Classical masculine virtue is not inherited, it is earned. It is the cursus honorium: the number of jobs and tasks you do, paid and unpaid, that lead to you developing courage, seriousness, and competence. It is not for the weak willed. You will not get it from playing games, nor sports. You will need to work on it all your life.

It is the reason, however, why a young man should learn an instrument, how to play a team sport, and how to be fit. Most young men resist this. Son one does not understand why I play the viola and go to the gym. The viola is about discrimination, as you have to listen to intonation, and train your mind. The gym is about pain, so that I stand straight and can work pain free, viola practice included.

And without the virtues you will not meet the challenges in your life, including getting a job or finding a woman. Men need to improve themselves continually.

Women have other challenges: this author is correct that they are protean in nature, which means that you are not bored by your spouse, for she changes with the tides and seasons, if she knows she has a rock to steady her and a star to steer by.

Women are attracted to classical masculine virtue. There was a reason Penelope patiently waited 15 years for the uncertain return of her king, and it was not just her own virtue.

Women’s attractions are often seen as barbaric by modern men, but these are just as often the parts of masculinity that modern “civilized” men have forsaken. That said, women’s attractions, untempered, can be barbaric, or at least run counter to civilization. Civilization, patriarchy, monogamy, and the civilized classical masculine ideal, to some extent have to be imposed on women whether they like it or not.

But imposing your own objectively more correct construction of masculinity, instead of trying to construct yourself to be attractive to women, is itself a power move which makes you more attractive. A man should conform himself to the immovable objective factors of the universe, and let woman conform to him, rather than attempting to conform himself to the protean nature of woman.

These virtues are not necessarily nice. It takes moral courage to tell a coward to leave, to stop spreading his lies — particularly if he is your superior. It takes self discipline to go to the gym after work, to eat cleanly. There is the way of the slovenly, and it tempts: many go down it.

Many only stay in training because of external pressures from the dojo, the box or the drill sergeant.

And many were not taught this. Or refuse to accept it. As your sons age, they will take their own path, and it may lead away from virtue. They then have to discover it themselves: the fact that we live in a society that does not reward virtue is known to them.

And here we have to lead by our actions. Our words matter not. What matters is that we, today, live well.

And give no time to the lies of the Wormtongues that will leave us asleep when we should be alert and prepared.