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Wife of Bath, criminal justice & men’s subordination to women

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Article by Douglas Galbi

Wife of Bath illustration from Ellesmere Chaucer

In the Wife of Bath’s Prologue within Geoffrey Chaucer’s fourteenth-century Canterbury Tales, Alisoun accused her husband Jankyn of murdering her. Actual murder victims never make such accusations. Alisoun concocted her accusation of murder to strike back at Jankyn and make him subordinate to her. In the subsequent Wife of Bath’s Tale, women court leaders suspended punishing a man for rape in order to promote men’s subordination to women. The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale present criminal justice as a pretext for promoting men’s subordination to women.

Alisoun initiated domestic violence against her husband Jankyn. Living within gynocentric society, Jankyn found a measure of humor and enjoyment in reading literature of men’s sexed protest, including the venerable classics Theophrastus’s Golden Book on Marriage and Valerius’s letter to his friend Rufinus. Alisoun responded violently to Jankyn’s peaceful reading:

And when I saw he would never cease
Reading on this cursed book all night,
All suddenly have I plucked three leaves
Out of his book, right as he read, and also
I with my fist so hit him on the cheek
That in our fire he fell down backwards. [1]

Jankyn got back up and hit her back. She fell down and then claimed that he, a battered spouse, murdered her. When Jankyn came to kiss her and apologize, she struck him again. In medieval Europe, men were punished as perpetrators of domestic violence and as victims of domestic violence. Peace came to their household not through criminal justice, but by the husband making himself subordinate to his wife. Alisoun explained:

We made an agreement between our two selves.
He gave me all the control in my hand,
To have the governance of house and land,
And of his tongue, and of his hand also;
And made him burn his book immediately right then.
And when I had gotten unto me,
By mastery, all the sovereignty,
And that he said, ‘My own true wife,
Do as you please the rest of all thy life;
Guard thy honor, and guard also my reputation’ —
After that day we never had an argument. [2]

Alisoun’s sovereignty over Jankyn encompassed what he said, what he did, and even what he read. Political structures of oppression seldom reach that extent of personal domination.

In the Wife of Bath’s Tale, public and personal support for women’s domination of men allowed a knight to escape punishment under law for rape. While out hunting, the knight saw a maiden walking. While most men, like most male primates, don’t rape, this knight raped that maiden. Rape of women has been considered a serious crime throughout recorded history. The Wife of Bath reported that the knight was condemned to death for raping the maiden. However, the queen and other courtly ladies intervened. They were delegated authority to decide whether the knight would be executed.

The queen declared that the knight’s punishment would be remitted if he declared satisfactorily what women most desire. The queen gave the knight up to twelve months to declare publicly what women most desire. The knight desperately searched for the saving answer. What women want has always been a vigorous topic of public discussion in gynocentric society. The knight heard many different answers. He despaired of finding the saving one. Finally, an ugly woman offered to solve the riddle for the knight if he would do whatever she requested of him. The knight agreed. The ugly woman whispered the answer to him.

The knight successfully declared publicly what women want. The queen’s ad hoc court of justice publicly assembled:

Very many a noble wife, and many a maid,
And many a widow, because they are wise,
The queen herself sitting as a justice,
Are assembled, to hear his answer;
And afterward this knight was commanded to appear.
Silence was commanded to every person,
And that the knight should tell in open court
What thing that worldly women love best.

Before that court, the knight courageously declared to the queen:

“My liege lady, without exception,” he said,
“Women desire to have sovereignty
As well over her husband as her love,
And to be in mastery above him.
This is your greatest desire, though you kill me.
Do as you please; I am here subject to your will.”

The women sitting in judgment of him universally acclaimed the knight’s answer. In response to his public recognition of women’s interest in dominating men, the women exercised their dominance by freeing him from the death penalty for raping a woman.

The knight, however, was still beholden to the women who had provided the answer that saved him. She, the “loathly lady,” was low-born, ugly, old, and poor. She ordered the knight to marry her. The knight was horrified at that request. But he had given his word. Empathy and generosity can save women from oppressive terms of ill-considered agreements. Men are much less likely to benefit from such favor. The knight was forced to wed and sleep with the loathly lady. In short, under today’s understanding, he was raped.

Men’s lack of good life choices is sustained through men’s subordination to women and romantic fantasies. In despair at not having fulfilling alternatives for living his life, the knight repressed his desires, nullified his independent thinking, and surrendered his rational agency to his wife, the loathly lady:

“My lady and my love, and wife so dear,
I put me in your wise governance;
Choose yourself which may be most pleasure
And most honor to you and me also.

The loathly lady carefully confirmed her husband’s total subordination to her:

“Then have I gotten mastery of you,” she said,
“Since I may choose and govern as I please?”
“Yes, certainly, wife,” he said, “I consider it best.”

Then, in the fairytale of all fairytales, the wife turned into a beautiful young woman. Men today internalize this fairytale with the common saying, “happy wife, happy life.”[3]

The injustices of criminal justice are in part a problem of imagination. Few today can even imagine asking the question, “what do men most desire?” A satisfactory answer is not that men are dogs. Most men don’t desire sovereignty or mastery over others, be those others women or men. Most men surely desire not to be treated as criminally suspect persons, and to receive due process and equal justice under law. A good beginning to answering the question “what do men most desire?” is to face the highly disproportionate number of men prisoners and ask why they are imprisoned.

Notes:

[1] Geoffrey Chaucer, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, ll. 788-93, modernized English from Benson (2008). Subsequent quotes, unless otherwise noted, are from id., ll. 812-22, 1026-30, 1037-42, 1230-33, 1236-38.

