That's interesting… I suppose marriage has always been very complex. It would be different for the strata and classes of societies.
The higher up and you go with the more wealth/land/possessions you have to look after the more restricted it'd be. And that would be tightest for the first borns. Later children would have much more leeway, boys moreso than girls.
At the lower levels people might aspire to good arranged marriages but I'm sure a lot of the time they'd have meet and greats with people of the same age (village dances, tribal festivities etc), to try and pair people off before they let nature take its course with the randy young'ns and have daughters stuck being supported at home with the family while she rases some wild sewn oats, so to speak. :D
Also, don't forget suitors! Eligable young men who want to press their case to the marriagable lady… It wasn't always about what the family wanted, the lady was often free to make her own choice for her own reasons.
Look at Penelope! She didn't want ANY of those layabout bastards and her family was fully behind that. Lucky Odysseus wasn't dead in the end though because those guys were pricks!
And there are many, many stories of a couple falling in love, the man not being suitable to the family, the young man going off to get rich enough to be acceptable… I don't know how far those stories go back though, but I'm prety sure it's at least the 18th century (to be safe, but probably older).
Aaaaaaannnd Shakespere. He had a few good love stories, not all ending in happy marriages though. :D
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As someone who is actively planning a wedding, I really think it's up to the couple in question. If you want a wedding, go for it. If you don't, then you shouldn't feel like you have to. The old meanings behind weddings don't really apply anymore, especially since there's no obligation to include things like dowries.
ozoneocean wrote:
That's interesting… I suppose marriage has always been very complex. It would be different for the strata and classes of societies.
I think you've more accurately depicted the complexity of marriage in history, ozone. (I have apparently appointed myself Official Historical Scorekeeper of the forums.)
Bravo - when you say "relatively recent," that's still going back quite a ways. Certainly in the early 19th century, it was seen as desirable for a couple being married to have affection for each other. Read something like Pride and Prejudice - of course the romance angle will be played up for the sake of a good story, but you get the general feeling that young men and women were making their own choices, and while they had to take into consideration fortune and social position and so on, feelings were a definite factor as well. And by the turn of the century, parents really had very little control over the romantic choices of their children. So that's at least 100-200 years of people getting married for love - plenty of time to adapt the whole silly ceremony. (As ozone says, the element of affection may well go back a lot further than that. I'm just most comfortable in that area of history.)
maskdt wrote:
As someone who is actively planning a wedding, I really think it's up to the couple in question. If you want a wedding, go for it. If you don't, then you shouldn't feel like you have to. The old meanings behind weddings don't really apply anymore, especially since there's no obligation to include things like dowries.
Well, yes. But what I was complaining about earlier is that it's also an imposition on a lot of other people in your life. I'm sure you've got some friends and family roped into helping you plan, no? :P
By relatively recent I mean 18-19th romanticism. Marriage for love was always singled out as an exception before then and often commented upon. See the whole cafluffle over Edward III's marriage for love which totally screwed up Warwick's plans and probably led to the second round of the Wars of the Roses. Most traditions in the marriage ceremony actually have their roots in medieval even Anglo-saxon/Viking customs. And the abandonment of the wife's dowry or troussout is also very, very recent and actually mostly in the English speaking world. The wife is still expected to bring a supply of linens and other household goods to the marriage which is a remnant of the tradition of the dowry especially among the non-nobility.
Like a lot of things what you may think is Romantic myth and what actually is is hidden from view. Those pesky Victorians were masters at re-writing and re-interpreting history through their own romantic, purifed, rarified prism.
And just when they were starting to restore the parthenon… :(
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@Bravo- You're still not really adressing the full picture of different classes, later children etc.
Many families didn't have anything to give away or gain… also remarriage after widowing was also a thing.
History is vast and full of many shades of grey.
You seem to mainly be talking about the big important state weddings, or those of the first children of wealthy families… But their situation hasn't changed much even to this day and age, they still prefer to arrange weddings and people make a huge deal out of it when they don't.
ozoneocean wrote:You need to do more research. I'd recommend the various books in the Hisotry of Private Life series, Sex in History and a pile of others. It's even in the Koran and the Bible as well as various legal codes and case files from Babylon to Medieval England. The poor always want to emulate the rich even if they have nothing and thsoe with the least will always find something to give away with the bride. It is tradition. Whyy should it be the same in China, Africa, Europe and Polynesia? Why the same patterns again and again? Plenty of variety but the basics are always there. The shades of gray doesn't matter because it's always still gray. There's never purple or yellow it's always merely variations of the same thing again and again.
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@Bravo- You're still not really adressing the full picture of different classes, later children etc.
Many families didn't have anything to give away or gain… also remarriage after widowing was also a thing.
History is vast and full of many shades of grey.
You seem to mainly be talking about the big important state weddings, or those of the first children of wealthy families… But their situation hasn't changed much even to this day and age, they still prefer to arrange weddings and people make a huge deal out of it when they don't.
Phoo.
I'm moving, soon.
