The Ladies TeaStop in and grab a quick cup of tea! All sorts of ladies issues are disscussed here. Both Ladies and Gentlemen are welcome to join in the conversations.
Lass, how many romantic novels do you read a year? When the loving couple defeat the villian, save the day and sail off into the sunset, it ain't the end of it. That's when the really hard part starts. Day-to-day living.
As for a sense of destiny, something greater than the two of you, that is your destiny and there is nothing greater than the two of you. My destiny is my wife, my family, my home, my country, my world in that order and **** little after that.
Don't make it too complicated, Lass, or you will never find the joy in just living.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
My reason for these thoughts is mainly that I write period stories and sometimes I wonder whether my protagonists act right. And yes, the temptation to take refuge in the '800s to escape the difficulties of real life and relationships is strong, but I also admit part of its charm (and its danger) is that I can mould it to my liking. So looking for serious sources is a bit self-defeating because it might ruin the charm; but the worst I can discover is that people back then were just the same as today, and it would be anyway a guideline for my stories.
As for modern men... I can't really judge; even in friendship, I go for the strong and silent type, and then I can't very well complain they are too silent, right? I live in the possibly deluded belief that, when you get to individuals, men and women aren't all that different. I wish for a day when we will all start concentrating more on the similarities than on the differences (and this does not go only for men and women). During the Civil War the differences were much stronger, and maybe that's part of the charm of imagining romances in that period. People from very different walks of life were thrown together by war or frontier life. This goes for friendship too. And what had pulled them together could just as likely tear them apart. I find it intriguing.
I don't think it's harder to find a life companion now than it was back then. My impression is that in the '800s things were more structured: a woman's life was focussed on marriage, her family worked hard towards that end, and social occasions were meant to provide opportunities. Her own mindset was less complicated than today, probably, she was readier to accept what she got. However, while making it easier to find partners, this didn't guarantee at all a happy union, and those who didn't have the means or the position to lead a social life were all but cut out from the game. Nowadays it's incredibly easier for everybody to meet people, but for various reasons there is less pressure towards getting together, and we lack a code, a language, so to speak. If a guy invites a gal to the movies today, it could just mean they are interested in the same movie. All in all, I think the odds are always the same, it's just the situations that change.
Neil, how are you so simple? I envy this. You just have all the answers, and that's that.
I have never read a romance novel. I read almost entirely non-fiction. I do not have much patience for fantasy and do not indulge in it as a rule. I have just never been married - been asked and not asked - but the timing was wrong or it was the wrong guy.
I should go back to writing pomes. I was happier back then, and Neil was nicer to me.
Redeye, don't start sublimating this discussion: "My reason for these thoughts is mainly that I write period stories..." Sure.
I will do us this favor: I will look for some good reading material on love in the Civil War era. We really need something to work with here, and I am going numb listening to Neil.
(Neil, just having a little fun. I appreciate you very much.)
It's the pure truth... now, the real question is, why do I write period romances? But that is a whole other matter and has nothing to do with the Civil War. It's the end result that currently happens to take place in that setting, and I want to get this end result as correctly as I can. If meanwhile I manage with the help of friends to draw interesting conclusions about real life, so much for the better! But apart from this, the connection between me and my stories is a matter for a literary board, or maybe a psychologist.
Zou,
I agree. I don't believe there is any one "formula" for what works. I do believe that the concept of working as a team instead of competitors was more easily arrived at in the 1800's at least partially because of the structured lifestyle.
Lass,
I happen to believe very strongly in destiny or karma or what could be and is called by many different titles in many different philosophies. I prescribe to the ripple in the pond theory whereby each action has an endless series of reactions that extends to more than one plane of existence. We are, as yet, only aware of how our actions affect our immediate proximity and are often even quite willingly self-blinded to this in our pursuit of immediate desires. Day to day existence is often such a struggle that we simply cannot see the forrest for the trees getting in the way. In other words, yes to the larger purpose, yes to endless possibilities of expansion, and yes to never giving in to drudgery.
I am still puzzling over the different sexes relative capacity for living with unhappiness......I'll have to get back to you later on that one.
All in all, I don't believe people have changed that much since the 1800's but the world we live in has, in my opinion, taken such a quantum leap in technological advancements during the last century that human relationships have not fully and successfully adapted as yet. As redeye points out, it is a different world with different rules.