[2] Mann (2002), p. ix, expresses concern that since 1992, “this reluctance to credit Chaucer with a ‘real sympathy’ with women has persisted and intensified.” Mann earnestly pondered whether Chaucer wrote “without incurring the charge of antifeminism.” Id. p. 25. For scholars today, the charge of antifeminism is as serious as the charge of murder, at least if the victim is a woman. Chaucer probably wrote for noble ladies. See note [14] and related text in my post on the Griseldas of Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Chaucer.

[3] McTaggert (2012) p. 61, n. 3, observes:

Suffice it to say that Chaucer scholarship remains undecided about whether the Wife’s text makes a case for feminism or not.

Such Chaucer scholarship should simply declare its worthlessness and shift to the more important task of appreciating Boccaccio’s Corbaccio.

[image] Wife of Bath illumination from the Ellesmere Chaucer, f. 72r (probably first or second decade of the fifteenth century). MS EL 26 C 9 in Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

References:

Benson, Larry, trans. 2008. Geoffrey Chaucer. The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale. The Geoffrey Chaucer Page, Harvard University.

Mann, Jill. 2002. Feminizing Chaucer. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: D.S. Brewer.

McTaggart, Anne. 2012. “What Women Want?: Mimesis and Gender in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale.” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture. 19 (1): 41-67.

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Glorification of men’s love abjection

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Article by Douglass Galbi

woman blessing knight serving in amour courtois

Since late in the nineteenth century, learned scholars have intensely and earnestly deliberated various historical and technical issues associated with medieval European poésie lyrique and amour courtois. This deliberation, though courteous, has been heated and pointed. Scholarly reputations have risen and fallen in the verbal battles. Just as in war generally, almost all the persons fighting in this field of medieval scholarship have been men. Consistent with the gynocentrism typical of primates, all the leading men have glorified men’s love abjection and men’s love servitude to women.

Narrow historical and technical disputes about amour courtois have obscured broad scholarly endorsement of men’s love abjection and men’s love servitude to women. Claims about medieval European poésie lyrique have been qualified to amour courtois. The latter, however, has been identified as an anachronistic term. Fin d’amor has thus among scholars become a more reputable term for amour courtois. Being French, amour courtois is more stylish than “courtly love.” Both terms are etymologically related to being classy. Embracing the spirit of democratic equality, an elite medieval scholar coined the term “courtly experience.” That term emphasizes that amour courtois is a universal impulse:

I hold that here is a gentilezza {courtesy} which is not confined to any court or privileged class, but springs from an inherent virtù {manly excellence}; that the feelings of courtoisie are elemental, not the product of a particular chivalric nurture. In the poets’ terms, they allow even the most vilain {common} to be gentil {noble}. [1]

“Courtly experience” expressed in poetry can be a way of looking at life even for peasants rolling in the hay:

The courtly experience is the sensibility that gives birth to poetry that is courtois, to poetry of amour courtois. Such poetry may be either popular or courtly, according to the circumstances of its composition. The unity of popular and courtly love-poetry is manifest in the courtly experience, which finds expression in both. [2]

Gynocentrism is typical of primates. It hence encompasses both popular and courtly love poetry. Amour courtois has been described as “un secteur du coeur, un des aspects éternels de l’homme” {a part of the heart, one of the eternal aspects of man}.[3] Stated more literally, gynocentrism is a prevalent aspect of human societies.

The stark, oppressive anti-men gender inequality at the core of amour courtois has often been obscured. In 1896, an eminent European medievalist defined la poésie courtoise {courtly love poetry}:

What distinguishes it is conceiving of love as a cult directed toward an instance of excellence and based, like Christian love, on the infinite disproportion between merit and desire; like a necessary school of honor that makes the lover worthy and transforms commoners into nobles; like a voluntary servitude that has an ennobling power and that consists in the dignity and beauty of passionate suffering. [4]

That definition completely ignores the starkly different positions of men and women in amour courtois. The monumental work Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love-Lyric, published in 1965, expanded upon that definition:

‘le culte d’un objet excellent’ {cult directed toward an instance of excellence}: such an attitude of the poet towards his beloved is the foundation of the courtly experience. From this arises the ‘infinite disproportion’ between lover and loved one. Yet the entire love-worship of the beloved is based on the feeling that by loving such disproportion may be lessened, the infinite gulf bridged, and a way toward union, however difficult and arduous, begun. … It is what leads to such expressions as: she whom I love is peerless throughout the world; one moment with her is worth Paradise to me; I would gladly go to Hell if she were there; her beauty is radiant as the sun; she mirrors the divine light in the world; she moves among other women like a goddess; she is worshipped by saints and angels; she herself is an angel, a goddess; she is the lover’s remedy; she is his salvation. … winning such a love is infinitely arduous, and would be impossible were it not for the lady’s grace. The value of the way is intimately related to its difficulty; therefore the lady should not take pity too easily. In any case, the lover must orient himself to an absolute love, if necessary a love unto death. [5]

In 1936, an influential medievalist declared the anti-men gender inequality of amour courtois more openly and more realistically:

Every one has heard of courtly love, and every one knows that it appears quite suddenly at the end of the eleventh century in Languedoc. … The lover is always abject. Obedience to his lady’s lightest wish, however whimsical, and silent acquiescence in her rebukes, however unjust, are the only virtues he dares to claim. There is a service of love closely modelled on the service which a feudal vassal owes to his lord. The lover is the lady’s ‘man’. He addresses her as midons, which etymologically represents not ‘my lady’ but ‘my lord’. The whole attitude has been rightly described as ‘a feudalisation of love’. [6]

