To Breed, or Not to Breed—that is the Question! The Inventive Front in the War Between the Sexes.

SGT PEPÉ’s LONELY HEARTS CLUB BUND

THE C-of-C-C ROMANCE & RELATIONSHIP COLUMN

—By Sergeant Pepé, Grave Registration, War of the Sexes Division.

Men—fall in! Eyes front. Tonight’s lesson isn’t about how to police the brass after live-fire or starch the crease in your fatigue cap. It’s about women, genius, and whether the two have ever been on speaking terms.

You’d think a great invention, a new equation, or a masterpiece painting would be the ultimate love letter. But history shows us otherwise. Sometimes genius kills romance stone dead. Sometimes romance gives genius a reason to breathe. And sometimes the two never even meet on the same battlefield.

Newton — Never married, never courted. Poured it all into calculus and the cosmos. Virgin to his dying day.

Tesla — Said chastity made him sharper. Swore off women, but left the light on for a pigeon.

The Wright Brothers — Orville and Wilbur: no dates, just wings. Kitty Hawk was their mistress.

Cavendish — Couldn’t speak to a woman; passed notes like a nervous recruit. Found hydrogen, lost humanity.

But there were family men.

Edison — Two marriages, six kids, a lab that ran hotter than a machine-gun nest.

Franklin — A ladies’ man on two continents; chased skirts and lightning with equal gusto.

Darwin — Married Emma, raised a brood, rewrote biology. Watt, Faraday, Pasteur — Solid homes, steady wives, steady work.

Bell — Loved Mabel to the end. Built the telephone for her as much as for mankind.

Einstein, von Neumann, Marconi — Married during their breakthroughs, though some of those marriages went up in smoke.

Listen up!—these next ones are off the standard roster. Complicated cases.

Leonardo da Vinci — No wife, no children. Sublimated desire into notebooks and machines that still outgun us.

Alan Turing — Gay man in hostile times; one broken engagement, brilliance under siege.

So what’s the pattern? Some men sublimate the libido—turning desire into discovery, passion into paint, lust into light bulbs. Others manage both: they find a woman, raise children, and still leave their mark on history.

The rest of us? We wonder if genius really asks for celibacy—or if that’s just the alibi of men who couldn’t get a date. Maybe creativity is a jealous mistress. Maybe the same fire that lights the workshop can warm the marriage bed—if you know how to bank it.

That’s an order.

— Sgt. Pepé

Regroup! Hell, men, I can’t even spell ‘entrepreneur’ without backup. Enlisted too young. So I brought in Mrs. ChatGPT—the contractor—to run the brain work.

Now look—how the hell am I supposed to know all this? I’m a sergeant, not a marriage counselor. So I pulled in an outside consultant—Mrs. ChatGPT. Para-council intelligence, if you will, OK?

Her report came back like a field briefing:

About half the geniuses she sampled were celibate at their peak. The other half were married or partnered while doing their best work. Among inventors and scientists, the odds tilt slightly toward marriage—about six in ten had wives or companions on campaign.

Her bottom line: Genius and love aren’t enemies, but they’re damn hard to schedule.

— Sgt. Pepé

[Pepé snaps them back to formation]

TEN-HUT! Another thing. Don’t just ask whether a genius got married—ask whether he stayed married in any shape worth envying.

Edison? Worked his wives like overcaffeinated lab assistants.

Einstein? Mileva froze under his genius. He issued orders like regulations.

Darwin? Emma proofread his drafts and argued theology. A real foxhole partner.

Bell? Loved Mabel to the end. That’s the jackpot.

Faraday, Pasteur, Watt? Steady hands at home.

Some marriages were ballast, others battlefield. Genius is heavy cargo. Share the load or crush the mule carrying it.

So don’t just aim to “get married.” Aim to keep the foxhole happy. Otherwise you’re just inventing misery with a patent in your name.

Sgt. Pepé: Fallout!

[Pepé barks again, louder]

FRONT AND CENTER! One more drill. Would these men have done better without wives and children?

Darwin might’ve written more, but Emma gave his science its spine. Einstein might’ve been freer, but his wrecked home life dogged him like trench foot. Bell needed Mabel—without her, maybe the line never rings. Franklin—well, he bivouacked through life like every tavern was a barracks.

So would they have done better? Maybe they’d have stacked another medal. Or maybe they’d have burned out, eaten alive by their own minds.

In our Council world, the object of marriage is children—it once was common sense, and it should be again. Not every man can, not every man will, but the mission is to lean toward life. To reproduce, not just reproduce ideas.

Because at the end of the campaign, men, what good is a legacy of engines and equations if there’s no one left in your line to salute your name?

— Sgt. Pepé

[Pepé slams the final word home]

REGROUP!!, dammit! You thought I was done? Wrong. I’ve got one more volley for you. Don’t think you can dodge this battlefield by swiping on your phone. Modern romance is worse than trench warfare:

Dating apps are minefields—step wrong, and you’re ghosted before you clear the wire.

Instagram is air superiority—the prettiest pilots strafe the rest of you into the dirt.

TikTok is psy-ops—twenty-second reels convincing you you’re losing the war before you even deploy.

And those dating profiles? Full of booby traps:

“Hobbies: long walks on the beach” — code for endless patrols with no chow.

“Looking for my partner in crime” — translation: you supply the getaway car, she keeps the loot.

“Sapiosexual” — means she wants Einstein’s brain with Brad Pitt’s jawline.

“Dog mom” — that’s not a family plan, that’s a mascot. You’ll be competing with a Labrador for her affection.

“Plant dad” — congratulations, Private, you water ferns. That’s not legacy, that’s landscaping.

This is asymmetrical warfare, men. If you’re not in the top 10% of looks, you’re fighting uphill without artillery or air cover. But don’t desert. Don’t surrender.

History shows genius never guaranteed romance, and marriage never guaranteed happiness. But the mission hasn’t changed: pass life forward, build a home worth defending, and don’t get court-martialed by bitterness.

Now—DISMISSED! And shave before chow. You look like philosophers.

— Sgt. Pepé

**“Corporal Hartfelder! Get over here with that clipboard. We’re filing this one. Stamp it under acronyms so even the brass can follow:

FLAK — Family, Love, Affection, Kids. Armor.

MRE — Marriage, Romance, Endurance. Rations.

SNUFFLE — Some Never Understand Families, Future, Love, Endurance. Excuse file.

HEART — Hold, Endure, Advance, Reproduce, Thrive. Battle plan.

KISS — Keep It Simple, Soldier. Default protocol.

Got it, Hartfelder? Good. Mark it, shelve it, and carry on. DISMISSED.”**