I borrowed that piece about the capacity to live with unhappiness from my brother. He has the nastiest philosophy on men and women, which is, in brief, that women are truly human, but men are only primates.
The truth about men, he says, is so utterly unliveable for women that we will never, ever believe it - just goes against our love nature.
My brother talks and I laugh; and I do not remember a thing he said, which he says is typical because my heart will not let me hear the ****ing truth about men...something to the effect that men just want a stable relationship, nothing to do with love, just ape contentment. ????
Somebody help me out here...
blackirish, are you man or ape?
(I am reminded of the scene in Gettyburg in the Confederate camp when a discussion of Darwin's theory of evolution comes up. George Pickett says he can imagine some men to be apes, but he dares anyone to say that that is the case for Robert E. Lee.)
Nonetheless, it is not lost on me that the Yankee men are in 9/11 dark moods, while at least one Confederate prefers sitting with the ladies in the parlor. The Southern men are a little more human than ape?
So about men living with unhappiness, my brother would say they do not know or care whether they are happy or not because they do not think this way, and they are invariably shocked to learn that the wife or girlfriend is leaving because they had never noticed anything changed.
Wow...isn't that unbelieveable? (My brother is a smart man, too.)
I will get back later with some comments on the idea that "human relationships have not fully and successfully adapted" to technological changes.
I am still looking for something to read on love in the Civil War era. I wish you were here in California sitting with me next to the pool with tall glasses of...soy milk, and a pile of grapes.
The fact that you write period romances is suspicious, but I am not one to pry. I am writing a story about a past life in India which I shared with a would-be lover...if only he would be. Maybe I am just imagining things.
Maybe you are looking for a little karma, too, a little bit of destiny. What if you were to meet someone just like a man you wrote about in one of your romances - and you thought you just made him up!
Hey Longstreetlass, I'm writing a Civil War novel, you got any suspicions about ME? It's not a romance, though there is a love interest, who is getting more interesting to me all the time. I am not tempted to write the story from her point of view, however.
Writing is my time travel. The keyboard disappears and I am there... until I get the dread blue screen error!
Lass, I am as simple as I can be and have found, much to my wonder and amazement, so many that can make a simple thing so complicated.
Rick, I tend to agree with the idea that there were more 'defined' roles for the man and the woman in the 1860's and it must have been a tad easier in some respects than it is now.
I live in a household where both my wife and I work, sometimes at the same time, sometimes she has worked when I was out of a job and vice versa. What I find truly amazing is that we can find common ground when our jobs and situations change. Chores at the house are shared between us, sometimes we take turns cooking, doing the laundry, cleaning the house.
Our motto when we first got married was '60/40'.
That meant each of us decided to do 60% of the work for each other and the other could do 40% for the other spouse. It was just our way of saying we needed to put out in every area of our marriage a bit more than we thought was right to make it work.
I was lucky in that I married my best friend, Sue. We were very fortunate to know each other as friends before we became a bit more passionate and got married.
Zou, I love the idea that your writing is a time machine for you. I used to read and got so lost in the stories I read. Books and novels were escapes and adventures for me growing up and even now I love to read so much that I list it as my one and true hobby.
I love the idea of exploring relationships in the Civil War era. My wife and I both reenact, but when we are in 'first person' or character, we are NOT married. She is a rich widow woman whose husband was killed at the first battle of Bull Run and I am now 'courting' her. We have written letters to one another and when I am home on furlough, we court and go to dances and such.
It is amazing to me the customs of the times and the way I MUST treat her if I am to be considered a gentleman and a contender for her favors and hopefully, future marriage. It's a real thrill to me to have this part of our reenacting experience.
I look forward to reading any novels you produce as the period is interesting to me. Keep me posted.
YMOS,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
I live in the possibly deluded belief that, when you get to individuals, men and women aren't all that different. I wish for a day when we will all start concentrating more on the similarities than on the differences (and this does not go only for men and women). During the Civil War the differences were much stronger, and maybe that's part of the charm of imagining romances in that period. People from very different walks of life were thrown together by war or frontier life. This goes for friendship too. And what had pulled them together could just as likely tear them apart. I find it intriguing. 
But that is a whole other matter and has nothing to do with the Civil War. It's the end result that currently happens to take place in that setting, and I want to get this end result as correctly as I can. If meanwhile I manage with the help of friends to draw interesting conclusions about real life, so much for the better! But apart from this, the connection between me and my stories is a matter for a literary board, or maybe a psychologist. 
Linear Mode
