The Soulless Duchess - Vol. 2 Ch. 55

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@Purplelibraryguy says someone (or better said something) that calls victims of domestic violence "pathetic".

@Nikoko and @Nikoko I think you both agree in more than you realize but you are both trying too argue against the non-arguments from @Purplelibraryguy. For example you both agree that male victims of domestic violence are NOT a "minuscule minority".

@Nikoko I dont think a play written 5 centuries ago and mostly forgotten nowadays proves your point. How about we consider the kill count of the most famous action actor of the last 4 decades? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE6jpTaOYMU Out of 509 kills, 8 were women that means 1.6%.
 
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What the heck is happening here?
Abyway, thanks for the chapter, really like how things are progressing.
 
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@Purplelibraryguy
I do mostly agree with your statements, but it isn't true that a married queen would by default transfer her authority to the king consort.
For example Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castille both were holding the same influence during their reign .
Another example is Eleonora d'Arborea "Judex sive Rex" that still continued to hold monarch power after being married to the Genovese Doria family, still operating under the bannus-consensus (The pact between the monarch and the peoples that rulers of the judikes had to swear upon in the Corona de Logu, a parliament similar to the lord chamber).
 
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@Ilde The world is large and varied and there were inevitably special cases, sure. But by far the most common and consistent rule across nearly all countries was that a queen who married would stop ruling in favour of her husband. The very fact that whenever we point to exceptions we're pointing to individual rulers, not to overall traditions in any country or region, makes it clear what the general case was.
Similarly, in medieval Europe there was a tradition of females influential in craft guilds--female master brewers, master bakers or whatever. But if you look slightly closer, it turns out they were all widows--the only way a woman could hold property and guild position was if she had been a guild member's wife and then he croaked and there was no son ready to inherit.
 
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@Purplelibraryguy
Got a few days without being able to use the PC so a late reply here.
I will go through each of your "arguments" to show how you are wrong and don't know what you are talking about.

No group in history has ever dominated society for the benefit of some other group.
There is a lot so I'm not even going to explain this and just tell you one thing: Children.

Nobles didn't dominate society for the benefit of peasants, theocratic priests didn't dominate society for the benefit of the worshippers, and corporate bigwigs don't dominate society for the benefit of all the little people on minimum wage. That's not how it works.
No one works for the benefit of others without a reason and even then a competent ruler will make the lives of all the "peasants" better while ruling for it's own benefit, by the basic fact that health, happy workers produce more than unhappy, famished ones, and that will return making the life of the ruler better. Bad rulers end up with broken societies or being expelled from their position at some point. That was a very ignorant statement.

It was not so long ago that it was legal for husbands to beat their wives with sticks
Here you get thinks out of context trying to make they be worse than they look. Parents could "beat" their children as a way to discipline them, that is because parents have responsibility for the children and the same was true in this case. There was never a point in time when it was "legal to beat" a wife, what was allowed was for the husband to use physical acts to discipline his wife and those were very controlled and specific and were in place because if the women were to commit a crime or do something that would require a repercussion her husband (or whatever men were responsible for her at the time, like her father) were the one to suffer the consequences of it, be it go to jail or pay something. Men had the burden of responsibility for their wife and as such were given the authority necessary to discipline them. You accused someone of needing to learn history but you are clearly not in the clear on that.

In Canada, we honour a group of women who successfully fought, in the 20th century, for the law to deem women "persons"; it took years and they had to fight all the way to the Privy Council in Britain, but in 1929 they made it.
Congratulations, you honor a group of women for making it that women have to take responsibility for their acts, which they still don`t do but let's pretend.

In India it still seems to be effectively legal for men to burn their wives alive or splash them with acid.
Either you know or you don't, you are in the internet look up your information before trying to use it. Also you are wrong as it is not.

Tell me about how often it's been the case that women were allowed to beat their husbands, or men were not deemed "persons" before the law.
"In post-Renaissance France and England, society ridiculed and humiliated husbands thought to be battered and/or dominated by their wives (Steinmetz, 1977-78)"
That's and historical account BTW, so legally the wife could beat their husband and the husband would be the one to be punished for it afterwards, so yeah history.
About not being "persons" that would apply to any men younger than 14 that were not working as they were not "people" but possessions of their fathers. Funny enough there were legal protections for daughters, don't matter the age, but not for sons. Cool, huh?
Nowadays men can't even be victims of domestic violence by word of law in Australia. In most occidental countries there is a thing called "Duluth Model" which automatically assumes that the men is the abuser and will arrest and remove the men from the house even if he was the one to call because of a abusive wife. More recently there is the case of Jonh Deppy, who was being abused by his wife (who confessed to it) and still lost the case because "he must have abused her at some point too".

