I stumbled across a provocative article entitled, Why Polygamy is Good for Women. I enjoy a good counterintuitive argument, so I dove in…
A lot of the knee-jerk reactions against polygyny are from people who can't add up. In a society with equal numbers of men and women, each man with four wives gives women the additional pick of three men […]Could the same logic apply in the US?
In the Sahel region of Africa, half of all women live in polygynous households. The other half have a good choice of men and a lot more bargaining power. (Tim Harford - Slate)
Large numbers of incarcerated males decrease the prospects for women. Add in that women as a cohort are more educated than men, and the disparity grows.
Most importantly, given shifting societal norms, does any of this even matter?
Women tightly guarding the gateway to carnal paradise has been the traditional means of putting respectable men in the marrying mood, but girl power has wrecked that.
In many circles, the girls compete with the guys to see who can be more promiscuous, to the detriment of themselves and their sisters, I think. It’s too easy to get free milk now, so only a fool buys the cow…
And with more and more girls willing to engage in public drunkenness, farting contests, and licentious vulgarities, crass behavior is no longer the exclusive domain of the male species.
Add to this the overall pornification of our society, and the female of the species has lost her mystique. Counterintuitively, psychologists believe this may explain why more men have retreated into internet porn and lap dances. Reality makes no sense so you gotta go hide somewhere, I guess.
What happens when your internal wiring is incompatible with the culture?
I don’t know myself. I’ve been happily married for quite awhile, and God has blessed us with a pretty uncomplicated relationship. We simply and unselfishly try to make one another happy, and that’s important for a healthy marriage.
Driving home last week, I heard Dennis Prager discuss with callers what made their marriage a happy one. Almost every caller mentioned some variant of “doing something for or with my spouse that I really don’t want to do,” and much of it revolved around sex, with the man as the one wanting it when the wife was not particularly in the mood. It was a tie in with the question of why men cheat on their wives.
Love as a Two-Sided Coin
Prager then presented a two-sided coin that sparked a lot of conversation:
For the women: Is it really so horrible to contribute 15 minutes to an activity that makes your spouse so happy and that may prevent him from sinning against you, your God, and your marriage?
For the Men: Is a few moments of adulterous pleasure really worth defiling your marriage, disrespecting your spouse, and offending your God?
Of course, the answer to both is, No. But we are irrational beings much of the time; and the whirling vortex of id, ego, emotions and sex leads to dark psychological chasms.
Let’s face it, were it not for sex, men would have no interest in women, and subsequently children. We men would abandon our towns and cities to roam the woods and mountains in armed bands, killing game, fighting, and brewing beer.
Idealizing women is not a condescension, and it is a shame that a small dedicated band of insurgents has succeeded in knocking themselves and their sisters from their pedestals.
49 comments:
Monogamy is set up for the benefit of the beta male.
"Idealizing women is not a condescension"
Sure it is. Idealization is a poor consolation for the restrictions of that pedestal. Your argument would make as much (or as little) sense if you replaced the pedestal with the buraq. Kings and philosophers shit, and so do ladies, regardless of whether they have entered a farting contest.
I couldn't agree more, Kurt. Just because I respect a woman doesn't mean I think I am better than her. It simple means that I respect her, nothing more.
I ran into a quandary my first year in college. I met a girl and gave her a ride to a Baptist student union gathering. I did what I had always been taught to do, I opened the door for her. I was told in no uncertain terms that she didn't appreciate that. Shocked me, actually made me speechless, and that isn't easy to do.
Too much effort is put into a competition between the sexes, when it should be nothing of the kind. We are as God created us, equal, but different. He created us that way for a reason, yet as a general rule, we ignore that purpose and deign to make the relationship between a man and a woman into something it was never meant to be.
Pedestal = burqa? That's some twisted thinking.
I wonder where most western women would rather live, a western nation where we oppress them by idealizing them, or Saudi Arabia, where they must go out into the desert heat swaddled head to toe and where they will get canes for looking at a man or attempting to drive.
You're off the rails on this one, Jez.
I wonder where most western women would rather live, a western nation where we oppress them by idealizing them, or Saudi Arabia
------------
Probably neither.
