With Valentines Day fast approaching I thought I’d offer a refresher on the manners of chivalry. As before we turn to De Amore (1184-86), a poem with a list of rules for what we commonly know as chivalry and what literary scholars call courtly love. The English translation of the title is A Treatise on Courtly Love.
From the Infogalactic page on De Amore:
Courtly love is reserved for the middle and upper classes in De Amore. Attractive peasant girls are to be shunned or, failing this, “embraced by force”:
If you should, by some chance, fall in love with a peasant woman, be careful to puff her up with lots of praise and then, when you find a convenient opportunity, do not hold back but take your pleasure and embrace her by force. For you can hardly soften their outward inflexibility so far that they will grant you their embraces quietly or permit you to have the solaces you desire unless you first use a little compulsion as a convenient cure for their shyness. We do not say these things, however, because we want to persuade you to love such women, but only so that, if through lack of caution you should be driven to love them, you may know, in brief compass, what to do. (Parry, p. 150, adapted).
In a similar vein, Andreas describes nuns as easy to seduce, although he condemns anyone who does so as a “disgusting animal.” (This caution does not apply to monks or priests.)
The logic here is obvious. Courtly love (what we call chivalry) was created by powerful noblewomen to upend Christian teaching on men, women, and sexual morality. What it does is justify noble women going feral sexually by claiming that women’s sexual desire is virtuous, even sanctifying. That noble women would prefer to maximize their own sexual opportunity while restricting their competition isn’t surprising in the least. I can think of no more effective way for the Countess of Champagne and her clique to keep those common bitches in their place than to declare them open season for noblemen to rape.
What should surprise us is that over 800 years later nearly all modern Christians mistake this for something virtuous, the lens to look through when interpreting Scripture.
See Also: Fifty shades of Lancelot.
The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland denies unfeminine, vain women “church privileges”:
http://www.fpchurch.org.uk/about-us/what-we-contend-for/distinctions-between-male-and-female/long-hair-for-women-and-short-hair-for-men/
“It is verily immoral and dishonouring to God that a woman should shear her hair to suit the “fashions” of her age! It is an “abomination to the Lord that she should put on the garment of the man” whether in clothing or in cutting her hair like the male. No honest, honourable, modest, or God-fearing woman would ever bow to such vile practices in the light of God’s direct prohibition. . . . No woman, young or old should ever be permitted to sit at the Lord’s Table with her lips painted red, and her hair shorn, or shaven, which is contrary to the Word of God. . . . Whatever is allowed in other churches, all kirk-sessions within the pale of the Free Presbyterian Church should always watch that no daughter of Jezebel with painted face, and shorn hair, should receive church privileges unless, and until she should repent, and walk in the ways of the Lord according to His Word.”
@Dalrock
Here’s a potential blog post idea. https://itsgoodtobeaman.com/singleness-is-not-normal
From what I’ve read it’s on solid footing. My only possible contention is with the part where the author says “Most people do not have this gift (of singleness). And if you don’t, if you burn with desire, then singleness is not a gift to you.”
He later says that “We cannot justify Christians going MGTOW, but we would certainly encourage them to remain single if they do not burn.”
The elephant in the room is the lack of suitable potential spouses and the societal trend for women to delay marriage until they have acquired traits that make them dangerous to marry. Even if men don’t have the gift of singleness and want to marry, that doesn’t change the limited number of marriageable women. And if someone were to argue, “well, then you need to do this and this and this to make it happen” the standards are bound to be beyond the reach of normal men, and so they’re still implicitly framing marriage as only for the elite but all men should nevertheless seek it out.
This is why the current conversations about marriage in the church are ineffective, because men aren’t the ones driving the delay in marriage or the societal norms. They can only choose to whether to accept “marriage” in its current form.
And what ways are women using to restrict competition today?
Rape. It’s what’s for dinner.
This reminds me of what Juvenal said of Roman women:
But whence come these monstrosities? you ask; from what fountain do they flow? In days of old, the wives of Latium were kept chase by their humble fortunes. It was toil and brief slumbers that kept vice from polluting their modest homes; hands chafed and hardened by Tuscan fleeces, Hannibal nearing the city, and husbands standing to arms at the Colline tower. We are now suffering the calamities of long peace. Luxury, more deadly than any foe, has laid her hand upon us, and avenges a conquered world. Since the day when Roman poverty perished, no deed of crime or lust has been wanting to us; from that moment Sybaris and Rhodes and Miletus have poured in upon our hills with the begarlanded and drunken and unabashed Tarentum. Filthy lucre first brought in amongst us foreign ways; wealth enervated and corrupted the ages with foul indulgences. What decency does Venus observe when she is drunken? when she knows not head from tail, eats giant oysters at midnight, pours foaming unguents into her unmixed Falerian, and drinks out of perfume- flasks, while the roof spins dizzily around, the table dances, and every light shows double!