The scholar rightly identified an “unmistakable continuity” in this idea of love from the Middle Ages right through to the present. Men’s love servitude to women also existed in the Roman Empire in love elegy, in the relation to between caliphs and slave girls in the early Islamic world, and probably in most human societies throughout history.[7]

Scholars have only described and interpreted amour courtois while glorifying it. The scholarly imperative should be to abolish it. Writing in 1936, an influential medievalist observed:

Even our code of etiquette, with its rule that women always have precedence, is a legacy from courtly love [8]

He, however, lamented that courtly love isn’t more prevalent:

The popular erotic literature of our own day tends rather to sheikhs and ‘Salvage Men’ and marriage by capture, while that which is in favour with our intellectuals recommends either frank animalism or the free companionship of the sexes. [9]

In Theft of History, published in 2006, the chapter “Stolen Love: European Claims to the Emotions” takes amour courtois to farce:

the associated claim that love is uniquely European has also had a number of political implications being bound up not only with the development of capitalism but also being used in the service of imperialism. There is a palace in Mérida in Yucatan, the decoration of which portrays helmeted and armoured conquistadores towering over vanquished savages, with an inscription that proclaims the conquering power of love. That emotion, fraternal rather than sexual, had been claimed by the imperialist conquerors from Europe. Love literally conquers all in the hands of the invading military. [10]

Claiming amour courtois for a time or place is no substitute for meaningful ethical judgment. Amour courtois, which has at its core the subordination of men to women, isn’t humane. Amour courtois remains far too prevalent in societies around the world. Medieval European literature, wrongly understood as the source of amour courtois, provides important resources for overcoming it. Everyone needs to be educated through careful study of Lamentationes Matheoluli, Vita Aesopi, Solomon and Marcolf, Old French fabliaux, medieval women’s love poetry, and especially Boccaccio.

Notes:

[1] Dronke (1965) p. 3. Id., p. 7, refers to “the way of acquiring the virtù that she embodies.” That feminine usage of virtù reflects Dronke’s blurring of stark sex differences in amour courtois.

[2] Id. p. 3. Id, n. 1, explains:

I speak of the courtly experience rather than, say, the courtly manner or fashion because, beyond manners and fashions, it can entail a whole way of looking at life.

Dronke doesn’t speak about how looking at life through amour courtois differs in domination and subordination between women and men.

[3] Marrou (1947) p. 89, cited in Dronke (1965) pp. ix, 46.

[4] Bédier (1896) p. 172, cited in Dronke (1965) p. 4, my translation from French. The original French text:

Ce qui lui est propre, c’est d’avoir conçu l’amour comme un culte qui s’adresse à un objet excellent et se fonde, comme l’amour chrétien, sur l’infinie disproportion du mérite au désir ; — comme une école nécessaire d’honneur, qui fait valoir l’amant et transforme les vilains en courtois ; — comme un servage volontaire qui recèle un pouvoir ennoblissant, et fait consister dans la souffrance la dignité et la beauté de la passion.

Bédier was disputing the views of his contemporary scholars Alfred Jeanroy and Gaston Paris. All are influential figures in scholarship on amour courtois. C.S. Lewis characterized amour courtois as Humility, Courtesy, Adultery, and the Religion of Love. Lewis (1936) p. 2. The three characteristics other than adultery exist together in some medieval love poetry. That has spurred marginal disputes about amour courtois.

[5] Dronke (1965) pp. 4-5, 7. In his elaboration on Bédier’s definition, Dronke treats gender difference as merely a grammatical formalism. Gender difference emerges only when Dronke moves to “such expressions as.” The subordinate, abject lover is the man (he) and the dominant, paragon of excellence is the woman (she).

[6] Lewis (1936) p. 2. The reference to “unmistakeable continuity” is id. p. 3. Id. pp. 11, 12 calls amour courtois a “new sentiment” and a “new feeling” that originated in the love poetry of the late-eleventh-century Provençal troubadours. Donke, in contrast, declares nothing new and no geographic origin for amour courtois. Dronke also regards amour courtois as not particularly associated with feudal, chivalric society. Dronke (1965) p. ix. His depiction of amour courtois is nonetheless consistent with servant / lord feudal relations.

[7] Dronke (1965), Ch. I, documents the courtly experience of amour courtois in ancient Egyptian literary love songs; medieval Byzantium popular love songs; Rusthaveli’s The Man in the Panther’s Skin, written in Georgian about 1200; in the pre-Islamic Arabic poetry of Jamil and Buthaynah, the early Islamic poetry of ibn al-Ahnaf, and the eleventh-century Persian romance Wis and Ramin; love poetry of Mozarabic Spain; refrains of medieval France and Germany; tenth-century Icelandic skaldic poetry; and medieval love poetry in the Greek-Italian dialect of Calabria.

[8] Id. pp. 3-4. Scholars have provided rationalizations for denying and reversing men’s manifest subordination in courtly love. The collapse of reason is now pervasive in medieval scholarship:

As is now generally recognized, the rhetoric of courtly love is a social discourse of coercive power, asserting the courtier’s dominance over both the female love-object and men of lesser status.

Garrison (2015) p. 323. Anti-men gender bigotry is now similarly interpreted as promoting gender equality. Moreover, as the Costa Condordia disaster made clear, men continue to be denied equal opportunity to get off sinking ships.

[9] Id. p. 1. The term “salvage” apparently is an archaic form of “savage.”

[10] Goody (2006) p. 285. These are the concluding sentences of the chapter. The non-gendered reference to military action underscores lack of concern for men’s lives.

[image] Knight serving woman in amour courtois. Oil on canvas. Edmund Leighton, English, 1901. Thanks to Wikimedia Commons.

References:

Bédier, Joseph. 1896. “Les fêtes de mai et les commencemens de la poésie lyrique au moyen âge.” Revue des Deux Mondes 135: 146-72.

