h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That French quote loses something, like all sense
or meaning, in the translation:

>> A little mouse that has That a trout is taken soon. <<


~jwf~

jwf

Well my wife tells me my written french is pretty poor- but if I had checked before posting, as I usually do, I would have noticed the T where an s should be.

Otherwise I am not sure that I have misapplied the ne que = only formula.

A little mouse that only has one hole is soon taken.

On a more general point- relevant to Edward's link- I think that many people have chosen to believe Victorian propaganda about the female condition over the centuries, especially during the Femininist Movement of the Sixties and Seventies.

Eighteenth Century beauties like Emma Hart/Hamilton were acclaimed as "handsome". In fact it seems likely that she was one of the actresses who appeared in tableau at the Electro-Magnetic "Temple of Health" posing as "Vestina the Gigantic"; not a role that any of our more recent "Sex goddesses" could easily go for. There seems to have been a real appreciation at the time of fully-formed and physically impressive women who were a good match and mate for any man- in bed and elsewhere. Good healthy breeding stock apart from anything else.

It was the Victorians who went for "trophy wives" to be placed on pedestals and to be treated like fine and delicate china. No doubt the booming sex industry of mistresses and prostitutes catered for more rumbusterous tastes.

Cass

Give a (w)hole new meaning to brown trout.

> Then there is the idea that the concept of marriage would be devalued.

Yes. Same-sex marriage presents an alternative model, and that creates choice. It means that man-is-the-head-of-the-family;-woman-is-submissive marriage becomes one type among many, not the automatic choice. (I feel similarly about open relationships and polyamory. I don't think I want either of those myself, but I don't want to fall into a closed monogamous relationship merely because I never considered the possibility of other options.) The existence of same-sex marriage means that people have to actually think about these things.

"If these changes happen, people will still be free to define family, maleness, femaleness, etc., in the old traditional ways. But they’ll be forced to think about it, to see the traditional way as just one choice among many, to live that way because it works for them… instead of unthinkingly falling into it as the one right choice that works for everybody. What’s more, they’ll be forced to see all these different questions and choices as, well, different questions and choices, instead of a package deal."

http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2007/10/02/how-gay-marriag/

That's a big change. It's a change I approve of. But I can see how some could find it threatening.

This "threat" is doubled when matched with the right wing Christian persecution complex which Fred Clark at slacktivist writes about so well. They've been the hegemony for so long, that they see any challenge to that position as a threat. The mere existence of non-Christians feels threatening to them. (Right wingers I can cope with; Christians can be fine; it's the combination which bothers me.)

TRiG.

Some thoughts on same-sex marriage

In traditional marriages whether monogamous, polygamous or polyandrous, there is implied some aspiration towards wholeness- the union of two halves of one whole, as represented by those marrying within Societies and Comunities, which in themselves try to balance male and female properties. In traditions that venerate the Old Testament- Jewish, Christian and Moslem- it might be thought appropriate to see the couple marrying as like a new Adam and Eve from which the whole of humanity could spring anew.

The traditional aspiration, as represented by many marriage rituals, is that this new union will produce children, with all the full range of possibilities that come from a mixture of inheritance from both male and female, and with an expectation that apart from this "rounded" Nature, the subsequent Nurture and education of those children will also represent the two-sexed biological reality which has allowed us to evolve so far.

Of course it could be argued that these ideals have so often been betrayed and traduced, and that so many Heterosexual couples do not see their relationship in these terms, so many relationships not being based upon any clear commitment to "marry for life", that marriage as a solemn commitment for life is something that needs all the support that it can get.