I’ve known any number of people in socially conservative communities, and they appear to have worked out an arrangement. The women let the men be tyrants at home in return for the men working, following the law and serving in the military. The women sacrifice themselves so that men be good providers and good citizens.
This arrangement appears to work for many people, and people who practice it should be free to do so. However I see problems with it.
One is that women are just as capable as men are of working and serving in the military. For a woman to have to take a subservient role when she is just as capable as the men of taking a leading role would not work for many women. It would work for some; it would not work for everyone.
Another is that tyrannical home arrangements fail to adequately prepare people for a democracy. To adequately function in a democracy, you need to understand compromise and negotiation. These are not learned when there is one person making all the decisions and everyone must obey him. They are learned when people figure out how to resolve their differences like adults. You do not learn how to function in a democracy when you come from a tyrannical home arrangement. You do so when you have seen your parents work out their differences intelligently and come up with solutions that work for both parties.
Finally, while these women have every right to do what they want to do with their own lives, they have no business forcing the same choices on their daughters. Their daughters may or may not want to live the same way as did they. Once again, these women have every right to live their lives as they do, and they should be free from the expectations of feminists as to what kind of relationships they should have and what they choose to do or not to do outside the home. However they also have to extend the same freedom to their daughters. And that is the case whether or not their daughters want to live the same way as do they.
One of the hardest things for a woman to do is to leave a tyrannical situation. Such tend to keep hounding her for years on end, see her as an enemy, do everything in their power to destroy her life. A woman seeking to leave such a situation would most certainly be portrayed as selfish and evil. That is because she refuses to take part in a social contract that exists in the place and time. It doesn’t mean that she can’t be good for people. There are plenty of people outside that contract whom she stands to benefit through her actions. For that matter, it can be said that people who immigrate to America betray the countries they come from. They more than make up for it by being contributing citizens in America.
I had a wife from such a background, and she was one of the best people I’ve known. She constantly went out of her way to help all sorts of people from whom she had nothing to expect in return. She faced very real danger to fight domestic violence in her country. When she worked as a social worker, there were people who came to see only her. She got attacked very badly for going with me. People thought that she was selfish and that she was betraying her Christian heritage. Yet I was much better to her children than had been the men she had been with before me, and they benefited significantly from having me as their stepfather. As for her Christian heritage, I am a serious Christian and take my relationship with Jesus Christ very seriously. That does not mean that I want a woman for a punching bag.
So yes, by all means practice the social conservative arrangement if it works for you. But do not insist that everyone else do the same. There are problems with social conservative way of life, and I have said what they are. People who want that way of life should be able to have it. People who want something else should be able to have something else.