I have the greatest respect for you in general and for your conduct in that thread, but what I mostly took from it (both at the time and on re-reading) is that your version of "conservatism" doesn't have much to do with, well. any version of present day conservative politics.
Liberals and the left aren't the same thing, opposition to child marriage from the ACLU etc is coming from a (wrongheaded) libertarian perspective and not a leftist one.
Re “Liberals and the left aren't the same thing,” that depends on the meaning in whatever country/society is involved. Here in the US, “liberal” generally, in common usage, means “left” as opposed to “conservative,” which means “right.”
Liberal and left have specific meanings, whether they are colloquially used in different ways or not. It's not like the DSA are referring to themselves as liberals, and they're very much Americans.
That doesn’t make the main definitions of liberal and conservative, used by most people in the US for decades and decades, merely “colloquial” or incorrect.
As a side question, in at least some cases (though less and less now), isn’t what’s considered more “adult” and less “child” affected by culture and time? My own grandmother in Kentucky was married at 14, for example, but now that would be much now unheard-of. Are some people (perhaps not all) voting on these laws simply operating on an older notion of age of consent, even if they are mistaken about maturity in western society now in 2026, rather than for some salacious/fascist reason?
But people are actively campaigning to keep the lack of minimum age for marriage. That's different to simply having a lower age of consent. Also, it's a problem precisely because 14yo brides aren't unheard of even now - because it's still perfectly legal for a parent to marry their 14yo daughter to a man twice her age now in 2026 California (but of course, two 30yo women marrying each other is abhorrent....). Child marriage is an active ongoing phenomenon in the US.
What happened to your grandmother wasn't just some quirky old-time custom, it was child abuse. People in your grandmother's day absolutely knew that. Raising the age of consent was a Victorian phenomenon - even they knew that a 14yo was physiologically a child.
We’re going to have to disagree about my grandmother (born in 1907), and about most “marriageable ages” and age of adulthood being “child abuse,” for millennia, in societies worldwide. That does not mean that this should, in our time and place and culture, be the age of adulthood or of marriageable age, I must emphasize, so I am in favor of making it 18 across the board (and drinking age as well—in the US you can marry and join the military at 18, but not drink until 21, as a side note, which has always baffled me).
As another side-note, when I joined the Canadian military reserves at 16, their attitude was that if you were old enough to serve then you were old enough to drink on base. ( The legal drinking age in my province was then and is now, 19.
Why is conservatism by definition about looking backward? If you're talking etymology, that's a rather unsafe way to define terms in the present.
And while I see and share the concerns that are being expressed on this thread, I'm developing this itch to remind people once again that "conservatism" is not a monolithic position, that it is possible to be a conservative and not subscribe to the abuses under discussion, and so forth and so on. I'm probably wasting my time, but anyone interested might look at my old thread, "One type of conservatism: mine.
Amen. I generally consider Trumpism and MAGA to really be “conservative” in name but not reality—taking a chainsaw to US infrastructure willy-nilly, all kinds of non-sober, non-careful approaches to just about everything, January 6, 2021–these have rightly appalled traditional conservatives, but they’re not in charge of the US Republican party right now. Indeed, one could argue that the real RINOs (Republicans in name only) are the MAGAs. I hope the sane, decent conservatives take the party back someday.
—in the US you can marry and join the military at 18, but not drink until 21, as a side note, which has always baffled me).
The age at which one can marry in the US is a matter of state, not federal, law. It’s not 18 in all states; in some states it’s younger.
(For that matter, the drinking age is technically a matter of state, not federal law. But Congress enacted laws providing that federal highway dollars could not go to states where the drinking age for all alcoholic beverages is lower than 21, effectively forcing all states to set 21 as the drinking age.)
—in the US you can marry and join the military at 18, but not drink until 21, as a side note, which has always baffled me).
The age at which one can marry in the US is a matter of state, not federal, law. It’s not 18 in all states; in some states it’s younger.
(For that matter, the drinking age is technically a matter of state, not federal law. But Congress enacted laws providing that federal highway dollars could not go to states where the drinking age for all alcoholic beverages is lower than 21, effectively forcing all states to set 21 as the drinking age.)
I misspoke—especially since the various legal marriage ages are part of the thread topic—what I meant was that anyone in the US can marry at or by 18, and join the military at 18, and I left out being tried as an adult at/by 18, but not drink legally until 21. I really believe all of this should be at 18.
I hope the sane, decent conservatives take the party back someday.
When do you think the GOP leadership could last be called sane or decent? They've been utter shits since at least, what, Reagan? Nixon? Certainly since Gingrich was Speaker.
Just listened to a discussion that on average the male brain does not fully mature to 25. Sorry, they did not talk about the female brain. Maybe should raise official adulthood activities to 25?
No, I know that will not work.
It seems that the American system is to gradually allow individuals to do adult things at certain age levels.
Like allowing 12-13 year olds to have smart phones (might be changing)
Driving cars at 16, though there are certain restrictions depending on the state
Voting at 18.
Drinking at 21.
When you think about it. People are getting their master's degrees around 25.
Going through my ancestry list now. It seems that anyone born before the 1800s would likely have gotten married by 15
As someone else pointed out, adolescence is a rather recent phenomenon.
The canonical age for marriage in Western European Christianity for hundreds of years was 12 for girls and 14 for boys but in practice age of marriage was normally much higher than that - because of what's known as the 'European marriage pattern'.
Average age of marriage didn't fall below 24 in England and Wales till the 1950s and 60s.
(single parenthood was still highly stigmatised at this time and access to contraception was also highly stigmatised for single women - there were moral panics in the media about it. In practice the 60s weren't so swinging in that respect)
Very early marriage at the canonical ages was not historically normal nor was it universally seen as a good thing.
The exceptions to the norm certainly included abusive cases and women who experienced early marriage could recognise harms that occurred. A famous historic example would be Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, married at 12, she gave birth at 13 and was affected her whole life by the traumatic birth and never had any more children. When her beloved granddaughter Margaret Tudor was betrothed to James IV aged 9 she did her damnedest to advocate against an early consummated marriage because of fear it would 'injure her, and endanger her health' and though Margaret was married at 13, she had her first child at 17 suggesting that this advice was taken on board.
