[thechat] King Preaches Abstinence to Parading Maidens

Erika Meyer erika at seastorm.com
Thu Sep 12 15:24:00 CDT 2002


John Handelaar responded:

>>In his culture, there are mistresses.
>
>Yeah, I love French people too.

Greek.  I don't know much about that culture which is another issue.
I had an Anatolian boyfriend once, but otherwise very little contact
with the culture.  Greek have different ways of responding to
situations; I'm not used to it.

>% justice among his wives. One of those laws is that each wife must have a
>% separate home and all wives must enjoy same standard of life.
>
>That's certainly magnanimous.  </abject_sarcasm>

Honestly, monogamy of the type that is expected in my culture is not
realistic.  Hence the high divorce rate.

So who are we to judge such an arrangement?

As for scientific facts, sociobiologists may in fact argue that males
are evolutionary selected to mate with more women, while women, who
have more invested in each child, tend to seek mates who will spend
time and resources assisting them in child rearing.

I think this comes from E.O. Wilson, can't recall which book.  And it
is all theoretical.

When we start generalizing about behaviors of the HUMAN species we
are walking into dangerous territory.  Any kind of study of humans
behavior (anthropology, psychology) tends to be fraught with
controversy.

I don't know about you, but I see tremendous differences in what men
and women expect and desire in partners.  IN GENERAL.  The special
thing about humans is that we are very strongly influenced by
environment... our brains develop a great deal during childhood... so
our behavior is less instinct-based than that of other creatures.

I think that marriage customs are an attempt to address natural
sexual tensions between genders, while setting up a good environment
for child rearing and economic and social stability.

I see nothing wrong with the custom of having multiple wives, as Syed
describes it.  Now in practice, it may not be so ideal... but the
concept makes sense to me.

Again, there is a parallel to some American Indigenous cultures
(Lakota, I think) where a very wealthy man could take more than one
wife.

In cultures where there are strongly defined gender roles, I think
there is a strong level of freedom and solidarity amongst women when
they are apart from men.  They can almost develop their own culture.
Even in the US when I get together with a group of women, there are
things I can discuss that most men would think are completely
whacked-out.

Like this morning... my daughter had lots of questions about the
tooth fairy which I was at a total loss to answer.  But every woman
we encountered in our journey to school had TONS of information about
fairies to satisfy her curiosity.  One woman even showed us a special
tree where fairies live. I can hardly imagine any man I know being
able to pull all this off with such aplomb.  I was totally impressed
(and grateful).

How our balance of power plays out in important situations... or when
men and women differ in their position on something... that is
another story entirely.

Erika
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