Satire VI
Churches have historically always had somewhat problematic attitudes towards sexuality; either too loose, or too strict. Similarly, cultural norms left their marks and influenced church teachings.
I still remember the horrified reaction of an otherwise devout Christian woman when I suggested that Paul in 1 Corinthians suggests that a man has authority over his wife’s body, and the wife over her man’s body. She just couldn’t grasp how I could imagine that sex between husband and wife works like that, because after all, women would just not be able to have sex without the properly prepared state of mind/emotions.
the Question
The elephant in the room is the lack of suitable potential spouses and the societal trend for women to delay marriage until they have acquired traits that make them dangerous to marry.
The median age of a woman in the US at her first marriage is 27. I do not know what it is in New Zealand, likely it is close. This is what women choose, it has nothing to do with what men want.
@The Question
Right. Their implicit goal is to create a crack squad of elite husbands to solve the problem of feminist rebellion by wives. They aren’t new in this thinking, as this has been the approach for decades. But you don’t generate an elite squad of anything by repeatedly shouting “man up”. To create an elite squad of anything, you need to ruthlessly weed out the men who can’t hack it. This perspective of course dovetails in with modern divorce laws. Sorry little Billy, but mommy had to cut your dad from the team.
They also imply that Christian marriage is only for the elite when they place the responsibility for women’s sins on men.
Likewise when they write:
I certainly wouldn’t argue with advice not to marry a brassy whore, but they are doing something different here. They are saying Christian marriage is only for the elite. Yet at the same time they are (rightly) pointing out that God’s plan is for nearly all men and women to marry. There is no way to reconcile these two things.
I also disagree with them in frame. Their frame is that marriage is a burden men have, and men have a duty to choose marriage. They are angry with men who won’t join them in carrying this burden. I see it as the reverse. I see my marriage as a blessing. I grieve for the men who are denied this blessing due to our generational wickedness.
I don’t plan on doing a separate post on this, but I did cover aspects of this in my interview with Nathan of Warhorn. The interviews have all been done for around two weeks, but first I was waiting to see if Nathan had further questions, and now I’m trying to avoid rolling them all out at once and boring my readers.
@Anon Reader
Why are you denying men’s responsibility to buy these women dinner and desert?
@Dalrock, if that’s your concern, and you’ll take two cents from a complete cyber stranger, go ahead and roll them out, honestly I don’t think anyone would be bored.
When I first started seeing my first wife, it was kind of a secret from her parents because they thought I was a bad boy/in a rock band/that sort of thing.
When she found out, her mom confronted us with “he has not been to us and declared his intentions!”
It was really weird because I was like 19 and just trying to get a girlfriend or whatever.
@Dalrock
“Their frame is that marriage is a burden men have, and men have a duty to choose marriage. They are angry with men who won’t join them in carrying this burden. I see it as the reverse. I see my marriage as a blessing. I grieve for the men who are denied this blessing due to our generational wickedness.”
It’s funny that you say that, because this is essentially how marriage was framed for me growing up in the church. Marriage wasn’t a blessing; it was an obligation or duty. It was never framed as something I would naturally want.
I’ve wondered why that is, and one possibility is that you can’t get young men too excited about marriage, or else they might actually be actively interested in marriage before the girls have has their chance to earn all their feminist merit badges. It’s almost as though they discourage young men from thinking about marriage, then turn around and yell at them when they’re older for remaining single as though it was they who intended to avoid marriage without any pressure to do so.
I’ve wondered why that is, and one possibility is that you can’t get young men too excited about marriage, or else they might actually be actively interested in marriage before the girls have has their chance to earn all their feminist merit badges. It’s almost as though they discourage young men from thinking about marriage, then turn around and yell at them when they’re older for remaining single as though it was they who intended to avoid marriage without any pressure to do so.
Not a bad theory. I spent a lot of time responding to the ambient cultural message by “dating” (a euphemism) in my late teens and early twenties but not getting “too serious”
It was a lot of fun, but we can all see the aggregate consequences on the society in hindsight.
Curious but not surprising Valentines Day statistics and “did you knows” for 2019
* In 2019, it is estimated that 55% of all Americans won’t even celebrate it.
*35% of women who are dating or have a boyfriend EXPECT a gift of $200.00 or more if dating for more than 3 -4 months before Valentines Day.
*Americans who do celebrate, the average money spent has dropped off as well since the turn of the century. The average American man now spends $75.00 compared to $165.00 in 1998 on Valentines Day.
*10% of women today send themselves flowers at work on Valentines Day to convey / compete with / cause envy in female coworkers and to keep “chumps” at work away from them “See, I’m taken!”