Dronke, Peter. 1965. Medieval Latin and the rise of European love-lyric. Vol I. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Garrison, Jennifer. 2015. “Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and the Danger of Masculine Interiority.” The Chaucer Review. 49 (3): 320-343.

Goody, Jack. 2006. The theft of history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lewis, C. S. 1936. The allegory of love; a study in medieval tradition. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.

Marrou, Henri-Irénée. 1947. “Au dossier de l’amour courtois.” Revue du Moyen Age Latin 3: 81-89.

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Feminism

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FEMINISM

Below is a selection of articles showing the feminist project as a continuation of the longer gynocentric tradition to which it belongs. The underlying thesis of the articles is summarized in this passage by Adam Kostakis:

Feminism is only the modern packaging of Gynocentrism, an ancient product, made possible in its present form by the extensive public welfare arrangements of the post-war period. In spite of its radical rhetoric, the content of feminism, or one could say, its essence, is remarkably traditional; so traditional, in fact, that its core ideas are simply taken for granted, as unquestioned and unquestionable dogma, enjoying uniform assent across the political spectrum. Feminism is distinguishable only because it takes a certain traditional idea – the deference of men to women – to an unsustainable extreme. Political extremism, a product of modernity, shall fittingly put an end to the traditional idea itself; that is, in the aftermath of its astounding, all-singing, all-dancing final act.

The traditional idea under discussion is male sacrifice for the benefit of women, which we term Gynocentrism. This is the historical norm, and it was the way of the world long before anything called ‘feminism’ made itself known. There is an enormous amount of continuity between the chivalric class code which arose in the Middle Ages and modern feminism, for instance. That the two are distinguishable is clear enough, but the latter is simply a progressive extension of the former over several centuries, having retained its essence over a long period of transition. One could say that they are the same entity, which now exists in a more mature form – certainly, we are not dealing with two separate creatures.

Selection of articles:

La Querelle des Femmes
Ernest B. Bax on “Chivalry feminism”
Feminism: the same old gynocentric story
Gynocentrism and its Discontents
Feminism: gynocentric or egalitarian?
Feminism, sex-differences and chivalry
Nathanson and Young on gynocentric feminism
Gynocentrism, humanism and The Patriarchy™
Offering a concise definition of feminism
Gynocentrism 2.0, compassion, and choice
Damseling, chivalry and courtly love in modern feminism
Book review of ‘Governance Feminism: An Introduction’
Mythologies of The Men’s Rights And Feminist Movements
Hera, Ancient Greek Goddess of Feminism
Tradwives, Modwives and Feminists
A New Aristocracy
Women of color feminists vs. white feminist tears
White Supremacy: A Euphemism For White Women Worship

La Querelle

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The following items elaborate on the long-running gender quarrel (La querelle) from the twelfth century to today.

 

WOMEN’S VOICES

Christine de Pizan: the first gender warrior
Jane Anger: gynocentrism in 1589
Modesta Pozzo: gynocentrism in 1590
Lucrezia Marinella: gynocentrism in 1600
Margaret Cavendish: gynocentrism in 1662
Elizabeth Poole Sandford: Female Power, Influence, and Privileges in 1835

FEMINISM

La Querelle des Femmes
Ernest B. Bax on “Chivalry feminism”
Feminism: the same old gynocentric story
Gynocentrism and its Discontents
Feminism: gynocentric or egalitarian?
Feminism, sex-differences and chivalry
Nathanson and Young on gynocentric feminism
Gynocentrism, humanism and The Patriarchy™
Offering a concise definition of feminism
Gynocentrism 2.0, compassion, and choice
Damseling, chivalry and courtly love in modern feminism

MEN GOING THEIR OWN WAY (MGTOW)

MGTOW philosophy

Perspectives on MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) – a significant post-gynocentrism subculture based on the principle of male self-determination.

Querelle du Mariage
How to tame men – gynocentrism style
Gynocentrism – why so hard to kill?
MGTOW – facts and fallacies
What are MGTOW against?
Early references to “Men going their own way”
Definition of MGTOW
A MGTOW Yardstick: Determination Of Self By Other (DOSBO)
On the nature of MGTOW self-determination
MGTOW: 12th century style
MGTOW movement of 1898
Authoring your own life
Don’t just do something, SIT THERE

Marriage shunning

The following collection of articles describe the post-gynocentrism phenomenon of marriage shunning by males, and the rationale behind it.

Marriage is a gynocentric custom
Slavery 101 – dating as taught to girls
Valentine’s Day: gynocentrism’s most holy event
Women complaining about lack of available slavemasters
Men not marrying
Men shouldn’t marry
Marriage is obsolete. Are women?
Men on strike: why men are boycotting marriage
Don’t give up on marriage? Request denied
Down the aisle again on the marriage question

Post-gynocentrism relationships

Post-gynocentrism relationships between men and women are possible and even desirable for many people. The following articles explore how relationships can be revisioned.

Hail to the V
The other Beauty Myth
Sex and Attachment
Love and Friendship
On the marriage question

Post-gynocentrism culture

Articles (mostly from AVfM) exploring post-gynocentrism culture. Each article presents a post-gynocentrism paradigm for individual or collective existence.

