This depends not just on your definition of “happiness”, but also on your definition of “say” :) How many pre-Victorian narratives by women/queers are you able to name at all without digging into Google? Only Jane Austen… and Mary Shelley’s mom… and 1-2 others, I bet.
So, a lot of women might have, without having to worry their pretty little heads, “said” that they are happy through the testimony of their kind and caring husbands. Much like the Soviet people reported their happiness and contentment through their lawfully elected, not-at-all-rubberstamp representatives. Note that those second-hand assertions hardly ever mention sexual consent/rape or corporal punishment or other such things that we’re curious about when assessing marriage. So could you please provide me with some statistics for e.g. matrial rape in 1700s Britain, to support your likely claim that it was not a serious problem? I’d be (pleasantly!) surprised if you could.
(What I wouldn’t be surprised at is you quoting Three Worlds Collide about the space of possible attitudes to sexual consent. Well, as you can see sam0345 also has… interesting… views on consent. Isn’t this evidence of how terribly dangerous—not just promising—it might be for us to become less paranoid and more tolerant in regards to patriarchy?)
This depends not just on your definition of “happiness”, but also on your definition of “say” :) How many pre-Victorian narratives by women/queers are you able to name at all without digging into Google? Only Jane Austen… and Mary Shelley’s mom… and 1-2 others, I bet.
So, a lot of women might have, without having to worry their pretty little heads, “said” that they are happy through the testimony of their kind and caring husbands. Much like the Soviet people reported their happiness and contentment through their lawfully elected, not-at-all-rubberstamp representatives. Note that those second-hand assertions hardly ever mention sexual consent/rape or corporal punishment or other such things that we’re curious about when assessing marriage. So could you please provide me with some statistics for e.g. matrial rape in 1700s Britain, to support your likely claim that it was not a serious problem? I’d be (pleasantly!) surprised if you could.
(What I wouldn’t be surprised at is you quoting Three Worlds Collide about the space of possible attitudes to sexual consent. Well, as you can see sam0345 also has… interesting… views on consent. Isn’t this evidence of how terribly dangerous—not just promising—it might be for us to become less paranoid and more tolerant in regards to patriarchy?)