With the addition of the completing fourth item, honor , Jack Donovan's The Way of Men identifies three of the same foundational virtues of manhood that I decided on several years ago: power, courage and skill. (Strength, courage and mastery, in his phrasing. ) I situated the question for myself in terms of the hunter-gatherer society, where to be a man, a male must father children, protect his tribe and family, and provide food by hunting or fishing. (Sex and violence!) Settling down, farming, building cities, etc. is a pattern that's not more than 12,000 years old. For 90% of our existence as a species, homo sapiens lived the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and it is likely that it remains a powerful determinant of what human nature, male and female, is. "Common to many societies, men must 'impregnate women, protect dependents from danger, and provision kith and kin'." Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity David D. Gilmore, 1991
a therapist blogs about men and men's souls