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19th Century Marriage Manuals: Advice for Young Husbands

• vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  The destruction of Western society's moral backbone through the degeneration of traditional marriage such that the Victorian account reads anachronistic to a modern reader, is, I'd venture, a relatively positive development. The conception of traditional marriage that cruder familialists and social conservatives promote then is not really that traditional, nor divinely enshrined.
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  • stevebot 11y ago
    not sure i grok this comment, but I think I agree?
  • imissmyjuno 11y ago
    are you saying social conservatives are sexist in a way that's similar to the patronizing behaviour quoted from the book? i'm a little confused about the 2nd sentence too.
    • rodgerd 11y ago
      (S)he's making two points as I read it: 1. Much of what is being described as traditional marriage practice isn't actually traditional; the article notes that what a modern person might consider Victorian marital values often weren't. 2. Much of what remains (as being actually traditional) is better off being destroyed.
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  • InclinedPlane 11y ago
    A good sentiment, though I'd quibble about the use of the word "moral" here. It's a shame there isn't better developed terminology, but the social norms and standards of the Victorian elite were quite far from anything I would term moral. Selfish, oppressive, iniquitous, abusive, racist, hypocritical, and worse. This was the culture that spawned and supported numerous physical and cultural genocides against native populations around the world. The culture that was so iniquitous it gave rise to the backlash of Marxism and totalitarian communism which had such a disastrous impact on humanity in the 20th century.
    • atlantic 11y ago
      I don't think that physical and cultural genocide is exclusive to the Victorian era. How much difference is there in reality between the Victorian drive to civilize and Christianize, and the modern Western impulse to ram "democracy" and "freedom" down the throats of unwilling societies at the point of a gun? If anything, they were a lot less hypocritical than we are.
      • mikeash 11y ago
        I'd wager that India and China would say there's a pretty big difference between then and now.
        • Swizec 11y ago
          Would the middle east also consider the difference positive? Hell, the NATO bombings in Serbia happened just 15 years ago. That was pretty damn close to home for some of us. I have many friends who remember the bombings. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia And 20 years ago NATO bombed a different part of Yugoslavia that was even closer to where I grew up. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Deliberate_Force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Deliberate_Force I am really happy that Slovenia was able to secede from Yugoslavia without NATO bombings. Although I do remember hiding in the cellar one night when the sirens went off. Luckily no actual air raid occured.
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  • mikeash 11y ago
    Back when traditional marriage was strong, it was acceptable for people to own people, for young children to be forced to work in sweatshops, and for people to be persecuted, imprisoned, or even killed because of homosexual activity. If that's what qualifies as society's "moral backbone" then I am extremely grateful to have destroyed it.
    • vezzy-fnord 11y ago
      I was being sardonic about the "moral backbone," if you failed to pick that up.
      • mikeash 11y ago
        I noticed eventually, but I figured my message served just as well to reinforce yours as it did to argue against what you weren't actually trying to say.
  • cpursley 11y ago
    Yeah, I always cringe when conservative politicians rant about 'traditional' marriage. Especially when the bulk of their region's history allowed for things like polygamy^1 and forcing their victim to marry them after rape^2. To be fair, their 'traditional' definition of marriage is certainty saner than parts of the historical version in the good book: ^1 "..I will take your wives [plural] while you live to see it, and will give them to your neighbor. He shall lie with your wives in broad daylight. You have done this deed in secret, but I will bring it about in the presence of all Israel, and with the sun looking down." (2 Samuel 12:11-14 NAB) ^2 "If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her." (Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NLT)
• DougN7 11y ago
  Call me old fashioned, but as a father and husband I do try to act this way: "He should always be ready to sacrifice his present personal pleasure to the future well-being of those who have the first and best claim to his regard.”
  • witty_username 11y ago
    So are you saying that back in the old days people used to unselfish and now they aren't?
  • gd1 11y ago
    “The same law which imposes upon the husband the duty of supporting his wife, gives him a general and paramount claim to her obedience.” I bet you don't get this bit in return.
    • kitd 11y ago
      I have heard this (or something very close to it) preached in a 21st-century church.
    • debacle 11y ago
      It would be sexist to assume an obligation of obedience.
    • SparkyMcUnicorn 11y ago
      I wouldn't say "claiming obedience" should be accurate, but earned respect gets respect in return from any decent human being.
    • MikeTV 11y ago
      "I'm the one she swore to love, honor and obey." "She swore to obey?" "Well, no...."
