first comes marriage
Jul. 8th, 2013 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliGot thrown out of a pseudo-medieval-setting book recently. . . the heroine didn't want to get married. Her friend laughed at the very notion, but no, she didn't want to. . .
And this in a culture where she might as well have said that she didn't want to curtsey to the king.
The odd thing was that her mother kept trying to marry her off to unpleasant old widowers, and she probably couldn't have married without her mother's leave. Yet it kept returning to objecting to marriage. And not with any fear of childbirth.
Other books I've read had her fear domestic tyranny. None of them seem to doubt that avoiding matrimony was the way to pull that off. As if your mother didn't keep you under her thumb. As if your stepmother was not a real possibility. As if your sister-in-law couldn't be as much a pest as any husband. At least you would be mistress of your own household. (One reason why clergy fought tooth-and-nail against the law allowing you to marry your dead spouse's sibling was that a lot of unmarried Victorian women had to take refuge with their married sisters, and they did not want the master of the house to think she was sexually available.)
Nor do these heroines ever considering a living mother-in-law to be a liability. All right, they probably won't face Sleeping Beauty's mother-in-law, who, you may not know, tried to have her two children and Sleeping Beauty herself killed so she could eat them. Or the mother-in-law in Six Swans, who kidnapped her grandchildren at birth and smeared her daughter-in-law's mouth with blood so she could claim she killed and ate them. Still problems less drastic than that could be unpleasant.
To be sure, there were eras in which people would try to evade marriage. Women were less able to evade than men -- but then, a lot of pressure could be applied to men, too. Plato in his Laws discusses the proper way to enact laws, the better sort using both influence and force, by justifying as well as prescribing penalties.
That there should be a law requiring men to marry he takes for granted.
Even when there were no laws, there could be plenty of pressure.
And this in a culture where she might as well have said that she didn't want to curtsey to the king.
The odd thing was that her mother kept trying to marry her off to unpleasant old widowers, and she probably couldn't have married without her mother's leave. Yet it kept returning to objecting to marriage. And not with any fear of childbirth.
Other books I've read had her fear domestic tyranny. None of them seem to doubt that avoiding matrimony was the way to pull that off. As if your mother didn't keep you under her thumb. As if your stepmother was not a real possibility. As if your sister-in-law couldn't be as much a pest as any husband. At least you would be mistress of your own household. (One reason why clergy fought tooth-and-nail against the law allowing you to marry your dead spouse's sibling was that a lot of unmarried Victorian women had to take refuge with their married sisters, and they did not want the master of the house to think she was sexually available.)
Nor do these heroines ever considering a living mother-in-law to be a liability. All right, they probably won't face Sleeping Beauty's mother-in-law, who, you may not know, tried to have her two children and Sleeping Beauty herself killed so she could eat them. Or the mother-in-law in Six Swans, who kidnapped her grandchildren at birth and smeared her daughter-in-law's mouth with blood so she could claim she killed and ate them. Still problems less drastic than that could be unpleasant.
To be sure, there were eras in which people would try to evade marriage. Women were less able to evade than men -- but then, a lot of pressure could be applied to men, too. Plato in his Laws discusses the proper way to enact laws, the better sort using both influence and force, by justifying as well as prescribing penalties.
The laws relating to marriage naturally come first, and therefore we may begin with them. The simple law would be as follows:—A man shall marry between the ages of thirty and thirty-five; if he do not, he shall be fined or deprived of certain privileges. The double law would add the reason why: Forasmuch as man desires immortality, which he attains by the procreation of children, no one should deprive himself of his share in this good. He who obeys the law is blameless, but he who disobeys must not be a gainer by his celibacy; and therefore he shall pay a yearly fine, and shall not be allowed to receive honour from the young.
That there should be a law requiring men to marry he takes for granted.
Even when there were no laws, there could be plenty of pressure.
As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest
In one of thine, from that which thou departest;
And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st
Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.
Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase:
Without this, folly, age and cold decay:
If all were minded so, the times should cease
And threescore year would make the world away.
Let those whom Nature hath not made for store,
Harsh featureless and rude, barrenly perish:
Look, whom she best endow'd she gave the more;
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:
She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby
Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-07-11 02:00 pm (UTC)And this in a culture where she might as well have said that she didn't want to curtsey to the king.
To be fair, both are believable as an expression of the character's immaturity. Though she'd curtsey to people of higher social status out of fear; indulgent parents might humor the other peculiarity until they had a specific match in mind.
However, when they did have a specific match in mind, they'd probably insist on it. Up until the 18th century, it was considered extremely (perhaps foolishly) liberal of parents to give their daughter the right of refusal of an unwanted match. This was all the more the case as one moved up the social ladder, because marriages involving noble or gentle families were of greater import than those involving commoners; even the mercantile classes were careful about whom their children married.
When one combines this with the facts that we are talking about girls who were usually minors, and that it was considered utterly-normal to physically-discipline a recalcitrant child, things could get ugly if a girl didn't like the match and her parents really wanted her to marry the man.
But in any case, girls looked forward to marrying in general. Marriage meant that they would become either a female head of household or at least of a sub-household within the larger one; lack of marriage would mean being permanently dependent upon one's relatives. There was also no other honorable way for anyone of the middle classes or above to have children, or even sexual relations.
Let those whom Nature hath not made for store,
Harsh featureless and rude, barrenly perish:
Look, whom she best endow'd she gave the more;
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:
She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby
Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die ...
The interesting thing about this is that it was written well before biological evolution had been discovered, yet it contains the core of the Darwinian reason why non-reproduction constitutes biological failure. At least it shows a better understanding of evolution than does the behavior of many modern feminists or pseudo-feminists.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-11 02:06 pm (UTC)But it's unsurprising that evolution doesn't require knowledge. Hasn't for billions of years.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-11 02:33 pm (UTC)Quite true.
One of the funny things about this is that, in human societies, cultural evolution has operated to make the basic demands of biological evolution part of "folk wisdom." The university-eductated feminists claim to revere such folk wisdom (because it's pre-industrial) yet they totally miss and actively reject its main precepts, as regards marriage and children. Which is to say they are rejecting those of its precepts most central to the human condition!
no subject
Date: 2013-07-11 03:15 pm (UTC)You may note in the Symposium, they lightly talk about men who must be forced by law to marry and begot children. The idea that there are men who can't do their duty is utterly alien to the whole mindset.