The lease is up in my current apartment, and quite frankly, I can't wait to put this place behind me. It's been a disaster from page one, and closing the book… well, it won't be satisfying, but it will be good to move on.
It's a big move, too- across a couple of states. An entirely new installment in the series of my life. So I'm really, really nervous and trying not to panic about it.
Excuse me while I hide in the corner.
eengh
Good luck on the move. I may be moving to the mainland U.S. myself. Not really my choice. My stepmother is alone there and my brothers don't have the time to keep an eye on her all the time, so now they've asked me to go over there. Don't know when this will happen though…
I had another trashing about "nightmare" the other night. I was building this awesome wooden ship model and some guys playing football landing on it. So I took the rest of the lumber and starting pounding on them. Or in real life going to hit the person in bed next to me. She grabbed me in time.
The following night I had an aweseome dream about ship models and this time going over various classes of ships inthe Age of Fighting Sail. There might have been an Australian and a Greek in the conversation too as there were bits about ancient naval combat.
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I have been watching the Fate anime series about a battle among mages and their servants for a Holy Grail. It's not the original one but another created by three mage families who now fight over it with the aid of servants culled from the pages of history. One is King Arthur as Arturia. Her backstory is an interesting what if of the legend with a young girl pulling the sword from the stone rather than a boy. As much as I was once into the cycle of Arthur it got me thinking of doing a re-telling of the legends of Arthur if she was a woman and certain of her knights were women and others men. It could be very interesting especially if Arturia at times takes over the role Guievere plays in the traditional stories like with Melagreant and the Knight of the Cart and with Morgan le Fay as a male. Imagine if it isn't Lancelot stealing Gwen's heart but Arturia having the forbidden love for her greatest knight. There are also further complications with Arturia is a woman rather than a gay affair. A pregnancy? And who is Mordred's real father? Lancelot or Morgan? Complications and change-ups galore.
Now to have Merlin and Nimue (one variant of the Lady of the Lake) as an estranged husband and wife team…
But could Belinda Brandon pull off the role of Arturia?
That version of the Authurian tales sounds even more complicated than the normal versions D:
A point about the Authurian tales, only tangentially related to Bravo's proposed adaption:
I don't like the way they try and string all those crazy stories together into one thing when they do cartoons, TV series and movies of them. They were written decades appart, sometimes hundreds of years and they don't really fit together very well.
If I was going to adapt the Autherian legends for a production I'd do it as a TV series, but I wouldn't do it as a continuous story with the same characters and actors, instead what I'd do is pick different versions of the tales from different times and do those as hour long, fully contained episodes.
I wouldn't be exhaustive and do every version every which way, I'd just pick some of the more unique ones and avoid the ones where they've been badly hammered and duct taped together. I'd do them in different styles: from realistic dark age/post Roman Britian, to the typical fantasy faerytail stuff, even to modern day, and I'd sample from the ealiest writers, the classical French romances, all the way to modern fantasy writers.
What I mean is that I wouldn't follow Authur's life from a boy all the way to death, with the sword in the stone, the lake sword, Guinivere and Lancelot, the Grail, Mordred and Morgan Le Fey and all the rest as one continuous story. I'd the have the Birth of Merlin in Wales set in the dark ages as a stand alone piece, then the sword in the stone part asset in typical medival England, then, jump to a slightly differen version of the sword in the stone set in the 1970s, then get to Lancelot a Guinevere and make that a renassiciance romance… and so on.
I'd even recuit Bravo to do a stop-motion gender-bend version with his actors .
@Bravo- speaking of anime, have you seen "D-Fragments"? It's pretty fun. These 3 girls and their teacher/supervisor are members of a "games club" and they all think they have elemental magical fighting techniques… Earth, fire, water, darkness, electricity etc.
But all they really do is throw bottles of water on people, zap them with a tazer, chuck dirt at them, set them on fire with matches, or put a bag on their head. Their elemental attacks are hillarious!
ozoneocean wrote:Thats fucking hilarious lol. I'm adding that to my watch list.
@Bravo- speaking of anime, have you seen "D-Fragments"? It's pretty fun. These 3 girls and their teacher/supervisor are members of a "games club" and they all think they have elemental magical fighting techniques… Earth, fire, water, darkness, electricity etc.
But all they really do is throw bottles of water on people, zap them with a tazer, chuck dirt at them, set them on fire with matches, or put a bag on their head. Their elemental attacks are hillarious!
I saw D-Fragments. It was fun.
As for Arthur I was going to stick with Geoffrey of Monmouth with a few Cretian de Troyes elements like Knight of the Cart. I was going to blend some characters together and omit others and use some of the Celtic names like Owen and Walwen for Owain and Gwaine and Cei for Kay (actually it makes the gender bender easier as Cei can become Ceia and it's easier to make it Arturia as opposed to Arthuria) It's not that complex of a story if I just go with Morgan/Melagreant versus Arturia and reduce Merlin/Nimue to guardians/benefactors of the swords/nature spirits with little power to interfere in the ways of men. A reduction of the Grail to the Stone of Plenty that restores kings is another simple arc. I doubt I'd have the whole Fisher King and Knight's templar Parsifal angle and keep it to Bedivere. Beidivere would remain Arturia's right-hand woman and best buddy as opposed to Lancelot.