    • zensavona 11y ago
      I wouldn't "claim obedience" from anyone, but I definitely think that (masculine) integrity inspires (feminine) loyalty. I'm not just talking about sexual loyalty, but loyalty of support and confidence. I have on multiple occasions thought about this dynamic and find it really interesting (protection/nurturing). I think it has something to do with women's superior empathetic qualities. It seems to me like (often, in my own relationships) a woman wants to be inspired by/confident in my aspirations and judgement. Obviously this doesn't encompass all relationships or people and I probably tend to attract women who reinforce my own qualities, so YMMV, but it's interesting to think about.
• notdonspaulding 11y ago
  From the article: > Indeed, in many conservative religious denominations, > the same tenets are echoed today. While I'm not going to claim I hold the same tenets as a book I've never read, I guess that I'm in one of the "conservative religious denominations" which the author is indicating here. I can certainly see some resemblance between a few of the examples cited from the book and my current (religiously-inspired) views on marriage. However, one thing I'd like to explicitly disclaim is the notion that there is any prescriptive support in the Bible for the victorian-era idea that wives should be Doormat Debbies, as alluded to throughout this article. The most often-cited passage in this regard is Ephesians 5:22-24... Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. If this is all you know of "Christian marriage philosophy", please take the time to inform yourself. I'd suggest you find someone who claims to follow the Bible in their marriage and ask them how this passage specifically plays out in their married life. (Hint: If the passage is truly being followed, what you will find is anything but a bully of a man and a brow-beaten woman)
  • plonh 11y ago
    Bully and browbeaten seems to be a common complaint in modern Biblical families. Obviously there are millions of Christians who have lives they call Christian that are informed by centuries of culture that postdates the Bible.
    • notdonspaulding 11y ago
      > Bully and browbeaten seems to be a common complaint in modern Biblical families I'm certain this passage is taken out of context in support of that philosophy. However, it's an abuse of the text, and not a reasonable conclusion from reading it in its entirety. Are you saying we should judge all philosophies by their abuse? We should ignore climate scientists because of ClimateGate? We should outlaw religions because there are crazy people in the world who claim to be killing in the name of some of them?
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• throwaeayBan 11y ago
  Well, someone is lying. Either this artice or feminists who claim that back in day women were treated as chattel. Calling out propaganda aside - with all this feminism and men stayed in same place while women advanced their right far above what men have - men are still workhorses to provide, serv and sacrifice.
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• pron 11y ago
  The early Victorian era saw the greatest separation between the roles of the sexes in Western culture (they even had rooms for men and rooms for women), and is the source of modern sexism -- a notion which is often misunderstood by many (and viewed as accusatory, even though it is merely descriptive). At the core of Victorian sexism lies the notion (which had not been so pronounced, or well-formulated before) that women are to be treated well -- adored even -- but completely removed from all power. Their activities were to be limited to the domestic sphere (although that started slowly changing in the late 1840s), which was their domain. As this document says, a woman is to be well-treated, and even indulged -- but matters of importance are left for the husband alone. To this day, this is the core of most lines of feminism, and a cause of confusion to those who don't understand what modern sexism means. Some confuse sexism with misogyny -- which is disdain towards women -- while the two are separate. Sexism (at least in modern times) is a feature of a society where women are kept away from power, regardless of how respectfully they are treated. This is our heritage from the Victorian era. As time went by, laws and traditions have changed as they always do -- slowly but surely -- and sexism (as well as racism) has become less overt and clear, but much of the essence -- less power for women -- sadly remains to this day (and this, too, will change, slowly but surely).
  • mettamage 11y ago
    I never viewed sexism this way. But now that I am taking this perspective I can't help but notice how some to many women play a part in this as well. To put it a bit blunt and simplified: a considerable amount of women want to be treated like a princess. I guess those type of fantasies are an exaggeration of how a woman should've been treated in the early Victorian era. Another variant that I have experienced is the (partially) subconscious behaviour that women want to be dependent on males, but they don't want males to depend on them. If these cultural notions of dependence and being treated to the point of being (almost) spoiled don't go away, then a form of modern sexism will always exist. Note/nuance: I'm just stating the contribution of women here, because I've never thought about it this way. Males contribute to modern sexism as well in obvious ways (to me). Edit: could down votes be explained? A down vote is not enough feedback for me to adapt my posting behaviour.
• mashed_potato 11y ago
  “During the last few years, and since the rights of women have been so much insisted upon, and practically carried out by the strongest-minded of the sex, numerous husbands have complained to me of the hardships under which they suffer by being married to women who regard themselves as martyrs when called upon to fulfill the duties of wives.” Damn SJWs.