Here how people react to abuse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3PgH86OyEM&ab_channel=TheMankindInitiative. Funny huh?

Tell me about times and places where women have made more than men in the same job.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/04/google-found-its-underpaying-some-men-as-it-studies-wage-equity.html
Some years ago there has been a push by feminists that corporations pay women less, from the study made on those corporations it was found that no corporations were underpaying their female workers but some were underpaying their male workers. So there, I presented to you "one" place, Google, as asked.

Tell me about the history of "wizard burnings", where midwives successfully mounted campaigns to have male doctors vilified as satanic to get rid of the competition--oh, hang on, no that was witch burnings and it was the other way around.
Historically inaccurate, again. While the "witch hunts" did happen and being burned at the stake was the punishment for anyone found to be a "witch" there are no register nor anything that suggest that anyone was actually burned on the stack because of being a witch. Another point is that "witch" were not only women as there is registers of people that were gone to "trial" for being accused of being witches and from the accounts 15 died in prison, 19 were hanged and 1 was squished to death and the one that was squished to death was a male (though I do not have the information on the other 34 people). So the accusation of "witchcraft" were about someone having "magical powers" and it doesn't mattered if they were male or female.

Tell me about how women aren't doctors because that's just not how their minds work--oh wait, the barriers got removed and suddenly half the women are doctors, when before they'd been systematically stopped and men pretended it was because they couldn't do it.
No comment on this as I don't know about "doctors" itself but I will say that most of those that worked in healthcare were always women so it is not a surprise that most doctors would be female as females are more likely to want to work in places where they can "care" for people and there are female doctors dating from the 17 century so I can't actually talk about it.

Tell me about all the single fathers in poverty because women can get away with skipping out on supporting the kids.
Single mothers are the result of increased social welfare by the societies they live in coupled with the "liberation" of women. As such single motherhood is the result of poor choices made by the women as she should have thought ahead instead of "going with the flow", unless you are of the idea that women are not responsible for their choices. Yes it takes two to make a child but it is the women that decides who and when the sex will happen and it is on her to make sure she doesn't get pregnant as the men don't has to worry about that.
There is also that many women look to become single mothers for the welfare benefits that it bring as well as social credit that is gained by being a single mother, even if it does have negative impact on finding a job. Most cases the men don't even know he has a child.
With that notion you are also supporting the social norm that men have to take responsibility for the child, which is a gender role, while not taking into account that the women failed her responsibility, given that almost all contraceptive methods are for the women.
There is also research on single parenthood that found that men are able to raise the children without falling into the problems women seen to have and that is without governmental help as there are no support for single fathers. Children raised by a single mother are also more likely to become criminals than those raised by couples, another thing that does not happen when they are raised by single fathers. Though I couldn't find the study as the last I saw it being mentioned was in 2017.
Anyway saying that single mothers are in bad situation because of the non-presence of a men means that you don't believe they have the capacity to raise the children by themselves. You are not wrong on that it just don't see to align with what you believe.


I almost dislike honest male chauvinists less than the type who want to have their cake and eat it too by taking all the benefits and then pretending to be victims so they don't have to admit to themselves that they have advantages. That's such a morally weak, whiney, hypocritical approach.

wymyn-amirite_c_7235907.jpg


images
 
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Thanks for the update and
wtf are all those comments fighting?

I just want to say that no one deserves to be treated as inferior to someone else we are all equal all races and genders ! 🥰
 
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I think this argument is kinda unrelated at this point, while I have my own opinion and agree with one side, I won't say it for the sake of dragging it on. It seems that some people missed the point of why the princess was upset by her father.

Her father was implying that he didn't think she was capable of doing the tasks that emperors were supposed to do. And I'm sure he does want her to be happy as implied by the "I want you to marry the greatest man in the world and spend the rest of your life loved by your children and husband." And while it's possible that he didn't believe she was as capable because of some other reason (ie. her studies weren't good, she has a weak constitution (which she clearly doesn't), etc.), it's heavily implied that he didn't think she should take on responsibilities because she is a woman. This is supported by the "if only you had a brother..." and "there's never been a female ruler before." If gender didn't play a role, the emperor would've said "if only you had a sibling..." Or maybe she does have siblings but they're all females.

