Neither Nor

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I had a disturbed night, mostly because we ate late which leads to heartburn. In the middle of the night feeling a bit exhausted and out of sorts, I gave up sleeping for a while, and tried to read a Pride and Prejudice Fanfic (because low braining function required.)

And then on page three it kicked me in the teeth.

Look, I’m quite willing and ready to wink at all sorts of anachronisms and just plain unmitigated stupidity in those because they’re usually an entry point to writing and so suffer all the beginning mistakes.

So, you know, I roll my eyes at everyone who dies young dying in “Carriage accidents” because the writers can’t imagine a world without antibiotics or how dire any cut or infection could be. Or how many people just “went into a decline” and died without people ever knowing of what.

I’ll endure the exploding carriages. Seriously, guys, what did they do? Pack the carriages with C-4? There’s not anything there to EXPLODE. Catch fire, sure, but explode?

I’ll endure Lizzy (the main character for those who haven’t read P & P) talking about taking psychological damage or being repressed or even her vital need to express herself. (That last is more subtle, but still not a regency thing, okay?)

I’ll even endure the fact that all the girls are in mad love with “A vindication of the rights of woman”, hate needlework and want to do estate management (A gross misunderstanding of the duties of the mistress of an estate. Her being both responsible for the management of a house with sometimes hundreds of servants AND the status of the family which hinged on friendships and social connections the woman managed.)

But I’ll be tied in purple ribbons and called Edna if I am going to tolerate someone who says “He could tell she was a widow because she was wearing a black armband.”

WOMEN DIDN’T WEAR A BLACK ARMBAND. WOMEN WORE MOURNING CLOTHES.

And then because it was the middle of the night and I wasn’t feeling well, my head started taking on roles. Specifically idiot feminist roles. The kind of idiot feminist who argues women were oppressed because they didn’t have pockets, and then go forth to make up just-so stories about how this was because men were afraid they’d have spells in their pockets… all from misunderstanding that women had tons of pockets. They were just portable and tied around the waist or the wrist. (Leaving women free to keep stuff in there when the clothes were in the laundry, incidentally.)

Anyway, I imagined a feminist screaming that men only had to wear an armband while women were forced to visibly mourn with their whole body and blah–

At which point I realized there was an actual point to this. Two, actually.

The first is that yeah, women wore mourning clothes, because women were NORMALLY peacock bright. Some men were also, but in the regency already there was a tendency for businessmen and middle class well to do men to wear all black NORMALLY. Or at least somber colors.

The black armband worked with this because even if it was all black, the suit would be wool, the armband satin and visible. Women, OTOH were NORMALLY very bright. While an armband would be visible, changing to all mourning was more obvious of their status.

And, listen to me here, the higher visibility was designed to protect women MORE. “But women don’t need more protection and–” Take a damper. Maybe they don’t. fashions in “feeling” come and go. But regency women were encouraged to be more “Feeling” creatures and more prone to emotional issues. It was yes the culture of the time, but perhaps influenced by the fact that most regency married women spent a considerable portion of their lives either pregnant or nursing. And let me assure you, gentle readers, hormones make you a lot more fragile emotionally.

Which brings us to that utterly artificial construct of mourning signs on our clothing.

When I was a kid in Portugal there were still very strict mourning rules. I no longer remember what they were in time periods, but if a close relative died, the men all wore black armbands and women would go into the deepest black. I know women were supposed to stay in black for a year, then start “relieving” it to “half mourning” with touches of grey, lavender and maybe white for another year before returning to wearing normal color.

In case you wondered — did you? — this is why old women in Mediterranean countries just wore all black after a certain age. You hit an age where a relative dies every year, more or less, and at some point you go “this is my life now” and just wear black all the time.

When I was a kid this was argued against because “true mourning is inside” and “The dead don’t care what you wear.” Both arguably true. But both quite thoroughly beside the point.

The point of wearing mourning clothes was for people to know you weren’t quite up to normal human interaction/decisions.

You know where they tell you not to make any big purchases, etc. after a major life-change, like say, losing a close loved one?

Yeah. The mourning clothes gave you an excuse to take time to adjust to your loss, while people were aware you’d suffered one, and cut you some slack.

It lubricated social interaction with remarkably little expense.

BUT of course, in our present day not only is that rebelled against but people will be upset women wore different mourning from men. (Let’s also not take into account that men’s suits were hellishly expensive and needed for work. So changing them all over to mourning might sink a family.) Btw if a woman couldn’t go into mourning, or wasn’t that close to the deceased as to be that affected, she went into “black gloves” instead of full mourning or an armband. (Have you seen the clothes of the time? For a while they were all short sleeve. It would be an armband on the bear arm. Sigh.)

The problem I have, as with wanting to have all women manage estates, not houses, or do account books, not embroidery, is that it’s historical ignorance compounded by Marxism.

It’s historical ignorance because in our current world the reasons people did some things (like wear portable pockets, or spend a lot of time sewing and embroidering) have been lost and superseded in the immense abundance of the post-industrial-revolution.

And because young people have been educated in Marxism and mostly in Marxism, their Marxist mode of thought dictates that it all be binary, that there be an oppressed and an oppressor.

Therefore if men wear an armband and women wear whole-clothes mourning, women must be oppressed, and also ree.

But perhaps, just perhaps, it was neither nor. Perhaps different times and the circumstances thereto dictated different solutions. And perhaps, as fascinated as I am with the past, and as much as it can teach us, for the purposes of outrage, indignation and pay back, we should just leave our behinds in the past leave the past behind us. And fix the now.

Look, women used to need to be domestic goddesses because housework was hellishly more difficult at all levels of society. This doesn’t mean all women need to go back to JUST doing household work now. (Though doing SOME wouldn’t kill anyone.) Because we have appliances that make the work much less painful and much quicker.

Just because the dead don’t care if you mourn (let’s suppose we established this. I mean, have we?) it doesn’t mean that mourning isn’t an observance that makes the bereaved feel better and gives others warning this person is not QUITE him/herself. (And if you want to wear an armband, sure. Though I’m not sure anyone will understand what it means nowadays.)

Just because someone is oppressed, it doesn’t mean there is an oppressor.

Take the whole thing of men running around the net screaming that men-only spaces were destroyed. They’re right and wrong. Right because they were with intent and malice. Wrong because… GUYS in what world is someone even my age responsible for stuff done in the fifties and sixties? The offenders are dead. Stop thinking all women are on the other side of that binary because they have vaginas.

I for one think men only spaces (with perhaps a little tolerance when one’s father wants one to be a member and other members roll their eyes and let it be. The kid will never be coming in alone, anyway — look, I speak from experience) are a great idea. And there are a lot of women in the same position I am.

The original offenders are dead.

