History of Love Part - 02

Source: Anonymous, as forward in email. History of Love parts 1-2.

The Age of Reason
(1700-1800)

· By mid-18th Century, emotional love had fallen out of favor among the upper classes and intellectuals (rationalists). They wanted anew approach that would be more stable and productive. They turned from emotion to reason. Theology and metaphysics yielded to mathematics and physics. They scorned enslavement to emotion. Emotionalism became intolerable to men in the Age or Reason. They wanted women of intellect. They separated or dichotomized the mind from the body.

· The epitome of rational gallantry was Louis XIV, the sun king of France. All Europe saw him as the ideal of the aristocracy and a model for all lesser men. He established elaborate rules of etiquette that served to suppress all evidence of emotion.

· Nobility concealed feelings with the aid of detached reason and carefully rehearsed manners.

· In between the gallant rakes and the subdued Puritans arose an upper-middle-class man (as described in Samuel Pepys' diary, 1683). The age of enlightenment had arrived. New scientific and rational outlooks replaced mystical and intuitive ones of the past. A humane and tolerant view of man that saw him as basically good, worthy and admirable replaced the Christian theology that saw man as besotted and laden with guilt and sin.

· Never before had such emphasis been placed on manners. An artificial code of formal behavior was consciously and deliberately applied in order to control one's emotions. The emotional life of humans disappeared behind the facade of elegant manners and icy self-control.

· Almost any behavior was acceptable as long as emotions were concealed. Even private intimate conversations were stilted with remote and detached words.

· The rationalists scorned the gloom of Christianity. They scrapped the church's concept of women as evil, but they often viewed women as ornaments, toys or unreasonable nitwits and still held women as subservient.

· 1 8th Century love idealized the mythical Don Juan who was impeccably mannered, lustful, haughty, and false. Love was often reduced to malicious sport with the motive to seduce.

· Giovanni Jacopo Casanova (born 1725) was an adventurer who had a brilliant mind. He wrote two dozen books covering math, history, astronomy, and philosophy.

· By mid 18th Century, flirtation and romance were no longer an exclusive part of aristocratic tradition, but were common in the bourgeois or middle class.

· Ben Franklin was a rationalist with guiltless views of sex.

Victorianism
(1800-1900)

· During 19th Century Victorianism, the ideas of nobility and birthright were declining with the rise of capitalism and the industrial revolution. Newly rich entrepreneurs were growing wealthy and tried to copy ways of the upper class with lower class customs. Urbane control of one's emotions was losing popularity to "sensibility". A maudlin "sensitivity" became the ideal. Love now became a mighty force and noble goal. Men grew shy, inhibited and fearful of rebuff as they began backing away from sexuality. They sought not the dazzling flirtatious woman, but the shy, virginal one.

· Victorianism stood for high "moral" standards, close-knit families and glorified views of women. At the same time, prostitution was widespread and the structure of marriage was crumbling as women began revolting against their oppressive "glorified" status.

· Jean Jacques Rousseau was one of the most influential forces in forming a new, viciously oppressive political "liberalism" that was combined with slobbering sentimentality. He often displayed sick sentimental tears. He hungered for cruelty and beatings and lived with women vastly inferior to him in order to boost his low confidence and weak self-esteem. He gave away his own children. He wrote with maudlin sentimentality. Europe was deeply under Rousseau's influence.

· Rousseau appealed to the seriousness of the middle class. Laughter and wit went out of style. Emphasis began to focus on female modesty. Open displays of sentimentality, melancholy, and tearfulness became chic. For example, the Irish poet, Tom Moore, got sentimental even for the stones in a road.

· The clinging-vine personality in women developed: women should be modest, virtuous and sweet. They should be weak and anxious to lean on and be dominated by strong men.

· With rising prosperity and development of public school systems made possible by the industrial revolution, children began to move outside of the home, depriving women of many of their functions. The reasonably affluent man no longer needed an all-work woman. He could now concentrate more on a woman's value as a love partner.

