We clearly also clearly see that all Western societies used to have far fewer unwed mothers, less divorce and teen pregnancy when these where more strongly shamed before the sexual revolution.
It seems that would be kind of difficult to measure.
Difficult not only to measure, but even to bring the meanings behind these measurements to consistency. Were there many couples who’d get divorced nowdays, but lived in a formal marriage while not being on speaking terms? Were there many fathers and stepfathers (forced into marriage after unintended pregnancy, etc) whose parenting had a worse effect than unwed motherhood would?
I suspect all that, and more, but I have no way to prove it. A society’s facade—especially that of a shame-based, traditionalist culture—can be practically impenetrable once the witnesses fade away. We only have a strong image of Victorian philistinism and hypocrisy because a Victorian (and, mostly, Edwardian) elite attacked it vigorously. Today, most people have a cached belief that the Edo-era samurai were an uniformly honorable aristocracy obsessed with Bushido—but I’ve heard from several sources that it was mostly propaganda (both contemporary and Imperial one), and that most samurai behaved like glorified thugs whenever they could get away with it.
[Dear downvoters, how about a rebuttal? Use a sockpuppet if you want, just tell me whether you do, in fact, have a reason to punish this comment on its own weight. I do want more skill at epistemic rationality, and would really benefit from being showed a flaw where I thought there were none.]
For that matter, I’ve read claims that if you read diaries by Victorian women, you find that a lot of them liked sex and didn’t feel bad about liking it.
Difficult not only to measure, but even to bring the meanings behind these measurements to consistency. Were there many couples who’d get divorced nowdays, but lived in a formal marriage while not being on speaking terms? Were there many fathers and stepfathers (forced into marriage after unintended pregnancy, etc) whose parenting had a worse effect than unwed motherhood would?
I suspect all that, and more, but I have no way to prove it. A society’s facade—especially that of a shame-based, traditionalist culture—can be practically impenetrable once the witnesses fade away. We only have a strong image of Victorian philistinism and hypocrisy because a Victorian (and, mostly, Edwardian) elite attacked it vigorously. Today, most people have a cached belief that the Edo-era samurai were an uniformly honorable aristocracy obsessed with Bushido—but I’ve heard from several sources that it was mostly propaganda (both contemporary and Imperial one), and that most samurai behaved like glorified thugs whenever they could get away with it.
[Dear downvoters, how about a rebuttal? Use a sockpuppet if you want, just tell me whether you do, in fact, have a reason to punish this comment on its own weight. I do want more skill at epistemic rationality, and would really benefit from being showed a flaw where I thought there were none.]
For that matter, I’ve read claims that if you read diaries by Victorian women, you find that a lot of them liked sex and didn’t feel bad about liking it.