So who is this well-informed commenter at National Review?

This is the post of mine that I referred to:

https://www.lightondarkwater.com/2023/03/any-day-now.html

It’s sort of rambling.

A fair, if slightly pedantic, point. I take it you doubt the story?

Well, that's up to the girls, isn't it? Maybe it does in fact disqualify at least some boys in the eyes of at least some girls.

But I admit to chuckling at your comment. Not because it isn't a fair complaint, which it is, but because this is one of those things that are irrational and unfair but nevertheless a fact of human nature. It is totally unfair that many women place a man's wealth or potential wealth at or near the top of what they find attractive. But there it is. From things I've read, it's a big factor in the contemporary mating situation: a number I've seen quoted says that 70% of the young women are chasing 30% of the young men, and part of the reason is that they want a guy who is further up the financial and social hierarchy than they are. So as they themselves have, as a group, climbed above many men, the pool of acceptable husband prospects has gotten smaller.

No matter what women say about wanting equality, independent careers etc., I'm satisfied from personal observation that it's a big danger for a marriage if the woman makes more than the man.

By the way, I don't think it necessarily follows from the comment quoted from National Review that either the commenter or the boys he's talking about consider it ok for the boys to pay to see whatever it is. It really doesn't say anything one way or another about that. Just that the boys tend not to like the idea that a girl they're interested in is stripping or worse for whoever is willing to pay her. Some might actually like the idea, but does the girl really want to attract them?

It's a long-standing male-female argument. Who's responsible if he reacts to the way she's dressed in a way she doesn't want him to? Common sense is often a casualty. As you probably know the argument gets weird and ugly in some Christian circles, with rather authoritarian men demanding a degree of covering-up that's really way out of the norm for our culture. I ran across a very angry debate about women wearing pants.

But then our norm has gotten pretty out there. I'm still kind of amazed by the prevalence of the bikini.

"circling back to Chrissie Hynde." Of course!

I *should* be able to walk through a very high-crime area of a city like Chicago without fear of being robbed or otherwise harmed. But common sense tells me not to.

I'll go further than bet. I'll state it as a fact. Boys and men. It's pretty much a constant, in one form or another, through all times and cultures.

I had to look up Angel Clare. Never have read a Hardy novel, though I did see the old Masterpiece Theatre dramatization of Jude the Obscure, which made a very strong impression on me. "Done because we are too many"...shudder...

That's interesting, because in my 40-plus-year-old memory of the series Sue's liberationist ideas are a major cause of the disaster. I definitely was left with a sense of foolish abstract ideas doing mischief in the real world.

I.e. Jane Austen? :-)

"Sue's liberationist ideas"

Yes, I think that's part of how it plays out, but I just found her and her pontifications very annoying!

In addition to the ones you mention, Stu, I've also read The Woodlanders, which is very good, and his early novel Under the Greenwood Tree, which is actually a pastoral comic novel, and is surprisingly enjoyable. Among the "serious" novels I'm not sure why the former doesn't get much attention -- I found it to be as solid as the others.