· Togetherness concepts developed. With his sweet home-making wife, a new style of home-life patriarch arose. The stay-at-home husband was to spend every available hour with his good wife. (e.g., Corbett's book, Advice To A Young Man , frowns on social activities with others in stating, "If they are not company enough for each other, it is but a sad affair".)

· Women had to be "morally" spotless. This led to excessive prudishness in word and actions. Prudishness then spread from sex to bathroom functions.

· Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1842 stated that the female had no privileges except to barely consent or refuse a man. A woman being courted was permitted to summon up a "timid blush" or the "faintest of smiles" to convey her feelings.

· The Brownings supposedly never saw each other entirely naked.

· Unites States Surgeon General, William Hammond, stated that decent women felt not the slightest pleasure during intercourse. Many doctors considered sexual desire in women to be pathological and warned that female passion could cause sterility. Many thought only prostitutes could enjoy sex.

· The woman's role was glorified and idealized, but this was only a new pretext for their continued subjugation by men. Women literally made themselves helpless through fashion. They immobilized themselves in laces and stays.

· Victorian men were patriarchal and stern, but they played this role at their own sexual expense.

· Out of this Victorian repression arose a great hunger for a fantasy sex life. Flagellation, pornography, and prostitution rose dramatically (e.g., 50,000 prostitutes in London in 1850 and over 300,000 copies of the pornographic book, A Monk's Awful Disclosures, were sold before the Civil War.)

· Nearly all written work about the private lives of Victorians, on the other hand, were "purified" by omitting all references to sex and love.

Decline of Victorianism,
The Rise of Capitalism and
The Emancipation of Women
(1850-1900)

· Emancipation started in 1792 with Mary Wallstonecraft and her attacks on marriage and the subjugation of women. Her work was undermined by her badly misguided condemnation of masturbation and her advocation of government force to stop prostitution. In 1833, Oberlin was the first college to admit women. In 1837, Mt. Holyoke became the first women's college. With the rise of capitalism, women gained economic rights never before enjoyed. Capitalism broke up autocratic church power and the feudal nobility pattern.

· During the 1840s, the new middle class began growing rapidly. Capitalistic economics were accelerating the dissolution of class differences along with ancient social ties and repressive customs.

· The rigid Victorian home was threatened by female suffrage, divorce reforms and free love.

· Victorianism was a desperate delaying action against inevitable changes made by capitalism and the industrial revolution.

· Victorianism and religion tried to fight change and to retain the subjugated position of women by government force and police activities.

Emergence of Twentieth Century
Romantic Love
(1900-1930)

· With the partial emergence of capitalism grew a new age of romantic love. America's increasing divorce rate reflected not the failure of love but the increasing refusal of people to live without love and happiness.

· Love patterns of all modern societies were replaced by America's model because so many people were drawn to the romantic love style that combined sexual outlet, affectionate friendship and family functions, all in a single relationship.

· Romantic attraction not only became desirable, but became the only acceptable basis for choosing a life-long partner.

· Romantic love was made possible by capitalism and the industrial revolution. With romantic love, the sexual desires of both partners could be satisfied within marriage. All the tenderness and excitement of love could coexist with household cares and child rearing. Romantic love was the most difficult and complex human relationship ever attempted... but the most appealing and satisfying.

· Soviets detached individual values from sex (e.g., they promoted the concept that sex was no more than drinking a glass of water).

· The modern Sexual Revolution discarded the 19th Century prudish and patriarchal Victorian-Christian patterns. Sexual liberation made achievement of sexual pleasure increasingly important.

· Children were no longer an economic asset, but a costly luxury valuable only for love. For example, in 1776, Adam Smith estimated an American child was worth [sterling]100 in profit before he left home; by 1910 a city child cost thousands of dollars; by 1944 a child cost about $16 thousand to raise to adulthood; by 1959 a child cost about $25 thousand to raise; by 1975 a child cost about $75 thousand to raise. In 1985, costs for raising a child to adulthood averaged around $150 thousand. Allowing for inflation, future cost will be much higher.