Indoctrination, lack of control over fertility, limited if any access to divorce, often lack of means to live independently or limited avenues for this once a woman had children etc. meant women were at a higher risk for being trapped in abusive marriages at whatever age they married in the past, but younger women would be at greater risk from pregnancy complications, and likely also pressure from families and lack of agency and experience.
It's very easy for folk to say 'oh it didn't harm my granny' in the same way that lots of people opine that various harmful things 'never did them any harm' when they were growing up but the laws on marriage, certainly in the UK countries, werent changed for fun but because of well-documented harm - primarily to girls. Once young women had more agency and choice in their lives because of increased rights and contraception and abortion that were actually accessible in practice, the younger marriage trend reversed.
There will always be exceptions, especially where patriarchal religious/ cultural indoctrination is concerned, but the evidence suggests that this is not something most women are keen to do when they have unstigmatised and realistic choices not to do it.
Sorry, that's my history and political science background. I am not short using pejoratives are helpful in trying to understand historical phenomena.
I also have that background, and that is my educated opinion. No need to apologize.
Fascists treat ideology as a tool. That's how you can tell they're fascists. Everything is subservient to the party's will-to-power, including the ideas themselves. There is no ideology, only power and those who wield it.
This is not pejorative, to me. This is a simple academic description, clear as a bell.
I hope the sane, decent conservatives take the party back someday.
When do you think the GOP leadership could last be called sane or decent? They've been utter shits since at least, what, Reagan? Nixon? Certainly since Gingrich was Speaker.
The trouble is that there's conflating going on and that means one creates an equation where having conservative beliefs about this and that is equal to being a Nazi and then that they want to hurt children because they are evil.
I would never say that either president Bush was a good president, but they were neither as incompetent as Reagan nor as venal as Nixon. They are pretty poor though.
Originally posted by Chastmastr: Going through my ancestry list now. It seems that anyone born before the 1800s would likely have gotten married by 15
That is very, very different from my family tree, and from marriage patterns in Scotland generally, pre 1800.
As Louise says, the canonical age was 12 for women and 14 for men, but in practice this was purely to avoid a situation in which a child was conceived but could not be born legitimate because the parents were too young to marry.
William Hay was a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen in the C16th and his lectures from 1535 have survived. As he explains: The reason why the Church laid down these times in such early youth was in order to avoid fornication, to which the young are very much inclined, and so easily incited to lust, and also because the carnal appetites usually awaken about that age.
Even in the C16th nobody thought that early marriage was a good idea, just a potentially less-bad thing.
I would never say that either president Bush was a good president, but they were neither as incompetent as Reagan nor as venal as Nixon. They are pretty poor though.
The senior Bush was upto to his neck in Reagan-era crimes like Iran-Contra, and the junior Bush lied to the world and waged a war of aggression that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. I get grading on a curve but these were not "sane, decent" people, which was the stated bar.
As a side question, in at least some cases (though less and less now), isn’t what’s considered more “adult” and less “child” affected by culture and time? My own grandmother in Kentucky was married at 14, for example, but now that would be much now unheard-of. Are some people (perhaps not all) voting on these laws simply operating on an older notion of age of consent, even if they are mistaken about maturity in western society now in 2026, rather than for some salacious/fascist reason?
But people are actively campaigning to keep the lack of minimum age for marriage. That's different to simply having a lower age of consent. Also, it's a problem precisely because 14yo brides aren't unheard of even now - because it's still perfectly legal for a parent to marry their 14yo daughter to a man twice her age now in 2026 California (but of course, two 30yo women marrying each other is abhorrent....). Child marriage is an active ongoing phenomenon in the US.
What happened to your grandmother wasn't just some quirky old-time custom, it was child abuse. People in your grandmother's day absolutely knew that. Raising the age of consent was a Victorian phenomenon - even they knew that a 14yo was physiologically a child.
We’re going to have to disagree about my grandmother (born in 1907), and about most “marriageable ages” and age of adulthood being “child abuse,” for millennia, in societies worldwide. That does not mean that this should, in our time and place and culture, be the age of adulthood or of marriageable age, I must emphasize, so I am in favor of making it 18 across the board (and drinking age as well—in the US you can marry and join the military at 18, but not drink until 21, as a side note, which has always baffled me).
It is *not* true that most people historically married at ages that we would now consider to be children. For example, in medieval Europe most people married in their 20s. Younger marriages were for dynastic reasons between very wealthy people, who were the least common type of person - but the couple actually didn't live together as a couple until adulthood. There were exceptions, yes, and they were notable scandals at the time.
1921 was not, historically speaking, a long time ago. 14yos were very definitely considered children in the US in 1921. We also know that a 14yo is physiologically a child - that doesn't change even if a culture does. For someone who is normally against cultural relativism, I am surprised by your eagerness to embrace cultural relativism when it comes to children getting married in the recent past. My paternal grandmother and her sister left school and started full-time work at 14 in the early 50s, but that doesn't mean that they were regarded as being of marriageable age.
Originally posted by Chastmastr: Going through my ancestry list now. It seems that anyone born before the 1800s would likely have gotten married by 15
That is very, very different from my family tree, and from marriage patterns in Scotland generally, pre 1800.
As Louise says, the canonical age was 12 for women and 14 for men, but in practice this was purely to avoid a situation in which a child was conceived but could not be born legitimate because the parents were too young to marry.
William Hay was a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen in the C16th and his lectures from 1535 have survived. As he explains: The reason why the Church laid down these times in such early youth was in order to avoid fornication, to which the young are very much inclined, and so easily incited to lust, and also because the carnal appetites usually awaken about that age.
Even in the C16th nobody thought that early marriage was a good idea, just a potentially less-bad thing.
I think it was actually @Gramps49 that posted that.
