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.”
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.
Primate authority comes from (at least) two methods or paths, dominance and prestige. I guess if you want a bad one line summary, dominance is management or in its more extreme form its like an overseer with a whip vs prestige is leadership or in its more extreme form its like hero worship. Because of long term memory for revenge purposes, and easy to use lethal weapons have been invented, prestige is way more important for humans than most any other animal, although some animals do use prestige signalling, just none quite as much as people. The animal world is mostly dominance ordered.
Anyway, grand op is claiming prestige signaling isn't going to provide results (which is incredibly unlikely in a human pack; maybe a wolf pack, sure, or if the human participants are doin it wrong or are crazy, sure) and you're claiming prestige signalling usually leads to prestige results, so op is wrong and you're right but it doesn't matter because you're talking past each other on separate topics. Ironically it doesn't matter because as you correctly point out, dominance and prestige results are more or less the same most of the time.
The hundred year old manual is talking something totally different from both of you, that there's a moral or ethical need for both results to be exactly identical or else things are going to get unpleasant because prestige means are generally way more pleasant than dominance means. She can either play along with her side of the prestige strategy or unfortunately the dominance strategy will inevitably end up getting played and that's no fun.
Assuming its your responsibility to water the horses, you properly lead a horse to water and it refuses to drink, that's just not going to be fun for anyone involved, it really is the horses job or duty to drink after its been properly led. Note its not just leadership, its leadership with the positive adjectives applied; no fair weaseling out on the obedience obligation due to poor leadership excuses if by the very definition of the claim it only follows from good leadership.
Good luck defining good leadership.
There's also some civilization wide social contract philosophy about good leadership inherently being owed obedience by the nature of the leadership being good, and no other justification is necessary assuming the leadership is good, blah blah blah, all kind of in opposition to the concept of the divine right of kings and hereditary monarchy. To some extent this is the moral justification of democracy, you have to obey the good leader you selected, assuming its not all a sham like modern elections, etc. And this is just applying that large scale societal stuff to a tiny family, for better or worse. This makes it a scaling problem and HN loves scaling problems.
So much content. Yeah, I've read a bit about the idea that good leadership inherently being owed obedience in the form of evolved social contracts (Pinker's books and "Sex At Dawn", can't remember the author's name..).
but fucking lol:
> This makes it a scaling problem and HN loves scaling problems.
But, more seriously, as a counter, I've spent most of my adult life trying to be less 'manly' and more male (xy-chromosomer ). The western traditions of what it means to be 'a man' have not made my life better. Instead, they've given me anxiety, panic attacks, and caused a lot of feigned aggression, defensiveness, self medication, and regret.
I'm not against tradition, and I have a lot of respect for people who try to keep traditions alive. This one's just not for me.
Same here. Take crying for example. In our society we're seen as weak if we cry. Except crying is a perfectly valid human emotional response. Sure, we naturally don't cry as often as women but I still can't understand how we got to the point where we have to deny ourselves a basic physiological response lest we be shunned by the other monkeys who also need and want to do it!
Isn't this the case in most societies? My sense from history is that is only acceptable for men to cry at extreme events -- such as death of a wife/child/brother, or the loss of a kingdom. The other common trope for crying is if a peasant or low-level official is begging the forgiveness from a king who is about to terminate him. But in the modern society such tragedies happen less often. I cannot think of a time in my own adult life when crying would have been justified.
Actually, I my understanding is its perfectly acceptable in many Middle-Eastern countries for men to cry openly. They'll also hold another mans hand while having a conversation with him apparently.
Similar experience here - I have some "old fashioned" ideas but also a lot of progressive ones, I don't think they need be mutually exclusive.
One thing I've realised over the past few years (I'm 22) is the importance of feeling masculine. Not in the generic socially prescribed sense necessarily, but in my own way, that took a lot of contemplation about "what makes me feel masculine?" and obviously the specifics will be different for every man (and I equally think it's important for women to feel feminine in a way which empowers them), but it has made me feel so much more confident and empowered as a human being to be more in touch with my roots so to speak.