You want men only spaces? Bring them back. If it’s taken to court, I’d love to have someone argue with a serious face that men TODAY have an advantage in business. I bet you that nonsense can be struck down tout de suite.

Thinking that of course all women will oppose this is… Marxism.

Marxism is all about the oppressed and the oppressor. If there’s an oppressed there must be an oppressor. It’s very binary and simplistic, which is why it appeals to a certain type of mind.

The truth though is that in the world often everyone is oppressed. And often everyone is oppressed in different ways according to who they are. Heck, if you read enough you realize even the nobility of the middle ages was oppressed.

I mean, never forget that Marxism was invented by a work-shy grifter making up reasons why he couldn’t succeed. Of course everyone “oppressed” him.

And if you’re on the right you owe it to yourself to extirpate that evil and ridiculous mode of thought from your brain. It was installed there very early, but keeping it on will destroy civilization.

Look, just because some women in the past did men wrong doesn’t mean that all women right now hate all men. THE WORLD DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY. There will always be women like me, married to a man and the mother of boys, who loves men. (TBF I loved y’all before that, being a woman that didn’t fit in well with women, and most of whose friends and work acquaintances were male.)

And just because in the past and present some men are oppressors and abusive, this doesn’t mean all men are oppressors and abusive. Just that some men are oppressors and abusive. (See, Marx, Karl.)

Stop with the group think and the binary. Sometimes the answer is neither oppressed nor oppressor, but complicated human situation.

Be not afraid and stop packing your carriages with c-4. When those things explode, one gets all kinds of nasty splinters in unspeakable places!

Seriously. Go and think before you attack a group target.

And definitely do a modicum of research before writing P & P fanfic.

163 thoughts on “Neither Nor”

  1. I don’t remember her name, but one woman wanted to write stories set in Scotland of the past but soon realized that she couldn’t get into the mind-set of a woman of that time/place.

    So she changed her Main Character into a modern woman thrown back into that time/place.

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      1. Didn’t Outlander’s “modern woman” come from just after World War II? I read the first few chapters, up to where she started swearing like a fishwife. At that point I thought that (a) the 18th century Scots nobles would at best dismiss her as low class, (b) likely enough they would think she was a prostitute or something, and (c) a woman from the 1940s, especially one who seemed to be a professional, wouldn’t dream of using such language in the first place. At that point I put the book down. . . .

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        1. Haven’t read the series but I heard that she got herself into trouble several times due to her Modern Attitudes.

          IE Diana Gabaldon did that part correctly.

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          1. She does. OTOH her most common swear word actually printed is taking Roosevelt’s (Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ) name in vain. Someone no one else even knows who it is.

            Both Claire, WWII nurse, eventually a doctor because “goes home” eventually, then back, again, and Brianna the daughter raised in the ’50s/’60s, regularly get into trouble because, no matter how much they try, no matter how long they are there, they are NOT 18th century women. Another time traveler (not a good person FWIW) tells Claire that he knew she’d come through like him because as a woman, she just isn’t as afraid as she should be. She’s afraid, but the fear just makes her furious. Brianna is the same. Instead of recoiling, she reacts.

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        2. My understanding is that there was a fair amount of female cussing in the 1700’s, but not necessarily with the modern words.

          And Irish and Scottish Gaelic don’t really have swear words like in English, although they have plenty of actual cursing and obscene vocabulary. So historically English cussing has sometimes been used a lot by Gaelic speakers.

          But yeah, that is not how it came across.

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        3. Good choice.
          That character was a total sociopath.

          Her “modern attitudes” weren’t what caused her to destroy the life of the poor fool who found himself besotted with her.

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        1. Sort of. According to the Wiki article, Diana Gabaldon wanted to write a story about Jamie, the Scottish companion of the Doctor. Her main male character was modeled on Jamie.

          But her female secondary character, an English woman of that time period, sort of took control of the story.

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          1. Didn’t know it started as fan fiction. Doesn’t surprise me. Was something Gabaldon wrote for herself to prove she could write. Kind of took a life of it’s own. She writes pieces then weaves them together. VS standard outline, or start to finish. Yes, I am a fan of the books.

            Didn’t start that way. Read “Outlander” when it came out in paperback. Didn’t pick up the series again until “Breath of Snow and Ashes”. Then I had to go back and fill in the missing. Like all series, all the books (IMO) are good, some are better.

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            1. My wife is a fan of Outlander. I never read the books, but she got me interested in the series on Starz. Reasonably good story; I’m a sucker for well-done time travel stories. I believe the pending season is the conclusion, but I’ve heard that song before.

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              1. Mom and sisters watch the Starz Outlander, and read the books. I’ve read the books, have not seen the series.

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  2. When I ran a roleplaying campaign set on Lois McMaster Bujold’s world of Barrayar, all four players assumed the roles of characters who were eager to have Barrayar adopt galactic customs (which actually meant Betan or Escobaran customs, not Jacksonian or Cetagandan). And okay, yes, part of the ongoing story IS Barrayar acquiring galactic technology and being able to shed things like their phobia of mutants. But at the same time, the founding narrative has Cordelia Naismith finding that a man from Barrayar has a sense of honor that she can’t find in the men of Beta Colony, and a key later narrative has her son Miles deciding that his heart and his loyalties are Barrayaran, and that he doesn’t really want to marry Elli Quinn if the price is abandoning Barrayar. But that seemed not to be visible to my players. . . .

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  4. The C in composition four is not for carriage. Carriage explosions are either a writer who maybe has issues (1) with thinking through force, momentum, and energy, or for writers positing an explosive that is much less stable to shocks.

    Obviously in the 1810s it was common to accidentally leave a box of aged dynamite in one’s horse cart, and so the things were always killing lots of people at the first bump or jostle.

    (‘I shot an arrow into the stables, and there were secondary explosions’ is either a sign of borrowing from period incorrect media, or substantial confusion, or someoen really working for the joke.)

    Low speed vehicles have less kinetic energy. Substantially different vehicles in substantially different operating regimes have potential differences in failure modes and or safety issues.

    (1) I know that I do. Most situations are a mystery to me unless I can get them into numbers that are actually correct, and then I often do not have a feel for what the numbers mean.

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    1. Dynamite wasn’t developed until after the Unmentionable War. (Yes, in my Guard days I originally intended to become a Combat Engineer* – that particular plan didn’t work out for reasons.) Hence, any media showing pre-1860s characters using Dynamite breaks my suspension of disbelief.

      Nitroglycerin, Dynamite’s active ingredient, was discovered in mid-1840s so could be available pre-war, but 1810s you’re pretty much stuck with blasting powder.