Originally posted by Chastmastr: Going through my ancestry list now. It seems that anyone born before the 1800s would likely have gotten married by 15
That is very, very different from my family tree, and from marriage patterns in Scotland generally, pre 1800.
As Louise says, the canonical age was 12 for women and 14 for men, but in practice this was purely to avoid a situation in which a child was conceived but could not be born legitimate because the parents were too young to marry.
William Hay was a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen in the C16th and his lectures from 1535 have survived. As he explains: The reason why the Church laid down these times in such early youth was in order to avoid fornication, to which the young are very much inclined, and so easily incited to lust, and also because the carnal appetites usually awaken about that age.
Even in the C16th nobody thought that early marriage was a good idea, just a potentially less-bad thing.
I think it was actually @Gramps49 that posted that.
I suspect it is unlikely that people who seem to be comfortable with teenagers getting married are looking for inspiration back to mediaeval Europe.
1. It's "medieval" not "mediaeval", and 2. I don't think anyone has suggested that that's the case? It's a response to the suggestion that teenagers getting married used to be a culturally normal thing in the West.
Liberals and the left aren't the same thing, opposition to child marriage from the ACLU etc is coming from a (wrongheaded) libertarian perspective and not a leftist one.
Re “Liberals and the left aren't the same thing,” that depends on the meaning in whatever country/society is involved. Here in the US, “liberal” generally, in common usage, means “left” as opposed to “conservative,” which means “right.”
Liberal and left have specific meanings, whether they are colloquially used in different ways or not. It's not like the DSA are referring to themselves as liberals, and they're very much Americans.
That doesn’t make the main definitions of liberal and conservative, used by most people in the US for decades and decades, merely “colloquial” or incorrect.
But by definition, if it's contrary to the actual meaning of the terms it is incorrect. Lots of people use words incorrectly all the time, I'm not sure why pointing this out is a problem. For instance, a lot of people incorrectly use the term "trauma bonding" to refer to people bonding over experiencing the same trauma, when it actually refers to a bond between an abuser and the abused person.
I think it's a reasonable ask within a discussion to stick to the actual definitions of whatever words are being used.
I suspect it is unlikely that people who seem to be comfortable with teenagers getting married are looking for inspiration back to mediaeval Europe.
1. It's "medieval" not "mediaeval", and 2. I don't think anyone has suggested that that's the case? It's a response to the suggestion that teenagers getting married used to be a culturally normal thing in the West.
I don't hear any bells ringing, just the dull thud of ideological jackboots…
People don't think with their feet. They think with their brains. And the ones at the top don't care about ideas, only power.
Far as fascists are concerned - if you listen closely - ideologies are (as Marx put it) "opiates for the masses." They're tools to manipulate people into packs of wolves or herds of sheep. That's a metaphor straight from the US military (who like to call themselves sheepdogs.) Fascists don't really care what anyone thinks, only that they get in line.
I can explain it, I think. But one can argue any explanation to death because fascism is a slippery monster that will change its shape to suit the situation. That's why I compare it to cancer. It has no program but its own survival. Boots are made for walking, not thinking.
I suspect it is unlikely that people who seem to be comfortable with teenagers getting married are looking for inspiration back to mediaeval Europe.
I'll see your "medieval Europe" and raise you "Roman Empire." And we definitely have political thinkers who romanticize the Roman Empire.
Of course, "inspiration" is selective, these aren't real medievalists or classical scholars. They're more commonly misogynists using a myth of the past to make what they will of the future, often putting themselves at the center. It's an old game; perhaps the real Romans played it.
I suspect it is unlikely that people who seem to be comfortable with teenagers getting married are looking for inspiration back to mediaeval Europe.
I'll see your "medieval Europe" and raise you "Roman Empire." And we definitely have political thinkers who romanticize the Roman Empire.
Of course, "inspiration" is selective, these aren't real medievalists or classical scholars. They're more commonly misogynists using a myth of the past to make what they will of the future, often putting themselves at the center. It's an old game; perhaps the real Romans played it.
Yes, exactly. They're looking back to a mythical golden age, primarily one which views ancient Rome as the epitome of civilization. The Third Reich explicitly romanticised it, the British Empire implicitly considered itself an extension of it. Today's neo-Nazis seem to want a Caesar who will give them all the prizes and execute all their enemies and vanquish all the people they do not like.
Mediaeval Europe was less about that and more about misguided religious wars in the Middle East.
I think political conservatives who are not Nazis are not directly so fond of the Roman empire. I think because their vision of society is not really about a strongman who destroys all enemies and because they tend to accept that maybe a few good changes happened since Pitt the Younger (I am unsure of the equivalent in other countries).
Western political thinkers, contemplative and active, of all positions, have been using the Roman Empire, and the Roman Republic, and the transition between the two, as subject matters to think with pretty much since the Romans developed their own history or even since the Greeks started asking themselves about these barbarians who'd so efficiently conquered the Mediterranean.
Western political thinkers, contemplative and active, of all positions, have been using the Roman Empire, and the Roman Republic, and the transition between the two, as subject matters to think with pretty much since the Romans developed their own history or even since the Greeks started asking themselves about these barbarians who'd so efficiently conquered the Mediterranean.
"How could these uncivilized people win at the game of organized violence?"
Well, the only things they cared about were organization and violence.
I suspect it is unlikely that people who seem to be comfortable with teenagers getting married are looking for inspiration back to mediaeval Europe.
1. It's "medieval" not "mediaeval", and 2. I don't think anyone has suggested that that's the case? It's a response to the suggestion that teenagers getting married used to be a culturally normal thing in the West.
"How could these uncivilized people win at the game of organized violence?"
Well, the only things they cared about were organization and violence.
The Spartans only cared about organization and violence and they were terrible at it, although they were rather good at PR of a sort.
The Romans may have specialised in organised violence but people wouldn't care so much if that was all there was to them.
I don't hear any bells ringing, just the dull thud of ideological jackboots…
People don't think with their feet. They think with their brains. And the ones at the top don't care about ideas, only power.
