Memories of the 28th Century

It probably is a mistake for me to write this, but I had to start it.
There is much too much in this matter for me to thoroughly cover it in a blog post. A three hundred page book would be a better start.

The Economist had an article this week (link below) that reinforces what most people have long known; i.e., that females are still the dominant sex among humans. I realize that many people mouth the converse of that, but woman have always controlled everything indirectly, rather than requiring direct, explicit control.

Whether one looks at the Gilgamesh Saga, in which Enlil and Enki were the titular head Gods, but the Goddess Inanna had more effective control as the Goddess of love, but that was only six thousand years ago. The very earliest images of deities were the pregnant fertility images that go back several tens of thousands of years. There were few women involved in government in ancient times, but there were women behind the thrones in many cases that were recorded, and we can assume that many other cases were not recorded.

This is the first time I have regretted not knowing more of Greek tragedies, but just thinking of Medea we have a great example of a woman controlling events without holding leadership titles.

I could bring up examples through the centuries that would show that women were controlling things from behind the scenes. The wives of great men usually were great. As sexist as Ancient Greek culture was, Aspasia, the wife of Pericles, was allowed to participate in symposia that ordinarily were men only activities.

Skipping ahead to the Plantagenet kings of of England there were some queens who were great powers behind the throne; although they had no formal power. Matilda, the wife of Henry I, was powerful and set up to become reigning queen, but Stephen got in the way of that. Eleanor of Aquitaine, the wife of Henry II, was the Duchess of Aquitaine, and her lands stayed with her with she married first Louis VII of France, and when that marriage was annulled she retained her lands, which became part of the Angevin Empire when she married Henry II. And those are just two.

I won't bore you with details of kings and queens and aces, but it was Eleanor's not bearing sons that got her first marriage annulled, and she did bear sons to her second husband; thus she did what was most important for a queen. She also assisted in retaining the rights of her people in Aquitaine. Those are the important matters now, as they were back then, bearing children and making sure that people get what is due.

When we look at the notable wives of U.S. Presidents, we see them doing the same things, bearing sons and watching over the rights of the people. Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mamie Eisenhower, Lady Bird Johnson, etc. all did the same things, but they all had their specialties, like Lady Bird being involved in highway beautification. I won’t even mention the wives of more recent Presidents, but they have had power behind the throne. And I just remembered the wife of Woodrow Wilson. Wilson suffered a stroke in 1919 and remained in the White House for months; during that period his wife, Ellen Axson Wilson, was his only contact, and some think that she was making the policy during that period. “He was insulated by his wife, who selected matters for his attention and delegated others to his cabinet.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson#Incapacity . Now that’s the way is supposed to be done.


It was a pleasure to read an article in a major magazine that pointed out what every woman already knew, that women are too busy bearing and raising children and keeping everyone fed and healthy to worry about running businesses or countries. Those women who do not become involved with children and families sometimes would like to run businesses or countries, and some of them do quite well, while others find that business and politics are quite different from family life.

One of these days I'll have to read all of "What Every Woman Knows", the play by J. M. Barrie. It is about the matter of women pulling all of the strings, but I don't know all of the details.


Economist.com article
http://www.economist.com/news/216680...her-goals-what
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_E...ows_%28play%29
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/me...of-England.htm
http://www.denverpost.com/books/ci_9273806
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5654


I write like H. P. Lovecraft according to https://iwl.me/.