SF: "Pedestal = burqa?"
Is that what I said? I think I said that your argument applies equally to both. If that makes the two things equivalent, then I'm surprised; I must have missed that memo.
Consider: an argument that relies on x > 5 works just as well for the case x=10 as it does for the case x=1000. But clearly, 10 != 1000.
Jez: You and Ducky took your feminist studies classes way too seriously...
I did maths.
Why not just let them be whatever the hell they want to be? Why do they have to live up to *anyone's* standards or ideals other than their own?
How a man thinks a woman should act is based on his own preferences for attraction. Some men like women to be submissive. Some men like women to be polite and "mysterious," as you succinctly put it. Some men like their women to be a bit freer in their behavior (not necessarily promiscuous, but less, shall we say, traditional).
More men these days seem to like women that don't fit the traditional archetype. I personally tend to go for women that are fairly independent and a little rowdy. Do I think all women should be like that? No. They should be whatever they want to be.
If you've got someone that you love and who fits the bill of what you're looking for in a woman, then why care what other women are doing?
No Silverfiddle, never took any such thing but I will say that I don't believe women want men deciding the issue.
I don't think I called for anything being "decided..."
It amazes me how so many lefties turn constipated and stultified when the conversation turns to human nature and abstract ideas.
If you've got someone that you love and who fits the bill of what you're looking for in a woman, then why care what other women are doing?
Yes, that's the category I fit in, but this post is not about the people you describe. It is about people who have not yet found that.
WHat an amazingly metaphorical exchange here:
Blogger Ducky's here said...
"No Silverfiddle, never took any such thing but I will say that I don't believe women want men deciding the issue."
Blogger Silverfiddle said...
"I don't think I called for anything being "decided..."
It amazes me how so many lefties turn constipated and stultified when the conversation turns to human nature and abstract ideas."
Exactly, SF.
in regard to 'decisions' in a household, someone has to make a final decision and, as a woman, I honored my husband to make the final decision on things we didn't see eye to eye on (rare, but it happened) and he only ever made one without both of our input weighed equally. I could go on and on with this subject, but ...
what I'll say instead is how much I agree with your piece here, Silverfiddle, and how wise I think you are for the following paragraph particularly:
You said "Women tightly guarding the gateway to carnal paradise has been the traditional means of putting respectable men in the marrying mood, but girl power has wrecked that."
I've never heard this put so well. THank you. When I'm home from work, I hope to come back and read a lot more comments and say a few other things on the subject.
Really great, SF......you're a rare man to understand that.
Thank you, Z. How husbands and wives make decisions is indeed their own business. Given your description of your late husband, he sounds like a wise and loving man, so I can see how you were comfortable allowing him to solve the rare "tie." It is also a testament to both of you that this was a rare occasion.
I honored my husband to make the final decision on things ...
-----
I think we knew that z. However, many women are simply not interested.
Once the carnal gateway became the province of an enveloping electronic media the attempts to maintain a more Victorian morality were doomed.
Conservative want to go back to a more palatable time but never ask how we are going to get that technological genie back in the bottle.
A number of artists after the war saw this coming but we plowed on.
For once I am in complete agreement with everything your daily article has said, SilverFiddle. There's really nothing I could add, except to say a loud and hearty, "BRAVO!"
I take mild exception to your referencing Dennis Prager, however. You were doing just find all on your own. Prager's tone of pompous, didactic righteousness always irritates me -- even though I agree with most of what he says. I find him a little too unctuous -- and priggish -- for my taste.
Being "civilized" means that a suppression of -- or at least a very tight rein on -- one's “natural inclinations" must be maintained. Since Darwin more or less proved we are animals, despite all our airs, graces and impressive accomplishments, our feral animal nature always lurks just beneath the surface of our tamed, socialized demeanor and adherence to whatever conventions we've been conditioned to accept.
Ducky is right too, however, about the "genie" that has been let out of the bottle. However, I don't blame "technology" so much as ideology.
Two quotations from Linda Kimball’s eye-opening article on Cultural Marxism explain the point very well.
”... Antonio Gramsci of Italy and Georg Lukacs of Hungaryconcluded that the Christianized West was the obstacle standing in the way of a communist new world order. The West would have to be conquered first.
