Hey, call me a cynic but isn’t droit de seigneur a convenient excuse for a bride when hubby discovers she is not intact?
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Please include a link to Cecil’s column if it’s on the straight dope web site.
To include a link, it can be as simple as including the web page location in your post (make sure there is a space before and after the text of the URL).
Cecil’s column can be found on-line at this link:
Did medieval lords have “right of the first night” with the local brides? (20-Dec-1996)
The column (including Slug Signorino’s illustration) can also be found on pages 181-183 of Cecil Adams’ book “Triumph of the Straight Dope”.
Welcome to the SDMB. You know, Dominic, I thought of exactly the same thing when I first read Cecil’s column few years ago. Great minds think alike. I still don’t know if that’s main purpose, but I tend to doubt it. *Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable * seems to indicate it was an extortion ploy.
How offensive is this: droit de seigneur was invented by women. It was a one shot attempt to improve a nasty, brutish and short life in which that description may also have applied to a designated husband. It was an attempt to have a healthier child by accessing the superior nutrition of the aristocracy. It was also a chance to see inside the big house (or castle) and a chance to utilise any opportunities that afforded. These days working-class women still have this sort of access through clerical work. The secretaries working alongside lawyers, doctors and businessmen are quite likely to be married to men who never see such people unless their professional services are required.
All this is probably bullshit but good teeth had to come from somewhere. Americans seem to have the best teeth in the world.
Yeah, sounds like bullshit to me. You’re saying that Americans have such good teeth because all those secretaries who are married to factory workers are actually getting pregnant by their doctor-bosses?
Dunno about you, but I’ve seen plenty of doctors with bad teeth.
And yeah, it sounds pretty offensive to suggest that women could have invented “droit du seigneur”, at all, period, let alone “so they could get a look at the inside of the Big House”. I’m visualizing my teenage daughter on her wedding night to, say, the village blacksmith, looking forward to being deflowered by the local lord. Is she thinking, “Gee, this is great–I’ll get to see the inside of the Big House, plus my baby will have better teeth!”?
I don’t think so.
Besides, I’d say that good teeth are pretty firmly on the “nurture” side of the whole nature vs. nurture issue. Brush your teeth, they’ll be good. Don’t brush, they’ll be bad. Certainly, the aristocracy had acess to better health care, such as it was, but that wouldn’t extend to biological children not living in the manor house. The real issue is whether the aristocracy had better genes, and I’d actually be inclined to say that they didn’t, for two reasons. First of all, selective pressures were much stronger for the peasents, who genuinely did need to struggle to survive, than for the nobles, who were assured an easy living. Secondly, noble families throughout history have had a strong tendancy to inbreeding, due to being very picky about only marrying other nobles. If anything, you’d see upper-class women sneaking out into the village to be impregnated by the strong, healthy blacksmith.
Gene people would no doubt agree with you that good teeth are natured rather than nutured. But I assumed that the aristocrats selected for good teeth by marrying good looking women. Male aristocrats would inherit their teeth from their mothers. I didn’t mean to denigrate modern day non-desk job men - I have a juvenile need to be polemic. And sex isn’t a part of my modern day clerical-women-with-access-to-power schematic. But a female world-view that doesn’t include a respect for wrestling probably is. It’s time more men were receptionists anyway.
But is there a point when genes are subverted by bad health - bad nutrition and living conditions? How many generations could tolerate a lack of vitamins before babies would be disadvantaged by this?
The fact that Americans are generally considered to be “aesthetically above average” is a subject of endless fascination to some people.
Sorry - I think I should have said “a juvenile need to be a polemicist” rather than polemic. I should consult a dictionary. I can’t stop thinking about The Virginian (the 60s western) because of that “big house” phrase. About how Trampus and the cowboys did live in little houses on lower ground to the big white house on the hill - desperately chewing on beef jerky as their wedding nights approached. In case the lure of strong teeth and a chance to see real carpet proved too much for their fiancees. What is my stream of consciousness doing in here? It’s usually in general questions.
There are Jewish Hasidic sects where married women shave their heads. The reason I heard given for the practice was to discourage (non-Jewish) medieval lords from taking their right of the first night.
Now, I don’t know how factual that basis for the custom is, but I do know that these sects are still around today (primarily in the Williamsburg neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Mea Shearim neighborhoods of Jerusalem) and still practicing the shaving head custom today. You’ll note that many Hasidic customs don’t change much with the times - 18th century Eastern European clothing styles are still very much in fashion in those circles.
