds or having a dying sex life isnt something new to our generation. Its happened for ages, but at least today, people can bail on bad relationships. How alpha is it to be trapped in a relationship with a woman who snapped you up as a provider?
Guys gotta be realistic and realize that this happened a lot back in the day, the same way it does today. At least today men can enjoy casual sex and less societal pressure to settle down.
And because a lot of guys here use attaining women as a barometer of what makes a man alpha, many people just look back on the past and proclaim that men were more alpha. I argue that there were a lot more scrubs back in the day and even fewer guys at the top of things running the show in various areas of society.
Anyways, since you cannot be guaranteed a woman nowadays just by having a job and looking to shack up early, some men look around and proclaim that men are less alpha. A lot more men have more opportunities to be alpha today than they have in the past. And back in the day, "betas" existed, but you wouldnt notice it much because women would date and marry those guys and stay with them because they needed to in order to survive.
While the rich poor gap surely has increased A LOT in the United States, more men have the opportunity to become alpha. And its possible to do so through diverse means. I feel "alpha" traits are more diverse, achievable and less consolidated than in the past.