“Gramsci posited that because Christianity had been dominant in the West for over 2000 years, not only was it fused with Western civilization, but it had corrupted the workers class. The West would have to be de-Christianized, said Gramsci, by means of a "long march through the culture." Additionally, a new proletariat must be created. In his "Prison Notebooks," he suggested that the new proletariat be comprised of many criminals, women, and racial minorities.
ALSO:
”In 1919, Georg Lukacs became Deputy Commissar for Culture in the short-lived Bolshevik Bela Kun regime in Hungary. He immediately set plans in motion to de-Christianize Hungary. Reasoning that if Christian sexual ethics could be undermined among children, then both the hated patriarchal family and the Church would be dealt a crippling blow. Lukacs launched a radical sex education program in the schools. Sex lectures were organized and literature handed out which graphically instructed youth in free love (promiscuity) and sexual intercourse while simultaneously encouraging them to deride and reject Christian moral ethics, monogamy, and parental and church authority. All of this was accompanied by a reign of cultural terror perpetrated against parents, priests, and dissenters.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/archived-articles/../2007/02/cultural_marxism.html
~ FreeThnke
Here's a slightly expanded version of an old saw:
A woman should strive to be
A) a chef in the kitchen,
B) a lady in the living room,
C) a nurturer, teacher and ministering angel in the nursery,
D) a Florence Nightingale in the sickroom
E) a model of piety, propriety, and meekness in church
F) a whore in the bedroom
I don't think society has improved one iota since she became a Bitch in the Boardroom or a Succubus in the Senate. And frankly the image of loudmouthed, crewcut, cigar-chomping, overweight diesel dykes in baggy jeans driving 18-wheelers and dominating men in machine shops is -- er unsavory -- at best.
~ FreeThinke
Well FT, I wasn't quite prepared to go where you went...
I am not even lamenting for the past so much as asking an honest question.
I have worked with and for women, and I can testify that a woman can be an effective leader and worker without sacrificing one iota of femininity.
I never said women can't make good leaders, Kurt. My favorite boss was a woman, but definitely one of the Old School -- strictly no nonsense. You always knew exactly where you stood with her, and she never played "games." She had a knack for generating fierce loyalty, simply because of her great integrity. I found her inspiring. She was anything but a frail fluffy femme full of frou-frou, but I could never picture her lobbing grenades, manning a machine gun, driving a tank, operating a crane, bellying up to a bar, or digging a latrine either. ;-)
Be that as it may, I can tell you, as an eyewitness, that the atmosphere in this country was a great deal more pleasant for everyone before the Sexual Revolution and the emergence of the destructive notion that woman should become aggressive, abrasive, churlish, truculent, insensitive and even abusive in an attempt to prove once and for all they are the equal of men.
They've gone too far. It's reached the point where many women have become virtual counterfeits of masculinity. I'm sorry, but I think it's ugly, and it should have been entirely unnecessary. I do blame the influences cited above.
It certainly sounded as though you thought virtually the same from what you wrote above.
~ FreeThinke
I've always liked my women feminine, for sure...
Ducky, I think more women are interested than we allow them to be. I know a lot of women and do believe a lot would like to nurture and love and support but aren't really honored for that.
I loved making my husband happy.
I don't believe there is ANYTHING Victorian about that, not at all. I think it's human nature, tell you the truth....and the feminist stuff is not. While I believe in equal pay for equal work (that's for SURE), I think a lot of women are feeling robbed that they made choices earlier on which have not been truly rewarding to them.
And I think children suffer for those choices, too.
I have never thought for a second we can get the genie back in the bottle....altho I must say I do see women staying home more....from work, I mean. (work outside the home, I should say)
I lament that we can't .
you said "A number of artists after the war saw this coming but we plowed on."
On the contrary, I think a lot of artists perpetrated the coming of the end of the traditional, healthy and supportive family unit, which, after all, has a lot to do with the subject we're discussing today.
Are you suggesting artists honor the traditional role of women as it was for 2000 years and bemoan the changes of the last 100?
Hmmm. Should I opine, or should I walk away? Ah, what the heck.