How to end gynocentrism
Gynocentrism – why so hard to kill?
Freedom from gynocentrism in 12 Steps
Breaking the pendulum: Tradcons vs. Feminists
Why anyone who values freedom should be fighting against feminism
A Voice for Choice
Gynocentrism and the hierarchy of entitlement
The Counterculture
MHRM: counterculture or subculture?
On creating a counter-culture
A little blood in the mix never hurt a revolution

Definition of MGTOW

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Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) refers to men committed to self-determination, and to voluntarism within relationships. Defining oneself as a Man Going His Own Way (MGHOW) reveals a commitment to the view that a man has the sole right to decide what his own goals in life will be rather than accepting goals conferred by others, or by social consensus of peers, or higher social status individuals or collectives. Generally, consensus-conferred male identities or goals are recognized and rejected by MGTOW men as prescriptive, utilitarian, and benefiting others at a cost of socially unrecognized masculine self-destruction or marginalization.1,2,3,4,5

History

The phenomenon of male self-determination goes back millennia under names such as free-man, celibate, bachelor or stag. Sometimes these self-determined or ‘MGTOW’ men formed groups, the earliest known being that of the Anti-Bardell Bachelor Band of 1898.6 The phrase “Men Going Their Own Way,” or variants such as “going his own way,” or “to go his own sweet way,” in reference to men’s freedoms is hundreds of years old.7

The MGTOW phrase was further promoted in 2004 by members of a men’s rights group.8 Two of those promoters went by the online names ‘Ragnar’ and ‘Meikyo,’ and in an online interview Ragnar describes the moment as follows:

You see all the ideas were floating around on the internet. We were frustrated that we couldn’t get men to build an organization, couldn’t get men to come to this damned meeting- everybody was going their own damned way, and the fact that men went their own way, we started to use that phrase and we started to talk about what’s important for men… who’s going to define their masculinity? Well, they actually have to do that themselves, they have to find out what it is for themselves. So, as you have the responsibility for your own actions, well then it’s also your responsibility to define who you are as a man.9

The MGTOW acronym has since enjoyed increasing popularity as a title for male self-determination.

Rejection of gynocentrism

A core tenet of MGTOW is rejection of gynocentrism, the preferential concern for women in both traditional and progressive forms. The gynocentric customs of marriage, romantic love, chivalry and male servitude are wholly rejected by MGTOW as running counter to the goal of men going their own way.

Adaption of visual aid by Bar Bar10

Philosophy and politics

MGTOW is viewed as an evolving consciousness of self-determination and way of looking at the world. It involves making choices in the present that serve ongoing, future self-determination. Conversely, choices made that seriously endanger future self-determination are viewed as antithetical to MGTOW. 11

Unlike the lockstep and dogma of so many contemporary movements, MGTOW is entirely individualistic, even though many men may arrive at the same conclusions from having observed the same phenomena. The MGTOW-symbol suggested by the 2004 promoters shows a path deviating from the main road (ie. individualism), and an arrow (evolutionary potential). The same promoters further suggested that MGTOW is not affiliated politically, and efforts are made to “avoid pulling it to the left or to the right politically.”12 The proposition for political apartisanship, however, carries no moral authority for individual MGTOW who are free by definition to choose any political alignment they wish.

References

  1. ^ MGTOW: Facts and Fallacies
  2. ^ Early references to “Men going their own way”
  3. ^ A History of MGTOW – Men Going Their Own Way
  4. ^ Urban Dictionary – ‘MGTOW’
  5. ^ Everything is wrong with MGTOW (references ‘voluntarism’)
  6. ^ Anti-Bardell Bachelor Band of 1898
  7. ^ Early references to “Men going their own way”
  8. ^ A History of MGTOW – Men Going Their Own Way
  9. ^ Dialogue with MGTOW Founders – July 6, 2012
  10. ^ Shedding of the Ego – Gynocentric spectrum visual aid
  11. ^ On the nature of MGTOW self-determination
  12. ^ A History of MGTOW – Men Going Their Own Way

The historical role of gynocentrism in societal collapse

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By August Løvenskiolds, (expanding on an older article by Peter Wright)

Creative Commons - Flickr

MGTOW YouTube producer Turd Flinging Monkey (TFM) recently talked about his theory of how historical patriarchies (real ones, not the faux versions feminists are forever whining about) interact with gynocentrism to produce cycles of societal growth and collapse. The theory, referred to as the traditionalism cycle, has appeared in major civilizations. The traditionalism cycle goes something like this:

  1. Patriarchal traditionalism ?
  2. Gynocentric traditionalism ?
  3. Progressive gynocentrism ?
  4. Societal collapse ?
  5. Return to step 1 above.

Here’s the video that describes this in more detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKySNyUWxDA

The “traditionalism theory” is both descriptive of observed historical patterns and makes falsifiable predictions about how wealthy societies will break down over time if they fail to control gynocentric resource demands.

The theory is interesting on paper, though more unrealistic in practice for being too mechanistic and tidy; i.e., he proposes that societies start out as patriarchally controlled, then move through traditional and progressive forms of gynocentrism before collapsing under their own weight. The theory says that gynocentrism escalates with the advent of abundance (if and when abundance exists in a given culture).

What we appreciate about TFM’s exposition of his theory is that he did some detailed historical research to back it up – something sorely lacking in the discussion of the roots of gynocentrism. Instead of real research we often see pull-it-out-of-your-ass histories or dismissive appeals to biology – “it’s all in the genes.”

The irony that “Turd Flinging Monkey” did NOT pull it out of his ass is not lost on us.

The pull-it-out-of-your-ass kind of history is based on half-guesses, ideology and assumptions with little to no evidence – except perhaps references to items like Lysistrata, a play; Helen of Troy, a myth; The “Rule of Thumb” law authorizing standards of domestic violence (which even feminists admit is a complete fabrication), religious tales, fairy tales, and other fantasy sources – i.e. to assume myths and fables mirror real life has marginal utility at best and is often times just crap: have you ever seen a centaur?

