The confusion on the marital front is only one aspect of the confusion characteristic of the cultural period called the postwar era. Society as a whole is confronted with political, economic, labor, religious, and racial conflicts and problems, to which we must find answers if we wish to survive. So far we feel unable to solve these problems successfully. Actually, the postwar problems are no different from the problems of the prewar and even the war era. All belong together. The war itself is the result of the same basic conflicts disturbing the peace and harmony between people and groups. What we experience so painfully is a struggle for a social equality. The conflict between husbands and wives is only one phase of this same struggle.
Social Progress toward Equality
Indeed, equality is the most pressing problem of our times. Its significance is not limited to the relationship between men and women, although its establishment may have far-reaching effects upon the institution of marriage and the structure of sex and love. Equality is the prize for which mankind is struggling today. The world is a battlefield where two forces meet: the more powerful seeking to retain their power, and the weaker seeking to gain influence. The powerful need the conviction that there always will be rulers and servants that the world never experienced equality, and that culture and order can be maintained only by force and threat. The weaker reject this ideology. They fight for equal rights for all human beings for the general establishment and recognition of human dignity and mutual respect and mutual assistance. They believe in the fundamental equality of human beings-equality undisturbed by any individual, national, and racial differences.
These differences of nationality, race, and creed will always exist; but when regarded as colorful contributions to the picture of mankind, as valuable threads interwoven into human culture and history, they do not imply social or moral discrimination. Those who have no faith in human nature and wish to subdue and to regiment it are opposed to progress and try to turn back the wheel of time. They believe in the innate supremacy of man, and if they gain power, will succeed in depriving women of all the rights which they have already acquired. They believe in spanking their children, without recognizing or even sensing the deep humiliation involved. They look down on other nations and races; they scorn the masses and recognize as intelligence only their own minds. They ridicule any idea of equality as an illusion of dreamers, with no prospect of materialization. Their “realism” is powerful because they represent those who are in power. 