Far as fascists are concerned - if you listen closely - ideologies are (as Marx put it) "opiates for the masses." They're tools to manipulate people into packs of wolves or herds of sheep. That's a metaphor straight from the US military (who like to call themselves sheepdogs.) Fascists don't really care what anyone thinks, only that they get in line.
I can explain it, I think. But one can argue any explanation to death because fascism is a slippery monster that will change its shape to suit the situation. That's why I compare it to cancer. It has no program but its own survival. Boots are made for walking, not thinking.
An ideology that doesn't walk the walk wouldn't seem to have much purpose, regardless of what it wears on its feet.
I confess that it's the rather ideological opposition to fascism being an ideology that I find fascinating. It's a position that, as far as I can tell, seeks to put ideological distance between fascism and any political system to which a thinking person might adhere.
An ideology that doesn't walk the walk wouldn't seem to have much purpose, regardless of what it wears on its feet.
I confess that it's the rather ideological opposition to fascism being an ideology that I find fascinating. It's a position that, as far as I can tell, seeks to put ideological distance between fascism and any political system to which a thinking person might adhere.
You are fascinated by antifascism?
Ideologies don't walk. People do.
If I'm catching your drift...(pardon me if I'm not)...I don't mind acknowledging that there's violence inherent in any political system. But I do understand that violence should not be allowed to service itself, and sometimes the prevention of that situation requires violence. When violence becomes both tool and purpose, that becomes a Big Problem. And I think that's one of the marks of fascism. The one in power seeks power for the increase of its own power to no other greater purpose. That is, I think, the mechanism of fascism.
Ideology is, for such as these, a facade or a means of manipulating other people. These types Do Not Care about ideas.
"How could these uncivilized people win at the game of organized violence?"
Well, the only things they cared about were organization and violence.
The Spartans only cared about organization and violence and they were terrible at it, although they were rather good at PR of a sort.
The Romans may have specialised in organised violence but people wouldn't care so much if that was all there was to them.
I think the Spartans had major organizational flaw called "chattel slavery" and that was their undoing. And thus, their reputation for organization was overstated. Mind, I'm merely an amateur when it comes to classics. And of course, slavery of some sort was endemic to the ancient world. But from what I've read, the Spartans over-reliance on it was their downfall.
I do think "superior command and control" was the sweet sauce of the Roman Republic and Empire. And they collapsed only because they overstretched their ability to effective administrate. Yes, admitting that I'm speaking in grand narrative, also acknowledging that it's a marvel the empire survived as long as it did.
Originally posted by Chastmastr: Going through my ancestry list now. It seems that anyone born before the 1800s would likely have gotten married by 15
That is very, very different from my family tree, and from marriage patterns in Scotland generally, pre 1800.
As Louise says, the canonical age was 12 for women and 14 for men, but in practice this was purely to avoid a situation in which a child was conceived but could not be born legitimate because the parents were too young to marry.
William Hay was a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen in the C16th and his lectures from 1535 have survived. As he explains: The reason why the Church laid down these times in such early youth was in order to avoid fornication, to which the young are very much inclined, and so easily incited to lust, and also because the carnal appetites usually awaken about that age.
Even in the C16th nobody thought that early marriage was a good idea, just a potentially less-bad thing.
As a side note, that quote was by @Gramps49, not me.
Originally posted by Chastmastr: Going through my ancestry list now. It seems that anyone born before the 1800s would likely have gotten married by 15
That is very, very different from my family tree, and from marriage patterns in Scotland generally, pre 1800.
As Louise says, the canonical age was 12 for women and 14 for men, but in practice this was purely to avoid a situation in which a child was conceived but could not be born legitimate because the parents were too young to marry.
William Hay was a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen in the C16th and his lectures from 1535 have survived. As he explains: The reason why the Church laid down these times in such early youth was in order to avoid fornication, to which the young are very much inclined, and so easily incited to lust, and also because the carnal appetites usually awaken about that age.
Even in the C16th nobody thought that early marriage was a good idea, just a potentially less-bad thing.
I think it was actually @Gramps49 that posted that.
I suspect it is unlikely that people who seem to be comfortable with teenagers getting married are looking for inspiration back to mediaeval Europe.
1. It's "medieval" not "mediaeval", and 2. I don't think anyone has suggested that that's the case? It's a response to the suggestion that teenagers getting married used to be a culturally normal thing in the West.
It certainly is Mediaeval, though Medieval is also in use.
It does seem to be wiser (from all that has been said here, and elsewhere), in our society at this time and place, to limit marriageable age and age of consent to older rather than younger.
I’ve not said that everyone was getting married at those ages back then. But if some were doing it, even if mainly in the nobility, it was still being done. And if the nobility were doing it back then, at least in Europe, then virtually always it had to be accepted by the Church, because how else would they get married back then?
For someone who is normally against cultural relativism, I am surprised by your eagerness to embrace cultural relativism when it comes to children getting married in the recent past.
First, I don’t recall ever saying that I was “against cultural relativism,” nor that I consider this “cultural relativism,” necessarily. The whole issue of what moral matters can or should, and in what framework (Christian or otherwise), be considered “culturally relative” could be its own pretty huge thread, I think…
As for whether people who we now call teenagers/adolescents back in those days were considered “children” in the first place, even if many do now or if in various places and to various degrees (voting, driving, drinking, marrying, joining the military and shooting at people, etc.), as some have said here on the thread, the concept of adolescence/teenagers is a very recent concept, historically. The category of adolescence being recent does not, in itself, make it untrue, but even if it shows a better understanding of people (and I personally think it does), I think assuming that everyone following the older system through history was somehow sinning, or believing things for some morally evil reason, is a false assumption.
As for sane/decent conservatives/Republicans, they don’t all have to be presidents. There are people now who have been conservatives/Republicans (some have fled the party in disgust regarding Trump) who believe in the rule of law and the Constitution, who don’t believe in using political office for personal gain, who believe in doing good, who aren’t cruel (and I’m not just talking about people who have held political office). Those are the people I’m talking about who are sane and decent, even if I may strongly disagree with them on various things—the people you could actually debate with but with both sides respecting each other, and both holding to some really basic moral and societal principles. I refer people to The Dispatch, The Bulwark, The Lincoln Project, David French, and others.