Surely the classical depictions of centaurs must have mirrored real creatures and behaviors or they wouldn’t have mentioned it?! Any thinking person will recognize the problem; relying on ancient mythologies is akin to having future zoologists base the history of equine evolution on episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Mythology’s chief value is in metaphor: when the goddess Ishtar’s love interest Gilgamesh spurns her, she threatens to unleash zombies unless her father punishes Gilgamesh for his impudence. The metaphors seem to boil out of this, the oldest of human stories:

  • Women exercise covert, rather than overt, power.
  • Spurned women will unleash their fury on the men who spurned them, as well as others.
  • Fathers will side with angry, abusive daughters over innocent men.
  • Women in power will give power to the dangerous and unproductive.
  • Zombies are real!

Some of those metaphors are useful; some not so much.

The same goes for reductive biological explanations. Aside from the laziness of such approaches, the error in over-emphasizing biology is that biology is a product of environmental pressures that can, and do, change over time. Where you see biology you will always see a facilitating environment shaping it. Changes in environmental conditions (like over-population and resource depletion) could eliminate the biological “need” for gynocentrism entirely – wombs lose value when reducing the population is the only viable survival option for a species.

Fortunately, TFM breaks with the catalogue of errors and is trying to keep it fact based and real, even if he falls short by relying on an overly naïve, clockwork model that doesn’t speak to the complexities of cultural metamorphosis.

With that said there are some major, unspoken nuances that should be added to the conversation. The first is that there are degrees of gynocentric culture in both its traditional and progressive forms. Gynocentric societies are not cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all. Like hurricane categories with wind strengths of one to five, gynocentric culture can be imagined in a similar way – as differing in reach and packing winds anywhere from dangerous to destructive to catastrophic.

Like hurricanes, which become more intense depending on a confluence of atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, and wind direction, likewise the intensity of a given gynocentric culture rests on multiple factors. TFM has named one of them in his video: abundance.

Abundance is a good start, one that, in isolation from other factors, can definitely lead to a (lets call it) ‘category one’ gynocentric culture. But as we add more contributing factors the gynocentrism gets more pervasive and more destructive – factors like

  • male to female population ratio,
  • aristocratic conventions influencing the masses,
  • communication technologies,
  • reproductive technologies,
  • military campaigns,
  • foreign threats,
  • the strength and structure of cultural narratives perpetuating the sentiment,
  • and so on.

As these and many other factors converge the strength of gynocentric culture grows potentially up to a ‘category five’ such as was born in the Middle Ages with the mother of all gynocentric cultures that has spanned over 800 yrs and been exported from Europe to the rest of the world.

Ours.

We don’t intend to give an exhaustive reply here but will end with a general comment about our present culture. At this point the gynocentric culture birthed in medieval Europe is unprecedented in the long path of history – it was only there, and then, that the combination of romantic chivalry and courtly love was born, along with a bunch of other contributing factors that made this gynocentric revolution the mother of them all. But there’s no doubt there have occurred smaller, less intense manifestations of gynocentric culture throughout history along the lines TFM suggests.

Recognizing gynocentrism and how it hurts men, families and society is critical to the process of limiting and perhaps undoing the toll that it takes on everyone.

An older version of this essay first appeared on gynocentrism.com.

A comment on TFM’s ‘traditionalism cycle theory’

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Authors note: The below article was taken as a base commentary and expanded by August Løvenskiolds HERE. While I do not agree with all the expanded points made by August, I have added his article to this website for the purpose of discussion. – PW

_____________________

The following is a brief comment on Turd Flinging Monkey’s theory referred to as the ‘traditionalism cycle’ appearing in major civilizations. The cycle goes something like this:

Patriarchal traditionalism ? gynocentric traditionalism ? progressive gynocentrism ? collapse.

The theory is interesting on paper, though more unrealistic in practice for being too mechanistic and tidy; i.e., he proposes that societies start out as patriarchally controlled, then move through traditional and progressive forms of gynocentrism before collapsing under their own weight. The theory says that gynocentrism escalates with the advent of abundance (if and when abundance exists in a given culture).

What I appreciate about TFM’s theory is that he did some actual historical research to back it up – something sorely lacking in the discussion of the roots of gynocentrism. Instead of actual research we frequently see a pull-it-out-of-your-ass histories, or alternatively dismissive appeals to biology – “it’s all in the genes.”

The pull-it-out-of-your-ass kind of history is based on half-guesses and assumptions with little to no evidence – except perhaps references to items like Lysistrata, a play; Helen of Troy, a myth, religious tales, fairy tales, and other fantasy sources – ie. it’s a huge error to assume myths and fables mirror real life. Have you ever seen a centaur… surely the classical depictions of centaurs must have mirrored real creatures and behaviors or they wouldn’t have mentioned it?! Any thinking person will recognize the problem; relying on ancient mythologies is akin to having future zoologists base the history of equine evolution on episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Same goes for reductive biological explanations. Aside from the laziness of such approaches, the error in over-emphasizing biology is that biology does not exist, or rather doesn’t exist as a thing-in-itself. Where you see biology you will always see a facilitating environment shaping it.

Fortunately, TFM breaks with the catalogue of errors and is trying to keep it fact based and real, even if he falls short by relying on an overly naïve, clockwork model that doesn’t speak to the complexities of cultural metamorphosis.

With that said there are some major, unspoken nuances that I’d like to add to the conversation. The first is that there are degrees of gynocentric culture in both its traditional and progressive forms. Gynocentric societies are not cookie-cutter one size for all. Like hurricane categories with wind strengths of one to five, gynocentric culture can be imagined in a similar way – as differing in reach and packing winds anywhere from destructive to catastrophic.