In the beginning, according to The Scriptures, man was given charge over woman. This is a blessing, not a burden or a curse. It in no way diminishes a woman's "worth". Men and women have equal worth, but vastly different roles.
I am the head of my House. My bride is the heart of my House. As z mentioned, I am the "tie-breaker" in our decisions, and this means I am the one held accountable if it is poor decision. My bride has no need to take responsibility, for it is mine to bear.
As a man, I deal in respect, not in love. My bride deals in love and emotionalism. For this reason, the God I worship has commanded me to love my bride and she in turn must respect me. The humor of this command has not escaped me. Respect is how I gauge other men and place value on them. Love, on the other hand, is a bit more tricky. I do not "love" things, I can only love people, and even then it is placed into filial love, eros love, or agape love.
I like chicks. I do. Many a woman I have dealt with though the years have earned my respect. But I will never, and I mean never, put myself into a position that would lend itself to any inappropriate insinuations. I never deal one-on-one with a woman, unless it is in full view of others. Even if we were best guy friends, if you weren't home, and I had to stop by your House and your wife was there, I wouldn't go inside. I would stand on the front porch, in full view of the neighbors. Unless your House was on fire, and I could rescue someone, I wouldn't go inside if the head of the House wasn't there. No way.
Anyhoos, just some random ramblings.
Polygamy, to me, is silly. It is impossible to maintain that many covenants with success. Just ask Solomon.
Ecc, polygamy
Is all over the Bible.
To say the ancients lived like beasts
Isn't really libel.
There's little thought or talk of love,
Since women were just chattel.
Men were free to fornicate
While girls were bred like cattle.
There is no way that we can say
What's best for everyone.
What's right for me might poison thee
Or take away your fun.
Oh how I wish we could be free
To live life as we choose,
But cease all interference
With other peoples' views!
~ FreeThinke
Nicely written, SF. Good read.
For the record, I share the viewpoint of author of the Polygamy article...
Nevertheless, I am resolutely against the practice of allowing several women to marry one man. We men are downtrodden enough already.
;)
SF....I was with you until the second sentence :-) But, it IS hilariously said!
ecc, I'm glad you "opined" but it hit me as sad that you'll literally not go into a friend's home in that situation. Still, I DO understand it; one mustn't put oneself in a place in which havoc and/or rumor could occur.
But, I do draw a line...my pastor's a lot younger than I am and we have lunched in a restaurant a couple of times, just the 2 of us. An acquaintance of mine was rather shocked that we had lunch just the two of us. I found that REALLY odd, (if not a little flattering!!)...in public, younger, etc., so I guess you never know what people will think.
For the record, he did NOT ask me to be his second wife :-)
Let women be who they want to be. If some men don't like it, well... whatever. It's not up to us - or at least it shouldn't be. If we want women to be what we want them to be, then we should try to be what they want us to be. The subjective upsides and downsides to modern womanhood are not greater or lesser than the modern upsides and downsides of modern manhood.
Face it. Change is a fact of the universe. Adapt or be miserable.
JMJ
A HYMN TO HIM (My Fair Lady)
What in all of heaven could've prompted her to go,
After such a triumph as the ball?
What could've depressed her;
What could've possessed her?
I cannot understand the wretch at all.
Women are irrational, that's all there is to that!
There heads are full of cotton, hay, and rags!
They're nothing but exasperating, irritating,
vacillating, calculating, agitating,
Maddening and infuriating hags!
Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;
Eternally noble, historic'ly fair;
Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.
Well, why can't a woman be like that?
Why does ev'ryone do what the others do?
Can't a woman learn to use her head?
Why do they do ev'rything their mothers do?
Why don't they grow up- well, like their father instead?
Why can't a woman take after a man?
Men are so pleasant, so easy to please;
Whenever you are with them, you're always at ease.
Would you be slighted if I didn't speak for hours?
Of course not!
Would you be livid if I had a drink or two?
Nonsense!
Would you be wounded if I never sent you flowers?
Never!
Well, why can't a woman be like you?
One man in a million may shout a bit.
Now and then there's one with slight defects;
One, perhaps, whose truthfulness you doubt a bit.
But by and large we are a marvelous sex!
