Taught to Expect, Not to Honor

Modern society has trained women to expect everything and to honor nothing. They are raised to know what they want but not to know what they owe. They are told to list their standards but never to build the strength required to meet someone else’s. The result is a generation fluent in demands but illiterate in duty. Love cannot survive when one side learns only to expect while the other learns only to give.

The Education of Entitlement

From early childhood, girls are told they are special simply because they exist. They are praised for beauty, charm, and self-expression, but rarely corrected for pride, manipulation, or deceit. When they compete or misbehave, the consequences are softened or ignored. When they succeed, the praise is amplified. The lesson becomes clear: your value is unquestionable, and the world should adjust to your emotions.

By the time these girls grow into women, they have learned to equate discomfort with injustice. Correction feels like criticism, and accountability feels like control. The moral foundation that once shaped women into pillars of grace and wisdom has been replaced by emotional affirmation. Culture calls this progress, but it is regression wrapped in applause.

What Used to Be Taught

In generations past, women were taught not only how to be loved but how to sustain love. They learned that respect was not weakness but strength, that gentleness was not submission but wisdom, and that patience was a higher virtue than pride. They were taught that their influence in the home and the community came from character, not control.

Today, those lessons are mocked as outdated. The modern woman is told that submission is slavery, that humility is oppression, and that independence means never needing a man. The language of empowerment has replaced the language of virtue. Yet the marriages, families, and communities that once thrived on humility now crumble under pride.

The Missing Half of the Equation

Every man knows what is expected of him. He is told to provide, protect, listen, understand, apologize, and serve. He is reminded constantly of his duty and warned of the consequences if he fails. But where is the mirror for women? Where are the reminders that love requires sacrifice from both sides? Where are the lessons that gratitude and respect are just as essential to women as provision and protection are to men?

Women are taught what to expect from men but not what men need from them. They are told that men should be patient, kind, strong, forgiving, and understanding, yet they are not told that men crave respect, peace, loyalty, and honor. They are told that if a man cannot meet their expectations, they deserve someone better, but never told that if they cannot meet his, he deserves peace too.

The Double Standard of Virtue

Society rewards women for standards it condemns in men. If a woman wants a hardworking, honest, disciplined partner, she is wise. If a man wants a feminine, loyal, respectful partner, he is controlling. If a woman expects protection, she is traditional. If a man expects gratitude, he is insecure. The imbalance is not subtle; it is cultural doctrine.

This double standard does not create stronger women. It creates self-righteous ones. It teaches them to see their partner’s flaws as offenses and their own flaws as empowerment. It tells them that any disagreement is abuse, that any expectation is patriarchy, and that any correction is oppression. Such thinking does not free women; it enslaves them to their own ego.

What Men See

Men notice this imbalance even if they rarely speak about it. They see how women are praised for leaving relationships but men are shamed for wanting to stay. They see how women are comforted in failure while men are condemned for it. They watch as their quiet endurance is taken for granted, their patience dismissed, and their silence mistaken for apathy.

Many men retreat inward, not because they do not care, but because they have learned that truth costs too much to say. They stop correcting. They stop leading. They start avoiding. Yet avoidance breeds resentment, and resentment kills intimacy. The death of honest correction is the death of growth, and the death of growth is the death of love.

The Cost to Women Themselves

What women do not see is that the system that protects them from correction also robs them of depth. Growth requires discomfort. Strength requires humility. Peace requires honesty. When women are shielded from these forces, they never develop the spiritual and emotional endurance that make them truly strong. They remain dependent on comfort and affirmation, chasing new sources of validation because none can satisfy the emptiness that pride creates.

The women who embrace truth, who welcome correction, and who learn humility often become the most grounded and respected people in any community. They do not lose power by honoring others; they gain influence through grace. True femininity is not fragile. It is disciplined. It is quiet strength guided by conscience rather than ego.

Restoring Honor

If society wants to heal relationships, it must retrain its daughters. It must teach them that beauty without humility is vanity, that confidence without gratitude is arrogance, and that love without respect is manipulation. It must teach them that equality means equal accountability, not selective privilege. It must teach them that to honor a man is not to diminish oneself but to affirm the divine order that sustains love.

Men also have a duty in this restoration. They must lead with integrity so that their strength invites respect rather than fear. They must speak truth even when it costs them comfort. They must stop enabling immaturity by rewarding disrespect. Love without standards is not love at all.

The Hope for Renewal

There are still women who choose truth over comfort and still men who choose leadership over silence. They are the foundation upon which any restoration must be built. They understand that love is not about winning but about refining one another through grace and truth. They know that maturity is not a finish line but a lifelong process that both must walk together.

If women learn again to honor and men remember their worth beyond utility, relationships will heal. Families will strengthen. Society will stabilize. The cure is not new ideology but old wisdom: humility, accountability, respect, and truth. These are not relics of the past. They are the only path forward.

Until both halves of humanity are taught to give as much as they expect, love will remain a one-sided story. The world does not need more empowered people. It needs more honorable ones.