I'm glad to hear of more and more young people feeling this way. As a female who is a little bit older than you, I get worried about some of the negative effects of the younger generations being too gender-neutral. As an example, my mother and I both have a condition where we tend to get dizzy ("fainting spells"). That's one very small example of where we need to be feminine and allow men to help us out.
"But, more seriously, as a counter, I've spent most of my adult life trying to be less 'manly' and more male (xy-chromosomer )."
Out of curiosity, what does that mean? Were you getting in bar fights or what?
I've spent time trying to become more manly in some ways. I started lifting weights, speaking with my deeper vocal cords rather than head voice, having a bit more of a sense of command, learning how to dish it back or take it in stride if someone gives me some jocular ribbing (rather than getting defensive or avoiding that person), not being whiny under any circumstances, etc. I think that modern western culture overly feminizes men, and it has been a good experience for myself to try to be more masculine.
Yep - lots of fighting - bar fights, street fights, amongst other things (at least as a kid).
I turned 40 this year, so it could be an age thing. When I was 20, I probably seemed more similar to you. At least, I was certainly motivated by similar things. I lifted a lot of weights (when I maxed out I weighed around 230 lb), etc. and really identified with masculinity and various male roles.
When I say being more male, I'm not talking about being more 'feminine' (which would just be the opposite), just more Human. For instance, in the past, I would (subconsciously) say to myself, 'what is the right thing to do as a brother, father, son, husband, man?'. Now, I say, 'what actions should I take so that I enjoy my life, the people I care about, the ideas I believe in, etc.?'
As a younger man and husband (28) who is struggling to find his own way, I find that saying "what actions should I take so that I enjoy my life, the people I care about, the ideas I believe in, etc.?", and following through with it, takes a lot of mental and emotional fortitude that must be built up and trained. I believe that having the self-respect to make a decision based on what you truly want, and then standing firm as everyone in your life fights against it, is something that is very masculine, though not exclusively masculine.
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).
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.
One of the basic things to understand in sociology and social psychology is that what people want is often shaped by what they are encouraged to want (and it's very easy to make people want something, as verified in psychology experiments). This is why modern feminism doesn't concentrate on the "want". Not because it's not important (it's very important!), but because it's hard to separate cause and effect, especially under an unequal distribution of power. We only look at the result: how power is distributed, and assume that people don't "inhernetly" want to have less power than others, as that would mean letting others determine their lives. Of course, this assumption could be wrong, but so far there is no evidence that is the case. Consequently, feminism is not concerned with who "contributes" what to sexism (it is easy to make people want to be subjugated; can they later be said to be contributing to their own subjugation?). Sexism is an objective state of society, not a specific behavior (misogyny is), and when we say that some action is sexist we mean that it contributes to sexism; the action itself can be completely free of any ill intent.
I agree with the ideas you stated about social psychology & sociology. What people want is shaped by other people their encouragement. Thanks for stating it, I'm noticing I have a lot of implicit assumptions lying around there.
So it is indeed hard to separate cause and effect, I'm wondering if we need to, since cause and effect might go both ways here in a feedback loop. I'm very inclined to believe this myself (one of my implicit assumptions, perhaps even a bias). Cultural notions reinforces what people want, which reinforce the culture. So allowing to reframe yourself to want something different is definitely a course of action that one could take. As is changing other people their behavior (although it has some really difficult challenges IMO, it's easier to change yourself in my experience).
'feminism is not concerned with who "contributes" what to sexism' <-- do you mean all forms of feminism? Or just the 3rd wave? I have the feeling that there are forms of feminism that do look at this, since various feminist views can also disagree with each other (2nd wave vs 3rd wave for example). I wouldn't know which forms of feminism do look at this though, it's more of a heuristic: since there are so many forms of feminism there must be a few of them doing this.