*Men who receive a gift on Valentines Day from their wife or girlfriend usually get a card. Most men want a gift card of sorts to a car wash, Starbucks, sports shop, Home Depot type of store or just more sex than usual.
*In 1999, there were evidently 750,000 marriage proposals on Valentines Day. In 2017 a paltry 112,000 were “asked”
*Dating apps / and dating sites skyrocket in use just after the holiday, due to the “free” trials, and discount incentives to sign-up.
*NASCAR now pulls in more views over the Valentines Day weekend than any “romantic comedy” or “new releases” movies over the weekend and have done so since 2009.
*Napa, Sonoma, Santa Rosa, and Petaluma CA are rated some of the best vacation spots for romantic couples over the Valentines Day / weekend every year since the early 2000’s.
*Pet cats / dogs get more Valentines Day cards than co-workers now, and most people in fact!
*If you are a single man, you will likely be celebrating Valentines Day if: you make over 75K a year. You are over 6′ tall and you are considered in the upper tiers of appearance and under the age of 35.
It’s too bad that today’s celebration of Saint Valentine’s Day has become a horrible parody. The real man, a priest named Valentine, or Valens, is remembered for illegally marrying Christian couples in the third century. Apparently, married men were exempt from conscription in the Roman Army, and the emperor didn’t appreciate Valentine’s work.
The irony is that Valentine’s work of bringing couples into holy marriage has been turned into a completely mockery by the cult of courtly love which has now claimed his name and his feast day. Rather than being a day to celebrate marriage, it has become a day to celebrate fornication and putting women on a pedestal.
The Question-
Good stuff. I have always noticed similar, there is a fear of men enjoying marriage too much, if you catch my drift. I think this is part of the root behind making sure a woman is in a “proper state of mind” before martial relations. These individuals are afraid of men being “selfish.” Anything that speaks of any benefit a man might derive out of marriage is to be shunned.
We can also note such statements like, “Marriage is a call to holiness, not happiness,” combined with the whole servant leader canard in general.
God forbid a man should delight in the wife of his youth (Prov 5:18).
Dalrock
Why are you denying men’s responsibility to buy these women dinner and desert?
My bad. Men must buy all of that and a pony.
Or better yet, horse with no name, so they can both get through that desert…
[D: Ha!]
AR, ROTFL!
Pingback: How to woo a peasant woman. | Reaction Times
Off Topic: “Transgender” “men” learn that “male privilege” doesn’t exist.
So there is a downside to being “desirable” to women. Whoulda thunk?
Great post. I’d add that the degeneration of some assemblies in the state I reside have reached the point where people who practice homosexuality, including bull dykes and trannys, are being “ordained” as “Christian ministers” and put on church payrolls.
These masquerading agents of wickedness deceitfully propagate destructive heresies from pulpits wearing turned around collars. I’ve challenged a few of their “parishioners” about it when I run across them occasionally in the public square and they either didn’t care or cared enough to call me all sorts of names (e.g. bigot, fascist, nazi, blah blah blah) and tell everyone they could find that’s what I am. I haven’t sued anyone for slander though I suppose I could.
Back in the day, I’d have give them some steel toed boot therapy if my name came out of their mouth inappropriately but since becoming a Christian I instead try to explain to them that calling me names won’t change the error they’ve embraced… to no effect. Broad is the road that leads to destruction and they’re happily racing down it as fast as they can go.
* In 2019, it is estimated that 55% of all Americans won’t even celebrate it.
Wonderful news! Any bets on how long it will take to straighten out the remaining 45 percent?
*Men who receive a gift on Valentines Day from their wife or girlfriend usually get a card. Most men want a gift card of sorts to a car wash, Starbucks, sports shop, Home Depot type of store or just more sex than usual.
Most of us don’t even get a card, and the next man I meet who gets an actual gift on Vagintine’s Day will be the first. I probably wouldn’t believe him even if he snowed it to me.
showed, not “snowed.”
@Paul
Its like fire. Fire makes life possible. Fire cooks food to makes it edible and keeps us from freezing to death. Fire makes most technology possible.
Proper limits were essential to its use and safety.
Without fire most of us if not all will be dead.
Same with sensuality with sex. In its proper place and sanctified it is very good. Promiscuity is out of control fire. Frigidity is no fire at all.
@Oscar
Born male is hard mode.
Some are just as likely to snow you about it feeriker!
Elite English women redefine Rape ever more broadly (and like the late elite woman-of-privilege Jo Cox in her Parliamentary Maiden speech tell us of the wonders of Multiculturalism) whilst at the same time ignoring (in the constituency next door to Jo Cox’s, as she did) the sexual use and doubtless abuse of 1400 lower-class [read peasant] female virgins ’embraced by force’ in Rotherham.