      *Might have been prompted by Grandpa. He was a blaster on the Iron Range in his youth, and when Grandfolks moved in with us on the farm he still had his license. We had some interesting Dynamite-related adventures around the place removing tree stumps and such

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        2. Enough C4 and anything will B-flat.

          ….

          Why do you do this to yourself? The last thing you need on a sleepless night is interaction with stupid people.

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        3. Oh, the C4 just made me laugh and go “You and I, we’ve been hanging with the military types for a while, haven’t we? They not only get our humour, we’re starting to pick up their lingo…”

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        4. Some of the previous rants on carriage accidents in fiction inspired some thought on my part.

          So thinking it over again reminded me that my intuition regarding the dynamics of draft animal carts is not a whole lot better than my intuition for space planes. And, really, it might be reasonable to expect for me to have a better understanding of horse carts than I do hypersonic horizontal take off to orbit space planes. I kinda understand both poorly, and need to read mroe, and run some numbers, or find numbers somewhere.

          But, I need to study ordinary automobiles more, snowmobiles, tanks, heavy construction equipment, motorcycles, semis, trains, ships, hovercraft, and etc. Too many things to study, not enough time.

          I might have been able to remember details of explosives history, but I didn’t think to do so. I thought ‘everyone has aged dynamite sitting around’ was enough of a tell for deliberately silly. I recalled just enough to understand that it would not have been an ordinary household good in that time and place.

          I have some other thoughts/essays in progress, that I have not posted yet.

          Long day, and my brains have seemingly gone to cheese on me.

          I agree on the thing of badly presentizing the past, and think that the race war and sex war nutjobberies are the elements of that which probably have the worst consequences. but, I wildly obsess over machinery, and think that trends in machinary are probably vitally important for really understanding the past, the present and the future. Trends in machinery, and ecnomics. Machinery, economics, and warfare. Machinery, ecnomics, warfare, and agriculture.

          Anyway, the mental visual of the door gunner on the flying carpet firing a string of quarrels from the bow, at a barn, and then the barn going up in an enormous fireball with a shock wave, was too amusing.

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          1. One starting point for space planes is to read about the Sanger-Bredt “Silverbird” (1938) Pre-WWII German Skip-Glide Bomber Concept. Or America’s aborted X-20 “Dyna-Soar” of the 1950s, which was directly inspired by Sanger’s work.

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      3. Retired farmer uncle of mine has stories about buying dynamite over the counter at the farm supply store back when he started out, using it to clear stumps on his land. This was a field adjacent to a factory of some type, and said factory management was getting nervous at all the splodey action on the other side of the fence, so my uncle got loaned heavy equipment from the factory yard to clear the rest of those stumps – win-win!

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      5. Nitro is touchy stuff both to make and handle. An account about early oil well history told of one episode where a two-gallon can of nitro was left next to the kitchen table in a home when the family left. In their absence, the house was more than leveled. Their disheveled but very alive cat was found clinging where it had been blown up in a tree. The best guess was that the cat had hopped down on the can.

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        3. I’ve mentioned the time my dad got a mysterious package at the salvage warehouse and opened it to find racks of small glass cylinders, all very carefully packed and padded. He called the bomb squad at once a day yep, they’d received a crate full of nitro. In a warehouse with lots of vibration, in Florida. Yes, it was hot. The bomb squad leader told him there was enough to blow up the whole block. The bomb squad too it all away, very carefully.

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          1. Back in the day when the Canadian Railroad was blasting through the granite north of Lake Superior, there were three nitro factories. The nitro was transported in two five-gallon cans in a backpack, the carrier walking down the right of way with a red flag. There was also prohibition for ten miles each side of the track (so the Railroad could get some work done). Bootleggers took to carrying a backpack down the right of way with two five-gallon cans of whiskey and a red flag. No Mounties ventured within a hundred yards of them either.

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    2. You’re not taking into account the awful power of equine flatulence. If cows are currently destroying the world, just imagine what horses did. Footmen were called fartcatchers because they had to capture the emissions in large glass bottles, lest the entire city go “poof” in a smelly way that left everyone without eyebrows. The footmen stashed the bottles in the carriage, so they’d be available when needed (And were dashed awkward to tote around.)

      (OK, I’m going to stop before I start drawing parallels between the Hanson Cab and the Chevy Nova.)

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  5. “You want men only spaces? Bring them back.”

    To be honest, there are already some man-only spaces (99%+ with a lot of decimals). I’ve lived and worked in several. Construction. Maintenance. Trucking. Forestry. There were days and weeks on end where I did not see one woman period.

    But the common refrain of bring back man onlys, like the “boy” in boy scouts means boys, not girls pretending to be boys, and so on? Yeah I get that. So do something about it. Now is the time when you actually can get something done. Under Biden? The zero before him? Yeah, no. Unlikely to get much traction, outside of heads-on-pikes anti-Commie areas.

    I do think it is good for men and women to have their own thing. Not everything, that’s crazytalk. But boys’ camps and so on, probably a good thing. Especially of late, considering boys and men are hated in the media, in a lot of the schools, and in one certain party’s explicit politics and rhetoric.

    I don’t mean to live perpetually in those little enclaves like a monk. You need mommies and sisters and wives and daughters to remain sane, bruh. Good wives make life better. Well, one wife per dude anyway.

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    1. THIS.
      Oh, various scientific/techno endeavors. i best a 3d printing club will have MOSTLY men. (Some women too, but mostly men.)
      I know the interstellar conferences (I didn’t attend the last for family/personal reasons) unless they’ve now opened to way more “soft” sciences are all men and women who think mostly like men….

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    2. Just spent the work week in the construction site which is Tokyo. To my surprise I saw a fair number of lady construction workers with the same tool belts, helmets, clothing as their male colleagues. I felt really bad because my thought was “they look so cute dressed up like that” rather than respecting them for (based on the safety harnesses) working tens of floors up putting the walls etc. on skyscrapers.

      I was quite surprised that labor shortages meant that the undoubtedly previously male only culture of skyscraper construction was now mixed

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    3. My last job was with a small demolition company, whose total payroll of 100+/- includes three women, at most. One drives one of the trucks, and the other(s?) works in the office where the crew never see her. Not a “Men-Only Space” in the EEO-Violation sense (that noise is my eyes rolling) but very much a male-occupied and male-calibrated space. Women were not excluded, but there was naught there FOR the but the (sweaty, dirty, unshaven, foul-mouthed, polite, strong, potbellied, red-eyed, sunburned) men themselves.

      Not a Smoking-Room Club, but hardly a Knitting Clatche either.

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      1. Oh, I know such places exist. They even existed back when I was a construction worker in the early 2000s. It did not intend to imply that women were specifically excluded, save that they excluded themselves, for the most part.