"can they later be said to be contributing to their own subjugation?" <-- Perhaps I have a different idea of what "contribution" means. Even if someone would be brainwashed and completely programmed to destroy the world, then IMO that person would still contribute to destroying the world if acted towards that goal. I do acknowledge that the initial intent was never there and this person was completely reprogrammed (assume a The Matrix scenario, where someone is plugged in and reprogrammed). Nevertheless, a non-intentional behaviour is still a contribution. Even zombies contribute to cultural notions of society (if they'd exist). So I don't think it's the person's fault for being this way, it's the fault of the programmer. But if the person (now destroyer of the world) would realize this and try to stop it, that would be great.
A pragmatic form of feminism that I have experienced myself is that feminists need to take care of their own personal development. This also means that people who are aware of sexist actions and view the need to change it, need to change themselves if they have habits conforming to old views. In that sense, feminism is concerned with who contributes (behaviorally) to sexism, because it gives a lense to look within oneself to change behaviour contributing to sexism. Knowing your gender role and in which way you conform to it is a handy tool to have in general for self-reflection.
"and when we say that some action is sexist we mean that it contributes to sexism; the action itself can be completely free of any ill intent." <-- Thanks for the clarification. I do admit that my understanding of sexism is not as laser focused as I'd like it to be.
> do you mean all forms of feminism? Or just the 3rd wave?
Different forms of feminism differ in their views on specific issues, not on the basic idea that women are allotted less power in society. Differences stem from various sources. One is historical or circumstantial: when women were overtly discriminated against by the law, targets and priorities were clearer. Another is awareness: leaders of movements for change always tend to be among those who are relatively most powerful in their group. They can therefore be blind to the plight of those who are qualitatively less powerful than them. Yet another is that inherent difficulty in interpreting wishes in a society which shapes them. I'll just note that some anti-feminist views that try to simplify things, say stuff like, why not just assume that everyone has free will and everyone's choices are equally free? The answer to that is that research has clearly shown this is not the case.
> Even if someone would be brainwashed and completely programmed to destroy the world, then IMO that person would still contribute to destroying the world if acted towards that goal.
Absolutely, but there is no clear programmer and programmed. We are all equally programmers and programs, and equally “emotionally” innocent of the situation. Everyone, of course, is responsible for their own actions, but they’re actions at once are shaped by others’ and shape others’. The only relevant distinction is that some have power and some don’t, and as change is better carried out by those with power, they carry most of the responsibility. OTOH, those with power, of course, are less interested in changing the situation. Not just because they don’t want to yield power, but also because they don’t see the problem.
> A pragmatic form of feminism that I have experienced myself is that feminists need to take care of their own personal development.
Of course, and this, BTW, is something that often gets them a lot of scorn. But it is important to realize that change is only accomplished when those who work for it attain enough power. That power could be in numbers or in changing the mind of the powerful.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Victorians can hardly be singled out for conquering and enslavement, given that was pretty much the norm for human history to that point. Victorians are saints compared to roman times, and the Romans themselves were honourable compared to what went before.
Actually, the concept is most often associated with Rousseau in the 18th century. What the Victorian era had as an advantage was steam powered printing presses to spread uniform cultural concepts (regardless of their veracity or value) over broader areas more quickly. I'm glad we're finally living in an era that has gotten past that.
And an empire with the world's largest military, ruled by a despotic aristocracy which had made most of its money from slavery, drug running, and land + resource grabs in distant countries.
"Moral" is perhaps not quite the most apt word.
>I'm glad we're finally living in an era that has gotten past that.
We haven't. The product has become American Neoliberal Capitalism instead of British Imperial Capitalism, but it's now sold on the Internet and through Hollywood and the media just as aggressively as the Victorians promoted their idea of culture to the world.
> And an empire with the world's largest military, ruled by a despotic aristocracy which had made most of its money from slavery, drug running, and land + resource grabs in distant countries.
