
19th Century Marriage Manuals: Advice for Young Husbands - Avawelles
http://mimimatthews.com/2015/09/28/19th-century-marriage-manuals-advice-for-young-husbands/
======
DougN7
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.”

~~~
gd1
“The same law which imposes upon the husband the duty of supporting his wife,
gives him a general and paramount claim to her obedience.”

I bet you don't get this bit in return.

~~~
zensavona
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.

~~~
VLM
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.

~~~
zensavona
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.

Yep.

------
pron
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).

~~~
mettamage
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.

~~~
pron
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.

~~~
mettamage
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.

~~~
pron
> 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.

------
vezzy-fnord
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.

~~~
InclinedPlane
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.

~~~
brc
The noble savage is another Victorian invention.

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.

~~~
sageikosa
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.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
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.

~~~
barry-cotter
> 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.

~~~
pm90
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.

------
grandalf
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.

------
notdonspaulding
From the article:

    
    
        > 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)

~~~
throwitback
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.

~~~
rat87
The Torah allows polygamy.

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.

~~~
ars
Even when permitted it was very rare.

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.

It's no longer relevant these days.

~~~
xerophyte12932
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

~~~
eru
There's female infanticide and gender-biased abortions to more than balance
higher male mortality in lots of the world.

------
eimai134
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.

------
artur_makly
I prefer Lina Wertmüller version of male/female co-existence: :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swept_Away_(1974_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swept_Away_\(1974_film\))

------
grecy
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.

------
idibidiart
Sexism 101.

