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marieToo -> RE: Simply a slave? (1/22/2007 4:08:34 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Noah
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ORIGINAL: marieToo
General Reply:
I think traditionally wives have been considered sweathearts, equals and lovers to their husbands, while S-types aren't. Putting aside the obvious difference legally between a wife and an S type, there are for some people very cut and dried lines or differences between the two.
I resonate very much with what Ownedgirlie said. I knew exactly what she meant, because in my world wife and S type are very much different. Neither better or worse, but different and actually non-comparable. Each brings something different to the man's life that the other simply cannot provide.
I suppose 2 people can have whatever type of relationship they decide to have whether married or not. Maybe some men find in one person a wife and an S type. But I still have a hard time wrapping my head around such a relationship, as I had spent the better part of my adult life married (it was a vanilla relationship) but it was marriage and I cant see how a Ds dynamic could possibley survive in it's full potency in an environment such as marriage. Even if it starts out Ds-like, I would imagine it would eventually become more and more watered down.
I would like to believe that we could wrap everything into one relationship where someone could be 'slave' and 'sweetheart' to another person and maybe such relationships do exist but for me it's very hard to imagine.
Ten year cultural traditions of marriage. What hath MTV wrought?
I have no idea what MTW hath wrought. Maybe you can fill me in someday.
I said "decades" plural. As in generations of marriages in the US. As opposed to the centuries back in history that I think LA was refering to. I was speaking in my commentary of a more modern tradtional marriage. I personally spent over 2 decades with the same man, whom I married. Of course we had tons of married-couple friends, and most of my family members are still involved in intact marriages. And from my obeservations, I do not see a general mindset amongst the wives of "I am my husbands servant". Not even close. I see big time equality. Or two people 'serving' each others needs in modern day tradional marriages, more like a team than the Ds type relationships that I am familiar with. Hence my belief that S type varies greatly from wife (or should I now qualify by saying modern day wife.) Surely no one here is going to attempt to say that in most modern day traditional marriages, the preponderance of the wives believe it is their place to be a servant in a slave-like manner, rather than an equal partner.
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I'm quite surprised to read from more than one person, testimony to the effect that they have seen no contemprary marraige with asymmetric power dynamics. That any community could be so homogenous surprises me, and that yours is so homogenous with this particular characteristic surprises me more.
I guess you wrote this before you read my following post in which I stated that its very common in marriages for one person to be more controlling than the other, but it seems to be random to me and not gender specific to the female being submissive to a more controlling male. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I would guess that more wives are probably more controlling than the husbands these days. But I dont have stats or anything like that to prove it. I believe in most relationships of any type, brother/sister, husband/wife, friendships even parent/child there is always one who is more controlling and one who is more willing to concede. I wouldnt necessarily call these Ds relationships however.
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No households where she rules the roost and he either goes along happily or kowtows miserably? No households where he takes the reins and she is content with that (or bristles under it but stays)?
I didnt say this at all. My post was more about feeling that there is a difference between a husband wife relationship and an S-type/D type relationship. I also said that it may work for some, but that it wasn't something that would work for me, and its also not something that I can imagine working in the long run with regards to keeping that Ds dynamic in full force. I think marriage brings on alot of complications that could get in the way.
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Irespective of whether they give lip service to egalitarian marital values, of course. I mean I think we're talking about what people do, here, not what they kid themselves about
Not a single one? Wow. .
Not a single one what?
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Yes, as you say, for some people there are cut and dried differences between the two (submission'slavehood vs. marriage.) As LA has generously reminded us, these people can be seen as members of a recently assembled revolutuionary cadre. For the grander and very well established tradition (albeit it one which which presumably brooked all sorts of exceptions all along, we should note) held that marriage was to a great extent a ceding of power from a woman to a man.
Im happy for the dommes and the switches and the homosexuals and lesbians that the revolutionary cadre has evolved into a thinking that is more realistic in defining marriage, like ya know...women and men choosing who they marry, which gender they marry, who they submit to or dominate and even crazy stuff like women being allowed to vote now.
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For the relative eyeblink of fifty years or so this trend has been bucked in modern,especially Western cultures. Still, surely the New Tradition of attempting egalitarian marriage is not so well established that you can't even envision pretty clearly people deeply inhabiting the old paradigm?
In todays world, yes, I find it hard to imagine. Im not saying it can't or doesn't exist.
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And what is it about this "piece of paper"? A (self-identifying) master/slave couple walk down the aisle, signs the forms, etc. Why on earth should this ritual act and legal formality be expected to blowup their well-established dynamic?
It shouldn't, but with modern day culture being majorly different than it was back in the day of Charles and Caroline, it most likely will.
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Could it blow up, wither away, water down etc? Sure. But it seems to me to be precisely as likely for this to happen within or without the bonds of legal matrimony. What am I missing?
Im not sure what you're missing. My first point was the wife to me has a different meaning than S type. My second point which I believe was in response to LA, was that most modern day wives involved in tradional marriages are in a mindset of equality as opposed to a mindset of slave/servant to their husband. I didnt say there isnt a single couple for whom master/slave works. I said I find it hard to imagine.
I've been a wife, and I've been an S type. I know that I would not be able to be an S type to the person that I am married to (for reasons that would make this a very lost post.) This is not to invalidate others who say it works for them.
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