Calling the ruling class of the British Empire a despotic aristocracy is a very big stretch, or better a contradiction. Despotic regimes have non-existent or vestigial aristocracies, e.g. the Ottoman Empire or most Chinese dynasties. The Russian Empire had an aristocracy had what looked kind of like a Western European aristocracy but a service nobility functions very differently from one where the nobility have independent power bases. For much more on this Francis Fukuyuma's "The Origins of Political Order" is excellent. In brief there are three political classes in pre-modern societies, the monarch, the high nobility and the gentry/bourgeoisie. The peasantry are irrelevant because they can't coordinate so their numbers are moot. A strong civil society with rule of law that binds the king/state as well as other actors emerged only in Western Europe. If the law binds the king he's no despot, and it did. In Britain, Scandinavia and the Netherlands the king allied with the gentry, in France and Iberia, with the nobility but their power was constrained.
Imperialism did contribute to the power of these states, more to the noble class than the country as a whole but it was not where that power ultimately came from. It came from growth in economic productivity and the organisational capability it made possible. The British Empire was not planned, it was the product of absurdly huge differences in capability. It was acquired over centuries by men on the spot chasing personal glory and advancement.
This is not to deny the slavery, drug running and land and resource grabs but they are frankly secondary. The Royal Navy was the force behind the destruction of the slave trade. The British parliament abolished slavery within the British Empire over the protests of some very rich and well connected domestic interests. The opium trade and the immiseration of India were enormous crimes but the capability preceded the crimes and was only possible because of it. Britain's wealth was not built on the Empire, it was built on trade, commerce and industry.
Excellent comment. While the American revolution and American Civil War is well known[1], the British Civil War and the Glorious Revolution are probably not given the attention they deserve. If you look closely at history, you can see similar patterns: despotic monarchs run out of money, give more power to the nobles in return for taxation rights. Nobles use their new power to restrict the absolute powers of the monarch and then the monarch and nobles struggle. Britain was the one country where the nobles were successful in restricting the absolute power of the monarch and continued the tradition of sharing power, bringing democracy to Western Europe after a long time.
Anyway, that was completely off topic. I agree that the British Empire, while most certainly not the most moral or fair, cannot be characterized as despotic.
[1]: Perhaps I hear more about it because I currently live in the US. Not sure about how popular that part of history is in the rest of the world.
Actually I was referring to the ability for barely researched stereotypes of past or foreign cultures to spread and become a moral cause. That's been going on for centuries all over the globe. It picked up speed with the industrialization of information exchange, and now we can all laugh at how stupid the Victorians, the Communists and the American Revolutionaries were without ever having to consider they were successful for some reason or another.
> The noble savage is another Victorian invention.
Are you sure? I would have expected them to take the opposite view of "savages", namely the Hobbesian view that their lives were "nasty, brutish and short".
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.
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.
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.
Hmm, so the Victorians were " Selfish, oppressive, iniquitous, abusive, racist, hypocritical, and worse". I'm curious, you mention "numerous physical and cultural genocides against native populations around the world", can you give me a similar critique of one of these native populations? Pick one. Describe their morals and social norms for me.
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)
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.
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.
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.
> 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)
There was a great comment on metafilter by `a fiendish thingy`
a few months back about one interpretation of this idea of headship:
I have two friends (who are married) who believe in
biblical standards of the husband being the head of
the household. HOWEVER. They are also outspoken
feminists (both of them), and their belief in marital
headship is based on their belief that a man’s job as
the head of household who has been gifted with an
outsize amount of cultural privilege is to actively
fight patriarchy and bolster his wife’s human dignity
in a culture attempting to diminish her personhood.
