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.
I'm being flippant in choosing this title, but it's part of a larger question I keep asking myself, and it's a continuation of my chat with LongstreetLass at History Chat. So: Were men more passionate back then? As I think I've said before, I always waver between thinking that '800 mentality was totally alien to us, and thinking it was exactly the same and they just talked less about it. And this dilemma is part of the fascination I feel for that period. I believe that there were objective differences in the way people were brought up. I believe there was a greater outward respect between people, and towards women in particular. We know very well that the truth was different and that women were considered as little better than children, which implies a great lack of respect, however there was a stronger push towards good manners than today. Was it hypocrisy? In some cases, certainly: but not more hypocritical than some attitudes I see today, which encourage behaving in the worst possible manner because everybody does the same.
So, I think that there was a wide variety of behaviours and that indeed there were men who cherished their women. Yet another thing must be said: that it may be true, as LongstreetLass said, that today we sublimate our passions, but back then I believe there was also a strong drive towards not showing them, especially for males. So it might have been difficult even for these romantically-inclined men to find a way to express the warmth of their heart. Which I personally like very much... but it could mean a total lack of communication with a lady just as shy!
We could even find a connection with the "Cheating Lee" thread. Was fidelity a value back then? Is it today? I find it personally encouraging - since I'm that way too - when people declare that fidelity is still in fashion today, despite the attitude I mentioned above to do what one likes in the mistaken opinion that it hurts no one. In the '800's, I think there were once again conflicting attitudes. Due to the subordinate role of the woman, having affairs was considered a venial sin, and going to the brothel was considered a matter of health (and unfortunately often proved just the opposite). But was it true for everybody? Since, as I said, I believe in variety of behaviours in other fields, I like to believe that there also were men who were perfectly content with one woman. I think female unfaithfulness was much rarer, always because of this subordinate role.
Just some disjointed thoughts. How about it? And LongstreetLass, I'm about to post my little present in the Books and Movies Review Tent: since you said you like "The Killer Angels", I thought it was time to get busy...
In general, this subject should make for some interesting commentary. I find your first question most interesting, if a little confusing. Are you asserting that the men of today somehow lack "passion" in your view or just that you would prefer that they exhibit a higher level?
As far as the personal relationships and how men of the 1800's viewed women, I would suspect that it varied a great deal. In very general terms however, I think that the basic roles that were commonly defined for men and women were much more structured. In many ways I do believe that women received more respect. However, this respect was based upon not only personal affection but a respect for the role a woman was expected to play in terms of her home and family. I can well remember my own grandparents relationship and how it differed drastically from what you would find in a marriage today. Grandmother was responsible for meals, clothing requirements, the great majority of the child rearing, and all things pertinent to running the household. My grandfather greatly respected her abilities and dedication to this role and would brook no argument nor tolerate any amount of disrespect for her from anyone else. The same sort of responsibility and respect was accorded my Grandfather by her, only in different areas. There was a sense of partnership and divided responsibility where each reigned supreme in their respective areas and was accorded the other's complete respect in their particular area of responsibility. From what I have gathered in reading letters from the 1800's this type of division of responsibility was even more likely to be at the center of a relationship in that time period.
Today a marriage is much more likely to involve an intermixing of responsibility to the point that there is often a kind of competition between man and woman for supremacy or control in MANY different areas. It may not be a foregone conclusion that such mixed responsibilities cause conflict but it certainly makes the possibility more likely. The most successful relationships even today seem to be the ones where such divisions are mutually agreed upon and are not grounds for contention.
After all, if the daily struggles of life can be met without disagreements between two people pulling in opposite directions, it stands to reason that the interpersonal relationship between them can be more readily maintained as one of passion between lovers. Competition may be good for the economy but I have my doubts about its qualities as an aphrodisiac.
Thoughts? Comments?
You are really musing? I am surprised to see you on this thread, but very delighted, though be warned: your towering intellect may not serve you so well here...
I have a friend who counsels other men in marital matters. His wife hears the other side of the story from the wives. Apparently, it is not uncommon that men are not having intimacy and are not able to be affectionate these days.
The reasons are not real clear, but there may be many reasons, all the same: too much work, too much chasing after money, too much responsibility, children who seem to be staying home until they are 30, women working in the home and also holding a j-o-b, and so on.