        One roofing company I recall, not the one I worked for, had one woman working form them. Pregnant, at least six months, about five nothing but strong enough to to the job and utterly without sympathy for the whiny young men that tried to join the company and failed to measure up. Legally immigrated back in the late 90s or so. Good people, that gal.

        But such folks are, by and large, exceptions to the rule. Notable, worthy exceptions, true. Not ones to ask for favoritism or demand special treatment. The world could use more of that attitude!

        For the most part though, some industries are and will continue to be, absent external pressure, male dominated by a long, long shot. Dirty, Dangerous, and Difficult tends to be men’s work. Testing oneself against something physically difficult is in our DNA. Trying out something dangerous can be testosterone driven fun. And dirty jobs, well, boys tend to love playing in the dirt and grown men are just little boys with extra years experience in some ways.

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        1. There are always exceptions, most driven by circumstances (Rosie the Riveter, women in the IDF, female active resistance in WWII France, etc.), but despite the hysterical assertions of the libs and radical feminists (“It’s all cultural!”) men and women are generally hard-wired differently, the result of at least 100ky of evolution; more, if it goes back to Homo erectus or even Homo habilis, which it probably does.

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          1. I’d bet it goes back a lot farther than that. Back to ancestor species that weren’t even marginally human.

            Of course, heredity is not destiny. There are exceptions, women who choose to do hard, dangerous, dirty jobs that are primarily the purview of men. Look at Danica Patrick, the race car driver.

            Leftroids look at these rare exceptions, and assume that all women are just like them, only held back and oppressed by ‘Teh Patriarchy’ which must be destroyed.

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    4. Eh, on the scouting thing, there are still plenty of boys-only troops out there. The only “forced” co-ed space is the summer camps, and even then they have separate individual sites. And as someone who worked at a BSA camp back in the day, the only boys-only behavior I knew about at summer camp was the kind of stuff they shouldn’t be doing anyway, like having flaming fart competitions. (Fire danger level at “Extreme” means that’s a bad call regardless.)

      (Longer story short: Lord Baden-Powell indicated, through his letters to various people, that he was perfectly fine with the concept of girls doing scouting, because he thought that the values and skills were applicable to all youth. The separation by sex was something imposed by the mores of the day, and the US was one of the last few to have boys-only. Still a good idea to allow or encourage single-sex troops, because they plan wildly different things in my experience.)

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      1. Campfire actually started for girls by BSA. When they separated I have no idea. Girl Scouts started because of BSA. They abandoned the Outside part of scouts decades ago. Some girls troops continued, usually because they could partner with BSA troops.

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        1. Should say “from what I’ve gathered”. Definitely not an expert or involved in either. Was GSA through middle school. Had to give it up for Jobs Daughters (did not get a choice). Sisters were in Campfire (which, oh joy, I got to be “staff” help because mom was adult staff, and minors can’t be left home alone). But this was all in the ’60s, early ’70s. Ancient history now.

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    5. I hate that BSA gets used as an example. The only thing BSA did is to now allow girls to earn Eagle, under the same outdoor and leadership parameters as their brothers and cousins. The troops are not co-ed. The packs, which has always been family based, are co-ed, but not the dens. This means nothing is being taken away from the boys. The same percentage overall will actually earn Eagle. Maybe a few more girls to start to prove something. Maybe it’ll push a few boys who might have not continued. IDK. Eagle is NOT easy. It isn’t suppose to be.

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  6. I’ve been telling myself for a while I really need to get my eyeglass prescription updated. Today I took a quick glance at the blog title and saw “Nether Noir”. I thought THAT would be an interesting piece from SAH.

    Ah, maybe a future novel…

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  7. Very good post. I read a book, just recently in which the writer ( name not given to protect the innocent as Dragnet used to say) had her regency character London 1812 was given 100 pounds for pocket money. Or approximately 3 times what a farm hand would get a year. She was supposed to be poor. If you want to write about a different time period read a good book. A history book.

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    1. Or check out historical records. It’s getting much easier these days. I ran across the estate inventory of a Colonial gentleman in the historical meaning of gentleman. Besides the £400 worth of property still in England, his inventory was only about 15-20 lines long and had such things as 4 pewter spoons, 3 chairs, 3 (THREE) coats, a pair of boots and shoes, and about £20 cash.

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    2. 1717
      The United Kingdom defined sterling’s value in terms of gold rather than silver for the first time.

      Sir Isaac Newton, as Master of the Mint, set the gold price of £4.25 per fine ounce that lasted two hundred years, except during the Napoleonic wars when gold cash payments were suspended.

      …so let’s do some math (or “maths” in Britspeak): The 1812 poor young woman’s “pocket money” of 100 pounds comes out to about 23.53 oz of gold. Today’s gold spot price is $3,274.23 per oz, so her “pocket money” is about $77,000 USD.

      Heh.

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      2. The “except during the Napoleonic wars” part would seem to be relevant here. My calculation puts it at nowhere near that, though still pretty absurd.

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        1. I don’t think I hosed my math:

          £100 pounds sterling in 1812 / £4.25 pounds per oz = 23.5294117647 ounces of gold (value)(assuming troy oz since the Brits invented that too back in the 15th century)
          23.5294117647 oz of gold * $3,274.23 per oz spot from random gold price site = $77,040.7058823 USD value of gold today

          To my read that “gold cash payments were suspended” clause means she could not go exchange for gold bullion at the Bank of England as Napoleon was then yet to abdicate either time, but that‘s still what it was worth – and certainly gold sovereign coins were used openly in commerce throughout the Napoleonic Wars duration.

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    3. Heck, with that one, you barely need research. The Bank of England has an inflation calculator, and pounds to dollars converters are all over the internet. Putting those together gives you that your 1812 impoverished young lady had roughly $8500 in fun money. That would seem…highly unlikely.

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  8. I have vague memories of the pallbearers at the funerals of my grandparents’ generation wearing black armbands, but I don’t think the other men did so. And the women just wore the nicest dark clothes they had. And those were just for the funeral observances. Armbands lasted a lot longer than mourning clothes. Now, in my impoverished corner of Flyover, anything goes, and some people will dress to the nines in black, and some will wear cargo shorts and suchlike. Through poverty of wardrobe, I once wore a lemon-colored linen dress to a funeral and fit in nicely. It’s not about liberation; imo it’s about either poverty and/or laziness. But young’uns couldn’t know this without having a substantive relationship with an old fart or two. And there’s a post in that thought, sigh …

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    1. Through poverty of wardrobe, I once wore a lemon-colored linen dress to a funeral and fit in nicely. It’s not about liberation; imo it’s about either poverty and/or laziness.

      I would say it’s neither poverty or laziness but just the decline of formal manners. Formal manners are artificial, and you’re supposed to be authentic…but your “authentic” self had better be the sort of person other people find pleasing, who does what’s expected, even though no one tells you what’s expected.

