Here's how I make sense of problematic history
No previous society shares exactly our same values, but there are still lessons to learn from the past
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One of the underlying assumptions of this newsletter is that (at least some) solutions to family-related problems lie in the past. We know, in other words, that many of us lack a metaphorical village to support us. And we know that many people in various historical periods lived in literal villages. The question for me, then, is how to reintroduce some of those past ideas that worked for our ancestors into modern life.
But a few weeks ago I got into a bit of a debate about history, with the person I was talking to rightly pointing out that the past is full of terrible things. People were forced into marriages they didn’t want. Slavery was common in various cultures. Women almost never had the same freedoms as men. The list could go on.
That history is filled with terrible things is an excellent criticism. And so I wanted to take a minute this week to explore how I reconcile all the horrible stuff in the past with my thesis that we should copy the past. Here’s roughly where I’m going:
The past is significantly more varied than we’re typically taught.
Our current worldview is not automatically better or worse than the past. It’s just one of many options.
And if we let go of the idea that we’re the pinnacle of human progress, we can more easily pick and choose from the best history has to offer.
There are endless ways to highlight these points, but I’m going to choose one of the more surprising topics I’ve read about while researching the history of the family: divorce.
If you’re like me, you were probably taught that in the past people couldn’t get divorced. But now they can, which gives people more freedom. Individual divorces are often brutal and we might want to lower the overall divorce rate, but the ability of people to leave marriages they don’t want — or which are abusive — often comes up as evidence that modern society is superior to ancient society. I have never heard, for example, someone argue that we should make divorce illegal again. That’s a preposterous idea.
The point is that there’s a narrative around divorce that puts modern people on top. Folks in the past used to have less freedom, but now we have more freedom.
But one problem with that argument is that, in fact, ancient Rome was more into divorce than we are today.
There’s some evidence that divorces in Rome were taking place even before the Roman Republic, but in any case by the first century B.C. both men and women could initiate a divorce simply by sending a letter to their soon-to-be-former significant other1 2. It was very casual.
Over the course of the Empire, divorce gradually became more and more common among the elites as they shuffled their family members around in relationships that would maximize their social standing3. There’s some debate about how common Roman divorces were, but eventually it became frequent enough that the Romans complained about high rates of separation4.
This isn’t to say Rome was aligned with our current views on marriage. But whatever the motivations, divorce was generally a simpler and less stigmatized process in ancient Rome that it was in twentieth century America.
Is that better? Is it worse? I don’t really know, but it definitely complicates the idea that everyone in history was locked into miserable marriages with no way to get out — and that finally modernity liberated us.
Ah, but what about the medieval period?
Well, that’s complicated too.
You may be familiar with King Henry VIII of England, who wanted a divorce, couldn’t get one, and eventually broke away from the Catholic Church.
However, in 1498 French King Louis XII split from his wife Joan of France after making an extremely weak case that he was never able to consummate the marriage. The actual argument he made is beside the point for our purposes here because in reality Pope Alexander VI granted an annulment due to the political and financial relationship between his own family and that of the king5 6.
This all happened just two and a half decades before Henry VIII also asked the pope to annul his marriage, and author Gerard Noel has said the cases had “superficial similarities”7. Henry also made a detailed legal argument to justify an annulment, but in the end he lacked the political justification that benefited Louis and the pope denied his request.
Obviously divorce wasn’t widespread during this period, but Louis XII is far from the only example of a medieval marriage breaking up and it surprised me to learn that even during the period that is most famous for not allowing divorce, it was actually still going on 8.
The idea I’m getting at is that divorce shows how history is an ebb and flow of ideas, not a linear progression leading to us. And there are plenty of other examples. Today Western people have a high degree of sexual freedom, for instance, which many cherish. But our society still looks prudish compared to the Romans. And during the medieval period premarital sex was generally tolerated, couples weren’t even expected to wait until marriage to have kids9, and brothels operated openly. So which society had the most freedom? Which society is “better”?
I find learning about this stuff reassuring because it means history is full of case studies in what works and what doesn’t. The Romans, for example, used slave labor. But that led to an unstable economy based entirely on conquest. It didn’t work.
On the other the other hand, the idea of the “corporate family” — or in other words a family that collectively owns resources and works together — existed in Rome, in medieval Europe and in many other non-western societies in the past. So, maybe that’s one idea worth copying.
And maybe there are lots of other ideas in the past that we can pick and choose from. But that’s hard to do without a nuanced understanding of the past, and a willingness to entertain the idea that people hundreds or thousands of years ago knew something about relationships that we don’t.
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Headlines to read this week:
You Can Only Maintain So Many Close Friendships
“Han: Here is a notable quote from the book: “Falling in love will cost you two friendships.”
Dunbar: If you meet a new person, fall in love, and get married, then you’re investing a lot of time and mental energy in that relationship. And from our data, it seems that you essentially sacrifice two people. Think about it in these terms: You meet this new person, so you now have six in your inner circle, so somebody has to go. But the new person is taking up to two rations. So you end up losing two people, who drop into the next circle, who push two people from that circle out into the third circle. It’s a domino effect.”
From Best Friends to Platonic Spouses
“Historically, marriage was an economic proposition, but it has shifted over time to a choice representing an all-consuming relationship, said Indigo Stray Conger, a sex and relationship therapist in Denver. Under this framework, couples expect each other to fulfill all their needs: social, psychological and economic.
‘Platonic marriages raise an interesting question related to what elements are most important in a marriage, and what needs partners theoretically must meet for marriages to be successful,’ said Jess Carbino, a relationship expert who lives in Los Angeles and is a former sociologist for the dating apps Tinder and Bumble.”
Growing Up and Growing Old in Ancient Rome: A Life Course Approach. Mary Harlow, Ray Laurence. Page 87
Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage. Stephanie Coontz. 2005. Page 80
The WEIRDest People in the World. Joseph Henrich. 2020. Page 163
Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage. Stephanie Coontz. 2005. Page 1
The Renaissance Popes: Culture, Power, and the Making of the Borgia Myth. Gerard Noel. 2016. Page 149-150.
Alexander VI was a member of the Borgia family, truly one of the most interesting families in history. Among other things, Alexander was among a handful of popes who appointed family members to powerful positions. This practice gave us the English word “nepotism,” from the Latin word for “nephew.” Gerard Noel’s book offers a great history on the family, but if you want something easier, there’s a TV show called The Borgias. It’s honestly not great, but Jeremy Irons plays Alexander, and Irons is always a pleasure to watch.
The Renaissance Popes: Culture, Power, and the Making of the Borgia Myth. Gerard Noel. 2016. Page 151
Both kings were asking for annulments, not divorces, due to the Church’s rules. But these “annulments” were coming years after the fact and Noel has characterized the splits as “divorces.”
Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage. Stephanie Coontz. 2005. Page 112-113