Historical Facts That Counter Fundie's Romantic Views

[Katiebug]

Well, it wasn't a gay island, but let's just say that gay sex was hardly closeted in ancient Greece. ;)

:lol: I'm flashing to the scene in The Birdcage where the intended in-laws are visiting and they hurry to spoon the atrocious soup into the bowls because the religious conservative father of the bride sees two dudes "wrestling" on the Greek-inspired china.

/derailment

[jesssnerch]

I'm only going back to the 50's and sixties because I only know what my parents had to go through growing up:

My mother's family- my grandmother had nine kids, six of which survived. She had a little boy that drowned at three years old and she had a nervous breakdown over it (she never got treatment). They were very poor and the Catholic church almost refused to hold a service for the boy because my grandparents couldn't afford an offering. This was the church they got married in! My grandmother never went to church again. She then had a set of twins that were born deformed and didn't live very long after birth. She never spoke of them. My grandfather was a drunk and my grandmother left him and was forced to work in a factory until she retired to earn a living to raise her six remaining children. She was actually quite progressive in that respect.

My father's family was POOR. They lived in a house with no glass in the windows and had to wear heavy coats to bed. My father was malnourished and as the oldest boy of six children (3 boys, 3 girls) he often collected golf balls at the golf course and sold them to buy food and diapers for his younger siblings. The sad part of this is that my grandfather made a good living, but had a gambling problem and so they had to live in abject poverty. My dad told me my grandfather used to give him a dollar for the church collection basket and send him off on Sundays. My dad would skip church and spend the dollar at the bakery. He told me, "Screw that, I needed to eat more than the church needed that dollar!" Everyone in the neighborhood and even the rest of my father's family knew the kids were starving, no one helped. So much for community charity.

These are the reason my parents never were involved in an organized religion and this is what happened in the "good ol' days" in the United States.

[Sumeri]

In another thread, I think it was the Bradrick LOL one, someone very wisely pointed out that this (Peter's WTF of a "business") is what happens when women are submissive and let their husbands go off and play games instead of stepping up and being a productive member of the household.

I think something similar happens in cases like this. I'll use my husband as an example: he really, really likes reading cowboy novels and Old West stories, where the man fights the bad guys and then gets to rescue the waiflike girl with the biggest bosoms. If left to his own devices, I could easily see him starting to believe that this is the way it was in the 1800s, but instead he married someone who makes him read the bosomy passages aloud so that we can laugh at them. If any of you have ever been in the company of a typical German/Russian/Scandinavian/*insert heritage of choice here* farmwife you know who rules the roost in most of those houses, and it ain't the rooster.I would LOVE to see some of these fundie wives get an education from some real grannies who were around in those days (and I just attended the 90th birthday party of one of them who didn't even get indoor plumbing til 1978, so they're still out there). They'd tell them to put on some pants and get to work.

[Pudicitia]

Pudicitia, I absolutely agree, the Romans hardly had anything like egalitarian marriages in law. However upperclass Athenian society takes the cake in terms of keeping women as segregated breeding stock.

Oh, yes, definitely. Have you come across Xenophon's Oeconomicus? It's a 'household economics' manual in the form of a quasi-philosophical treatise. You can read the bit about wives here: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/x/xenopho ... pter7.html

A highlight:

Ah! (said I), Ischomachus, that is just what I should like particularly to learn from you. Did you yourself educate your wife to be all that a wife should be, or when you received her from her father and mother was she already a proficient well skilled to discharge the duties appropriate to a wife?

Well skilled! (he replied). What proficiency was she likely to bring with her, when she was not quite fifteen at the time she wedded me, and during the whole prior period of her life had been most carefully brought up to see and hear as little as possible, and to ask the fewest questions? or do you not think one should be satisfied, if at marriage her whole experience consisted in knowing how to take the wool and make a dress, and seeing how her mother’s handmaidens had their daily spinning-tasks assigned them? For (he added), as regards control of appetite and self-indulgence, she had received the soundest education, and that I take to be the most important matter in the bringing-up of man or woman.

The rest of the chapter is worth reading - all about how weak women need to be protected by their headships and whatnot. :roll:

[bananacat]

It's interesting that historically, the most patriarchal societies are the ones where homosexual male love becomes more common. In societies where women are held in complete disdain or are viewed as being as stupid as a child, men will be far less likely to want to have any kind of meaningful relationship with them and will use them only to breed with while having deeper relationships with other men. I wonder how long it will be until fundies start openly allowing fellowship between two men as long as both men are doing their duty by impregnating their breeding stock as often as possible.

[clarinetpower]

Here's another article with some good info:

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/06/22 ... ok-or-two/

[Fun-Dee]

My mother grew up in southern California in the 30's and 40's. She was second of only four children, probably because her alcoholic father left them so often. My grandmother worked in a defense plant, or in a bar, or as a dime a dance girl, whatever work she could find. My mother got married at 15, and cried because she couldn't take her 5 year old brother with her. It was not many years ago that I found out the reason my grandma let my mom marry so young. My dad had a good job and could afford to feed her on a regular basis. My parents are still happily married, by the way. After my mom was married, my grandma finally divorced her first husband and married my grandpa, who was always good to her. My mom ended up calling him dad.

My dad grew up during the dust bowl years in Oklahoma, and worked hard at a very young age. He did say they always had enough to eat though, because they grew almost everything they ate.

[Guest Anonymous]

Now, now. Mustn't confuse the fundies with the facts. :naughty: Some of their women might swoon.

Or break their fingers cliutching their pearls.

[Peas n carrots]

Yeah, fundies should read Dickens books too understand that, and for France the ones by Emile Zola, but some of them as quite explicit and they could be defrauded :lol:

I remembered reading Germinal in college by Zola. Holy crickets, the ending was horrific. But it's entirely accurate for the time.

[thoughtful]

I looked at the title for this thread and thought "pretty much all of them!"

Glad to see the subject has been so well-covered already!

ETA: Fundies also like to leave out how widely used drugs like cocaine, etc. were by perfect, upper class Christians w/o repercussions.