18th Centurys View On Love And Sex

Essay, Research Paper

In the 18th century the society?s views on things were diffetent?t than they are now. The people were very conservative to our standards as far as how we think and go about things. Tradition and doing the way their ancestors did things was seen as the way to go. Being it the right way or the wrong not very many people went against the grain in many matters expressly when it came to love and sex.

First lets talk about love. Love seemed not to be as talked about as much as it is now. Not that it was avoided but it was sometimes overseen. In the higher society marriage was not always centered on a man and a woman meeting somewhere and falling in love. Families might choose for their children to be married as to join their empire or families together. Such as with kings and queens in this time period. Love was now always found between the two people; mabey later on in their lives but it was not the meaning for their marriage. In the book Love & Excess D?elmount started out not knowing what love was or weather he had found it or not. This seems like it could easily happen in this time. There were many ways of meeting people that would seem strange to us now. Parents or friends in some kind of social event or party introduced people. I guess that was the only way if people who didn?t live in the city would ever meet. This method was fine and all but there was not relay any manner of going up to a person and introducing ones self. It seems like that was almost unheard of expressly by the ladies. The man was expected to do everything as far as courtship went. He was the one who would first speak and the one who would ask her to dance or to have dinner with him the next night. The woman just sort of sat back and either hoped that a man would introduce himself or hope that he would ask to go out sometime. It was seen to either to be implying that she was easy or had no upbring or was easy. But this was their way at the time.

Another thing that seemed to show up a great deal was that it was unheard of seeing or dating numerous people. In this time period people would mabey see only a few people in their life before marriage. The other thing that was unheard of was sex. Sex was not really seen as something fore pleasure but for procreation. It was not talked about as much as now either nor was it done a lot. People who were caught having affairs or even rumors that told of them having sex with a lot of people. Those people would sometimes be ignored by society or even arrested. Sex was also looked down upon by the royalty. At one time the queen outlawed sex because she saw it as something dirty and evil. Mabey it was because she didn?t have a partner of her own so she saw it this way. So society was not the only one that looked down on it there were laws inforced by the King and Queen.

Love and sex were have progressed in the eyes of the public over the century. Love is more open and understood and is the foundation of all marriages. As where sex is not looked at as being some sinacle act by people rather a beautiful thing that two people share with each other.