Depending on what they are, they might be, in fact. Milton suggested that they were fallen angels, i.e. demons. But I think there could be a mixture of all sorts of things, whether metaphysical non-evil entities mistakenly worshipped as gods, fictional notions, or the like—including evil spirits seeking worship—all blended together. The key thing is not to worship them, if one is following Christ. We may find out later (after death or in the new Creation) that some of them (or some parts of them) have been misunderstood angels, or non-angelic, non-diabolical entities related to the natural world in some way, and if so, that will be a merry meeting indeed.
I suspect it is unlikely that people who seem to be comfortable with teenagers getting married are looking for inspiration back to mediaeval Europe.
1. It's "medieval" not "mediaeval", and 2. I don't think anyone has suggested that that's the case? It's a response to the suggestion that teenagers getting married used to be a culturally normal thing in the West.
To bring this back to the OP, the primacy of male power over all others is itself a recipe for the abuse of women and children as the competitive "me first at all costs" mentality seeps into the minds of men and is even taught to boys as an entitlement. The strong take whatever they can get, because they can.
You can find this kind of impulse anywhere you can find humans, for sure, but I think fascism as a political style feeds it. It's all about screwing everyone else and not getting screwed: an abusive, bastardized, infantile version of Nietzsche's "will to power."
And I think you can find this kind of thinking in classical societies like Sparta and Rome. If I recall from undergrad friends who took a class on greco-roman sexuality, even among cultures that were comfortable with practiced homosexuality, there was still a prejudice that it was very important that the socially superior man played the...ahem...penetrative role. For a subordinate to penetrate a superior was a serious taboo. These cultures were about promoting virile "Manliness" (classical virtue) for the good of the militarized empire.
I think it's generally true that humans are kind of weird about power and sex, but I think fascism comes with a particular...ahem...fascination with the dynamic that not-very-quietly encourages child abuse as an excess.
I think the tendency can be found across cultures, but there are political modes that seem to feed into it with a peculiar grotesque synergy.
Mediæval is a perfectly acceptable English spelling. Substituting the digraph ae for the ligature æ is normal when typing. Compare also, for example, æsthetic and fœtus.
Actual medievalists don't use that spelling, and they're the ones I consider to be authoritative on the matter. Lots of lay people still refer to Thomas à Becket, they're still wrong.
@ChastMastr you are always posting from a perspective of a fixed moral universe according to what you would consider to be orthodox Christianity, that applies even when others do not believe in said orthodox Christianity. I would consider that to be against moral relativism, although I didn't intend any kind of negative implication but just a neutral statement of the kind of viewpoint you have on it. But also, I didn't suggest that people in the past who viewed children as old enough to marry believed that for morally evil reasons. Most abusers don't think they're abusive. Many forms of childrearing that we now know are abusive were considered to be good for children and were done in good faith - but that doesn't mean that those things can't be named as abuse.
I think pointing to the historically recent development of teenagers as a social category in the West as indicating that people in previous eras didn't know about adolescence doesn't stand up to historical scrutiny. People knew that there was a stage between being a dependent child and being an adult, because they could observe it. It's why apprentices existed for instance. The idea that medieval people were just stumbling around not being aware of puberty as a distinct period of human development is a bit weird. Also, @Louise 's post goes into great detail on the subject of the average age of marriage and you don't appear to have acknowledged it at all.
Actual medievalists don't use that spelling, and they're the ones I consider to be authoritative on the matter.
And yet it’s still in the dictionary and is unquestionably an acceptable spelling, regardless of whether those you consider authoritative use it or not.
There is at least one academic journal of Mediaeval studies so at least some of the experts use that spelling. Even if they universally did not, I would still use it because I like it.
you are always posting from a perspective of a fixed moral universe according to what you would consider to be orthodox Christianity, that applies even when others do not believe in said orthodox Christianity. I would consider that to be against moral relativism, although I didn't intend any kind of negative implication but just a neutral statement of the kind of viewpoint you have on it.
Believing that the morality of particular behaviour depends on (is relative to) the circumstances or the society you're in is compatible with belief in an objectively out there moral universe. For example, unless you're an absolute pacifist the morality of killing another person is relative to whether they're an enemy soldier or otherwise actively engaged in trying to kill other people. The morality of theft is entirely relative to the conventions of property-owning in a society.
The claim that "it is wrong to condemn other people who adhere to their own morality," a belief often held by people who call themselves moral relativists, is a belief that requires a fixed moral order.
I do think "superior command and control" was the sweet sauce of the Roman Republic and Empire. And they collapsed only because they overstretched their ability to effective administrate.
As I understand it, part of Roman success was that they were relatively culturally tolerant: unlike many ancient empires they gave conquered polities relatively high degrees of autonomy. This meant that they were able to raise a more manpower than even their closest rival, Carthage. (And none of the Hellenistic kingdoms, which were heavily ethnocentric in favour of Macedonians, were able to come close.)
If I'm catching your drift...(pardon me if I'm not)...I don't mind acknowledging that there's violence inherent in any political system. But I do understand that violence should not be allowed to service itself, and sometimes the prevention of that situation requires violence. When violence becomes both tool and purpose, that becomes a Big Problem. And I think that's one of the marks of fascism. The one in power seeks power for the increase of its own power to no other greater purpose. That is, I think, the mechanism of fascism.
Ideology is, for such as these, a facade or a means of manipulating other people. These types Do Not Care about ideas.
Thanks, Bullfrog.
Part of the issue is the coherence of the argument. You started off by locating the question of fascism and child abuse in an ideological framing:
Toward a coherent theory of fascism and child abuse
Here's an uncomfortably thought-out article laying out - in detail - the relationship between child sexual abuse and current conservative ideology.
…
But I've never before seen it put together as a thesis tying political ideology so directly. This is extreme rape culture, and I think it makes sense.