What seem to be missing in their lives are ways to retreat and taking time to retreat, maybe even re-thinking their entire lives. For example, a man and woman could decide to live on love a little more and try to live on less money and with less material security. In a materialistic culture, it is hard to think this way; but the happiest people I know have sex like teenagers, and they really do try to keep their lives pared down so that there is room for passion. (Oops, will this have to be expurgated?)
I grew up in a traditional home, so I have real prejudices toward men who cannot fix a drain or a dripping faucet. I even expect men to know something about cars. I worry if a man does not look under the hood once in a while. I just don't feel safe.
Well, you might say, why do I not learn to do these things myself? I certainly could, but you see I have a woman's socialization that makes keeping a house and cooking and such very easy because I was taught from an early age. I have watched men struggle to clean a kitchen after a meal - takes them forever, and I mean just moving dishes to the dishwasher, and then they forget to clean the counter tops. That is a 10-minute job for me. So I prefer to have a structured relationship, as you describe in your post, blackirish. (One of my fondest memories of my father is how happy he was to be home at the end of the day. He would grab my mother in the kitchen and hug her until she threatened to hit him with a pot. (She was only joking, but she did want to finish making dinner.) Then my father would call us children for hugs. I described this scene to the friends I mentioned above, and they said this was probably rare today.
That is how some of us got started on wondering if love is possible in the modern age.
I believe that it is not incidences like 9/11 that are going to be our nation's demise; but, rather, whether or not we solve the problem of making room for love in our lives and deciding that love is more important than anything else.
I am rushing around a bit today, but I want to add something else here that may clarify this thing of modern love.
The materialism in our culture is so strong and so complete that I am also discovering that many men and women are really not what I would call "in love," but rather "settling" for each other.
There may be some romance at the beginning (luv, instead of love?) because they physically look right to each other, but nothing like what my parents felt they understood when they met each other. There is no sense of destiny or of being completed, the sense that something larger than the two of them had brought them together.
Now, there may have been this "destiny" thing for people of the Civil War era, or maybe not?
I also think this thing of destiny is tied in with passion. I also do not think one can fool oneself about this kind of love, while we can all fool ourselves about L-U-V. I think, too, that men are more vulnerable to "settling for," because they want to be content and can ignore their miseries by getting absorbed in whatever hobbies they may have. They can manage a lot of unhappiness more easily than women can. Men, please comment.
I am going to stay out of this one, at least when people are talking about "modern times." All I will say is that having Daddy work and Mommy stay home keeping house doth not always a perfect ending make.
To Zou & Longstreetlass, I seem to have had this very same conversation with my daughter when she was growing up.
My daughter has been in 'love' at several stages in her life, which has brought her plenty of grief and the thought that both I and my wife had missed something in her upbringing.
To put it mildly, my daughter would fall in 'love' with bums. For a while, I thought my daughter was some sort of natural 'bum detector', that any bum within a 50 mile radius could be detected by her and she would soon be in 'love' with him.
On one of these relationships, she was 13 and the 'bum' was 18! I had to resort to threats of violence to make this bum go away. My daughter pleaded with me to let her continue seeing this 'bum' because she 'loved' him.
I informed my daughter she had no idea what love was so I decided to tell her.
Love is taking the trash out. Love is waking up to your partner's stale morning breath. Love is going to work and bringing home a paycheck. Love is going to a school play and staying home when your child is sick. Love is doing the laundry when your wife is too tired to from working her job. Love is saying your sorry when it isn't your fault. Love is a pat on the butt and a squeeze of the hand.
It ain't all sack time. It ain't all about sex and 'making time' for love. It's the knowing you are both in love and the trust you have in one another you will stay in love, through the boring, hard, uninteresting times of everyday, 'normal' (how I love that word!) life.
Two 'bums' later (including one bastard that physically abused her) and one divorce and two grandchildren later, she recently told me, she thinks she understands now. I love her so much and have become friends with her now that she understands the 'old man' was just trying to say how much he loved her when he threatened to kill the 'bum' if he ever tried to see and hurt her again.
Love is not about being 'structured' or planned. It just is, all the time.
Unionblue
(Message edited by unionblue on September 10, 2002)
__________________ "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
OK, you are right. You do sound like somebody's old man. Nonetheless(and I know you have a romantic's heart because you like poetry...gotcha!), how do you respond to my query about a sense of destiny, something greater than the two of you, etc.?
Please respond to these particulars so that Redeye and I can get off it finally!
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