(Like, head of household is a metaphor for Jesus being
the head of the church, and Jesus died for the church,
so they believe the head of the household should be
constantly throwing himself on the sword of patriarchy
to elevate his wife to her rightful place of equality,
instead of expecting her to constantly be the person
dealing with toxic misogyny all by herself. So
headship in their marriage is not “I am in charge,
fetch me my slippers,” but “As the privileged partner,
I am charged with a special responsibility of helping
us realize equality within our marriage and our world”.)
Thanks, that's quite insightful. It is, I believe, an excellent example of being able to take nearly any biblical, (or talmudic, or quranic(sp?)) passage and bend it to any particular moral framework (in this case feminism).
Perhaps a problem is that this passage tends to be the most taught marriage-related passage in the evangelical churches and para-church organizations I've attended?
One can make many cases for models of Biblical marriage (David, a "man after God's own heart" was polygamous. This is not spoken against in the Bible, but his adultery with another man's wife was condemned. To me, this is implicit support.)
One can also talk about whether Jesus himself would have supported Paul's interpretation and writings about marriage. I tend to find their respective teachings disharmonious.
Paul very much believed in the order of things, and in authority. And in this case (as in the case of master/slave relationships!), the man has authority. Both masters and husbands have obligations to use their authority kindly, but Paul did not decry the authority of one individual over another.
So yes, in the most common interpretation of evangelical Pauline Christianity (i.e. that practiced in Heartland America), the men are not bullies, but they do possess power and authority over women, and I think this power is the thing liberals and humanists take issue with.
Firstly, you've misunderstood Ephesians 5 (and probably the rest of the letter).
Secondly, you're using an argument from silence based on one particular passage to misrepresent the Bible's view of polygamy. The Bible only has one perspicuous model of marriage.
Thirdly, you can't really slip a piece of paper between Paul (or Peter or James or John or any other apostle for that matter) and Jesus. They either stand or fall together. You can't pick or choose.
Actually, the more I study the various Epistles and Jesus' teaching, the more encouraged I am to see how remarkably harmonious it is. Not that this should surprise anyone, Jesus himself said of Paul: "This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel." (Acts 9:15).
You can't have the Father but reject his Son. You can't have the Son but reject his servants.
Ashkenazi Jews(descendant of those living in Germany around 900 or so AD many of whom later move east to Poland, Ukraine, and Russia) banned polygamy around ~1000 AD.
I think it mostly died down in Sephardic and Yemeni after most of them moved to the Israel but I'm not sure if it was that common before that time.
For one thing only the very wealthy could afford it - each wife was required to have her own house (separate rooms in one house was not enough).
For the most part it was practiced mainly by traveling businessmen/salesmen who would have a wife in each city where they worked. (Don't forget how slow and long travel used to be.)
The main reason for permitting it is that historically males died more often than females, so there is a small surplus of females, and permitting a small amount of polygamy helps with that.
As an insurance student, let me just point out male mortality is still considered higher than female mortality (hence higher premium rates for men). Though i have no numbers if the world has more females than males right now
It may have been a practical necessity after husbands died or were killed. No welfare or social security survivor benefits or similar programs existed.
But IMO it's something that only single men would truly find appealing. Married men quickly realize that additional wives and accompanying additional children are the last thing they want or need. :)
That's more of a "so the king won't get too distracted" commandment (as the second half of the verse indicates!) Also, the verse before is about having too many horses. When Nathan judges David, the polygamy is de minimis.
I agree. Every verse in the New Testament has to be viewed through the lens of Mark 12:30-31.
> Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.
There's more than one passage proclaiming itself to be the most important. Compare eg Matthew 12:31-32:
> Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.
> Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.
Loosely speaking, God/"Moses" put a bunch of rules in play for the early Israelites. Then Jesus came around and said "it's all about love." Then Paul clarified Jesus with more specific directions. So Paul > Jesus > Moses, mostly because of chronology.
Let's take gay people as an example. Moses said no, Jesus said it's all about love, and Paul said no to gay people. So even though Jesus is always right, in practice he was usually pretty vague, so Paul ends up with the overrule.