I am grateful to De Amore for making the arrangement clear and for showing that the more things change the more they stay the same.
Not only are they declaring that the upper classes can take what they want, but at the same time they state you shouldn’t be foolish enough to fall for a peasant.
Ironically, that removes the most stable marriage arrangement choice a man could get. If he chose a peasant girl, he would be above her in class, earnings, education, and status.
Sounds like an attempt to try and suppress sexual interest to me. That’s always how churches implied things worked when I was a teen. Young men were running around just barely keeping it in their pants, maybe, on a good day. The church had to help by making sure you never thought of the girls sexually. Marriage isn’t about your sex drive see, it’s about your obligations and duty. That wheel you shoulder up to and push because your goddess demands it.
@WB The church had to help by making sure you never thought of the girls sexually. Marriage isn’t about your sex drive see, it’s about your obligations and duty.
As I said : “Churches have historically always had somewhat problematic attitudes towards sexuality; either too loose, or too strict.”; many traditional American churches are too strict.
Christian should celebrate sex as a God-given gift between husband and wife that expresses the intimate relationship between Christ and His Church pur-sang. Marriage is the only proper place for it, but once you’re married, go for it, have as much sex as each of you requires! And remember, it is only by mutual consent to NOT have sex.
feeriker: Most of us don’t even get a card, and the next man I meet who gets an actual gift on Vagintine’s Day will be the first.
I got a gift.
Over 20 years ago, I took a woman to a lunch date on Valentine’s Day. We were sorta dating, but not quite. We’d been friends for a few months, but hovering over possibly become more. (We never did.)
I bought her a gift. A hardback copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. I thought it was a good book, and that she should read it.
She got me a red Valentine’s Day mug.
I get a Valentines gift every year.
This year it is a new pair of binoculars and sex. She is getting a new skillet and sex.
For those keeping score, my gift will cost about 2X her gift.
Regarding the continuing trend of women delaying marriage, I had an encounter yesterday that left me speechless, even though I’ve been reading this blog and others for quite some time.
A “good girl” acquaintance of mine was discussing her upcoming trip to Paris with her longtime boyfriend. She’s about 24, and has been in this relationship for about a year and a half, cohabitating for 8 months or so.
An older Boomer who was in our conversation observed, “Hey, don’t be surprised if he proposes in Paris.”
Her response? “Oh, he better not. He definitely knows that too.” I was stunned and basically couldn’t continue the conversation.
If the average 20-something gal won’t even marry her long-term, cohabitating boyfriend after he takes her to Paris, then maybe I should give up! Unfortunately, this ties with my experience as a late-20s urbanite that very, very few of these women are marriage-minded, even in the church. And then the ones that are 35 and jaded aren’t marriage-worthy.
When that “good girl” gets to be around 26 to 27 or so her position on marriage will begin changing. It will become obvious when she’s 29.99 years old.
The shift “good girl with a boyfriend and sometimes another on the side” to “good girl ready to get married NOW!” is called “lane changing” in some parts of the manosphere.
Do not become cynical, but do be aware of it. a
Badman says:
February 12, 2019 at 10:57 pm
1. What exactly makes her a “good girl?”
2. PLEASE don’t tell me she claims to be a Christian (although I won’t be the least bit shocked if you were to tell me that she does).
@ RPL and goFigure:
Congratulations to both of you! You are members of a VERY rare club.
The “good girl” wants to keep her options open. Who knows who she’ll meet in Paris? A French lover — oo, la la!
In the meantime, she’s holding on to the boyfriend because she might be willing to “settle” for him later on, though he’s not her top choice.
The boyfriend should dump her now, rather than be dumped or frivorced later.
@feeriker
I used air quotes because, on the surface, she is what society would consider to be a “good girl”: stable boyfriend, respectable job, no tattoos/piercings, etc. But you and I know that these types of women can still be very hypergamous with a lot of baggage. To my knowledge she is not a practicing Christian.
I concluded that she must really see her boyfriend as a beta bucks and fallback option. No big surprise there. After all, she apparently already dictated the terms of their relationship to him, including when he can propose (or when not), and he seems to accept this. If I were in his shoes, I couldn’t imagine staying with a woman who has already directly told me she would be mad if/when I propose.
I concluded that she must really see her boyfriend as a beta bucks and fallback option.
There’s a romcom about a fallback option, called The Backup Plan:
Jennifer Lopez’s backup plan is that if she’s not married by a certain age, she’ll go to a sperm bank and become a single mother. She does this, and after becoming pregnant, meets the perfect guy.
But will he marry her, despite her being already pregnant, and adopt her child by an unknown sperm donor? (The movie clearly hints that this is the right thing to do.)
As an added bonus and comic relief, Jennifer Lopez also has a Gay Best Friend.