During the 17th and 18th centuries in England, people’s attitudes toward sexual behavior — and, of course, sexual misbehavior — changed dramatically. To a large degree, this revolution pivoted on the dynamic between private actions and public, civic and religious ideals. How much, or in what way, should society police the erotic life of individuals? Was adultery a crime? Were prostitutes the devil’s snare, or were they the pathetic victims of male callousness and exploitation? Should both sexes be held to the same moral standards? And exactly what standards should those be?
In his anecdote-rich, crisply written and impressively well-researched “The Origins of Sex,” Oxford historian Faramerz Dabhoiwala tracks the answers to questions like these. Up until the 17th century, he stresses: “The fundamental principle of conventional ethics was that men and women were personally responsible for their actions, no matter how powerful the temptation. Only beasts and savages gave ‘unrestrained liberty’ to ‘the cravings of nature’ — civilized Christians were rather ‘to bring under the flesh; bring nature under the government of reason, and in short bring the body under the command of the soul.’ ”
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Michael Dirda is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post Book World and the author of the memoir “An Open Book” and of four collections of essays: “Readings,” “Bound to Please,” “Book by Book” and “Classics for Pleasure.”
Allied to this view was the patriarchal principle “that every woman was the property of her father or husband, so that it was a kind of theft for any stranger to have sex with her, and a grave affront to her relatives.” Dabhoiwala cites the aristocratic Margaret Cavendish, who declared that a woman who had been defiled should be immediately put to death by her kinsmen because such unchastity was “an offence to the gods, a reproach to her life, a disgrace to her race, a dishonour to her kindred, and an infamy to her family.”
In effect, such views aimed to ensure the health and spiritual wholeness of the community. As Dabhoiwala notes, paraphrasing Saint Augustine, “heresy and adultery were the same kind of crime”: In both instances, “people claimed only to be following their hearts.” But, ultimately, they were guilty because it was “folly to leave religion and morality to personal interpretation.”
During the civil and religious unrest of the 17th century, however, the public disciplining of sexual miscreants began to collapse. The stringency of the Puritans — who reintroduced the death penalty for adultery — gradually backfired. Their overharsh principles appealed only to zealots. Instead of a culture based on neighbors watching neighbors and calling them to task when necessary, sexual policing was outsourced to paid professionals and mercenary informers. Inevitably, complaints arose that regulation had grown inequitable: The rich and the aristocratic were flouting the laws and codes of conduct, while the poor were being unduly punished.
Magistrates in their stead no longer felt it was their charge to correct the morals of harlots and scoundrels. They simply judged “particular actions, rather than a person’s general character.” By 1750, writes Dabhoiwala, “most forms of consensual sex outside marriage had drifted beyond the reach of law.” By then, too, England had come to accept a view of society that allowed for a diversity of beliefs about human behavior. Travelers, explorers and scholars reported on the relativity of sexual practice around the world, even the untroubled acceptance of polygamy and incest. Enlightened reason, not hidebound faith, should obviously regulate our behavior. Provided people didn’t injure each other, they should be free to act as they saw fit. Wasn’t the pursuit of happiness the highest goal of life?
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