*Side note: some people believe that Paul and/or Moses were only referring to gay people in the context of pagan ritual sex, and that Jesus's "love" should take priority. I'd believe Moses was about pagan sex and Paul is non-canon if I were still Christian. This shows that there's plenty of room for interpretation. The previous paragraphs are simply the evangelical mainstream interpretation.
Edit: A cynical me would also say that interpretation depends on agenda.
> Let's take gay people as an example.
> Moses said no, Jesus said it's all about love,
> and Paul said no to gay people...
It is a misconception of Jesus' teachings to say that he invalidated the Mosaic law with a message of "it's all about love". Notice in the Sermon on the Mount for example how he is constantly going one level more conservative than the Mosaic law would allow, condemning not just immoral actions but immoral thoughts as well!
Here on the issue of homosexuality you believe Moses, Jesus and Paul say 3 different things. And yet Jesus clearly states that he didn't come to change the Mosaic law in any way!
Martin Luther took that last verse to mean that Jesus is not merely giving a list of do's and don'ts, but rather setting an impossibly high standard for anyone but God to meet. Regardless, you have to either understand Jesus to mean that he's not contradicting Moses, or take Jesus to be a liar. There aren't many reasonable options in between.
I hope you don't wear any cotton/polyester blends.
> Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together. (Deut 22:11, KJV)
Most Christians I've known believe that some combination of Matt 15:11 (Jesus) and Acts 10 (Paul) mean that while the morality expoused in the original Law is forever relevant, the practical concerns (what to eat, what clothing to wear, how to handle menstruation) and the ritual concerns (sacrifice, temple practices) are no longer relevant.
So Jesus takes morality to 11, but not the other things. And according to Jesus, morality == love.
All this to say: I'm pretty comfortable with my interpretation. I'm not ignorant of the spectrum of Christian doctrine, and I feel like I'm mostly doing it justice while keeping it simple.
He was referring to the command in the Old Testament that bans wearing fabric blends. One thing to remember is that Jesus didn't nullify the law, he fulfilled the law. There were two types of rules in the Old Testament, ethical and lifestyle. There are a few instances in the New Testament where lifestyle rules are explicitly ignored without any condemnation for the actions (the opposite instead). The bleeding woman touching Jesus, Peter being told to eat unclean animals (meaning go talk to the Gentiles), and Paul telling the Galatians that the Gentiles do NOT need to be circumcised to be saved.
If one loves God and their neighbor, all the ethical law will be followed. One interesting loophole that Jesus removed was to love one another as He loved them (John 13:34) which is different than "Love your neighbor as yourself".
> I hope you don't wear any cotton/polyester blends.
Polyester? A sacrilege!
No, I wear a California uniform. 100% cotton Aloha shirt, 100% cotton pants, long or short depending on the season. (Mostly short.) Birkenstock Arizonas (soft footbed only!), with or without socks.
Can't vouch for the underwear, though. I hope it's mostly cotton, but what are those stretchy bands made of?
Luther was still mostly about the Catholic church's canon. His opposition was mostly to the business and political practices of the Church. Or, in other words, against the sale of indulgences for absolution of purgatory-condemning sanctions against living and dead parishioners.
In the beginnings of the 95 Theses he actually puts a favorable light on the Pope, in my brief re-reading [1].
Luther's protestants still held to the catacism(sp?), sacraments, transmutation of the hosts, etc. As far as I've ever understood it.
The Lutheran Catechism differs from the Catholic on several points of theology, particularly the Lutheran orthogonality of salvation and sanctification [0], which are joint pursuits in Roman Catholicism. Regarding the nature of the hosts, Roman Catholics argue transubstantiation [1], and Lutherans speak "mu" to the question [2].
I think sola fide is the concept I ham-fistedly attempted to express with the opposition to the business side of the Catholic church, insofar as it extended to mortals (the Pope included) declaring the sins of and absolving the sins of the people and their dead relatives, yeah? It seemed to all draw from points 10-20ish in the declaration.