The princess (and most people) are upset because she didn't want to be sitting on the sidelines. Grown up being taught to value the lives of citizens, the princess wants to do something to help, so she took the initiative to help those of the kingdom. Her father seems to believe in general that women can't do things as well as they could with the help of men as seen in "I believe the daughter of Marquis Keldon is known as the flower of society, how was she able to help?" and "That's great! You did this all without the help of men?" and "To leave this matter to women... I'm quite ashamed." The first quote seemingly implies that the emperor viewed most women as mostly a part of the face of society, trying to help their husbands via social events where they mostly attack each other cunningly and don't really do direct actions of substance. They are often trying to form bonds with influential people and all. That's why he was surprised to hear how capable Lady Keldon was. The second quote was kind of explained already but it seems that he didn't think women could do things as effectively as men. And the third quote further seems to show that the emperor was embarrassed because a group of women unassisted by men was able to do more than he could.

Anyways, that was how I interpreted the situation in the story. There are more examples I can list from previous chapters if anyone wants me to.
 
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@Ant1989
Here something I was looking for my reply to @Purplelibraryguy but couldn't find it, was not on my pc at the time. Found it now that I could use my own pc again.

men-owe-women-nothing.webp



I know the conversation is over, just something I wanted to put in my previous reply.
Not going to bring this topic back after this one.
 
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@Ellollie I disagree with you about the thoughts of the king. It's not that he thought she was "incapable" of taking the throne, but that she shouldn't take the throne. Because, women should be protected. And being a queen ruler will require a great deal of work, some of the things you need to do stay on the throne, things that he thinks his precious daughter shouldn't have to do. As I stated before, if this was your typical sexist society (AKA feminist idea of what the past is), the father would refuse that his daughter takes the throne, which he didn't, he just got surprised that she actually wanted to do that. Being a good ruler isn't easy, and the things you gotta do just to stay on the throne are hard.

"To leave this matter to women... I'm quite ashamed." This quote doesn't imply that women are inferior, but that they shouldn't do these kinds of work, because women are protected. I think an easy way to understand what this means is if you replace the word "women" with "kids"; "To leave this matter to kids... I'm quite ashamed." It's not that kids can't work, it's that they shouldn't work. And even if that guy disagrees, every society did protect women.
 
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@Purplelibraryguy
you tagged the wrong person. My username is 2 lowercases L

And no in this case there wasn't actually an exception of a tradition.
It simple is that the autonomy of the judikates was no more after being conquered by the Aragonese that then established the Kingdom of Sardinia.
Actually different sources report how woman lifes were a lot more autonomous then the woman in the continental Europe. Also some of these are also confirmed by the written laws of the state (called Carta de Logu, one of the first written in vulgar language costitution in Europe)
We can probably say that the judikates themselves are an exception of a more modern society respect to the standards of the age, but not that Eleonora was an exception.
Also cthere were other female judikes (Albeit not in Arborea, but in other judikates (Torres if I recall correctly), but their stories aren't that famous, and laso what we know of them is fragmented)
 
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@llde Ah, I see. Apologies for getting it wrong.
I am absolutely willing to believe that in one or two sub-kingdoms of early Christian Spain or nearby areas like Sardinia, women had more autonomy than was typical in Eurasia at the time. Similarly, in pre-medieval times it seems that Irish women and perhaps women among some of the other Celts had significantly more rights in various ways, including authority and inheritance, than in most of the ancient world. Makes me wonder if this was some survival, a remnant of earlier Iberian Celt traditions. But these remain fairly small exceptions to the broader trend.
 
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Wow I came to this comment section expecting stuff about the chapter but it's rather a discussion with 2 people basically pretending that the fact that adult women were given the same treatment as children was not... the problem?

Like... children are dependents ("protected" but with no power, assigned to a responsible party) very often justifiably by the fact that they are in development. And, even so, the contemporary society has changed a lot of the views in a way that children should not be seen anymore as something that pertains to the responsible party, but as individuals who have to be guarded. Even the notion of "protection" of children as a way to assure their rights is quite recent, instead of the traditional concept that a guardian has freedom to choose for the child even if it violates any of those rights, as long as not a straight up crime. This, I'm talking about children.

Now, adult women? It absolutely makes no sense to paint the parallel between the treatment of women and children in a positive light without suggesting that grown women are naturally undeveloped compared to grown men, as it is with children in development.

I wasn't going to make any commentary on what was said, but some people really do buy that kind of discourse.
 

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