Manhood, Masculinity, and Machismo

Marquez seems to imply that this world might'nt exist if it wasn't for women. Ursula is the constant voice of reason throughout the book; Remedios the Beauty is innocent; Pilar allows lovers to embrace in her home, because she wants to see people happy; Petra Cotes's sex allows Aureliano Segundo's crops to prosper. It is the women in this novel that absorb the men's restlessness and help to heal their pain. They are able to live solitary lives, whereas the men cannot. The men must make war and womanize or they receed to depression and insanity. It's almost as if Marquez is implying that men can only be rational after they've made mistakes, whereas woman are innately rational. Furthermore, Marquez seems to imply that a man's virility reflects his ability to conquer, to war. Aureliano had 17 kids with 17 different women, and probably fought in 17 wars. Man, then, cannot control his energy; he constantly makes explosions until he implodes. It is the woman, then, that is stronger; who is the rock for the male. But in Marquez's patriarchal Colombia, this was not realized. In all of these women, he foils man's savage and wreckless nature.