But then you subsequently wrote:
To my eyes, calling fascism an ideology is like calling a malignant tumor a life form.
All political ideologies are about power. I can't see any coherent justification for singling one out for being overly concerned with power, or lacking a "greater purpose", or not caring about ideas.
I think it's generally true that humans are kind of weird about power and sex, but I think fascism comes with a particular...ahem...fascination with the dynamic that not-very-quietly encourages child abuse as an excess.
It seems to me that one thing that's particularly missing from the analysis that's the subject of this thread is consideration and critique of Freud's theory of psychosexual development, particularly in relation to patriarchy.
<snip>@ChastMastr you are always posting from a perspective of a fixed moral universe according to what you would consider to be orthodox Christianity, that applies even when others do not believe in said orthodox Christianity. I would consider that to be against moral relativism, although I didn't intend any kind of negative implication but just a neutral statement of the kind of viewpoint you have on it. <snip>
But what you actually said was
For someone who is normally against cultural relativism, I am surprised by your eagerness to embrace cultural relativism when it comes to children getting married in the recent past.
(my bold) which may well have a connection with moral relativism, but is not the same.
I'm not sure I've seen this in the thread, but one aspect of fascism that may be relevant is the insistence on conformity. An ideal of a human archetype is promoted (man, woman, boy, girl). The farther one is removed from each characteristic of that archetype, the less power one has.
ISTM that in the Third Reich, a man was idealized as tall, blonde, blue-eyed, Christian, heterosexual, able-bodied, self-supporting, reproductive, just educated and literate enough to be useful within the state. Women and children were presented with similar idealized stereotypes. A Roman paterfamilias and family members also had prescribed social roles and presentation.
One problem for fascists is the transitional nature of sexual maturity, and the perceived need to control all sexual activity within acceptable categories. Even before that is the inconvenient fact that children have genitals. Also, sexual activity may be viewed as "who is doing what TO whom" rather than "with whom" - mutuality and consent are not required.
The more powerful a male within this system, the more options he has to act sexually on whomever he chooses and in whatever way he chooses. Women, even powerful women, have far fewer options as their sexual activity must be controlled for the sake of 'reproductive certainty'. Children are not persons in their own right but human objects with genitals, and depending on their place in the power structure, are subject to whatever sexual activity a more powerful person can do.
Comments
I have the greatest respect for you in general and for your conduct in that thread, but what I mostly took from it (both at the time and on re-reading) is that your version of "conservatism" doesn't have much to do with, well. any version of present day conservative politics.
That doesn’t make the main definitions of liberal and conservative, used by most people in the US for decades and decades, merely “colloquial” or incorrect.
We’re going to have to disagree about my grandmother (born in 1907), and about most “marriageable ages” and age of adulthood being “child abuse,” for millennia, in societies worldwide. That does not mean that this should, in our time and place and culture, be the age of adulthood or of marriageable age, I must emphasize, so I am in favor of making it 18 across the board (and drinking age as well—in the US you can marry and join the military at 18, but not drink until 21, as a side note, which has always baffled me).
Amen. I generally consider Trumpism and MAGA to really be “conservative” in name but not reality—taking a chainsaw to US infrastructure willy-nilly, all kinds of non-sober, non-careful approaches to just about everything, January 6, 2021–these have rightly appalled traditional conservatives, but they’re not in charge of the US Republican party right now. Indeed, one could argue that the real RINOs (Republicans in name only) are the MAGAs. I hope the sane, decent conservatives take the party back someday.
(For that matter, the drinking age is technically a matter of state, not federal law. But Congress enacted laws providing that federal highway dollars could not go to states where the drinking age for all alcoholic beverages is lower than 21, effectively forcing all states to set 21 as the drinking age.)
I misspoke—especially since the various legal marriage ages are part of the thread topic—what I meant was that anyone in the US can marry at or by 18, and join the military at 18, and I left out being tried as an adult at/by 18, but not drink legally until 21. I really believe all of this should be at 18.
When do you think the GOP leadership could last be called sane or decent? They've been utter shits since at least, what, Reagan? Nixon? Certainly since Gingrich was Speaker.
No, I know that will not work.
It seems that the American system is to gradually allow individuals to do adult things at certain age levels.
Like allowing 12-13 year olds to have smart phones (might be changing)
Driving cars at 16, though there are certain restrictions depending on the state
Voting at 18.
Drinking at 21.
When you think about it. People are getting their master's degrees around 25.
Going through my ancestry list now. It seems that anyone born before the 1800s would likely have gotten married by 15
As someone else pointed out, adolescence is a rather recent phenomenon.
Average age of marriage didn't fall below 24 in England and Wales till the 1950s and 60s.
(single parenthood was still highly stigmatised at this time and access to contraception was also highly stigmatised for single women - there were moral panics in the media about it. In practice the 60s weren't so swinging in that respect)
Very early marriage at the canonical ages was not historically normal nor was it universally seen as a good thing.
https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2024/07/11/what-age-did-people-marry/
The exceptions to the norm certainly included abusive cases and women who experienced early marriage could recognise harms that occurred. A famous historic example would be Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, married at 12, she gave birth at 13 and was affected her whole life by the traumatic birth and never had any more children. When her beloved granddaughter Margaret Tudor was betrothed to James IV aged 9 she did her damnedest to advocate against an early consummated marriage because of fear it would 'injure her, and endanger her health' and though Margaret was married at 13, she had her first child at 17 suggesting that this advice was taken on board.
Indoctrination, lack of control over fertility, limited if any access to divorce, often lack of means to live independently or limited avenues for this once a woman had children etc. meant women were at a higher risk for being trapped in abusive marriages at whatever age they married in the past, but younger women would be at greater risk from pregnancy complications, and likely also pressure from families and lack of agency and experience.
It's very easy for folk to say 'oh it didn't harm my granny' in the same way that lots of people opine that various harmful things 'never did them any harm' when they were growing up but the laws on marriage, certainly in the UK countries, werent changed for fun but because of well-documented harm - primarily to girls. Once young women had more agency and choice in their lives because of increased rights and contraception and abortion that were actually accessible in practice, the younger marriage trend reversed.