And on the transubstantiation vs, dual-state can we call it, of the eucharist... my denomination considered it all symbolic, so I'd always really considered them the same thing (by which I mean, saying "it's just his body" vs "it's both his body and bread" were still "it's his body).
I'm not sure how foundational that distinction was when the schism occurred. Do you know by chance?
Is yours a Reformed church? The anti-institutional fervor of the later (post-Luther) Protestants led to many such purely mundane interpretations of the host, which Luther vigorously denied [0].
> I'm not sure how foundational that distinction was when
> the schism occurred. Do you know by chance?
Though I do not know the relative impetus imparted to the Reformation by differences in belief about the nature of the hosts in the eucharist, it seems to have been a deeper divide within Protestantism than between P and the RC [1]. Charitably, Luther accorded the question of the metaphysical connection between bread and wine, body and blood as axiomatically resolved by accepting the Word of their identical existence as a matter of belief, independent of argumentative investigation (i.e., he "unasked" the question, or said "mu" [2]). Uncharitably, he dodged by declaring the answer uninteresting or irrelevant to Christian faith.
I would encourage you to read Jesus more closely, for example, the Sermon on the Mount:
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5
If you are sincerely interested in understanding things like the ceremonial law, civil law, moral law, Old Covenant, New Covenant, then I can point you to some excellent study guides and sermons.
> I would encourage you to read Jesus more closely
I'm just trying to hit the high points for a silly internet discussion.
> If you are sincerely interested in understanding things like the ceremonial law, civil law, moral law, Old Covenant, New Covenant, then I can point you to some excellent study guides and sermons.
Been there. I found the Skeptic's Annotated Bible was more convincing than, say, Grudem's Systematic Theology, or any of the other reading from seminary.
With respect to homosexuality, as far as I'm aware, all of the verses that describe a punishment for it say that the person who partakes of it will end up on a sickbed. Given the times, it probably carried a high risk of STIs. Proverbs has similar warnings with respect to men who lose their vigor to prostitutes, or as a result of fornication.
The practical consequences of homosexuality and prostitution (STIs and reduced vigor) are of much less concern to Jesus and Paul (and other Biblical figures) than the immediate problem of ignoring God's design and intentions for sex.
Here's a quick list of passages dealing with sexual immorality:
Notice the theme where the immoral person does not get to inherit the kingdom of God. That's a way-out-in-the-future concept, not any kind of concern for the physical body of the immoral person.
Which isn't to say there aren't practical benefits to Biblical sexuality. Certainly your chance of getting an STI is dramatically reduced (eliminated?) by remaining faithful to your spouse in marriage. Abstinence for the unmarried has the same obvious benefits. Heterosexuality is clearly the easiest way to procreate, and the inherent differences between men and women gives children a broader experience of physical, mental, emotional interaction with the world (seeing how mom and dad handle the same situation in gender-unique ways, for instance).
But again, all of that is the secondary concern. The primary concern of all sin is the immediate effect it has on the spiritual condition of a man. The preeminent theme throughout the Old Testament and New is that God is Holy. He takes his holiness seriously. Man has sinned. God judges all sins. There is one way back to God, and that's by taking advantage of the path He made back to Himself, via his son, Jesus.
so given that the biblical command to suppress and channel sexuality is in direct conflict with modern observation that sexual expression is necessary to be spiritually healthy, do you still find the bible compelling?
> "the biblical command to suppress and channel sexuality"
You're paraphrasing in a place where it's much more productive to be specific in what the Bible claims.
> "sexual expression is necessary to be spiritually healthy"
Again, source? I'm not sure I've heard this idea coming from any popular figures. In fact, the impression I get from modern mainstream observations is that spiritual health is a non-concern for most people.
