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The average man in the 17th century did not, when bored on Sunday, attempt to molest multiple random women in church. Even for his time Pepys was, well, a bit m
by rsynnott 1y ago
The average man in the 17th century did not, when bored on Sunday, attempt to molest multiple random women in church. Even for his time Pepys was, well, a bit much, and he knew it, and felt guilty about it occasionally in the diary.
It's an absolutely fascinating read, and it's well worth reading, but you should not fall into the trap of thinking "well, that's just how it was back then"; Pepys was abnormally badly behaved on a number of axes even for the time.
- Veen 1y agoPepys wasn't the average man, though. That's why I specified a man of his time and class. He was a successful and increasingly powerful man on the edges of Restoration court and aristocratic culture, in which such behaviour was the norm. It's complicated by the fact that Pepys was well aware that his behaviour was wrong, but hypocrisy and a public/private moral duality was, again, pretty normal in men of his station. That conflict is one of the things that makes him such an interesting figure. What irks me is the rush to focus on his transgressions as though people need to be "warned" that he wasn't a moral paragon by modern standards. That they might somehow be tainted by their encounter with him or be embarrassed if they express interest in or admiration for a bad man. As if that makes him any less fascinating or worth reading.