Why can't a woman take after like a man?
Cause men are so friendly, good natured and kind.
A better companion you never will find.
If I were hours late for dinner, would you bellow?
Of course not!
If I forgot your silly birthday, would you fuss?
Nonsense!
Would you complain if I took out another fellow?
Never!
Well, why can't a woman be like us?
Mrs. Pearce, you're a woman ...
Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Men are so decent, such regular chaps.
Ready to help you through any mishaps.
Ready to buck you up whenever you are glum.
Why can't a woman be a chum?
Why is thinking something women never do?
Why is logic never even tried?
Straight'ning up their hair is all they ever do.
Why don't they straighten up the mess that's inside?
Why can't a woman behave like a man?
If I was a woman who'd been to a ball,
Been hailed as a princess by one and by all;
Would I start weeping like a bathtub overflowing?
And carry on as if my home were in a tree?
Would I run off and never tell me where I'm going?
Why can't a woman be like me?
~ Alan Jay Lerner (with a just little bit of help from George Bernard-Shaw)
~ Submitted by FreeThinke
American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) never married, but often wished she had. Here her vivid imagination provides an entirely different perspective on relations between the sexes:
I'm "wife" -- I've finished that --
That other state --
I'm Czar -- I'm "Woman" now --
It's safer so --
How odd the Girl's life looks
Behind this soft Eclipse --
I think that Earth feels so
To folks in Heaven -- now --
This being comfort -- then
That other kind -- was pain --
But why compare?
I'm "Wife"! Stop there!
Submitted by FreeThinke
I Do, I Will, I Have
How wise I am to have instructed the butler to instruct the first footman
........ to instruct the second footman to instruct the doorman to order my
........ carriage; I am about to volunteer a definition
of marriage.
Just as I know that there are two Hagens, Walter and Copen*,
I know that marriage is a legal and religious alliance entered into by a
........ man who can't sleep with the window shut and a woman who can't
........ sleep with the window open.
Moreover, just as I am unsure of the difference between flora and fauna
........ and flotsam and jetsam,
I am quite sure that marriage is the alliance of two people one of whom
........ never remembers birthdays and the other never forgetsam,
And he refuses to believe there is a leak in the water pipe or the gas pipe
........ and she is convinced she is about to asphyxiate or drown,
And she says Quick get up and get my hairbrushes off the windowsill,
........ it's raining in, and he replies Oh they're all right, it's only raining
........ straight down.
That is why marriage is so much more interesting than divorce, Because it's the only known example of the happy meeting of the
........ immovable object and the irresistible force.
So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and combat over
........ everything debatable and combatable,
Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life, particulary if
........ he has income and she is pattable.
~ Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
_________________________
* Walter Hagen was golf's first superstar during the 1920's and 30's. Copen Hagen? The capital of Denmark.
Submitted by FreeThinke
I enjoy posting stuff like this if for no other reason than to see the usually loquacious lefties turn into Furrow-browed plonkers, retreating back into their politically correct indoctrinations.
This is not about "letting women be what they want to be" or going back or whatever.
It's a question, and the feminist-indoctrinated left gets a brain freeze...
Sorry, Mr. Nash!
Poetry and blog software are too often incompatible
Because such software is not properly formatable.
Attempts to share can be lamentable
Because blogware is not indentable.
~ FreeThinke
A Theory:
Polygamy might be very good for women, because it gives them frequent respites from man's insatiable lust.
I'll bet women get fewer headaches in polygamous societies.
... Just a thought. ;-)
~ FreeThinke
JMJ< I think you make a good point.
I do have to add, though, that I have a sister who married a man very financially well off and she doesn't work and never has....other than raising 3 children and all that entails, and making a husband very very happy.
I tell you this only because in the early days of her marriage, they meet new couples and it was the men who'd say "You don't WORK?" as if it was a big problem. For a few years, she felt a little embarrassed and awkward when they'd say that, but she's matured and has stood strong in her decision and has three amazing kids (the eldest is 29 now to show you the years I'm talking about here) to show for it in a world of some pretty darned screwed up kids.
SO, yes, men need to let women make ANY choice they make.
Maybe younger men are doing better at that by now.
