In an interesting book called Dr. Bowlder's Legacy, author Nick Parrin makes the case that the one 19th century social historian expunged much of the reality of American political life. So like a Greek temple, now whitewashed that has lost all its color so too has the American social tapestry. I think if Franklin was here and in charge we would be having more sex in the healthy way with our wives and and if single with our friends and a as a result a lot more happy in our business without the social preoccupations of a post-modern straight-laced Victorianism. We would also court and develop virtue in the things that matter and eventually so much of our popular culture would no longer be preoccupied with sex in general.
I would like to reclaim a little bit of that color here today by offering a letter from Ben Franklin on advice to the normal single guy on choosing a mistress that was parodied by Steve in his last post. His attitudes and ideas are then contrasted with the second except from Victor Hugo.
Philadelphia, June 25, 1745
My dear Friend,
I know of no medicine fit to diminish the violent natural inclinations you mention, and if I did, I think I should not communicate it with you. Marriage is the proper remedy. It is the most natural state of man, and therefore the state in which you are most likely to find solid happiness. Your reasons against entering into it at present appear to me not well founded. The circumstantial advantages you have in postponing it are not only uncertain, but they are small in comparison with that of the thing itself, the being married and settled. It is the man and the woman united that make a complete human being. Separate, she wonts his force of body and strength of reason; he, her softness, sensibility, and acute discernment. Together they are more likely to succeed in the world. A single man has not nearly the value he would have in the state of union. He is an incomplete animal. He resembles the odd half of a pair of scissors. If you get a prudent, healthy wife, your industry in your profession, with her good economy will be a fortune sufficient.
But if you will not take this counsel and persist in thinking of commerce with the sex inevitable, then I repeat my former advice, that in all your amours you should prefer old women to young ones.
You call this a paradox and demand my reasons. They are these;
1. Because they have more knowledge of the world and their minds are better stored with observations, their conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreeable.
2. Because when women cease to be handsome they study to be good. To maintain their influence over men, they supply the diminution of beauty by augmentation of utility. They learn to do a thousand services small and great, and are the most tender and useful friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old woman who is not a good woman.
3. Because there is no hazard of children, which irregularly produced may be attended with much inconvenience.
4. Because through more experience they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an intrigue to prevent suspicion. The commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your reputation. And with regards to theirs, if the affair should happen to be known, considered people might be rather inclined to excuse an old woman, who would kindly take care of a young man, form his manners by her good counsels, and prevent his ruining his life and fortune among mercenary prostitutes.
5. Because in every animal that walks upright the deficiency of the fluids that fill the muscles appears first in the highest part. The face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the neck, then the breasts and arms; the lower parts continuing to the last as plump as ever; so that covering all above with a basket, and regarding only what is below the girdle, it is impossible of two women to tell and old one from a young one. And as in the dark all cats are grey, the pleasure of corporal enjoyment with an old woman is at least equal, and frequently superior; every knack being, by practice, capable of improvement.
6. Because the sin is less. The debacuhing a virgin may be her ruin, and make her for life unhappy.
7. Because the compunction is less. The having made a young girl miserable may give you a frequent bitter reflection; none of which can attend the making an old woman happy.
8. And lastly. They are so Grateful!
Thus much for my paradox. but still I advise you to marry directly; being sincerely
Your affectionate friend,
Benjamin Franklin
And on to a second reflection from Victor Hugo who was betrayed by his wife with a literary critic and minor poet and who decided that affairs were the way to go, wrote while having an affair with his best friend's daughter Judith Gautier who was married at the time.
Death and Beauty, being deep, the both of them,
both jeweled with obsidian and azure, I would say,
the two were sisters, fierce and rich,
with the same promise and enigma.Women,
shine to me! Voices, glances, black hair,
blond, - for I am dying! I, who see your brilliance,
like the sheen of pearls that tumble in the breakers,
or like birds that flash far off in a dark woods.
Judith, our two fates have brought us closer,
then we seem, to your face and mine;
in your eyes, a divine abyss appears, and I feel
In my soul a gulf plunged through with stars;
both of us belong to that same sky,
since you are beautiful and I am old.
Needless to say the relationship went well for Hugo whose ego as enlarged by the fact that he was having an affair with a young woman. Given the fact that he had several hundred brief sexual encounters, it is amazing he did not get syphilis, but he never did and died at 83, in 1805.
What remarkable diversity of opinion we have in democratic society about the nature and role of
sexuality during that time before Queen Victoria ruined all the fun we were supposed to have and the Catholic Church crushed the natural impulses and replaced our innate sense of virtue and humble marriage with institutionalized morality. It is interesting to note that the Quakers like Franklin are still charged (as I was taught by my grand mom) with being too "loose" while Catholics typically venerate Victor Hugo as a protector of western civilization in France. The point here being that personal responsibility is a much deeper driving force than institutionalized social rules that everyone wants to break. And of all us single guys can say like Goethe's Faust, "Come follow me, and let us have love" only hoping that some ounce of happiness will follow.
