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by crayonxx » Tue Mar 15, 2011 3:50 pm
Hello All!
I'm an old man and cannot now participate in all the joys of polyamory, even if it was possible when we were young; now it is out of the question because of our age; when we were young, there was the problem of family concerns - we have a very large extended family.
However, I am a frequent visitor and read with vicarious enjoyment, a good bit of what is posted. I just happened to re-read the whole poly-amory thing at this particular place.
I'd like to mention, to those of you who like to read, a real eye-opener on poly-amory or on general sexual life in Europe amongst the upper classes, back in the 1700's.
The book by Mary Wortley Montagu, "Letters", is truly fascinating. She was a highly intelligent and highly educated lady married to a noble, Montagu. Montagu was sent as Ambassador for England to Constantinople, and Mary, with her young son, went with him.
Travelling through Europe on their way to Constantinople, the couple took quite a long time in reaching Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire at that time.
Mary had a penchant for writing and she wrote fascinating letters to her friends in England, about what she had seen on her travels. She wrote an account that was unique, because it was from a woman's point of view about things which only a woman gets to know. Previous travellers had all been men and, of course, were left out of these juicy morsels of information about women's customs.
In Vienna, for instance, she remarked that widows were practically banished from society. All the women in society were either unmarried or married women, and - they all had lovers. Every woman was EXPECTED to have a lover. The men knew this and accepted it. The lovers were expected to furnish their women with an additional income - very nice, indeed! This was the high-life in Vienna. A lover was an accepted part of a couple's life. Mary went to banquet where the wife sat between her lover and her husband. Lovely! The Viennese ladies were quite amazed she had no lover and offered several candidates to her, but - according to Mary - she did not accept the offers. So she said, anyway!
Mary finally reached Constantinople with her husband, and set about learning Turkish, so she could converse with the local nobility. She found that since the women had to wear clothing which covered them up completely, a husband could pass his wife on the street without recognizing her. The women would find lovers through the contacts made at the shops they fequented. So, the women had their great freedom, thanks to the "burkas", as I think the Arabs call them, and they took advantage to the maximum.
I think that reading this book, opens our eyes to the stifling rigidity of customs in the West at present, where the idea of a lover for the wife is mostly, totally unacceptable.
For my part, I would have loved to have my wife have a lover, and it almost happened; but, at the determining moment, I wimped out, afraid that the experience might break something important within her, given her very strict upbringing. So we have remained a couple all these many decades, and all those invigorating experiences were not to be ours. Can't have everything in this life! We have settled for "normal" vanilla life and we have been very happy, thank goodness!
It seems to me that a great number of men would actually like their wives to have lovers, but are afraid to say so. Why this is so - I cannot for the life of me figure out; but I certainly liked the idea and encouraged my wife so far as I could - but, no dice! She could not break with her upbringing, which was quite strict.
And now- it's too late!
Thanks all, for reading! "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old time is still a-flying; and that same flower which blooms today, tomorrow will be dying!"
By the way, I suspect my mom had an affair with an old school-friend when I was about 14. And later, along came a sister who doesn't have the same eyes as the rest of us brothers and sisters. Hmmmm... didn't think about this, until recently.
Hugh