Women and men who wait for the marriage bed are a dying breed, and I find that quite disheartening. There is something very precious about waiting for marriage. My opinion.
There was a time in history that it was considered "risque" or inappropriate for a woman even to show her ankle. Those days are long past and gone, but it would be nice if women would show some restraint in exposing every possible angle of their bodies to the world.
Great post, very thought provoking.
MORE FOOD FOR THOUGHT:
Is Turnabout Fair Play?
Was there ever a society
In all of human history
Where women were allowed to be
Free in promiscuity,
And a wife to many men?
Imagine then what life would be
If men were ignominiously
Kept in rude captivity in stud farms
Guarded by Lesbianic gendarmes
Like bulls held in a pen!
Is turnabout fair play,
Or just one more misguided way
Of lousing up the day
By insisting things be equal?
God only knows for sure,
So we must then endure
Whatever status quo
Saddles us with woe,
Until He writes the sequel!
~ FreeThinke
Leticia, I've seen emails of pictures where a few very pretty coeds have stood in front of a hundred frat guys bearing their breasts with bigger smiles on their faces than the guys wear (boy, when I was in high school, I assure you the GUYS would have had way bigger smiles than the girls in that situation!!!) and I've thought "Man, a young girl would have had to sleep with a LOT of guys to feel no compunction or shyness about being topless in front of that many young guys".........
it's tough to consider how their psyches are played with for buying into the hype of "Whatever and turns you on whenever.."......there's a thin line between us and dogs and cats and the line seems to be thinning waaay too much for a healthy society that I believe should put men and women over the animal kingdom.
And now let Dorothy Parker weigh in. She was in her heyday in the 1920's and 30's. Was she a woman ahead of her time, or perhaps one of few who were honest?
The Little Old Lady in Lavender Silk
I was seventy-seven, come August,
I shall shortly be losing my bloom;
I've experienced zephyr and raw gust
And (symbolical) flood and simoom.
When you come to this time of abatement,
To this passing from Summer to Fall,
It is manners to issue a statement
As to what you got out of it all.
So I'll say, though reflection unnerves me
And pronouncements I dodge as I can,
That I think (if my memory serves me)
There was nothing more fun than a man!
In my youth, when the crescent was too wan
To embarrass with beams from above,
By the aid of some local Don Juan
I fell into the habit of love.
And I learned how to kiss and be merry- an
Education left better unsung.
My neglect of the waters Pierian
Was a scandal, when Grandma was young.
Though the shabby unbalanced the splendid,
And the bitter outmeasured the sweet,
I should certainly do as I then did,
Were I given the chance to repeat.
For contrition is hollow and wraithful,
And regret is no part of my plan,
And I think (if my memory's faithful)
There was nothing more fun than a man!
~ Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
~ Submitted by FreeThinke
Now here is Maxine Kumin, a contemporary American poet who is still very much alive, to speculate on what might have happened to Romeo and Juliet had not tragedy occurred. Would Shakespeare be amused? Who knows?
Purgatory
And suppose the darlings get to Mantua,
suppose they cheat the crypt, what next? Begin
with him, unshaven. Though not, I grant you, a
displeasing cockerel, there's egg yolk on his chin.
His seedy robe's aflap, he's got the rheum.
Poor dear, the cooking lard has smoked her eye.
Another Montague is in the womb
although the first babe's bottom's not yet dry.
She scrolls a weekly letter to her Nurse
who dares to send a smock through Balthasar,
and once a month, his father posts a purse.
News from Verona? Always news of war.
Such sour years it takes to right this wrong!
The fifth act runs unconscionably long.
~ Maxine Kumin
Submitted by FreeThinke
A comment on latter day prudishness and hypocrisy inspired by Robert Frost's Provide:
An Awful Truth
Do most old women stop enjoying sex
Once the saggy baggy phase sets in?
Could any potent male regard these wrecks
As outlets for the joys of carnal sin?
Lechery in randy, aging goats
Arises at the thought of flesh still fresh ––
Softly rounded curves and slim white throats
No too long departed from the creche.
Ironic that old pussies cracked and wizened
Still dream of ardent service from Fair Youth,
But no matter how these crones appear bedizened
‘Tis just their cash that lures, and that’s the truth.