• idibidiart 11y ago
  Sexism 101.
• grecy 11y ago
  I find it interesting that books written ~100 years ago are now considered out dated and in many instances plain wrong, yet hundreds of millions of people think we should follow a book written 2000 years ago to the letter.
• grandalf 11y ago
  An interesting thing about marriage is that no matter who earns wages it is ultimately an economic partnership. Someone must keep the living space clean, someone must obtain food, etc. If there are children, someone must care for them. Because of this, when marriage is freely chosen, it typically starts out as equal. Both participants have roughly equal costs and benefits, and are both happy with the exchange of value. But time changes things. Wages often increase, looks often decline, personalities evolve. Profound setbacks occur as loved ones get sick or die, careers suffer failures and successes, etc. Most people are morally average, of average attractiveness and average intellect. Most have an average work ethic, average level of discipline, and average level of fortitude. Life stretches most people beyond their endowment in many areas. We lie or deceive, we get lazy, we get complacent, we give up, we cheat, we fail to observe data without significant and harmful bias, we let life happen, our faces take on a habitual grimace that becomes permanent as our skin's elasticity diminishes. For a marriage to work long term it must be resilient to this abundant averageness and the inevitable decay that occurs over time... when the weak or neglected parts of the mechanism start to falter. The question is, should a marriage work long term? Is it a failure when it does not? What if it lasts 10 years, or 20, or even 5? Should it not have occurred? We marry because we are the primates with dogged optimism about pair bonds. We seek another who will provide us with the validation or the comfort that we seek, and who will dull the harshness of the world in some specific way that we consider most wanting and most sacred. Even the gay marriage debate, for all the focus on equality, is fundamentally about the symbolism of the pair bond and its primacy in our primate society. We are herd animals, and the minimum viable herd size is two.
• artur_makly 11y ago
  I prefer Lina Wertmüller version of male/female co-existence: : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swept_Away_(1974_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swept_Away_(1974_film)
• eimai134 11y ago
  My parents have a pretty Biblical marriage in a number of ways. It's beautiful and has made me wish I believed in that doctrine just in order to have something like that. They believe, much like the article/manual states, that the man is the head of the household. However, he always consults the woman and in caring for her, does not make decisions that are harmful to her or cause her distress. Obviously it's not an either-or scenario, but it seems to work much better than other marriages I've seen where both people are so focused on what they want for themselves.
• kesbykarenj 11y ago
  After 6 moths of Broken marriage, my husband left me with two kids, I felt like ending it all, i almost committed suicide because he left us with nothing, i was emotionally down all this while. Thanks to a man called Dr Aisabu of Aisabu temple which i met online. On one faithful day, as I was browsing through the internet, I came across several testimonies about this particular man. Some people testified that he brought their Ex lover back, some testified that he restores womb,cure cancer,and other sickness, some testified that he prayed to stop divorce and get a good paid job so on. He is amazing, i also come across one particular testimony, it was about a woman called Shannon , she testified about how he brought back her Ex lover in less than 2 days, and at the end of her testimony she dropped his email. (aisabulovespell@gmail.com) After reading all these, I decided to give it a try. I contacted him via email and explained my problem to him. In just 48hours, my husband came back to me. We resolved our issues, and we are even happier than ever. DR Aisabu you are a gifted man and thank you for everything you had done in my life. If you have a problem and you are looking for a real and genuine spell caster, Try him anytime, he is the answer to your problems. you can contact him on aisabulovespell@gmail.com,,,,,
• kesbykarenj 11y ago
  After 6 moths of Broken marriage, my husband left me with two kids, I felt like ending it all, i almost committed suicide because he left us with nothing, i was emotionally down all this while. Thanks to a man called Dr Aisabu of Aisabu temple which i met online. On one faithful day, as I was browsing through the internet, I came across several testimonies about this particular man. Some people testified that he brought their Ex lover back, some testified that he restores womb,cure cancer,and other sickness, some testified that he prayed to stop divorce and get a good paid job so on. He is amazing, i also come across one particular testimony, it was about a woman called Shannon , she testified about how he brought back her Ex lover in less than 2 days, and at the end of her testimony she dropped his email. (aisabulovespell@gmail.com) After reading all these, I decided to give it a try. I contacted him via email and explained my problem to him. In just 48hours, my husband came back to me. We resolved our issues, and we are even happier than ever. DR Aisabu you are a gifted man and thank you for everything you had done in my life. If you have a problem and you are looking for a real and genuine spell caster, Try him anytime, he is the answer to your problems. you can contact him on aisabulovespell@gmail.com,,,