If you didn't intend to make a claim about spiritual health, and instead mean the modern idea that "I should pursue whatever sexual impulses I have", then I would further argue that we haven't walked far enough along the arc of history to see the repercussions of that play out.
> do you still find the bible compelling?
Certainly. The Bible's position on sexuality is very comprehensive, without being completely descriptive. I'm just as wary of the "modern" (Aristotlean) idea that everything is good in moderation as I am of anyone attempting to limit Christian sexuality to the Victorian ideas represented in the article. The Bible cuts a line between the two that is both more relevant across centuries, and less concerned with creating a monoculture in marital relationships.
It's less about chosing passages, and more about reading them in the context of the whole book they're in. A passage by itself may sound stark, but the wole chapter is in fact toning it down.
I don't know, man. Consider 1 Corinthians 14:34-35:
Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
The 2 verses you quoted have a specific context in chapter 14 and in the rest of the letter to the Corinthians, within which they must be understood (not speaking/reading/praying in general).
If anything, the Bible has always been counter-cultural in promoting the equality of men and women, and the countless greetings and references to prominent women in the early church in the various letters reflects the critical contribution they made.
I've read it in context, thoroughly, and it doesn't help. And really, in what context could this become okay?
As for the claim that the Bible has "always been counter-cultural in promoting the equality of men and women", that is a very limited viewpoint on history; it has been used toward both oppressive and egalitarian ends since it was written. And if you mean that the early Christian writers like Paul were especially egalitarian for their time, this too is controversial at best in scholarly circles. The mere mention (even praise) of certain women does not demonstrate a culture of gender equality; Roman society at large is also known to have venerated certain female figures in the same way, so this was hardly a counter-cultural practice.
Examining religious scripture in isolation like this is a pointless exercise. It's like trying to imagine what it's like to eat at a banquet by tasting a single ingredient you pinched from the kitchen. You taste salt and you think the meal was salty, you taste sugar and you think it was sweet. In reality it contained elements of both, but tasted nothing like either.
I've sat through two weddings where the pastor chose to share that passage.
One time it was without commentary, and the whole ceremony came across poorly to me (he even solicited conversions to his church at the end, as if it were a public Sunday service).
The other was a younger guy who didn't say the whole thing and tried to explain it away the best he could as more or less being about "supporting each other". I liked that wedding a lot better in general, but I still think that's a terrible passage to recite during a wedding.
So if pastors think that is the most important bit to share when performing actual marriages in public, you shouldn't be surprised that this is what people are most familiar with.
> 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)
I'll admit that passage is often what I think of when I think of Christian marriage philosophy from the Bible – and am willing to correct that notion. What, in your mind, should be the outcome of someone who claims to follow the Bible in their marriage w.r.t. this passage? Your hint didn't really lay out an answer; only a non-answer.
I interpret the church to mean members of Christianity. In that lens, it doesn't seem like the relationship between a woman submitting to her husband ought to be like how a Christian submits to Christ. Does it?
I quoted that passage out of context intentionally, because I think it represents what most people think of Paul's marriage views, accurately or not. The whole chapter provides a great deal more context to Paul's thoughts on the subject:
> What, in your mind, should be the outcome of someone who claims to follow the Bible in their marriage w.r.t. this passage?
I know about 300-500 Christian families from my town. When the vast majority of them read that section of Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus (Paul mainly wrote letters, and they weren't divided up into chapters/verses for reference until much later) the key takeaway for them is "I, as a Christian, am commanded to give up my rights for the sake of my spouse and our marriage."
In doing this, I think most people assume that Christians simply pretend they don't want what they really want, and pretend they do want what they really don't want. That's not it at all, and that's merely a recipe for a hollow, hypocritical relationship.
There are certainly differences amongst Christians, and I don't intend to paper over them. I'm just saying, if you have a Christian friend, ask them what these kinds of passages mean to them, rather than assume they are brow-beating their spouse based on two sentences taken out of the context of an entire letter Paul wrote.
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.
> 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?
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.
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.