The resource that best sustains us when we’re old
Is found in vaults replete with jewels and gold.
~ FreeThinke
"The saddest words from tongue or pen
Is the wistful phrase, "It might have been."
IF you're really interested in gaining greater insight into the ever-perplexing subject of relations between the sexes, don't miss Robert Browning's Youth and Art. It's too much to post here, but charming, funny, and very entertaining -- before it breaks your heart -- if you have one:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173036
If this link does not work for you, just type Youth and Art, Robert Browning into Google, and it will come right up.
Sorry! I neglected to sign that last post -- and also to tell you how remarkable it was that Robert Browning, one of the most masculine of men, wrote you and Art from a woman's point of view.
Great poets can do things like that, because of their penetrating insight and superior understanding of human nature from a cosmic perspetive.
~ FreeThinke
I seem to be on a roll. No discussion of the meaning of femininity, true love and devotion would be complete without this famous sonnet written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning to her husband Robert:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
That is, perhaps, the best known of a collection she called Sonnets from the Portuguese.
We have so much to learn from the past, and too much we need to forget about the present.
~ FreeThinke
You are a veritable vault of poetry, FT.
Z: I agree Z. We are animals, separated only by some higher reasoning skills instead of pure instinct. Yet many abandon the former to the latter.
Society is a thin veneer.
Is this FT's blog, or Kurt's? Just wondering.
ecc,
The rare and wonderful thing about Silver Fiddle is his generous spirit and genuine humility. He allows and encourages contributors to be whoever they really are, and makes no demands direct or implied that they march to the beat of his particular drum.
Very frankly this is the only blog I have ever frequented where some form of pettifogging censorship and neurotic micro-management neither hampers anyone's creativity, nor attempts to cut anyone down to size. A rare example of the true libertarian spirit at work. Long may it wave!
If he thinks your logic is flawed, your information untrue or that something you've said is asinine, he'll tell you, but never in a badgering, bullying, personally insulting tone. This place is not about his personal feelings versus the big bad world, thank God, it's about sharing differing perspectives on targeted issues in an open and honest search for truth.
I believe he intends to use each daily article as a stimulating point of departure -- a source of inspiration -- never knowing quite where the discussion will go. Even better than that he never gets in a huff if he doesn't receive the kind of response he had hoped or expected to get.
I'm not authorized to speak for SilverFiddle, ecc, but I think it may be safe to say that this is your blog as much as his. The way he has set it up ensures that it truly belongs to everyone who feels moved to contribute -- even those who are obviously here just to be contentious or obnoxious.
He's given us a rare gift. I admit to taking full advantage of it whenever I feel I have something pertinent to add to the discussion. I am very grateful for the opportunity, believe me.
My name is FreeThinke, and I approve this message. ;-)
@FT,
No, this is not my blog, as well. This is Kurt's blog. I have my own to maintain and nurture.
Your lengthy explanation was unnecessary, because my question was, at its root, purely rhetorical. :)
See ya 'round, FT.
"Let’s face it, were it not for sex, men would have no interest in women, and subsequently children."
I don't think so, sex is such a small part of marriage.
You are right in that women will lose their civilizing influence if they become more like men. They're also damaging themselves.
It's a sad ending for them in the long run though, women are emotional and nurturing creatures and if they deny themselves a family to love and care for, what is there at the end of your days ultimately.
I think that applies to men as well, are we going to sit around in our old age reminiscing about the farting competitions and drunken episodes [which apparently we can't remember] from back in the day. That'll be a pretty empty end i think.
As for polygamy, well we can't really call for banning of that if we allow homo marriage. You either restrict it to one man and one woman or you don't at all.
Ha! Ha! MK. You just gave me a new word Homolygamy. If we discourage gays from marrying that's exactly how they will live, since there won't be any advantage to living otherwise.
As a libertarian I don't think we should "ban" ANY sort of human interrelationship, EXCEPT suicide clubs, murderers, vandals, thieves, swindlers, extortionists, and stalkers.
~ FreeThinke
True, if 2 homos are allowed to marry each other, you can't deny 10 homos from marrying each other. That would just be mean. lol
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