Interesting post Sara. I had watched a show on the history channel a few years back. One of the things I remember is that there was a time where spouses were not allowed to see each other unclothed.
I really get the feeling that your wife is a very unhappy person. And no, I don't blame you for that. But I wonder what causes this unhappiness. When I went through depressions I used to keep reminding myself that happiness is a state of mind. If you want to be happy, just change your mind. It is true, but it is so hard to accept.
Well, that's so much food for thought. The recent previous generations fought to free ourselves from prejudice, to give ourselves the right to choose for ower own. No arranged marriages, we can choose who we love. And still some see marriage as a prison.
There is this very bright men, a sociologist, Norbert Elias that says the times society evolved the most was when they had common morals and ethics battles to fight. Because it was important to acknowledge each other to survive. He says today we are becoming individualists due to the conveniality of modern life. And we're 70% more civilized than we were in the middle ages. But confusing irresponsibility for freedom is making us go backwards towards civilization.
Just because we have invented microwaves some think we don't need others and the feeling that our caves are sacred is gone, we could survive if there was no hunters or people to make fires and heat our dinner. It's the age of fulfilling the individuals insticts needs opposed to what differentiate us from irrational beings: the emotions, intelligence and ability to truly care.
On the surface we are mislead to think that what we do in the name of personal "freedom" are the most important things. Most cannot remember why morals and ethics were created in the first place. It's easier to survive now.
That just make me wonder if cavemen were wiser.
Sorry, I guess I am rumbling and tripping, but I can't get over the fact that we are loosing from sight that we need to care for each other to survive.
Guess it is what makes this forum special, the ability to care, it gives us hope.
Interesting take on things, Hurt. I agree that we have lost our sense of what's important in life. I don't know if it's the consumer ethic -- you are what you own, or simply moral decay and the fall of society.
In feudal society when young men were encouraged to do heroic deeds to win the favor of a highborn lady, they say society encouraged this to keep the younger sons who had no inheritances busy so they did not rob and pillage the countryside. Today, we sent our kids to college to keep them out of trouble. The focus on the emotional affair was to protect society from wayward youth. Now we have married men and women doing it and jeopardizing the functioning of the family unit.
I see your point. So, do you think could you say that somehow the restrictions back then and endurances imposed were needed acts in those days to teach morals and ethics, to put focus in the soul in a society that what counted most was survival?
My mom always says that we should not take freedom for libertinity (I don't know if the last is the right word in English, hope you understand the meaning)so I agree we are missing some understanding of the importance of family and why our primary emotional choice is to marry not just mate?
I would say yes, to a certain extent, teaching young men to care about the wants of a woman, albeit only noble women, was a way to gentrify society. It was a double-edged sword. Since love had no place in marriage, the love for another became a strong distraction. But divorce did not exist, and while it was taken seriously, I believe it was played like a game, with few men actually winning favors in the bedroom from the object of his desire. Probably all the while he is courting the highborn lady, the young knight was screwing some wench whose whims he cared nothing for in the field.
I like your mother's point not to confuse freedom with libertinism. (I believe that is the English word for it.) That is very true, and it is very common.
