A History of The Wife

April 4, 2015 Hunter Wallace History, Women 20

This was written by a feminist, but it sounds like an interesting book:

“How did marriage, considered a religious duty in medieval Europe, become a venue for personal fulfillment in contemporary America? How did the notion of romantic love, a novelty in the Middle Ages, become a prerequisite for marriage today? And, if the original purpose of marriage was procreation, what exactly is the purpose of marriage for women now?

Combining “a scholar’s rigor and a storyteller’s craft”(San Jose Mercury News), distinguished cultural historian Marilyn Yalom charts the evolution of marriage in the Judeo Christian world through the centuries and shows how radically our ideas about marriage have changed.

For any woman who is, has been, or ever will be married, this intellectually vigorous and gripping historical analysis of marriage sheds new light on an institution most people take for granted, and that may, in fact, be experiencing its most convulsive upheaval since the Reformation.”

About Hunter Wallace 12390 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

19 Comments

  1. Quoting a Feminazi, and then having her/it say ‘Judeo/Christian’ in ANY capacity, does not bode well for intellectual rigor on this subject, HW.

  2. Nope.

    Scanning through this book, the feminist appears to get it right. Facts are still facts, after all. The definition of marriage and gender roles have changed across history.

  3. “Once married, a bride was obliged by law and custom to obey her husband – a requirement so fundamental to the biblical idea of a wife that it remained in most Jewish and Christian wedding vows until the late twentieth century. After all, wives were considered a husband’s property, alongside his cattle and his slaves. And above all a wife would have been consumed by the need to produce a son. For only as the mother of a son would she have been fully honored in her new family.”

  7. Well done! Just because an authoress is a Juden feminist doesn’t mean she’s lying about her subject. We seek truth, and historical facts.

    Hunter my dear – I want you to know that I appreciate your subtle wit. Thankee!

  8. Denise, the jewess’ record when it comes to interpreting male female dynamics among whites, especially anglos, is atrocious. They basically project their own issues onto us.

  9. I’ve read through the book up to Classical Athens.

    This is where “the wife” starts to resemble the version discussed over at the Stormer: women were typically married between 14 and 15 years old, it was an arranged marriage between the groom and his father-in-law, without the consent of the bride, the vows were exchanged by the two men by themselves:

    “It was essentially an oral contract, made between the man who gave the woman in marriage – usually her father – and the bridegroom. The father would say “I pledge [woman’s name] for the purpose of producing legitimate children.” The groom replied: “I accept.” The bride was not present.”

  11. “Although heterosexual marriage was the only legally recognized form of couplehood in classical Greece, husbands were by no means limited to sexual relations with their lives. They could find supplemental sex beyond the marriage bed with concubines, male and female slaves, male and female prostitutes, and male and female lovers. The only officially forbidden fruit was the wife of another citizen. The orator Apollodorus is often quoted saying that the Athenian man could have three women: his wife for producing heirs and watching over his property, his concubine for daily attention to his body (meaning sexual relations), and hetaeras (courtesans) for pleasure.”

  12. “In ancient Greece, wives were generally younger than their husbands – by ten to twenty years. Since they were strictly excluded from almost all activities outside the house, they could hardly be full companions to their husbands, who spent most of their waking hours away from home in the agora (forum), marketplace, gymnasium, and brothel. Marriage was respected as an institution that provided progeny and good housekeeping; it was not expected to fulfill one’s longing for a soulmate.”

  15. The Romans spread the concept of consensual marriage across the Empire: marriages were valid when based on the consent of the bride, groom and the bride’s father.

    Future marriages were still being arranged between families often when girls were still 7 or 8 years old. Divorce, abortion, and childlessness became commonplace in the late Republic/early Empire.

    Emperor Augustus ordered bachelors to take wives and marry. The ideal Augustinian family had at least 3 children. Elite Roman women, who were educated, had rights that were unheard of in classical Athens, including the right to own and dispose of substantial property.

    Divorce and remarriage were commonplace among the Roman elite. See Cicero and Pompey.

  17. The Christian innovation was “no divorce”…

    The Jedeo-Christian innovation is faggot marriage.

  19. “Divorce, abortion, and childlessness became commonplace in the late Republic/early Empire.” – to a certain extent that was also economics. The smallholders were wiped out by the latifundia.

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