20. Understand alpha and beta.  Alpha traits are things like leadership, dominance, bravery, and disregard for rules and safety.  Beta traits are things like helpfulness, supportiveness, reliability, and ‘being nice’.  Women are attracted to the former (they’re exciting), but appreciate the latter (they’re good to have around).  To be a successful husband, you need to have both traits.

21. Distinguish between ‘good alpha’ and ‘asshole alpha’.  Alpha traits need to be kept in check – driving too fast is alpha, but also dangerous.  You need to be a gentleman as well as a warrior.

22. A woman will try to control a man – and then despise the man she can control.  A man who can be easily controlled doesn’t pass the test for being able to stand up to threats to her and her children.

23. The man is head of the home.  Not should be, but is.  His very nature suits him to this role, and women know that (which is why they tend to despise men they can control).  There might be exceptions, but that’s the general rule.

24. If you follow this advice, you’ll be called sexist.  But who wants the approval of the kind of people who made up these mad modern rules anyway?  If they call you ‘sexist’ because you say that men and women are different, that’s their problem.  Of course, if they call you ‘sexist’ because you say that one sex is better than the other, then the problem is your own.

25. Don’t create a ‘man cave’.  It’s wrong because it infantilises men, and because it gives the message, ‘You can go and be a man there, but the rest of this house belongs to me.’  But the entire house is his castle, not just one corner of it.  And, because he is a servant-leader, he will make sure that she, and the children, have places in the house where they can do their own things.  And he might have a workshop, or a study.  But he should feel at home in the entire house, and not just one room.

26. Be Captain Picard.  The husband is the captain, and his wife is the first officer.  A woman’s sex rank depends quite a lot on her being young, fun, and attractive.  But a man’s sex rank depends more on other kinds of things: being a leader, confident, and successful.  Be a man.  Be a real man.

27. Learn the difference between ‘flirting’ and being ‘attractive’.  A man needs to be the kind of man women find attractive, but that includes being the kind of man who would never hurt or betray his wife.  If you develop only your alpha side, you will be an asshole (and possibly a five-star flirt).  If you only nurture your beta side, she will come to despise you.  Be both: an alpha that she is attracted to, and a beta she can rely on.

28. You need to have an agenda and a purpose.  Women want to hitch up with a man who is going somewhere.  Have a mission (it doesn’t matter too much what it is), and pursue it.

29. Be a servant leader.  The modern idea is that we ‘lead by serving’.  But that’s nonsense.  The model here is Jesus.  ‘So I ask you – did he ask the apostles’ permission to do things?  Did he make sure he checked with them before he overturned the tables of the money-lenders, or rode into Jerusalem?  Did he ask their permission before raising Lazarus?’  Don’t be silly.

30. Men are called to sacrifice.  A society can afford to lose its men much more than it can afford to lose its women.  We may not be in so much of a survival situation as we used to be, but human nature is persistent, and man as warrior and woman as nurturer are deeply written into our genes.  Of course, we are not slaves to our primitive impulses.  But neither does it make any sense to ignore them.

Eggs are Expensive, Sperm is Cheap, by Greg Krehbiel.  Crowhill Publishing, 2014.