There will always be exceptions, especially where patriarchal religious/ cultural indoctrination is concerned, but the evidence suggests that this is not something most women are keen to do when they have unstigmatised and realistic choices not to do it.
I also have that background, and that is my educated opinion. No need to apologize.
Fascists treat ideology as a tool. That's how you can tell they're fascists. Everything is subservient to the party's will-to-power, including the ideas themselves. There is no ideology, only power and those who wield it.
This is not pejorative, to me. This is a simple academic description, clear as a bell.
The trouble is that there's conflating going on and that means one creates an equation where having conservative beliefs about this and that is equal to being a Nazi and then that they want to hurt children because they are evil.
Surely there is more nuance than that.
Going through my ancestry list now. It seems that anyone born before the 1800s would likely have gotten married by 15
That is very, very different from my family tree, and from marriage patterns in Scotland generally, pre 1800.
As Louise says, the canonical age was 12 for women and 14 for men, but in practice this was purely to avoid a situation in which a child was conceived but could not be born legitimate because the parents were too young to marry.
William Hay was a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen in the C16th and his lectures from 1535 have survived. As he explains:
The reason why the Church laid down these times in such early youth was in order to avoid fornication, to which the young are very much inclined, and so easily incited to lust, and also because the carnal appetites usually awaken about that age.
Even in the C16th nobody thought that early marriage was a good idea, just a potentially less-bad thing.
The senior Bush was upto to his neck in Reagan-era crimes like Iran-Contra, and the junior Bush lied to the world and waged a war of aggression that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. I get grading on a curve but these were not "sane, decent" people, which was the stated bar.
It is *not* true that most people historically married at ages that we would now consider to be children. For example, in medieval Europe most people married in their 20s. Younger marriages were for dynastic reasons between very wealthy people, who were the least common type of person - but the couple actually didn't live together as a couple until adulthood. There were exceptions, yes, and they were notable scandals at the time.
1921 was not, historically speaking, a long time ago. 14yos were very definitely considered children in the US in 1921. We also know that a 14yo is physiologically a child - that doesn't change even if a culture does. For someone who is normally against cultural relativism, I am surprised by your eagerness to embrace cultural relativism when it comes to children getting married in the recent past. My paternal grandmother and her sister left school and started full-time work at 14 in the early 50s, but that doesn't mean that they were regarded as being of marriageable age.
I think it was actually @Gramps49 that posted that.
Thanks, @Pomona, you are right. Apologies, @Chastmastr.
1. It's "medieval" not "mediaeval", and 2. I don't think anyone has suggested that that's the case? It's a response to the suggestion that teenagers getting married used to be a culturally normal thing in the West.
But by definition, if it's contrary to the actual meaning of the terms it is incorrect. Lots of people use words incorrectly all the time, I'm not sure why pointing this out is a problem. For instance, a lot of people incorrectly use the term "trauma bonding" to refer to people bonding over experiencing the same trauma, when it actually refers to a bond between an abuser and the abused person.
I think it's a reasonable ask within a discussion to stick to the actual definitions of whatever words are being used.
Talk to the dictionary.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/mediaeval
People don't think with their feet. They think with their brains. And the ones at the top don't care about ideas, only power.
Far as fascists are concerned - if you listen closely - ideologies are (as Marx put it) "opiates for the masses." They're tools to manipulate people into packs of wolves or herds of sheep. That's a metaphor straight from the US military (who like to call themselves sheepdogs.) Fascists don't really care what anyone thinks, only that they get in line.
I can explain it, I think. But one can argue any explanation to death because fascism is a slippery monster that will change its shape to suit the situation. That's why I compare it to cancer. It has no program but its own survival. Boots are made for walking, not thinking.
I'll see your "medieval Europe" and raise you "Roman Empire." And we definitely have political thinkers who romanticize the Roman Empire.
Of course, "inspiration" is selective, these aren't real medievalists or classical scholars. They're more commonly misogynists using a myth of the past to make what they will of the future, often putting themselves at the center. It's an old game; perhaps the real Romans played it.
Yes, exactly. They're looking back to a mythical golden age, primarily one which views ancient Rome as the epitome of civilization. The Third Reich explicitly romanticised it, the British Empire implicitly considered itself an extension of it. Today's neo-Nazis seem to want a Caesar who will give them all the prizes and execute all their enemies and vanquish all the people they do not like.
Mediaeval Europe was less about that and more about misguided religious wars in the Middle East.
I think political conservatives who are not Nazis are not directly so fond of the Roman empire. I think because their vision of society is not really about a strongman who destroys all enemies and because they tend to accept that maybe a few good changes happened since Pitt the Younger (I am unsure of the equivalent in other countries).
"How could these uncivilized people win at the game of organized violence?"
Well, the only things they cared about were organization and violence.
The gods can be damned.
You'll have to take my æ from my cold dead hands (it's mediæval).
The Romans may have specialised in organised violence but people wouldn't care so much if that was all there was to them.
I confess that it's the rather ideological opposition to fascism being an ideology that I find fascinating. It's a position that, as far as I can tell, seeks to put ideological distance between fascism and any political system to which a thinking person might adhere.
You are fascinated by antifascism?
Ideologies don't walk. People do.
If I'm catching your drift...(pardon me if I'm not)...I don't mind acknowledging that there's violence inherent in any political system. But I do understand that violence should not be allowed to service itself, and sometimes the prevention of that situation requires violence. When violence becomes both tool and purpose, that becomes a Big Problem. And I think that's one of the marks of fascism. The one in power seeks power for the increase of its own power to no other greater purpose. That is, I think, the mechanism of fascism.
Ideology is, for such as these, a facade or a means of manipulating other people. These types Do Not Care about ideas.
I think the Spartans had major organizational flaw called "chattel slavery" and that was their undoing. And thus, their reputation for organization was overstated. Mind, I'm merely an amateur when it comes to classics. And of course, slavery of some sort was endemic to the ancient world. But from what I've read, the Spartans over-reliance on it was their downfall.