      It’s hell on those of us who are not socially gifted. I sometimes wish I were from a past era where at least there was a rulebook I could use.

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      1. This.

        People laugh about Regency manners but at least there was a rulebook. If you memorized it, you might be Odd, but you would still have done the Acceptable Thing.

        I can’t guess what the expected thing is. My brain keeps trying to use logic instead!

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  9. Well, my mind went at this in a totally different way. Sure, C4 and a carriage in1810 is a bit over the top and I don’t think many of them were hauling around cargos of Nitro on trips to town. That sort of thing would kick me right out of the story. Now, the other thing… mourning.

    In the criminal justice, first responder community the loss of an officer resulted in other officers (and near by jurisdictions) to add a black band to the uniform badge. It is a visible signal that the wearer also notes the loss and is in support of those who feel it most. The beloved fireman dies (line of duty or not) those bands come out and lets others know of a loss for example.

    Now, for the schmuck in the plain old population (some sub groups excepted) has the old (fading away) black clothing/arm band signal but it is ‘assumed’ to be short lived. Grief isn’t.

    Just shy of five months ago the wife passed away and it’s still “fresh” to me. Went to the workshops and memorials and visit regularly with other spouses who have lost their partner. I found that there isn’t any ‘signal’ and the the majority of every-day-life society wants you to just “go on” and don’t get any sad on me. Dealing with those who are close is ok as they (mostly) get it and allow you to be you. The rest of the world (and culture here) doesn’t give a fig and expects you to just smile and go on. It’s an adjustment you have to figure out and there aren’t any easy ways to deal with it. I’m very lucky and it’s working for me so far and I hope it will continue – the formal mourning does go away but it’s good to also remember that the grief (which evolves) never completely does. Eh, my two cents – now back to regular programing.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. Just shy of five months ago the wife passed away and it’s still “fresh” to me.

      Just about 11 for me. Still too damned fresh.

      Wife used to handle our social calendar; she was gregarious, and I went to places and did things to be with her. So no one had any social ‘expectations’ from me.

      Do folks know about willows being a sign of mourning? It seems to be old and out of current fashion.

      I have had house flags for years, and I bought a willow house flag. Put it up in August. Finally took it down for the Stars and Stripes for Flag day. I’ve left that up (I have lights that illuminate it); maybe that’s a bit of turning a corner.

      Also bought a tiny willow medallion necklace. I’ve never been much of one for jewelry, but I’ll probably never take it off.

      Liked by 1 person

      2. Condolences; we are at the age (almost 80) where we can expect one of us to be alone in the near furture; not looking forward to that.😓 I was unaware of the willow-mourning link; thanks for the info.

        WRT the flag, good to know that you keep it illuminated at night; too many people are unaware of that part of flag etiquette.

        Like

  10. I’m the last person to ask about proper behavior at wakes, funerals, viewings, remembrances, and such like death rituals. Lost my younger sister, and my Mom’s mother when I was 5 in a car accident. Certainly, didn’t understand why they were gone, and I don’t recall anyone ever really explaining why. Mom and Dad were dealing with the rest of the family fall out from all that, and I was basically told to go play off in the living room somewhere. I was 16 when my mother died, and my last memory of her was her not recognizing me and raving in delirium as her own body poisoned itself due to liver and kidney failure. I lost my favorite grandfather 6 months later, simply because he was too wrapped up in cleaning up the finances of the NYS Masonic Lodge to go to the doctor about ‘minor stomach pains’.

    I can go through the expected motions, when I’m told what they are; but my emotions and behavior are both muted and often inappropriate because I’ve simply never been trained for it. (Don’t even get me going about funeral rites in foreign countries! Only time I ever refused an order by the Chief running the maintenance branch; but I’d rather do that than cause an international incident.)

    Like

    1. A friend of mine contracted cancer and died right after turning 50. He had time to plan his own funeral.

      After determining that the Waterways Commission would take a dim view of a Viking-style flaming bier, he settled on a graveside party with a “New Orleans Style” marching band and an open bar. They started off with “When the Saints Go Marching In” and continued to play until the attendees were thoroughly soused.

      His parents, who were living in the People’s Democratic Republik of California, were outraged when his wife told them about the funeral plans; enough to hire a lawyer and try to get court injunction to stop it. They didn’t have a leg to stand on, and the festivities went off as planned.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. If they were that determined to control his funeral, I hate to think what they did to his,childhood.

        Like

  11. Men’s-only spaces are good. And they do still exist. Being behind closed doors with your brothers from time to time refreshes the soul. So it’s no wonder the feminists wanted to destroy such spaces, because they wished only to destroy men.

    Like

  12. Oh, lord – don’t get me started on Things That Ignorant Moderns Believe About 19th Century Women!

    Starting with corsets … yeah, they are actually quite comfortable, as long as well-fitted, especially for those of us generously endowed in the chest. No, most women did not lace excruciatingly tight. and no, 18-inch waists were not all that common in mature females…

    It’s the silly moderns who believe that before the 20th century women had no rights at all, full-stop, that really sends me spare. Let me break it to you gently, sunshine – 19th century American women had plenty of rights AND professional employment, many of them had indulgent husbands and fathers who fully supported their wives in the exercise of those rights and employment. Middle-class women whose husbands owned a business often were the silent and influential partners in running that business, and a fair number of widows of such men went on conducting that business … f’rinstance, the widow of Samuel Colt, (yes, that Colt) owned and controlled Colt Arms for more than half a century after his death – and at one time, that was the single richest manufacturing company in the US. He deliberately willed the company over to her.

    Another example was in my ACW novel, which touched on the work of the US Sanitary Commission during that war – although the top echelon of the commission was of men, just about everyone else doing fund-raising, social work, nursing and publicity — were women! One women, who also had a sideline as a reporter – her husband actually hired a housekeeper, so that she could devote her time to her various work for the commission and the newspaper that he owned.

    Oh, hey … where did this soapbox come from? I’m done, now. Go away.

    Like

    2. Tumblr has had good results, my 14 year old asked for a corset exactly because she read too many rants about what they were actually like.

      This is the girl who hates bra-like bras, and barely tolerates sports bras…but this corset we found for only a little more than a good sports bra?

      This is acceptable. (And it’s actually helped her posture, too, even though it’s REALLY not much of anything.)

      Like

    4. Also see Sarah Winchester, of the fabulous house that was under construction until the day she died, to no small cost. Her contractors were fiercely loyal because she paid well above the going rate, too.

