Darwin On Wives: ‘Better Than A Dog’
May 14, 2008
The University of Cambridge has put online the complete works of Charles Darwin. Not just On The Origin of Species but also his personal papers, his views on matrimony as well as his views on evolution.
Darwin, scientific rationalist and child of the Enlightenment, set out in two opposing columns the pros and cons of marriage. A wife would provide “children, companionship, the charms of music and female chit-chat”. She would be “an object to be beloved and played with”, though he did not seem to attach great weight to this, conceding only that a wife was in this respect “better than a dog anyhow”. But Darwin also noted the disadvantages. The absence of the conversation of clever men at clubs, the prospect of “being forced to visit relatives, and to bend in every trifle”. Above all, the loss of time.
Nowhere does Darwin opine on mothers-in-law.
Naturally, the article ends with a critique of the Iraq war. Naturally.
May 14, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Obviously Darwin’s ideas on this are a product of natural selection. Men need this fantasy in order to effectively cope with the obvious superiority of women.
May 14, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Woof, woof.
Now bring me a beer and a sandwich.
May 14, 2008 at 5:18 pm
All I can say is it sounds like something from a Victorian rationalist. The pros and cons are consistent with male and female roles in upper-middle-class Victorian England. So what’s the earthshaking revelation — that Darwin was a man of his time?
Naturally, the article ends with a critique of the Iraq war. Naturally.
Just add Global Warming for complete doubleplusgoodthink…