· Isadora Duncan (1878-1927) was a symbol of flaming feminism with her free-love and unwed motherhood stances. She claimed that sexual love should be ecstatic for women. Margaret Sanger staged a heroic fight for birth control claiming that a woman's body belonged to her alone. She published birth control information in 1914 and opened birth control clinics in 1916. Catholic elements had her arrested and jailed. But here work spread. By 1930, over 300 birth control clinics had been established.

· Margaret Sanger separated lovemaking from procreation. This brought the traditional ideal of a monogamous, faithful marriage under attack.

· Complete freedom by each partner was advanced by intellectuals such as H.G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, Havelock Ellis, Judge Ben Lindsay.

· Havelock Ellis offered ideas in 1900 that were remarkably similar to those advanced in 1973 by the O'Neills in their book, Open Marriage.

· The sexual Revolution also stressed the mechanical aspects of the sex act. In Marie Stopes' book, Married Love (1918), the women's right to orgasm was promoted. Orgasm was described as an end-in-itself. Wilhelm Reich proposed that orgasm failure was the cause of major mental and physical diseases. He even advocated masturbation to combat cancer via flow of sexual energy.

Modern Romantic Love
(1930-Present)

· Free love and open marriage developed in the 20th Century along with progressive polygamy via repeated marriage and divorce. Sexual enjoyment was accepted as a human right.

· The need for reassurance of one's personal self-esteem made this new form of romantic love popular and desired. Themes of love, heart- break, and eventual happiness became popular and dominated the soap operas.

· Dating started in the 1920s as a new way of mate selection made necessary by city life. Shy, passive femininity was being discarded. The crucial feature of dating was freedom from commitment while young people learned and experimented.

· Dating was criticized by many sociologists and social "intellectuals" as a loveless, competitive contest. But dating was a healthy breakthrough and generally a cheerful and happy activity. Dating was an educational process, leading from playful heterosexual behavior to companionship and love.

· Premarital relationships became more open and intimate than relationships of the past. Potential partners were able to know each other much more deeply through intimate dating.

· This new romanticism was at once both idealistically romantic and practical.

· Many conditions were similar to Roman times (economic and legal emancipation of women, well-to-do city life, children being a luxury rather than an asset, and sexual enjoyment deemed a right for all). One profound difference existed. Romans moved away from married life while Americans became more marriage-minded than ever before. And when marriage failed, Americans would divorce and head right back into another marriage.

· Most sociologists have strongly criticized romantic love while praising conjugal love. Their attacks are, however, distorted and out of context. They project romantic love as it was idealized in the medieval period when love could not exist within marriage.

· Romantic feelings are not only for new loves and adolescents, but are also for long-married couples.

· Women have gained the right to be equal to men, but many women are afraid of the demands and challenges of being an equal; other women hold the erroneous fear that equality might cost them the chance for love and marriage.

· Inequality for females is no longer a matter of law. Men and women now have essentially the same educational and economic opportunities, but most American wives still do not strive for high achievement in the major areas of value production, i.e., business, science, medicine.

· To the average man, his job is what he is. To the average woman, a job is only to make money. And the average American housewife suffers from a chronic, low-grade dissatisfaction, diminished self-esteem, and increasing boredom.

· Most women are confused about their "role" and do not really know what they want to be in life. Surveys of two college campuses indicated that 40% of the coeds admitted "playing dumb" with interesting men because many men feel threatened by overtly intelligent women (M. Kamarovsky, Women in the Modern World, Little, Brown & Co., 1953).

· Modern love makes sense and is exercising its immense appeal all over the world.

· Modern romantic love is almost everyone's goal. Today, the value and purpose of romantic love is, above all else, directed toward the fulfillment of major emotional needs and happiness.

· An ominous rise of overt born-again Christianity and fundamentalist religions signal a turn back toward malevolent views of life, love, sex, and women.