      Speaking of historical works, one of my favorites is the Hill’s Manual to Social and Business Forms and Correct Writing. It was popular enough that you can still get a decent leatherbound copy from the 19th century for under $100, and it is full of authentic letter samples to use for templates. The section on marriage has a lengthy exposition on why a woman “in this modern day” does not need to enter into a marriage for reasons of fiscal security, and includes a sample letter of a young woman turning down a proposal of marriage because the young man smokes. (With citations of the health and monetary costs, no less.)

      Hmm. I should look into getting a copy now.

      Like

      1. And I suspect that Rudyard Kipling had a copy too. 😇

        “You must choose between me and your cigar.” — Breach of Promise Case, circa 1885.

        Will it see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the mire?
        Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?
        Open the old cigar-box—let me consider anew—
        Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?
        A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;
        And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.
        Light me another Cuba—I hold to my first-sworn vows.
        If Maggie will have no rival, I’ll have no Maggie for Spouse!

        https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_betrothed.htm

        Liked by 2 people

      2. I know that in the Anne of Green Gables books, they frequently make fun of people who use those letters (or something similar) verbatim.

        Which is one reason I am less concerned with AI writing correspondence than others seem to be.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. All-American Girl: The Ideal of Real Womanhood in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America by Frances B. Cogan has a great deal of discussion on women at work. With particular discussion on employment, and how many things became clear when she realized that “paid employment” was not a redundancy. There was also working in the family business, doing housework, and (for the very well off) charity work.

        Liked by 2 people

  14. I did read Belinda by Maria Edgeworth recentishly. (She was a contemporary of Austen’s whom Austen sent copies of some of her novels to). When we first meet the nominal male lead, he’s wearing a dinky mask and maybe a domino to a masquerade, because he set fire to his elaborate, semi-mechanized snake costume while trying to give it light up eyes by burning phosphorus. Unfortunately this hilarious incident occurred off-screen, and his subsequent hair-brained schemes were few, far between and much less mad scientisty.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Mourning rites:

    My grandmother wouldn’t dance with me at my wedding because my grandfather had passed away less than a year before.

    Like

    1. How standards have fallen. Time was that women in deep mourning would not attend weddings.

      Like

  17. After having a couple friends lose their husbands, I fully understand the utility of mourning clothes as a warning notice to the mourner as well as everybody else that the wearer should not be trusted (or forced) into making major decisions, and should be given a lot of leeway for random outbreaks of seemingly inappropriate emotions… that are very appropriate, for their headspace and timing.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. My parents were married for 45 years. Mom passed away in 2016 and it took my idiot sister a week to find the “perfect wife” for him. She was also trying to get him to move in with her because I wasn’t taking care of him right (her words).

      Normally Dad was pretty compliant and tried to give people what they want, but this time he stood up for himself and gently told her he wasn’t going to make any decisions for a year.

      Like

      1. Your Dad was probably far more restrained than I would have been in like circumstances. Or maybe not; fathers generally give their daughters lots of leeway.

        Like

  18. This is an interesting article about black clothing through the ages: https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/black-from-deep-mourning-to-zenith-of-fashion I had not known that shopgirls, wearing black clothes, were seen as being in moral peril of falling into prostitution! (On the same website, there’s a good article about shirtwaists.)

    The article does a good job of outlining the pragmatic reasons for choosing dark clothing for certain tasks. I remember my grandmother noting that young children wearing bright colors was a new thing, as in her childhood, babies and toddlers wore white, because it could be bleached.

    I would estimate, though, that a new widow would need protection. For one, there has always been predatory humans, especially when it comes to widows and orphans.

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    1. Shop girls always were in peril. Imagine being surrounded by all those luxurious goods while separated from the wise guidance of their mothers! What would they not do to get money?

      Like

  19. Wearing black as a sign of mourning played a significant part in Dorothy Sayer’s posthumous novel, Thrones, Dominations. The King dies early in the novel (set in the 1930s) and Harriet Vane has to shop for black, along with most of the population of London.This leads her to a conversation with another woman which turns out to be important in several different ways. There’s also commentary on how the need to go into formal mourning affects a theatrical producer’s latest show, a comedy with the title, Gee-Up Edward!

    Like

  21. You want men only spaces? Bring them back. If it’s taken to court, I’d love to have someone argue with a serious face that men TODAY have an advantage in business. I bet you that nonsense can be struck down tout de suite.

    There’s been some instances of folks trying to make men’s only spaces.

    …of course there’s a catch. They didn’t build them, they tried to make them men’s only spaces. Generally without the buy-in of the rest of the folks there.

    I don’t know how much of that is enemy action– it’s a great way to destroy a group, especially if a lot of the support is Other Guys’ Wives, and it’s also a handy way to separate folks from their money for “support.” It’s also a handy way to get an a-hole villain for a sue and settle activist who can’t get legal support for a desired finding.

    Like

      1. My aunts use to be utterly delighted to send their husbands up for the hiking-and-hunting week at their dad’s old camp… with a few gallons of picked garlic.

        They got to eat it until they were sick of it, the mosquitoes noped out, and by the time they got home it had worked through their system so you couldn’t locate them on a five acre field with your eyes closed.

        Haven’t thought of that in years…

        Like

        1. No pickled garlic at the camp in the Adirondacks, but a jar of pickles, pickled eggs, and sauerkraut to go with one night’s wursts. Steak, eggs, and a big old pot of beans that would last the entire 4-day weekend. Closest thing to vegetables was the sauerkraut, and the potatoes. And coffee that would peel barnacles off a ship that hadn’t been out of the water in over a hundred years.

          Liked by 1 person

      2. Um. My family? Hunting camp was NEVER men only. The wives were expected to hunt too. Even us kids until about middle school (then we “couldn’t miss school”), well eastern Oregon hunting at least. Western side, we kids got to plow through the brush, trees, and poison oak, with dads, and uncles, regardless of whether we were girl or boy. Putting meat in the freezer was more important. A right of passage for every 12 year old, until they earned (bought) their first rifle was to carry the heavier 1894 .3025 (er .3030) uncle/great-uncle (by my turn) rifle. Why do you think I went into forestry? I was never had an example, or told, that girls stay out of the woods. Ever.

        Remember when I mentioned overhearing some male adult scouters saying no way their wives would go camping, and I mentioned that “You mean I can stay home?” And my family just laughed at that idea. Because, yea, not a chance.

        I’ve read the trope. Thought it was fantasy.

        Like

        1. /shrug
          Different tropes for different folks.
          As children, and potential adults in training, we don’t usually get to choose the environment we grow up in. The hunting, gathering, fishing, farming, shopping experience is going to vary, widely, even across the demographics of America. I will say that any combination of the first four are going to present opportunities for enrichment and growth. Shopping? Usually not unless you have a strong concentration of costs per unit of food, nutrition (not the kind ‘taught’ by government, material value, and needs versus wants.