I do think "superior command and control" was the sweet sauce of the Roman Republic and Empire. And they collapsed only because they overstretched their ability to effective administrate. Yes, admitting that I'm speaking in grand narrative, also acknowledging that it's a marvel the empire survived as long as it did.
As a side note, that quote was by @Gramps49, not me.
No worries!
It certainly is Mediaeval, though Medieval is also in use.
It does seem to be wiser (from all that has been said here, and elsewhere), in our society at this time and place, to limit marriageable age and age of consent to older rather than younger.
I’ve not said that everyone was getting married at those ages back then. But if some were doing it, even if mainly in the nobility, it was still being done. And if the nobility were doing it back then, at least in Europe, then virtually always it had to be accepted by the Church, because how else would they get married back then?
First, I don’t recall ever saying that I was “against cultural relativism,” nor that I consider this “cultural relativism,” necessarily. The whole issue of what moral matters can or should, and in what framework (Christian or otherwise), be considered “culturally relative” could be its own pretty huge thread, I think…
As for whether people who we now call teenagers/adolescents back in those days were considered “children” in the first place, even if many do now or if in various places and to various degrees (voting, driving, drinking, marrying, joining the military and shooting at people, etc.), as some have said here on the thread, the concept of adolescence/teenagers is a very recent concept, historically. The category of adolescence being recent does not, in itself, make it untrue, but even if it shows a better understanding of people (and I personally think it does), I think assuming that everyone following the older system through history was somehow sinning, or believing things for some morally evil reason, is a false assumption.
@Bullfrog said
Depending on what they are, they might be, in fact. Milton suggested that they were fallen angels, i.e. demons. But I think there could be a mixture of all sorts of things, whether metaphysical non-evil entities mistakenly worshipped as gods, fictional notions, or the like—including evil spirits seeking worship—all blended together. The key thing is not to worship them, if one is following Christ. We may find out later (after death or in the new Creation) that some of them (or some parts of them) have been misunderstood angels, or non-angelic, non-diabolical entities related to the natural world in some way, and if so, that will be a merry meeting indeed.
Er, back to the thread topic…
Æmen!
You can find this kind of impulse anywhere you can find humans, for sure, but I think fascism as a political style feeds it. It's all about screwing everyone else and not getting screwed: an abusive, bastardized, infantile version of Nietzsche's "will to power."
And I think you can find this kind of thinking in classical societies like Sparta and Rome. If I recall from undergrad friends who took a class on greco-roman sexuality, even among cultures that were comfortable with practiced homosexuality, there was still a prejudice that it was very important that the socially superior man played the...ahem...penetrative role. For a subordinate to penetrate a superior was a serious taboo. These cultures were about promoting virile "Manliness" (classical virtue) for the good of the militarized empire.
I think it's generally true that humans are kind of weird about power and sex, but I think fascism comes with a particular...ahem...fascination with the dynamic that not-very-quietly encourages child abuse as an excess.
I think the tendency can be found across cultures, but there are political modes that seem to feed into it with a peculiar grotesque synergy.
Mediæval is a perfectly acceptable English spelling. Substituting the digraph ae for the ligature æ is normal when typing. Compare also, for example, æsthetic and fœtus.
@ChastMastr you are always posting from a perspective of a fixed moral universe according to what you would consider to be orthodox Christianity, that applies even when others do not believe in said orthodox Christianity. I would consider that to be against moral relativism, although I didn't intend any kind of negative implication but just a neutral statement of the kind of viewpoint you have on it. But also, I didn't suggest that people in the past who viewed children as old enough to marry believed that for morally evil reasons. Most abusers don't think they're abusive. Many forms of childrearing that we now know are abusive were considered to be good for children and were done in good faith - but that doesn't mean that those things can't be named as abuse.
I think pointing to the historically recent development of teenagers as a social category in the West as indicating that people in previous eras didn't know about adolescence doesn't stand up to historical scrutiny. People knew that there was a stage between being a dependent child and being an adult, because they could observe it. It's why apprentices existed for instance. The idea that medieval people were just stumbling around not being aware of puberty as a distinct period of human development is a bit weird. Also, @Louise 's post goes into great detail on the subject of the average age of marriage and you don't appear to have acknowledged it at all.
The claim that "it is wrong to condemn other people who adhere to their own morality," a belief often held by people who call themselves moral relativists, is a belief that requires a fixed moral order.
Part of the issue is the coherence of the argument. You started off by locating the question of fascism and child abuse in an ideological framing: But then you subsequently wrote: All political ideologies are about power. I can't see any coherent justification for singling one out for being overly concerned with power, or lacking a "greater purpose", or not caring about ideas.
Also, It seems to me that one thing that's particularly missing from the analysis that's the subject of this thread is consideration and critique of Freud's theory of psychosexual development, particularly in relation to patriarchy.
But what you actually said was (my bold) which may well have a connection with moral relativism, but is not the same.
Oh look. A bunch of neocons ex bush staffers who are trying to push the Democrats to the right.
Very the ends are bad, but the causes ahh the causes.
ISTM that in the Third Reich, a man was idealized as tall, blonde, blue-eyed, Christian, heterosexual, able-bodied, self-supporting, reproductive, just educated and literate enough to be useful within the state. Women and children were presented with similar idealized stereotypes. A Roman paterfamilias and family members also had prescribed social roles and presentation.
One problem for fascists is the transitional nature of sexual maturity, and the perceived need to control all sexual activity within acceptable categories. Even before that is the inconvenient fact that children have genitals. Also, sexual activity may be viewed as "who is doing what TO whom" rather than "with whom" - mutuality and consent are not required.
The more powerful a male within this system, the more options he has to act sexually on whomever he chooses and in whatever way he chooses. Women, even powerful women, have far fewer options as their sexual activity must be controlled for the sake of 'reproductive certainty'. Children are not persons in their own right but human objects with genitals, and depending on their place in the power structure, are subject to whatever sexual activity a more powerful person can do.