-avi
…and of course you’d need strong teeth for all that beef jerky.
Also can I register my vote against the proposal that Americans are aesthetically above average?
There is a book called How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker in which he says: “Men in closed societies hate beauty because it makes their wives and daughters indiscriminately attractive to other men, giving the women a measure of control over the profits from their own sexuality and taking it away from the men”. Say no more.
DominicSayers:
Why vote for something that has already been decided by the moviegoers of the 20th Century?
Medieval moviegoers doubtless watched films with English actors (as St Gregory said, “non angli sed angeli”)
Even if the beauty of the actors were the only factor in determining how many people watch a movie, then I still don’t think Californians are representative of America as a whole. Surgically-enhanced strong teeth don’t count.
G.Nome, you have got some really interesting ideas there. Could you please give us some cites for assertions?
Let me see if I understand… your assertion is that these women are shaving their heads so that they won’t be attractive to other men. Makes good psychological sense, but not a good answer for this case: it’s traditional for all ultra-Orthodox Jewish women (not just this specific Hasidic sect) to cover their hair once married.* Nobody other than their husband would be seeing the beauty of their hair anyway. Thus, we still need an explanation why they would shave off all their hair, which would only be uncovered in private with their husband. Hence, the reasoning “don’t want to be attractive to anybody - especially the lord who wants to deflower me.”
Again, I don’t know whether there’s historical validity to the claim (or whether it was just a preventative measure), but given the general less-than-friendliness towards Jews through most of European history, there could be some truth to it.
-avi
*You could make your point about men-women-attractiveness-power about ritual hair covering, but they’ve beaten you to the punch - that’s pretty close to the reasoning given for such things. A married woman should be attractive to her husband, nobody else. (Feminists don’t like this very much.)
Avi says:
“There are Jewish Hasidic sects where married women shave their heads. The reason I heard given for the practice was to discourage (non-Jewish) medieval lords from taking their right of the first night.”
I have said that right of the first night was an invention of women and that it was designed to benefit women. Also, (through Steven Pinker) I said that attractive women have more negotiating power in any transaction - something that is resented by men in some societies.
I have assumed that the husbands of Hasidic women are interested parties in the head shaving game, something which has Avi has overlooked. Men have been overwhelmingly interested in virginity since the beginning of time. I’d like anyone to prove it matters more to women than men.
So even though women may have come back from the castle with a lot of free stuff to share with everyone, men were never going to like it.
Lunesea: I don’t have cites for my assertion. I assert and therefore I have asserted. Evolutionary psychology is the easiest game in the world - even I can play it.
If any of you have ever seen braveheart (Mel Gibson), you’ll notice that the English lords conducted this same thing on the scottish ‘peasants’ under their control. This is an accurate depiction. It helps to show another reason for it, which is because they were trying to breed them out. English/Scottish fueds have been going on for a long time.
Another good point to remember is that most Lords or important people of the time either had many wives, or used prostitutes. So don’t forget that in the end, it might have just been another way for them to “relieve themselves” so to speak.
-Rico
Rico, if you had actually read the column, it says that “first night” is a bunch of BS.
Braveheart is just a movie, and a historically innacurate one at that. For more info visit this site: http://www.celt.net/ferguson/brave.htm
If you have information proving otherwise please provide a cite.
The comment about Braveheart may well be the understatement of the year.
Braveheart is WILDLY inaccurate–I wouldn’t trust it for anything historical whatsoever:
–The battle that Wallace won was fought at a bridge crossing. Wallace won because he picked just the right time to attack.
–Edward Longshanks outlived Wallace by a good number of years. (He WAS called Edward Longshanks)
–There’s no evidence that Wallace was betrayed at Falkirk, nor that Robert the Bruce or his family ever played Wallace false. I don’t believe they had anything to do with his capture, either. (A man named Monteith was involved)
–In fact, Wallace supported one of Bruce’s rivals
–I don’t believe the Queen ever met Wallace. She may not have come to England after he was dead. Not sure about this last sentence, but she NEVER would have been sent on a diplomatic mission. Period.
In short, I wouldn’t trust Braveheart as a historical source for anything.
Damned entertaining movie, though.
Thanks for backing me up DRY. I agree its a great movie, but that’s it.
Why? You don’t have to feed your genes to keep them healthy, and they don’t get worn down with use because you don’t use them for anything except reproduction. Babies are disadvantaged being born to malnourished mothers, but that’s because of bad prenatal conditions, not genes.