I would like to reclaim a little bit of that color here today by offering a letter from Ben Franklin on advice to the normal single guy on choosing a mistress that was parodied by Steve in his last post. His attitudes and ideas are then contrasted with the second except from Victor Hugo.
Philadelphia, June 25, 1745
My dear Friend,
I know of no medicine fit to diminish the violent natural inclinations you mention, and if I did, I think I should not communicate it with you. Marriage is the proper remedy. It is the most natural state of man, and therefore the state in which you are most likely to find solid happiness. Your reasons against entering into it at present appear to me not well founded. The circumstantial advantages you have in postponing it are not only uncertain, but they are small in comparison with that of the thing itself, the being married and settled. It is the man and the woman united that make a complete human being. Separate, she wonts his force of body and strength of reason; he, her softness, sensibility, and acute discernment. Together they are more likely to succeed in the world. A single man has not nearly the value he would have in the state of union. He is an incomplete animal. He resembles the odd half of a pair of scissors. If you get a prudent, healthy wife, your industry in your profession, with her good economy will be a fortune sufficient.
But if you will not take this counsel and persist in thinking of commerce with the sex inevitable, then I repeat my former advice, that in all your amours you should prefer old women to young ones.
You call this a paradox and demand my reasons. They are these;
1. Because they have more knowledge of the world and their minds are better stored with observations, their conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreeable.
2. Because when women cease to be handsome they study to be good. To maintain their influence over men, they supply the diminution of beauty by augmentation of utility. They learn to do a thousand services small and great, and are the most tender and useful friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old woman who is not a good woman.
3. Because there is no hazard of children, which irregularly produced may be attended with much inconvenience.
4. Because through more experience they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an intrigue to prevent suspicion. The commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your reputation. And with regards to theirs, if the affair should happen to be known, considered people might be rather inclined to excuse an old woman, who would kindly take care of a young man, form his manners by her good counsels, and prevent his ruining his life and fortune among mercenary prostitutes.
5. Because in every animal that walks upright the deficiency of the fluids that fill the muscles appears first in the highest part. The face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the neck, then the breasts and arms; the lower parts continuing to the last as plump as ever; so that covering all above with a basket, and regarding only what is below the girdle, it is impossible of two women to tell and old one from a young one. And as in the dark all cats are grey, the pleasure of corporal enjoyment with an old woman is at least equal, and frequently superior; every knack being, by practice, capable of improvement.
6. Because the sin is less. The debacuhing a virgin may be her ruin, and make her for life unhappy.
7. Because the compunction is less. The having made a young girl miserable may give you a frequent bitter reflection; none of which can attend the making an old woman happy.
8. And lastly. They are so Grateful!
Thus much for my paradox. but still I advise you to marry directly; being sincerely
Your affectionate friend,
Benjamin Franklin
And on to a second reflection from Victor Hugo who was betrayed by his wife with a literary critic and minor poet and who decided that affairs were the way to go, wrote while having an affair with his best friend's daughter Judith Gautier who was married at the time.
Death and Beauty, being deep, the both of them,
both jeweled with obsidian and azure, I would say,
the two were sisters, fierce and rich,
with the same promise and enigma.Women,
shine to me! Voices, glances, black hair,
blond, - for I am dying! I, who see your brilliance,
like the sheen of pearls that tumble in the breakers,
or like birds that flash far off in a dark woods.
Judith, our two fates have brought us closer,
then we seem, to your face and mine;
in your eyes, a divine abyss appears, and I feel
In my soul a gulf plunged through with stars;
both of us belong to that same sky,
since you are beautiful and I am old.
Needless to say the relationship went well for Hugo whose ego as enlarged by the fact that he was having an affair with a young woman. Given the fact that he had several hundred brief sexual encounters, it is amazing he did not get syphilis, but he never did and died at 83, in 1805.
What remarkable diversity of opinion we have in democratic society about the nature and role of
sexuality during that time before Queen Victoria ruined all the fun we were supposed to have and the Catholic Church crushed the natural impulses and replaced our innate sense of virtue and humble marriage with institutionalized morality. It is interesting to note that the Quakers like Franklin are still charged (as I was taught by my grand mom) with being too "loose" while Catholics typically venerate Victor Hugo as a protector of western civilization in France. The point here being that personal responsibility is a much deeper driving force than institutionalized social rules that everyone wants to break. And of all us single guys can say like Goethe's Faust, "Come follow me, and let us have love" only hoping that some ounce of happiness will follow.
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