Browsing through t'internet i came across this about love and marriage through the ages:
"1690s U.S.: Virginia wasn't always for lovers—Passionate love between husband and wife is considered unseemly: One Virginia colonist describes a woman he knows as "more fond of her husband perhaps than the politeness of the day allows." Protestant ministers warn spouses against loving each other too much, or using endearing nicknames that will undermine husbandly authority."
It is accepted amongst historians that love was not always the arbiter of marriage that we so treasure in the West. But what of the future of love and marriage? Will they be constant and faithful companions?
In two hundred years time surely our conceptions of such things will have changed again? It is surely vanity and false pride to suggest we have alighted upon the sole eternal solution that will hold a relationship through truth and time. Given the fraught nature of modern marriage and relationships, this surely reinforces the notion that much will change still further... Marriage has lived throughout the ages by its very adaptability so surely it will adapt further.
I should add, in case anyone thinks i am damning or denying the power of true love, that is not my intention. My personal belief in the coruscating power of love remains, but history marches on relentlessly....
2 comments:
Perhaps during the Brutal years of the settlement of the US with much shorter life expectencies, it wasn't sensible to form deep emotional attachments to a spouse, as they could be taken from you at short notice. Certainly during this time early years, the family would be as much a unit of economic production and a methood for perpetuating familial wealth or stauts, rather than a source of emotional fulfilment.
I'm convinced that some of these elements persist in modern marriages amongst all the talk of 'true love' and being 'destined' to be with someone, it's remarkable that moost people end up with someone of a similiar socio-economic status as themselves.
Well that's the cynic in me talking!
i think it's an interesting vein to see how the span and hardness of life affected our emotions through our outlook. it's hard not to imagine that if one's lifespan is both brutal and short then that would potentially (though not necessarily) affect one's ability to empathise and even love.
i do think your cynical opinion is true in many cases. the very private admissions of security, comfort, and in many cases 'settling' for something less than true love that i've heard over the years would agree with you.
which again is not to deny the power of true love when it does bestow its fortune upon people...!
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