What does sexual repression do for cultures that gives them an advantage over their neighbours?
I, also, am pulling this out of my butt because I haven't actually researched it, but a theory comes to mind. I think controlling sexuality and, more importantly, drastically limiting acceptable sexual behaviors is a way to promote socio-economic stability and control wealth.
Proto-industrial societies were finding ways to go beyond just subsiting off the land and keeping to themselves - they were bartering, expanding the idea of specie (money), accumulating land and durable goods as a form of investment rather than living space, and all-around accumulating wealth and creating classes. Around the same period, the concept of "primogeniture" developed - that the first-born son got everything and subsequent children had to become priests and mercenaries to survive.
What's special about first-borns? If your bride is a virgin, then her first pregnancy is the kid most likely to be yours. Honeymoons were a man's window of opportunity to impregnate her before other men could slip her some of their genetic material.
Basically, I think controlling sexuality and creating a Marriage Cult (I know I didn't coin that term) is a way to stabilize society - it makes inheriting wealth easier, it contributes to a sense that there are different classes and a nobility, etc. For centuries, women's sexuality could almost completely be controlled (and you could argue socio-economic stabiltiy benefitted their interests and had their complicity until it went off the deep end). Since men's couldn't (you hairy apes, you), the best they could do was enshroud it in denial. Men may do it, but they mustn't speak of it and as long as they dress nicely on Sunday and show up for church, their good honor is assumed.
I think Jared Diamond's theory in Guns, Germs and Steel is that stable, pre-industrial societies that broke themselves away from subsitence farming were better able to create a warrior class, a conquering class, a discovery class. Wealth begets wealth, and it's all built on a stable family structure that guarantees a wage-dependent workforce and a bullet-proof way of disinheriting illegitimate children and sexual partners.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2003-07-26 13:40 (UTC)What does sexual repression do for cultures that gives them an advantage over their neighbours?
I, also, am pulling this out of my butt because I haven't actually researched it, but a theory comes to mind. I think controlling sexuality and, more importantly, drastically limiting acceptable sexual behaviors is a way to promote socio-economic stability and control wealth.
Proto-industrial societies were finding ways to go beyond just subsiting off the land and keeping to themselves - they were bartering, expanding the idea of specie (money), accumulating land and durable goods as a form of investment rather than living space, and all-around accumulating wealth and creating classes. Around the same period, the concept of "primogeniture" developed - that the first-born son got everything and subsequent children had to become priests and mercenaries to survive.
What's special about first-borns? If your bride is a virgin, then her first pregnancy is the kid most likely to be yours. Honeymoons were a man's window of opportunity to impregnate her before other men could slip her some of their genetic material.
Basically, I think controlling sexuality and creating a Marriage Cult (I know I didn't coin that term) is a way to stabilize society - it makes inheriting wealth easier, it contributes to a sense that there are different classes and a nobility, etc. For centuries, women's sexuality could almost completely be controlled (and you could argue socio-economic stabiltiy benefitted their interests and had their complicity until it went off the deep end). Since men's couldn't (you hairy apes, you), the best they could do was enshroud it in denial. Men may do it, but they mustn't speak of it and as long as they dress nicely on Sunday and show up for church, their good honor is assumed.
I think Jared Diamond's theory in Guns, Germs and Steel is that stable, pre-industrial societies that broke themselves away from subsitence farming were better able to create a warrior class, a conquering class, a discovery class. Wealth begets wealth, and it's all built on a stable family structure that guarantees a wage-dependent workforce and a bullet-proof way of disinheriting illegitimate children and sexual partners.
Or, you know, whatever.