The most successful Arthurian re-tellings have been those that stick to one story arc or ruthlessly combine arcs. Excalibur remains the gold standard with its genius blending of Grail myth and Mallory. A great one to find is Percival which is a literal re-telling of Cretian De Troyes unfinished Percival in the original French verse.
I literally do not know where to buy shoes. I have the world's tiniest feet, somewhere around a 4-4.5, and most brands only go down to a size six. During the fall/winter months I can wear boots with socks and insoles and it doesn't matter too much that my shoes are a bit big, but I need a nice-looking pair of black flats for my summer job. It's been a really frustrating experience even just trying to find a size 5 that won't completely hang off my feet. Yesterday I went to Canadian Footwear where their whole shtick is like "We have shoes for your weirdly sized feet!" and they were super unhelpful…the saleswoman basically just shrugged at me and then she pulled up their website so I could look to see if they had anything. (Isn't knowing/showing me the products your job, lady?) There are a few things online but I can't really throw away $100+ on a pair of shoes without knowing if they'll fit or be comfortable.
My dad seemingly doesn't believe me and is insisting that I just need to go to the stores again and be more "aggressive" so they'll order in smaller sizes for me. I've told him if he's so certain then he can come along with me shoe shopping. So, yeah. We can both look forward to a day that will more likely than not involve some very embarassing tears.
Super boring rant, I know. This is just especially frustrating because normally at this point of shopping I would just give up and live without whatever the thing is, but shoes aren't really optional.
The good old days of the guy taking specific measurements of your feet and coming up with the exact fit are long gone. I remember those days back in Buster Brown's. It gets even worse when some makes of shoes fit differently. A 11 wide can fit better than a 10 1/2 R in certain makes though generally I am a 10 1/2 R. So when I go serious shoe shopping I try on a range of 10 1/2 and 11's.
Women's shoes can be worse. I spent a lot of my childhood in tow with my mom as she went from place to place to find decent fitting shoes. She was a salesperson in Bambergers/Macy*s (who used to be called floorwalkers) so comfortable shoes were a must.
But in work shoes if you're on your feet all day you might want to go up one size or width to allow for your feet swelling. Then there's water retention and bloating. Some women go up one shoe size during their time of the month.
Bet you've wondered just what store salespeople would talk about on a reeeee-ly slow day? Sports scores and celebrity only go so far.
ozoneocean wrote:
Sounds like you need to look into where Chinese people do their shopping for shoes?
Probably China? :P
No that's not a bad idea though, to look for some Asian brands. Might be able to find something relatively cheap in smaller sizes.
bravo wrote:
Bet you've wondered just what store salespeople would talk about on a reeeee-ly slow day? Sports scores and celebrity only go so far.
Guys and pets, from experience. When David Bowie or Tim Curry etc. stopped being interesting, which wasn't often. Shoes didn't come up often. Might have been a slightly different experience working with a younger group though. :P
HippieVan wrote:I did mean the full-time old timers. Women who remembered what all the "bongs" and "dings" meant. Who were young when the big names in entertainment were Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra.bravo wrote:
Bet you've wondered just what store salespeople would talk about on a reeeee-ly slow day? Sports scores and celebrity only go so far.
Guys and pets, from experience. When David Bowie or Tim Curry etc. stopped being interesting, which wasn't often. Shoes didn't come up often. Might have been a slightly different experience working with a younger group though. :P
I'm really worried about my bunny Juliet. :( She's prone to GI Stasis but usually once we give her some vaseline and a tummy massage she feels better pretty quickly. Today she just doesn't seem to be getting better…I've even given her some medicine but she hasn't eaten all day and she hardly responds when I talk to her or pet her.
Poor baby. Keep her warm and comfortable :(
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It's sunnnnday. My firend Bianka wants me to go to a silent disco party tonight. It's a costume thing where the theme is dressing as characters from TV shows or "disco icons".
I don't really wanna go.
And I can't think up any characters I'd like to dress as that I have gear for. -_-
Well I'm pretty sure Julie's gonna be okay now, although she's not totally better yet. It really was scary last night - I picked her up and held her and she was just completely still, not like herself at all. I ended up staying awake really late just to make sure she was alright, because rabbits can apparently die pretty fast from this type of thing especially if they're not drinking. She ate yesterday's dinner during the night and she's taking treats this morning. She still doesn't seem interested in her breakfast or her hay, but she's moving around and seeking attention which is really good.
I hope she continues to improve! :D
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Well Bianka sent me pics of her costume and those of the girls she went with to that dance party… I regret not going now T_T
Farrrrrk… They looked ah-mazing.
And I DID think of a TV costume at the last minute that I could have done: One of the dark, broody, gothicy cowboy types from Deadwood. I have ALL the gear for that.
Ah well.
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