The assumption the film makes is that if men do not have to be shackled by sexual restraint, why should women? The goal is to throw off what are commonly perceived as Victorian notions of female propriety. If this is what it means for men and women to be equal, we have to ask, "What happened to men?"

There was a time, not terribly long ago, when chastity was a virtue—a manly virtue. Chastity is an instance of the overarching virtue of self-control. There has never been a time in the history of humankind in which men did not find women sexually desirable. God would not have to provide a commandment against committing adultery unless He knew that people were inclined by a sinful nature to do so. In an era when men were the leaders in their homes, they were expected to display the virtues of chastity and self-control.

Nancy Pearcey, in her book Total Truth, identifies the breakdown and deserves to be read in full. My brief synopsis will not do credit to the research that Pearcey commands, but in the interest of space, here it is: Before the Industrial Revolution, men believed that part of being manly involved exercises in self-restraint for the good of the family and community. When the Industrial Revolution took men out of the home, it turned it from the center of production to the center of consumption. Work moved to factories, where ruthless, unbridled ambition (once considered a sin) became the key to success. Men chose to become "morally hardened," and women were expected to take on the moral mantle.

Tension was bound to increase. If women were the new guardians of virtue, then a moral man, a tamed man, must, in some ways, be an emasculated man. Men resisted. The moral divide deepened, and an economic divide widened. Eventually it boiled over. Modern feminism devalued home life, and encouraged women to abandon the home in favor of careers. In a short time, many of the morals that western culture took for granted were imperiled. Women would be like men: ambitious, lacking self-restraint, sexually promiscuous—remarkably like the women in the film. Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte have all arrived just in time to apply an upscale sense of style to a city in ruins.

Moving Toward Materialism

Other than Charlotte's Judaism, the city inhabited by these characters is thoroughly secular. The only altar at which the women genuflect has as its icon a pair of high heels by Manolo Blahnik. Its religion is materialism.

Instead of an engagement ring, Carrie tells Big she just want really large closets. Instead of marital intimacy with her husband, Miranda seeks career advancement. Outside of carnal lust, the only object of Samantha's desire is a jewel-encrusted butterfly ring selling (appropriately) at a divorce auction for $60,000.

In a materialist culture, marriage cannot be sacred, because nothing is. Marriage, despite being the focus of the endgame in this movie, is more often the object of scorn. Miranda tells Big that "marriage ruins everything." Big doesn't need the reminder. Despite the fact that he tells Carrie that he wants only her, he must have said that at least two other times to two other women to whom he promised to cleave "till death us do part"—this is his third trip down the aisle. Samantha remarks, "I don't really believe in marriage." Both Big and Carrie agree that "we were perfectly happy before we decided to live happily ever after." The real indicator of true commitment is not the combination of two separate people into one flesh (it happens too frequently to be of note), but the abandonment of one's personal apartment to take up residence in a home owned by another. Marriage is discussed more as a legal protection against untimely house hunting than a lifelong spiritual commitment to the well-being and happiness of a spouse.

The goal of the women in Sex and the City is to live in a place that will make your girlfriends jealous, to view and purchase high-fashion clothing with designer price tags that would bankrupt most viewers, to reject anything other than the life of a sexual Olympian, and to pay attention to the circumstances of life while ignoring issues of character. Charlotte appears to have a good marriage, but Miranda emasculates her husband, and Carrie is so caught up in being a cover girl that she nearly destroys her own relationship. Samantha's character would be universally reviled if, instead, she were Sam: a fifty-year-old male skirt-chaser who dumps the faithful woman who cared for him through a nearly terminal illness by kissing her off with this line, "I love you, but I love me more."

In a world devoid of spiritual connotations adultery become "indiscretions," and serial relationship failure magically is argued to be a herald of marital success; after all, as Carrie tells Big, "We've already done everything we can to screw it up." But G.K. Chesterton would disagree, "It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands." The tough part of life, that this film wants to ignore, is the difficult task of determining how to stand.

Another Way of Looking

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