Like hurricanes, which become more intense depending on a confluence of atmospheric pressure, humidity, and wind direction, likewise the intensity of a given gynocentric culture rests on multiple factors. TFM has named one of them in the video below: abundance. This is a good start, one that, in isolation from other factors, can definitely lead to a (lets call it) ‘category one’ gynocentric culture. But as we add more contributing factors the gynocentrism gets more pervasive and more destructive – factors like male to female population ratio; aristocratic conventions influencing the masses; the presence of military campaigns; and the strength and structure of cultural narratives perpetuating the sentiment (etc.). As these and many other factors converge the strength of gynocentric culture grows potentially up to a ‘category five’ such as was born in the Middle Ages with the mother of all gynocentric cultures that has spanned over 800 yrs and been imported from Europe to the rest of the world.

I don’t intend to give an exhaustive reply here but will end with a general comment about our present culture. At this point I’m still assuming the gynocentric culture birthed in medieval Europe is unprecedented in the long path of history – it was only there, and then that the combination of romantic chivalry and courtly love were born, along with a bunch of other contributing factors that made this gynocentric revolution the mother of them all. But there’s no doubt there have occurred smaller, less intense manifestations of gynocentric culture throughout history along the lines TFM suggests.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKySNyUWxDA&w=640&h=360]

A man’s protest transformed into discourse about women

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Matheolus adoring woman on pedestal

Matheolus adoring woman on pedestal

In a medieval masterpiece of men’s sexed protest, Matheolus poured out his anguish and anger about injuries he suffered from the church and his wife. Matheolus’s protest generated quarrels about women, apologies to women, and defenses of women. That’s a characteristic deliberative effect. Gynocentric society tends to transform men’s sexed protest into discourse about women.

The reception of Matheolus’s text illustrates the effects of gynocentrism. Matheolus wrote his work of men’s sexed protest in Latin in 1290. About a century later, Jehan Le Fèvre loosely translated Matheolus’s work into French. Perhaps fearing the dominant social power, Le Fèvre added apologies and excuses to his version:

I wish to excuse myself in my writing, since I do not slander the good women nor do I desire to slander. I would rather retract it than be hated for foolish language. God knows it {my book}, and I keep my payment for it, for I have no ill will toward women. Nor do I say anything in anger, except to color my statements. Good and virtuous women can never be honored too much. [1]

Le Fèvre depreciated men’s anger, as continues to be done even for men’s anger arising from outrageous injustice. Le Fèvre instead hinted at his dispassionate financial interest in translating Matheolus’s book. While poetry has long been condemned as lying, Le Fèvre’s Matheolus masochistically welcomed being beaten for his poetry. He declared, “If I lie, I want to be beaten.” Then he disavowed everything he had written as merely translating other men’s words:

It is fitting, since I translate, for me to speak or shut up. For this I beg that it be not displeasing if in this moral treatise I record some words which may be biting. For nothing proceeds from me, not the smallest bit, which is not found in histories and in ancient memories.

Le Fèvre recognized the social hostility to men’s sexed protest. With reasonable self-interest, he distanced himself from Matheolus’s work.

In addition to adding excuses and disclaimers to Matheolus’s text, Le Fèvre wrote an additional text that he positioned as a defense of women. He began his additional book with an appeal to women:

My ladies, I entreat your mercy. I would like to apologize to you here for what I said without your permission about the great strife and the torments of marriage. [2]

Men protesting their suffering in marriage isn’t permitted without women’s permission. Le Fèvre again excused his earlier work as only a translation. He urgently sought to avoid women’s hate and gain their grace:

no woman and anyone alive should hate me for that {translation of Matheolus’s book}. Therefore, if I was so occupied, I beg that it be pardoned and forgiven me by your grace. For I am all ready to write a book to redeem myself: please don’t deny this to me. … Without your grace, I don’t want to live.

Le Fèvre as writer represents the servile, self-obliterating woman-server of bleeding-man medieval chivalry. He explained that he wrote his new book:

to defend you ladies faithfully, and especially to show that no man ought to blame women; we ought to praise and love them, cherish, honor, and serve them, if would would deserve their grace.

The value of men’s lives, in Le Fèvre’s view, is contingent on women’s grace. Men blaming women is categorically illicit, while men serving women is categorically required. In attacking men who reject such subordination, Le Fèvre and like-minded men claim to be defending women.

Le Fèvre used subordination to women as a strategy to advance his pecuniary and sexual interests. Le Fèvre urged women to buy and promote his book:

My ladies, I ask you humbly, if I have pleaded your case weakly through my ignorance, use here your strength to make up for my defects and publish your honor, that all may know of it. … Please advocate for me, or I can truly say and promise that I will never have a day of gladness, but will remain in sadness, which will prey on my weary body, if I have to pay the expenses. [3]

With ignorance of the art of love, Le Fèvre sought women’s sexual favor through subservience and flattery:

Have mercy, mercy on poor Smith {Le Fèvre, in a pun on his name}, who suffers a greater thirst on his lip than did the rich man in hell; for he doesn’t know how to work on iron, but his effort is all on parchment. He has made this book for you, for he well knows that to all males who carry both purses and sacks, you are comfort, joy, and rest.

Sacks are a figure for scrotums, or more generally, male genitals. Carrying a purse associates men with paying money for enjoying women’s company. Seeking “mercy” is associated with men begging women for love.[4] That’s not a propitious seduction strategy. Embracing subordination to women does, however, help men to sell their books to women.

Le Fèvre’s dispassionate, narrowly self-interested translation and refutation of Matheolus’s sexed protest prompted additional gynocentric literature. Christine de Pizan indicated that “Matheolus,” which probably meant both Le Fèvre’s translation of Matheolus’s work and his refutation of it, inspired her to write Livre de la cité des dames (Book of the City of Ladies).[5] De Pizan also contrived to create a “querelle des femmes” (quarrel about women). Debate about women played out at the heights of French society, including the queen and leading clergy. Men’s concerns, as they had been throughout the long prior history of men’s sexed protest, were largely belittled and ignored.

