Sadie Hawkins, passivity, and the history of marriage

[Guest]

I'd be careful about this. Even in modern apes you find rather rigid social structures and rules about who's allowed to mate with whom. They just don't go around grabbing females and screwing them when and wherever. The key to sexual success for your average male ape is to become top ape, not top rapist.

Don't most animals mate only when the female is in heat?

Perdita

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I'd be careful about this. Even in modern apes you find rather rigid social structures and rules about who's allowed to mate with whom. They just don't go around grabbing females and screwing them when and wherever. The key to sexual success for your average male ape is to become top ape, not top rapist.

I've got no real proof, but I suspect the image of men as natural born rapists is a bit overdone. Certainly rape happened, but it was probably limited to warring tribes. You wouldn't rape someone in your own clan without serious repercussions. All social animals have their rules and hierarchies and taboos, and I imagine we had social structures even before we had stone tools.

Furthermore, I suspect that war between groups was probably rarer than peaceful co-existence, given equal access to resources. There's evidence now that even Neanderthals had pretty impressive trading networks in paleolithic Europe, which suggests some sort of economic cooperation and trust between different groups.

You missed my point doc. It was that rape is not a concept. In your ape example, if the alpha male gets sick and is overthrown by another alpha, the female apes will submit to the new alpha. If the old alpha survives, recvoers, and beats the bannanas out of the "new" alpha, the females will submit to him again.

 

[zeb1094]

Don't most animals mate only when the female is in heat?

Perdita

True. Except Dolphins, they have sex for fun. They have even been observed gang raping a female Dolphin.

 

[Guest]

They have even been observed gang raping a female Dolphin.

Why would you phrase it like that?

 

[zeb1094]

Why would you phrase it like that?

That's the way it was phrased in the article. It went on to describe the way the female tried to get away but the male dolphins circled her pinning her between them and taking turns.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

And they say dolphins are the only animals that are as intelligent as human beings...

 

[SeaCat]

Strangely enough I have recently read something about this in "western" culture.

Many of our views in the west, Patrilineal lineage, males in charge, etc, can be traced back to the not so early Christians and the formation of the belief system created by the early Catholic Church.

It was through their decrees to follow the teachings of Peter, (who reminds me in some ways of a certain person on this board in his dislike of females in power,) that the females of our race were declared to be second class citizens. The most famouse of these decrees, the meetings of Nicea declared that Jesus taught that women are second class citizens. (As told thorugh the gospel of Peter, not through the gospel of Jesus.) The reasons for this? Politics and power.

Prior to this the lineage of power on the church was Matrilineal. Those in power were not trained and elevated to their status, they were raised for it through the families of their mothers. The Church, in it's grabbing for power, decided that it must have it's own priests, priests under it's controll. To gain this they looked through all of the teachings/gospels and did a little picking and choosing. Those gospels which did not agree with what they wanted they pushed to the side and later declared heretical. Those that did aggree with their views were codified and are what has become known as the Bible. (For proof look at things like the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Book of Mary.)

Because of this "official" stance women were suddenly cast to the side. Their power base was largely gone and men were free to treat them as they wished.

Cat

 

[impressive]

Strangely enough I have recently read something about this in "western" culture.

Many of our views in the west, Patrilineal lineage, males in charge, etc, can be traced back to the not so early Christians and the formation of the belief system created by the early Catholic Church.

It was through their decrees to follow the teachings of Peter, (who reminds me in some ways of a certain person on this board in his dislike of females in power,) that the females of our race were declared to be second class citizens. The most famouse of these decrees, the meetings of Nicea declared that Jesus taught that women are second class citizens. (As told thorugh the gospel of Peter, not through the gospel of Jesus.) The reasons for this? Politics and power.

Prior to this the lineage of power on the church was Matrilineal. Those in power were not trained and elevated to their status, they were raised for it through the families of their mothers. The Church, in it's grabbing for power, decided that it must have it's own priests, priests under it's controll. To gain this they looked through all of the teachings/gospels and did a little picking and choosing. Those gospels which did not agree with what they wanted they pushed to the side and later declared heretical. Those that did aggree with their views were codified and are what has become known as the Bible. (For proof look at things like the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Book of Mary.)

Because of this "official" stance women were suddenly cast to the side. Their power base was largely gone and men were free to treat them as they wished.

Cat

And hence ... the premise of The DaVinci Code

Thanks, Cat.

 

[SeaCat]

And hence ... the premise of The DaVinci Code

Thanks, Cat.

Be dipped if I know if it's the premis for Davinci Code or not. I have yet to read it.
I have on the other hand read way too many books on religion and the history of Christianity. Some of them are even *gasp* banned by the Catholic Church.

I suppose it's not surprising someone else saw these things and wrote a story about it. (Too bad it wasn't me, I could use the money. )

Cat

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Actually, much of this is derived from proposals originally made to the fathers of the prospective brides by the suitors or fathers thereof. It was arranged marriage in much of the ancient world, and the proposal depended on who was paterfamilias, in the case of ancient Rome (or oikos in the case of Athens). The groom's proposal thus originated with the cases where a young man's father was deceased, thus making him paterfamilias. Eventually, the practice became more common, until the husbands had a LOT of say about marriage, unlike the wives. The "poisoning incident" in ancient Rome increased male power over women, to the point that they had the same legal status as children. Ultimately, the "familia" concept was about family as the property of the paterfamilias, with having full rights to even execute his charges (though this was scarce and very much frowned upon).