          Like

        2. My family other than the uncles Mike reminded me of had “going hunting” (everyone) and “hunting camp” (guys off usually being dumb).

          “Hunting camp” there were jokes on if they packed ammo or took it out to make more room for booze and Bad For You foods. Last year my cousin had what they thought was a medical emergency during Hunting Camp… it was something or other triggered by “spent three days eating horribly nasty food and mostly drinking alcoholic beverages.”

          Like

          1. Also called “hunting camp” without the guns. Aware of the concept.

            Most the my generation, and the following, do not hunt. But as a child, we didn’t eat meat if it wasn’t trout, deer, or elk. These days unless you live in or near the unit, or have a “pest” license, getting a tag for either deer or elk, isn’t an inexpensive hunt. Hunting west side isn’t limited (been awhile, so I think?), but have you bushwhacked through western Cascades or Coastal mountains lately? Shorty here can’t even see over the brush, let alone through it. It is doable, but dang. If you hunt east side you cannot hunt west side, and reverse. Didn’t use to be true. Folks would spend a week in eastern Oregon. Any tag not filled there usually got filled hunting west side on weekends on the old family homestead (permission from various current owners). The permissions have evaporated with the deaths of older family members, including dad (deeded lifetime access, though that ended before his death because of his stroke and he could no longer hunt).

            Liked by 1 person

  22. Look, just because some women in the past did men wrong doesn’t mean that all women right now hate all men. THE WORLD DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY.

    It doesn’t, but an individual can only get burned so many times by so many women before it becomes very hard to not see a pattern to it. And the fact that so many women in the marriageable, child-bearing range react with acidic fury and contempt any time a man says he’s looking outside of American culture for a potential wife does nothing to mitigate that seeming pattern.

    Like

    1. It’s one of those “I’m right here, why not consider me” things.

      Probably the female equivalent of a guy going all incel-rage at getting friend-zoned.

      Not exactly surprising that the distaff version is equally unattractive.

      Like

      1. Honestly, it’s not “consider me” — I’m married and monogamous and frankly happy — it’s for f*cks sake, stop going crazy and attacking me as something I’m not.
        Like all the idiots who think the book I wrote with Larry C. is “Woke” because I’m a woman and the main character is a woman. So I’m writing “girl boss.” (Never mind, it’s Larry’s character and Larry’s outline….)

        Liked by 1 person

          1. “Julie Shackleford Pitt? Woke?”

            The mind boggles…

            Let me guess…related to “Honor Harrington, simpering ingenue”?

            Liked by 1 person

                  1. 🤣🤣🤣

                    And he had female protagonists; those shrinking violets Faith and Sophis Smith, Barbara Everette, Cally O’Neal, and several others. Definitely Woke!

                    And let’s not forget that other famous Wokie, and his female protagonists, such as Friday. The shame of it all!

                    😎😎😎

                    Liked by 1 person

        2. THIS. I’m tired of being lumped together with all the crazies. I would like to be married and have kids and manage a decent home and garden, but no men are interested because they met the crazy feminists first, and they’re bitter as anything (frankly understandable) and won’t give me a chance because I’m female. We’re not the same, boys, but you don’t give me a chance to show you that, you just assume!

          It’s very frustrating, and I have no solutions currently.

          Like

        3. RacPress’s most recent novel release has a female protagonist (who is awesome, as is the book). One one promo post, one midwit (I’m being kind) left a comment that read, in toto: “female protagonist”.

          I have not smacked the dunce around, but boy was I tempted. Searing insight, blockhead.

          Liked by 1 person

    2. Eh, it’s also one of the issues with the human brain. Bad things really STICK in your brain. Burned bad enough? That memory is a bright, flashing, ten foot tall sign of DANGER WILL ROBINSON! They might not be the majority of women you’ll interact with, but boy do you ever pay attention to the ones that do radiate that angry, scornful, hateful vibe. You’re not exactly looking for it, but you can’t help but see it. Blame hominid evolution for it, we fixate on the bad things, when they’re bad enough, because old apes in your ancestry that did lived and procreated and the ones that didn’t have no descendants.

      Heck, there are single, marriageable aged women in my neck of the woods that darned near flirt with guys my age, such that an antisocial clueless idiot like me can even tell. They’re just too damned young for those of us with any sense. Those crazy ones, they do exist here, too. Everybody knows them. They have to date out of town because all the guys here know their ways.

      To drag this rambling screed back to something resembling a point, don’t give up. But don’t put blinders on, either. Maybe you’re just in the wrong spot for looking. Some places, that kind of gal is everywhere. Others, she’s alone. So very, very alone. I know there’s good ones out there. Most of the ones my age are long since married, though, locally.

      Like

    3. Sure – potential husbands looking outside the pool in which young females have been crab-bucketing all this time is cheating, even if that particular individual male does not satisfy the assortative mating needs of that particular female. Their effort expended crab-bucketing is wasted if males look elsewhere.

      Looking overseas is probably one of the more constructive reactions on the male side of things. The checking out / MGTOW thing is probably more of a concern, though to a certain extent that is just young males doing as requested, as so many of the past years were loud female chants of “just leave us alone” from the workplace (enforced by the women in HR) to the wider public sphere.

      I do think there are yet more wrenching societal impacts of the whole internet connectivity explosion still to come.

      Like

      1. :eyebrow raise:

        I’d lay cash most of the gals on this blog had the “wonderful” experience of friends who kept chasing the crab-bucket girls blaming those of us how never played those stupid games, but got ignored because the guys were going for the girls playing stupid games.

        I had several groups where someone would talk about how all gals are insane, followed up when I laughed with “you don’t count.”

        Which is true, because the girls they’d ever consider dating are the insane ones.

        Several of the guys married foreign women.

        But…the foreign women were still picked by them, and they still had the same problem.

        Which then morphed into just all women being insane, not “hey, maybe I’m picking the wrong kind of girl?”

        Thank goodness my husband figured out I wasn’t going to trip him and beat him to the floor, and stopped being subtle about his interest.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Yeah. They want 6-2 (6 inch heels, two inch nails) and complain that “All women are interested in is money!” Followed by “I go by the 1/2 + 7 rule.” And he flashes a 50k watch at me before walking off with his newest barbie.

          Sorry-not-sorry. If you bait your hook for a shark, you’re going to catch a shark.

          Like

          1. The receptionist at a place I used to work had 3-inch nails. Had to wrap her fingers awkwardly around a pencil to use the computer keyboard. The burning question I had: “How does she wipe her ass?” :-P

            And there’s the other side: women demanding ‘6-6-6’: 6 feet tall, 6-pack abs, 6-figure income. Which has them all squabbling over the same 1/2% of the available men. And some of the unavailable ones.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. One’s literally a hook-up dating app metric, the other is face to face interactions with people we know.