An exemplary development was Martin Le Franc’s Le Champion des Dames (The Champion of Ladies). Finished in 1442, The Champion of Ladies goes on for an interminable five books containing 24,336 verses. Le Franc positioned his work as a response to what were originally Matheolus’s heartfelt lamentations. Le Franc charged Matheolus with defaming women. The Champion of Ladies tendentiously pits the titular champion against allegorical bogeymen Malebouche (Badmouth), Brief Conseil (Hasty Judgment), Vilain Penser (Evil Thinking), Trop Cuidier (Much Presuming), Lourt Entendement (Slow Wit), and Faulx Semblant (False Seeming):

Against foul Badmouth and his host —
That proud and overweening captain —
The Champion his lance lowers, most
Hardily however he is smitten,
He fears no more than a mitten
The balance of the battle’s woes,
For his victory is certain:
He’ll win no matter how it goes. [6]

A modern-day translator of The Champion of Ladies described Matheolus’s work as providing “misogynistic depictions of marriage, using humor to impugn women.”[7] The champion shames and blames all men for Matheolus’s sexed protest. To the modern champion of women, The Champion of the Ladies shows “understanding of the multifaceted nature of gender relations.”[8] That apparently isn’t meant to be funny.

The voluminous, tedious scholarly literature moralizing against medieval “anti-feminism” and “misogyny” serves dominant structures of gynocentrism. That literature refuses to recognize the possibility of medieval men’s sexed protest.[9] Many persons today also refuse to recognize violence against men, forced financial fatherhood, institutionalized inequalities in biological parental knowledge, vastly disproportionate imprisonment of men, and many other pressing injustices against men. The connection between medieval men’s sexed protest and men’s sexed protest today is obvious in structures of repression.

Notes:

[1] Les lamentations de Mathéolus, II.1541-51, in Van Hamel (1892) p. 85, from French trans. Obermeier (1999) p. 131. The subsequent quote is from II.1559-68, trans. id. I’ve made some minor changes to these translations for accuracy and clarity.

[2] Jehan Le Fèvre, Le livre de Leesce (The Book of Gladness), l. 1-5, from French trans. Burke (2013) p. 74. The subsequent two quotes are l. 12-19, 27 and l. 35-40, trans. id.

[3] Le livre de Leesce, l. 3948-54, 3968-73, trans. id. p. 107. The subsequent quote is l. 3974-82, trans. id.

[4] One meaning of mercy in Old French is reward in the form of a woman’s favor. In Alain Chartier’s La belle dame sans mercy (written about 1424), a beautiful lady refuses to grant a man the “favor” of allowing him serve her non-sexually.

[5] Burke (2013) p. 133.

[6] Martin Le Franc, Le Champion des Dames (The Champion of Ladies) l. 9-16 (s. 2), from French trans. Taylor (2005) p. 18.

[7] Taylor (2005), Translator’s Introduction, p. 4.

[8] Id. p. 13.

[9] Mann (1991) shows no awareness that men could justifiably engage in sexed protest. Blumenfeld-Kosinski (1994) deploys one of medieval scholars’ dominant criteria for literary judgment: “praise or blame for women?” and concludes with misandristic imagination of “new type of discourse that could stand up to the riot, disordered language, fables, and lies of male speech.” Id. p. 725. Burke (2013) approaches Le Livre de Leesce as a player on Team Christine de Pizan and promises further work “in the tradition of my author.” Id. p. 137. While Burke (2013) regarded Le Fèvre as putting forward a defense of women, Pratt (2002) perceived Le Fèvre to have committed an unpardonable literary crime and lamented:

Le Fèvre’s defense of women was a literary game in which ambiguity and irony allowed antifeminist attitudes to be perpetrated with impunity.

Id. p. 114. Fortunately, punishment for “antifeminist attitudes” continues to be strengthened.

[image] Matheolus adoring woman on pedestal. Engraving, from image 18 in edition of Jehan le Fèvre, Matheolus qui nous monstre sans varier les biens & aussi les vertus: qui viennent pour soy marier (Lyon: Olivier Arnouillet, 1550), in Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, Rés. B 487656. Thanks to Gallica.

References:

Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Renate. 1994. “Jean Le Fèvre’s Livre de Leesce: Praise or Blame of Women?” Speculum. 69 (3): 705-725.

Burke, Linda, ed. and trans. 2013. Jehan Le Fèvre. The book of gladness / le livre de Leesce: a 14th century defense of women, in English and French. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.

Mann, Jill. 1991. Apologies to women: inaugural lecture delivered 20th November 1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Obermeier, Anita. 1999. The history and anatomy of auctorial self-criticism in the European Middle Ages. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Pratt, Karen. 2002, “The Strains of Defense: the Many Voices of Jean Le Fèvre’s Livre de Leesce.” Pp. 113-133 (Ch. 6) in Thelma Fenster, ed. Gender in debate from the early middle ages to the Renaissance. Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke.

Taylor, Steven Millen. 2005. Martin Le Franc. The trial of womankind: a rhyming translation of Book IV of the fifteenth-century Le champion des dames. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland.

Van Hamel, Anton Gerard, ed. 1892. Mathéolus, Jean Le Fèvre. Les lamentations de Mathéolus et le livre de leesce de Jehan Le Fèvre, de Ressons: poèmes franc?ais du XIVe siècle. Paris: Bouillon.

The above article written by Douglas Galbi of Purple Motes.