              In spite of the “market” strongly favoring females who will offer no-strings sex, while there’s a glut of the male supply side.

              Liked by 1 person

            2. I once witness a fascinating discussion about settling in terms of fairy tales. Discussing how maybe the tales of women having to cope with monstrous bridegrooms stemmed from their being more demanding — but then OTOH there were the tales of the mouse-bride and frog-bride who first proved their perfect housewife skills before metamorphosis.

              Like

        2. Re picking the right kind of girl: Yup yup yup absolutely concur. If you go shopping in meat markets you get meat.

          One thing I think is giving everyone trouble is the “online marketplace” is distorting interactions and providing false cues, where in-person, especially in non-meat-market venues, still offers more valid interaction and evaluation opportunities.

          That’s what I meant by the last bit about wrenching societal impacts of the intertubes. Society is still adjusting.

          Like

          1. distorting interactions and providing false cues,

            Starting with the fact that the hottie/hunk you were on the video chat with is an AI filtered and enhanced CGI, and you might have to travel / have them travel to meet without the masks to get the truth.

            Liked by 2 people

          2. I think it’s far before internet– Hollywood would be the best shorthand.

            The displayed courtship indicators aren’t just bad, they’re actively selecting for bad outcomes.

            And don’t get me started on what happens when a gal actually does what guys SAY they want, and asks a guy out…

            Liked by 1 person

      1. If she was, she would be crazy like the city.

        Now, that’s a capitol idea, but I’d have to give it a one star rating.

        Liked by 1 person

    1. I had that happen to me over on Crossover’s.

      I am not sure what the heck combination it is, but who the heck put in a “post a zillion times” shortcut?!?!

      Liked by 1 person

  26. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE. WPDE.

    Darn, those hiccups are bad today.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. *snicker*

      Speaking of Jane Austen, I just bailed after about 10 minutes, on a version of Persuasion that was racially Bridgertoned. This, after seeing the heroine drink wine straight out of the bottle, and about the tenth time that the dialog went all modern-day.

      Nope. Nope. Nopedy nope. I went to the 2019 version of Midway, instead.

      I swear I’d rather watch ships blowing up.

      And damned if Woody Harrelson really does look like Chester Nimitz. Who would have thought, eh?

      Liked by 3 people

      2. Yeah (tangent), I bailed on an isekai fantasy that was supposed to be about a Renaissance era Germanic knight sent to a cultivation world. Unfortunately, the MC turned out to read as a 21st century teenage dweeb with confidence issues. The hook would have been an interesting read. The actual story was not.

        Story promises must be kept, or at least honored in the breach. Too much whiplash and TBAW.

        Liked by 1 person

  28. On mourning: Not sure where I got the idea, but when my wife of 30 years passed in February, I had my wedding ring resized for my right hand as a mourning ring. I plan to wear it for at least a year, if not permanently.

    John in Indy

    Like

  29. On mourning: Not sure where I got the idea, but when my wife of 30 years passed in February, I had my wedding ring resized for my right hand as a mourning ring. I plan to wear it for at least a year, if not permanently.

    John in Indy

    Liked by 2 people

  30. From my readings of Georgette Heyer, wasn’t Beau Brummell hugely influential in turning men’s fashion to more somber colors?

    Like

  32. Coming up on the fourth anniversary of my dear wife’s death, I am still emotionally labile: more so than I would like to be. Reading over other’s accounts of having lost a loved one has given me the insight that I am not losing my mind: I am just in mourning. Thank you.

    Liked by 2 people

  33. Late to the party, because of book-on-the-brain, but a professor I had was a tribal member by adoption. When a close family member died, he called his tribal brother about “what should I do?” First answer? “Cut off your braid.” They both laughed, because the prof’s hair was clipped so short it was almost shaved (to conceal a fast receding hairline). Next was “Do not touch any of the dead’s belongings for ten days.” And some other things. There was a visible sign of mourning, and a strict rule to prevent doing something rash.

    Like

    1. My father passed this morning. Expected (though not the exact timing) due to his age (88) and accelerating dementia – progressively more and more bits of his brain were dying; I gather the MRI was … interesting. We went down to see the parents and family in December, and he at least still knew who I and his granddaughter were then. My sister who lives locally says he hadn’t said her name in over 3 months, and hadn’t been verbally responsive in over a month. Sadly, he realized what it had done to him and it made him angry, so death was kind.

      We never got along well (I always seemed to be a disappointment, not a boy nor an academic), I’m still working through some bitterness for how I was treated, (e.g. I came home in 1984 with a GRE of 750 V, 720 Q, 800 A, and his only response was “I did better than that”.) but I’m still grieving.

      I wish there was a standard protocol to follow, though a) I hardly go out these days since I’m still dealing with post-concussion syndrome and have very few spoons and b) half my wardrobe is black so much of the time no one would know anyway.

      Like

      1. *Long distance hugs* Give yourself space and time. When I got blind-sided by LIFE this spring, it took 48 hours or so to process, and I was running partly on rote habit. A lot of what followed was shaking myself and reminding myself that I’d been sort of waiting for something like this, and that I knew what to do and how to do it. Didn’t make it easier, but helped me keep on-task with Day Job and other things.

        Let us know if was can do anything. You’re in my prayers.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. It sounds weird, but part of it is that my family is small and not very close. So the last time a family member died that was within that circle of “family that I actually know” was almost 40 years ago when Daddy’s mother died, and 10 years before that when Mother’s mother passed. And in both cases due to geography and finances I hadn’t seen either of them in at least a year, and I wasn’t able to attend the funeral. So in some ways, here I am at 64, and I’ve never really dealt with a death in the family before. So I don’t have any prior experience dealing with it. I’ll muddle through, and thank you all for the thoughts, prayers, condolences, and hugs.

          Liked by 1 person

      4. I’m so sorry.

        My father’s death on the 13th was unexpected only in exact timing; he had suffered from a long illness, and then declined sharply in his last month. It still stung.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Hugs.

          My father’s too. For all that it has been 16 years and a few months. We knew the end was close, then mom called and said come, at 11:30 PM. By the time we dressed and rushed over (1 mile), he was almost gone, already unresponsive. Given our extensive medical knowledge (zero), it was really hard to know exactly when he passed. Mom called hospice and he was removed the next day. Even though he died at home with no medical present, still considered “under medical care” because under hospice. By grace of the lord he never suffered from dementia. It was his organs failing him after 22 years of arterial disease after his first major arterial clog and stroke.

          We all still miss him. He did get to meet and know all the grandchildren, but is missing out on the 6 great-grands, that mom has gotten to greet.

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